Love Changes Everything: Starbucks' LOVE Project

Chances are, you live by a Starbucks. If you're anything like me, you pass 3 coffee locations on the way to work, and they probably have a green logo. Starbucks is a household name for those of us who love to consume "legally addictive stimulants" (a.k.a. a grande, triple shot, non-fat, sugar-free, vanilla latte).

Their stature as one of the premier coffeehouses allows them to take a socially responsible stand like no other. Starbucks publishes a yearly global responsibility report and has done so longer than many companies have thought of ways to give back on a larger scale. When Starbucks joined forces with (Product) RED in Oct. 2008, it seems that buzz has continued to grow about their contributions to the community.

Then, the company started talking about LOVE. Starbucks isn't a stranger to creating music, as they do so through their Hear Music initiative. But, instead of selling albums of award-winning singers and songwriters for their own profit, they sold a CD to donate proceeds to (Product) RED and The Global Fund. And they invited their customers to join in the effort.

Coinciding with World Aids Day this year, Starbucks asked their loyal customers to help fight AIDS with their voices. People were encouraged to sing the Beatles' hit song "All You Need is Love" and join the song around the world. They tweeted about the effort beforehand and publicized through their Facebook page. Followers could also track the map of all the other LOVE entries.

Alright , PR practitioners, I have to ask the question: Is this marketing or PR? The lines right now in the industry are becoming so blurred. On the subject of Starbucks and (Product) RED, how successful was the LOVE campaign? Were you aware of the initiative or did you pass it by during your morning tall americano run?

Bloomberg buys BusinessWeek - reports on Twitter

As of 6:58pm EST tonight, I saw the following on my Twitter feed from Steve Rubel:

RT @davidburn: RT @JohnAByrne - BW's Tom Lowry is reporting that Bloomberg has reached a deal to buy BusinessWeek. http://is.gd/4i7hl.

I was so intrigued that I found out this news via Twitter from the company's insiders before I'm hearing it from a vetted, editorial news outlet. Is this how you filter your news? Is this the future of breaking news?

"Monitor the trends, not necessarily the technology"

As a member of the Public Relations Society of America's National Capitol Chapter, I love taking advantage of any networking opportunity. The public relations professionals one can meet in Washington, DC are phenomenal. I decided to attend a joint networking luncheon with PRSA and IAPC a few weeks ago. While I looked for opportunities to meet new people, I was fortunate to have the chance to meet Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President and Director of Insights for Edelman Digital.

I followed Rubel's Twitter feed for a while and I'm always investigating the new trends with public relations. Edelman is at the forefront of social media for their clients through Edelman Digital, an endeavor that gives their clients the best new avenues to disseminate their messages. Rubel's job is to truly be a curator for new ideas. He endlessly reseraches the cutting-edge ways to connect to audiences. At the time of the luncheon, he previewed Google Wave (and I'm still incredibly jealous).

Rubel provided many best practices, and I will hopefully write a post soon to explain all of these nuggets of wisdom. However, there were two pieces of advice that stood out in my mind. First, he said that public relations professionals need to switch their thinking from a "campaign driven" mindset to an "always on" mentality. Campaigns are finite. They have a beginning, middle, and end, much like a novel. With a 24-hour news cycle and the interconnectivity of social media, Rubel believes that the days of a finite campaign will be obsolete.

The other point that struck a cord was to "monitor the trends, not necessarily the technology." I feel that public relations, in an attempt to harness these new tools, easily relegate social media to the checklist of public relations campaigns to-do. Do we have a Facebook cause page? Check. Twitter account to broadcast our information? Check.

The true reason to have these tools is to promote communication among your audience. I also applauded his point that Twitter is a great tool for customer service. Take Comcast for example; they have @ComcastSteve and @ComcastBonnie along with a few other employees specifically stationed at their computers to provide immediate advice. Best Buy recently taught their employees how to use Twitter and allow them to tweet with their specific hashtag. Then, @BestBuy aggregates all the tweets from employees and displays the best ones. After simply walking through a Best Buy a few weekends ago, I saw 4 or 5 people use the service, and when asked, liked that they could get their answers on a wider scale.

So, fellow social media public relations junkies, what do you think? Does public relations focus more on trends than technology, or vice versa? What are the newest trends that we should be watching for? My eyes are peeled.

Social Media #Fail: Yogi Tea

Around the office, we are fans of Yogi Tea. Specifically, Yogi’s Breathe Deep tea. One week, we decided to do some research in how to ship this tea in bulk to our office. I had the chance to look around the Web site and I was impressed with their branding. Their message is clear and concise. Their Web site and logo is true to their mission. It is a textbook example of how to effectively market their material online.

Once we received our bulk tea order (and effectively saving our productivity and sanity), I tried to find Yogi Tea on various social media accounts. Maybe they are on Facebook? No luck. Twitter? Nope. What? With an amazing brand, quality products, and a well-conceived Web site and messaging, social media seemed to be a natural extension of their marketing and public relations.
So, Yogi Tea executives: if you would like a social media plan, I have a few ideas for you! For the rest of my readers, what are other companies whose social media strategies fall short?

You can following my Twitter hashtag #YogiTea for the Tea Time Sayings of the Day, taken from that day's Yogi tea bag tag. I must say, they are very insightful!

@Mashable: What the #*#&^% is Social Media?!?!

For those who haven’t seen it yet, I would really like to share this presentation with you. As an avid user of social media, I often am asked how to really comprehend all that this term encompasses. At first, my basic answer is a fumble of words that generally synthesizes to an answer indicating that we’re still trying to figure it out. Now, my response is that Social Media is a new tool to engage audiences and keep the conversations going. Tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendster, and the newly released Gist are ways to keep track of the ever-changing trends in social media, allowing more users to connect.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Marta Kagan produced “What the $%*& is Social Media” a year ago as a response to questioning of the impact of these online tools. With the trends changing so dramatically in a year, Kagan provided an update in this sequel. What I love about it is that it ultimately underscores the power of this medium and the potential to harness its energy for the next two minutes.

What it doesn’t address, however, is the future. I know that we are not prophets and have no real way of predicting what will happen. But the future of public relations also hangs in the balance. Many corporations, non-profit organizations, and even public relations firms are hiring social media strategist positions in an effort to bring these ideas to their clients. In my opinion, public relations professionals have done a good job of using social media tools to their advantage to further the mission of true public relations. But, how will that change in the next year? Five years? What are your thoughts?

Who Influences the Influencer? Response to Travis Murdock's blog

I’m a huge fan of Edelman’s reputation of public relations efforts. I follow Steve Rubel on Twitter (@steverubel) to gain insight on new tech trends and lifestreaming – a concept that I’m not sure I can grab ahold of. So, when Travis Murdock, Senior Account Supervisor at A&R Edelman, tagged Rubel in this blog post, I listened. I’m always intrigued by anything that the Edelman minds think up and this topic really intrigued me as a self-proclaimed Influencer.

For public relations professionals who are trying to get the biggest bang for their publicity buck, influencing the influencer is a great bet in broadcasting a clear consistent message. When looking at marketing ICFJ’s photo auction, I wanted to make sure we researched and reached people who would appreciate both fine art and classic photojournalism… and who had deep pockets to help out our cause.

Travis hits the target by listing some of the best ways to research your Influencers: Friendfeed, Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, and more. Searching through FriendFeed subscriptions, past Facebook activity, and Twitter hashtags are all beneficial, but it begs the question: doesn’t this slightly resemble stalking? I am an advocate for thorough research, but it seems that pulling their entire online history may be a bit invasive. On the other hand, if people put specific information out there with the understanding that it can be seen by everyone, then why shouldn’t we use it as research?

What are your thoughts? At what point does research become too in depth that it resembles stalking? What are some ways to research your Influencers’ activity on the Internet, other than what Travis suggests?

I’m all ears…

(Make sure you read Travis's entire blog post here: http://blog.travismurdock.com Great guy!)