integratePR blog

For Domino’s pizza, one video prank in 2009 left people questioning their entire brand. In less than a week, not only did Domino’s issue their formal apology; they created an entirely separate Twitter feed to address the comments. Unfortunately history repeated itself yet again, this time with the third biggest pizza chain taking a hit – one day after they hit 2 million Facebook fans. On Saturday night, @mintymin sent a tweet saying:

Within hours the tweet – which included a picture of the receipt in question- had made its way to thousands of users –even finding its way to Texas! Papa John’s had a quick response time and first reached out to Min before attempting to answer the multiple users who had heard about the incident.

As of Monday, January 9, 2012 Papa John’s sent 40 tweets to individuals who expressed concern about the event.

An article posted earlier today on eMarketer.com asked the question “Do Social Media Postings Always Require a Response?” According to the article, 49.5% of people would be “far less likely to buy anything from a company” that did not answer, but also cited that many times brands “don’t need to respond to every ounce of negative buzz in the social sphere.”

This may be true with the way Papa John’s handled their Facebook posts.

After the initial post, Papa John’s did not respond to any of the resulting 816 comments.

The question is this: Did Papa John’s handle the situation in an appropriate manner? In terms of response time, Papa John’s did fine, addressing the client both publically and privately. The apologies appear genuine and the employee’s termination was of course in order. However, it remains to be seen if the corporation will be forced to withstand any longstanding negativity. Within one week after the incident with Domino’s, public perception of the brand went from positive to negative, according to research company YouGov. With the SuperBowl – one of the five biggest pizza buying days of the year- less than a month away, and last year’s pizza sales projection being over 1 million; it will be interesting to see if this new story will affect how much “dough” the pizza chain will bring in. As with all corporations, it is important to remember that while resolving problems in the short term is necessary, the overall goal is to maintain a positive relationship with the public.

We’re used to technology rolling out their new wares loud and proud but as of late, new changes have been happening rather quietly. Here’s a rundown of a few you might have missed:

Twitter Activity Streams

The list of stories about you, your followers and their posts dubbed the “activity stream” actually debuted in August, and has since been slowly integrated to users across the nation. The activity stream combines the mention and retweet streams into a constant flow of information. The feature will allow users to see a series of tweets on the homepage without having to expand into a side stream.

While the roll out has been slow, we have seen the recent addition and enjoy using it. Have any of you seen it and liked the change?

Facebook Newsfeed Sort

At the top of your Newfeed now, a new tab should read “Sort:.” You are now able to sift through your friends’ posts by choosing to either read highlighted stories or recent stories first. The difference between a highlighted story and a recent story is that highlighted stories will be specific to you. People that are deemed to have a significant relationship with you based on your history of interaction will rate them of higher importance and therefore be Highlighted Stories First. If you would just like to be constantly refreshed of news from the general populace of your cache of friends, choose the Recent Stories First option.

You can switch back and forth between the options, which one will you be using?

The past weekend we all officially “fell back” and if it threw off your schedule a little bit, here are some things you might have missed in the tech world since last Friday:

1. The CIA is watching you Tweet – According to a news article by the AP our government is monitoring what we have to say in social media spaces. After receiving an unexpected and unprecedented look inside the CIA, the AP has reported that the Central Intelligence Agency sees some 5 million tweets per day. While Twitter is a tool that one hopes citizens use for good; for example, as a means of gathering support or inviting people to a protest; with the proliferation of social media use in order to start riots across the globe, the CIA  reports that it watches Twitter with the best interests of national security.

2. Occupy Wall Street gets its own Social Media Aggregator – The Occupy movement has gained a large portion of its momentum online with protestors organizing via social media channels, especially Twitter. While the movement has soldered steadily along towards its third month of “Occupation” on November 17^th, Boulder Digital Works created an organizational system called Occupationalist to serve as a landing page for the movement’s many Tweets and updates. Subdivided so that each “Occupy” city maintains a separate stream, the site also offers pictures, videos and real time check-ins. No matter what your feelings on the protest, it is undeniable that they have done a great job leveraging social media to their advantage.

3. Movember – Since 1999 “Mo Bro’s” everywhere have championed the cause of Prostate as well as other cancers that affect men, by growing a mustache to last for the entire month of November. After registering with the official Movember Charity online, a “Mo Space” is created where members form teams and are able to track money raised for the cause. This year, for the first time, Movember bros are able to link with Facebook via Facebook Connect. The app allows moustache growing cancer crusaders to more easily showcase their teams and mustache pictures encouraging donations from their friends and spreading awareness. Take a look at the Movemeber website for more information or if you are interested in participating.

4. Mozilla Firefox 8 - Today! Although many dispute which Internet browser is the best – Safari, Explorer, Opera, Chrome, etc. – we can all agree that for professionals it is important to make sure your browser of choice is up to date. Today, the second most frequently used – Firefox – is available for upgrade, before the official release date, tomorrow, November 8^th. The download is available from their FTP server and will be manual, but if you can’t wait, download Firefox now for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

**5. G+ pages for Business - As we were posting this blog, G+ business pages debuted! There are still lots of questions to be answered about who and how these pages can be utilized, but we decided to create our own profile early so that we could best analyze the situation. Come have a look for yourself!

All denizens of the social media sphere know that the most utilized feature of the space is the ability to constantly share. The past week’s round up has some great examples of how different companies have shared and incited heated debates and discussions.

Good – Tweet Share

Each day a bevy of holidays you were completely unaware of reach your inbox – did you know it was National Skeptics Day? – and additionally each month is perpetually reblessed with the opportunity to champion a different cause. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, Organize your Medical Information Month, Class Reunion Month, and National Roller Skating Month, just to name a few. Of course none of these great causes sets precedence over another, as they were all decreed for a purpose. However, in the vein of Social Media sharing, a great example is Fair Trade Month, promoted by Ben and Jerry’s. By going to Fair Tweets and tweeting from their form, you donate unused characters from your tweets to spreading the message about Fair Trade! What a great way to share the message!

Bad – Chili’s Columbus Day

By all social media accounts Chili’s seems to work their branding right; they constantly engage their customers and receive plenty of responses from their audience. With over a few million Facebook fans, the page receives hundreds of comments per status, jumping into the thousands with their frequently posted coupons. This may have been why on October 10th they received so much attention when they posted, “Columbus Day! ‘Like’ if you’re glad the Americas were discovered!” The post elicited 2,829 likes, 228 comments, and 35 shares. Not staggering numbers by Chili’s standards, but the conversation sparked a strong undercurrent of customer dissatisfaction. While there were no comments regarding the food or service, the general belief was that whomever was handling their account lacked the foresight to think about how the statement should be worded to ensure it was politically correct. Though the postulation was followed by a conversation that lasted fairly steadily from post time at 11 a.m. to about 8 p.m. Chili’s did not comment, instead allowing the customers to debate the question of discovery amongst themselves.

Who’s to Blame – Twitter is dying and it’s your fault

A blogger at Coherent Social Media, Neicole Crepeau wrote a thought-stimulating article about the “death” of Twitter. In short, she surmised that the efficacy of social networks was being diluted by the influx of spam within the community. When an influencer in the community reads a significant article and tweets it, it’s subsequently retweeted by engagers in the same circle. For the next two minutes posts about the same article inundate a user’s feed for two minutes – a veritable lifetime in the span of a Twitter timeline. While the content was hotly debated, what was interesting about this article was the catch-22 it presented. While it discussed the issue of an article being over shared, as with all blogs, the main goal of its being written was that it should be shared. Google-ing the article nearly ten days later the query still yields three pages of direct links back to the article, which you can also read for yourself here.

Sharing online is a way of life. Whether you choose to share a positive message or a semi-rhetorical postulation that may be taken out of context, the opportunity for your message to reach thousands of people per post is why social media is not a trend, but a way of life for PR professionals. Although articles by large influencers will  inevitably be retweeted ad nauseam by those following influencers in the field, they will also trickle down to people who may not be in the field, perpetuating the spread of information and influence.

As is custom when Social Media giant Facebook updates its interface, several hundred users find the changes “appalling” and swear off of the site by posting their disdain. In the past week however, one change to the page layout that has sparked many online conversations is the edition of the Spotify playlist. The Swedish music retailer provides a free application that garnered attention earlier this year by offering their services on an invitation only basis.

Its users have now been upset in two fold ways. The first of which is the linking of the Spotify app to the new Facebook “mini-feed” feature. While sites promoting music and even individual artists are capitalizing on this by posting their own playlists, detailing to your friends each song you listen has “clogged” many users feeds. Today, Survivalguide4idiots.com, blogged a post containing directions on “How to stop Spotify from posting songs you listen to on Facebook” though it seems that word has not gotten around to the entire Internet just yet.

Users also became upset by the fact that users without a pre-existing Spotify account will now need a Facebook account to sign up for the streaming service. Spotify CEO Daniel Eck; a prominent speaker at last week’s highly orchestrated and media-oriented f8 conference resolutely stands behind the decision stating “As most of our users are already social and…connected to Facebook, it seemed logical to integrate…we’ve created a simple and seamless social experience.”

Twitter usage to voice opinions on both subjects was rampant with a sampling of the less colorful tweets listed below:

“Not interested #Spotify and #Facebook, in every song every person listens to. This is why headphones were invented”

“I wonder how much money @Spotify gets from Facebook to self-sabotage their relationship with their customers. Very sad.”

Users may feel positively or negatively about the corporate merger but a recent TheNextWeb article stated that Spotify has gained 1 million new users since the September 23rd integration, proving the genius of the collaboration.

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