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Phelps' Sugar Smack dealing sponsor didn't want to associate itself with such unhealthy behavior. Hypocracy? Absolutely.

When the story emerged that a photo of Olympic hero, Michael Phelps pulling tubes was making its way around the Internet, I wasn’t shocked to hear that some of his sponsors chose to drop him. This is understandable and sponsors should have every right to maintain control of their brand image in any way they see fit. And let’s face it, some segments of our society are ridiculously uptight and Puritanical.

But in an age when you can admit to having experimented with illegal drugs and still become President of the United States, it is good to see that not all of Phelps’ sponsorships are going up in smoke. In fact, Omega came right out and said that they don’t care and will continue to support him. I say good for Omega.

It is worth pointing out that Michael is actually wearing a “totally dope” Omega in the picture. That’s right ladies and gentlemen; he actually uses the product he endorses.

This particular factoid was the subject of a recent CNBC blog post. The author of the story gave Phelps a lot of credit for being a genuine brand advocate. There was a poll associated with the story looking for reader opinions on whether or not the photo was a positive or a negative thing for the Omega brand. I have to admit I was a little surprised that fewer than 9% of the respondents thought it was a problem. The majority, 62%, thought it was a good thing and the rest were undecided.

It is hard to say if Kellogs really made a mistake in dropping him or not. Frankly, I’m inclined to think it was a reasonable decision. The Kellogg’s brand genuinely does need to appeal to a very wide audience and uptight people buy groceries too. On the other hand, the company cannot be completely unaware that “reefer madness” is unquestioningly responsible for a measureable percentage of Pop-Tart, Famous Amos, Keebler and Cocoa Krispies sales.

Until you can wrap a dead fish in a Website, I won't be able to declare the Oregonian completely useless

The cover story in the current issue of Time Magazine is about what can be done to save the newspaper industry, which currently teeters on the brink of financial ruin as it struggles to find successful ways to monetize its online content. In that same issue, Managing Editor Richard Stengel talks about the importance of the press and its role in maintaining a healthy democracy as he tries to make the case for micropayment for online news coverage.

Indeed, an educated and informed electorate is vital to our system of government. The importance of the media cannot and must not be overlooked. It is clear to me that the mainstream media should be highly compensated for giving “we the people” all the information we need to make sound decisions and choices. What is not so clear to me is if the mainstream media, as it exists today, is still living up to its end of the bargain. More and more often, it seems the answer is no.

The recent Presidential election provides a stunning example. The number of journalists who seemed fine with being openly and unashamedly active in helping build one of the most successful brands in the world – Brand Obama – was astounding. It seemed as if they were more interested in being part of a historical movement than investigative journalism. Ultimately, it appeared as though the final, triumphant headline they so badly wanted to be able to write had a very strong influence upon what they decided to cover (and opted not to cover) along the way. Obviously Team Obama wasn’t the only team to enjoy biased coverage. Not all members of the press shirked their responsibilities to the American people, but the number of those who did was far too high.

Of course, media bias isn’t limited to national politics. My local newspaper, The Oregonian, routinely disguises editorials as news. I wrote about one horrific example of this on my Rolling Thunder Communications blog last year. This example was a four part series on the dangers of ATVs. Each article appeared on the front page (above the fold). Each was filled with heart-wrenching stories designed to blame an industry for the irresponsible behavior of a few unfortunate individuals. Alas, it does not look like this problem is unique to The Oregonian.

The Move to Online News
Today, many newspapers have more online readers than they do print subscribers. This is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is that most newspapers make content available for free on the Internet. Rarely does the mainstream media recognize that another major factor in driving people online is often its own shortcomings. One of the reasons web-based “citizen journalism” has been so successful is that it can and does fill the growing informational void created by the mainstream press.

Citizen journalists are not bound by editorial policy or professional standards. This means that you have to take coverage with a pretty major grain of salt. On the other hand, a lot of the people who are publishing stories do so because they are passionate or feel a sense of duty to report about important topics that the mainstream media overlooks (sometimes, they believe, intentionally). The best citizen journalists hold themselves to self-imposed standards that can be every bit as high as traditional press.

Regardless, readers who are willing to wade through enough biased online muck can regularly come across nuggets of important information that they can’t get anywhere else. The more of these nuggets they find, the less value they are likely to see in traditional journalism and the less likely they are to begin paying for it. More importantly, as the quality of mainstream journalism continues to decay, the more likely we are to base political decisions on the wrong factors and, in the end, we will all pay for that.

There is only one way to learn about social media

The Internet has forever changed the face of PR and marketing. Today the importance of Websites, blogs, bulletin boards (forums) and e-newsletters are well understood. However, when it comes to social media, things get a little sticky. Plenty of savvy marketers have found ways to effectively leverage virtual communities such as Second Life, Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed and Twitter for the purposes of building brands or influencing opinions. But for many, social media marketing is still confusing and its value questionable.

For me, Twitter was the most difficult to grasp. I knew several members of the media used it, as did most of the PR 2.0 thought leaders. But the first few times I visited the site, I could see very little value. All I saw were messages about what people are having for lunch, what they did at the gym or reports about their personal bathroom habits. The only conclusion I could draw from my initial experiences with it was that Twitter was absurd.

Just to be safe, I discussed my experience with several colleagues to see if they had any additional thoughts or insight. Ultimately, we concluded that twitter was something worth monitoring, but it wasn’t very valuable as a public relations tool. We were dead wrong.

A few months later I read about some of the various third-party Twitter tools designed to help users manage the flow of information and filter out the garbage. A few hours after that, once I installed a few of those tools, I fully understood the value and kicked myself for not figuring it out sooner. Today I use Twitter on behalf of clients, to promote my business, to promote my blog, to follow competitors, to keep up on trends and to monitor breaking news. I’m still not a Twitter junkie, but I now understand why some people are.

At the end of the day, the only way to truly understand a social media site is to become an ACTIVE member of the community rather than just a tourist or guest. Taking the time to truly get to know why a particular social networking community finds the site valuable is a worthwhile exercise. From a marketing standpoint, it is also absolutely necessity. The reason communities like these are so effective at influencing opinion is that people tend to trust information from people they know (even if they don’t know them in person). If you are seen as a legitimate member of the community – even if you are there openly representing a particular company – you will still be seen as trustworthy to some extent. If you are an obvious outsider there only to promote a single agenda, you will have no credibility and you are likely to be run out of town on a virtual rail (along with your client’s reputation).

Yes, it takes a lot of time and effort to establish yourself, but in the end, it is worth it.

Yes, Twitter really is worth all the fuss

A recent article in BusinessWeek covered the growing number of companies that are looking to Twitter and other forms of social media as a way to bolster customer service. Twitter gives companies the ability to listen to what is being said about their brands as the discussion is happening and even join in when appropriate. Considering the number of journalists and other highly influential folk that hang out on Twitter, this is a very good idea.

Letting your customers know that your company IS listening to customer feedback – particularly from those who care enough to broadcast that feedback online – is an awesome way to build strong customer relationships and create lasting brand loyalty. It is not uncommon to convert people from vocal detractors to serious evangelists if handled properly. However, based on a recent number of exchanges I had with the GoDaddy customer service team, it occurred to me that if social media is the ONLY place a customer feels his voice can be heard, the long-term branding ramifications could be disastrous.

In my case, there are three things I wish GoDaddy’s blog software would do that it currently does not. These are:

• Provide the ability to add tags to individual blog posts
• Provide a tool that enables users to easily flow copy around images (more accurately, restore the tool that was recently removed)
• Remove the phrase “What are you doing?” from the new “Twitter Link” widget that allows you to add your Twitter feed to your blog

The first item on this list is extremely important to me because it is a critical component of search engine optimization. Frankly, I don’t see how or why GoDaddy would have omitted this functionality in version 1.0 of the software. Surely a company such as GoDaddy must realize the significance of SEO. It is one of the very biggest reasons for businesses to blog.

The second item on this list actually did exist up until a few weeks ago. Its strange disappearance in the middle of the night is what prompted me to pick up the phone and call customer support.

GoDaddy’s customer support process would be funny if it wasn’t so maddening. The people who answer the phone serve as both the sales team and the support team. These are not pure technologists. If you ask them a technical question that they cannot answer (which is usually the case), they put you on hold, call someone who actually does know the answer, ask them the question, then take you off hold to relay to you what they found out. If they get either your question or the tech. person’s answer wrong – and they do – you find yourself in a lengthy and infuriating version of the telephone game. What’s worse, company policy dictates that the customer cannot speak directly with technical staff.

When I called customer support that fateful evening, the kid that answered the phone not only didn’t know what he was talking about, he was also an insufferable smart ass. Some people bitch incessantly when customer support calls go to India. I never do. I’d much rather speak to a polite person with a slight accent who actually knows the answer to my question than deal with someone who has no accent and no solution to my problem.

I went berserk.

While I did get an apology from the kid’s supervisor, the best he could do in terms of solving my problem was to tell me that GoDaddy intentionally designed its blogging software to be void of some important blogging functions so that it will be easy to use. He did suggest I send an e-mail to suggestions@godaddy.com, which is exactly what I did. Not surprisingly, the receipt of that communication wasn’t even acknowledged.

I should probably mention that the only reason I chose to go with GoDaddy’s blog software over WordPress was that I was under the impression that, should I run in to problems, GoDaddy customer support would be there to help out. To me this was worth the $10/month price of admission. So much for that theory.

A few days later, I was on Twitter when I saw a message from  Jeremiah Owyang from Forrester Research (who is considered one of the foremost thought leaders in social computing). He was giving advice to a Twitter newcomer telling him to use tweets to do more than answer “What are you doing?”. Instead, he suggests they be used to share thoughts, ideas, links to interesting articles, etc. Using Twitter in this way is what makes it a useful communications tool.

I weighed in (on Twitter) how cool it was that GoDaddy now lets people using its blog software to include a Twitter feed in their blogs through its “Twitter Link” tool,  but how uncool it is that “What are you doing?” is predominantly at the top of this tool AND URLs aren’t active – which pretty much makes the tool useless.

Soon after that tweet, I noticed I was being followed by @godaddyguy. The next day, GoDaddyGuy called and e-mailed. Suddenly, I got the feeling that SOMEONE at GoDaddy actually did give a damn! GoDaddyGuy and I have since exchanged e-mails and I genuinely believe that my suggestions about Twitter Link have been elevated to the development team and that an improvement is on the way. I also have acknowledgment that my two more serious issues with GoDaddy have been registered (thought I’m not holding my breath).

This is pretty cool. By all accounts, GoDaddyGuy saved the day. Hooray for GoDaddyGuy! My hero! But there’s a downside too. Every time GoDaddyGuy (or DellGuy or ComcastGuy or JetBlueGal) solves a problem, they are also providing customers with positive reinforcement for posting something negative online. Short-term, companies are likely to get a lot of goodwill and recognition for even being able to respond to problems this way and this should more than balance out the negative. However, I’m not sure this will be the case in the long run. Surely, those companies that are lacking in traditional forms of customer service will be the first to find out.

Update 12/30/08 – I got an e-mail from GoDaddyGuy yesterday. He pointed out a few important things:

1. The undocumented image editing functionality I had been asking him about has been restored (now – provided you are in FireFox – you can right click on images and manipulate them without using HTML)
2. The ability to add meta tags per post is added to the list of future features
3. They are going to tweak the Twitter widget

He also reiterated that every suggestion relayed through suggestions@godaddy.com does get reviewed, though not all are acknowledged. While I still think the overall point of this post is still valid, it is mighty impressive that GoDaddy is – at least in one form – actually paying attention to customer feedback AND acting on those suggestions. Thanks GoDaddyGuy.

Update 2/21/09 – GoDaddy’s Blog software just isn’t adequate for what I’m doing. I’m going to go back to where I started. So long GoDaddy. Thanks for the memories.

Update 2/27/09 – the same week I bailed on GoDaddy they actually began to offer users the ability to add meta tags to individual posts.  Humorous to say the least. I’m still glad I switched though.