integratePR blog

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is a House response to the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) that is under consideration in the Senate. These bills would require internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that infringe on copyrights.

Simply put, anything that you re-post that is not your original content would be considered a copyright infringement. In many countries with internet access, online piracy is a massive problem for the industry, in China alone it costs $250 billion per year. However, this means potentially that anything you Re-Tumble, Re-Tweet or Re-tag could be considered piracy. These publishing laws would affect some of the most well-known and heavily trafficked sites on the web. Virtually everything on Wikipedia, Youtube, and Tumblr would be illegal to publish.

Internet giants who are fighting against the bill have made this an international day of protest by “blacking out” their websites.

Wikipedia

Google

WordPress

What you can do about it – Sign the petition and join the largest online protest in history – tell Congress to stop this bill now!

You’ve seen our New Year’s Resolution’s and it’s been a little under two weeks of 2012. How are you doing on keeping up with them? Even if you didn’t make any in particular, we wanted to throw out a few reminders that we will be keeping in mind, just to help us stay on track in the office.

• Keep up with your blog – Everyone has a hard time with this. Blogs develop a following over a period of time, and there is no other way to gain this audience than to be a reliable poster.
• Get into the G+roove – or get stuck on Pinterest pins, set up your Facebook timeline or finally see what’s happening on Tumblr. Many people have become stagnant in their personal interest in social media accounts, but in the interest of keeping our industry constantly evolving utilizing the social media out there that is best suited to you/your business needs is the smart thing to do.
• Stay on top of your updates – Yes, taking the extra 5 minutes to make sure you have the latest updates on your computer is a hassle, but it’s much easier than waiting 5 hours when they all add up and you’re trying to get things done.
• Save your work – If you’re not already using an external hard drive for all of your files, definitely make an account on Dropbox. Computers tend to crash at the most inopportune moments, but if you’re prepared there won’t be an issue.

What are you doing to make sure you’re staying on top of things at your office this year?

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.

PhoneDog Twitter Lawsuit

The year may be 2012 but there are un-discussed issues from the previous year that we need to set right.  Towards the end of 2011, Noah Kravitz, former employee of PhoneDog, was slammed with a $340,000 lawsuit for stealing their customer list.

While working for the mobile phone site, Kravitz operated under the twitter handle @Phonedog_Noah, gaining 17,000 followers for the brand. Upon his departure from the company in October 2010, PhoneDog allowed Noah to keep the account in exchange for occasional post

After changing the account to @NoahKravitz and tweeting for eight months, PhoneDog sued claiming “the Twitter list was a

customer list,” and they are “seeking damages of $2.50 a month per follower for eight months” which accounts for the massive total.

As new forms of media emerge, new rules and laws must come about to define terms of intellectual property. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out; it will be one of the first cases that set the standard and guidelines of ownership and “cost of followers” on the Internet. Stay tuned!

Find a Kidney on Facebook

Technological evolution occurs across all industries and in one particular healthcare case in the end of 2011, the medical and social media industries collided.

The first kidney transplant was performed over 60 years ago in 1950, and the procedure has since been perfected. However, the problem of needing a donor makes the process less than ideal. Recipients can wait up to three years for a kidney from the live or dead donor list.

Social media has helped to change the game, most recently for Damon Brown, a father of two in Seattle, Washington. Although Brown admits that as a typically stoic person he was reluctant to put his illness out on his social networks, he was shocked and gratified to find positive response. After creating a Facebook page that gathered the support of 1,400 friends, four passed the initial screening with one of them eventually providing the correct match.

It is always exciting to see an application of social media that helps to change lives. As Facebook grows in size and reach it will be able to continue connecting people in need to those who are willing to donate!

New Social Network

One of the most commonly used phrases in the PR industry is “What will be the ‘new social network’?” and there has been much speculation as to whether it will be G+… or another new player in the race.

Rumors have been circulating that Apple may have something new in the works for this year. In the same vein of the iPod revolutionizing the music industry and the iPhone revolutionizing the telephone, any platform Apple would come out with could absolutely have the potential to turn the social media platform giants on end. With the proliferation of iPods, iPads, and iPhones to the mainstream media, it will be interesting to see if the new platform will seize the attention of the Apple loving public, a problem that G+ has encountered, despite its growing 293 million users.

As with any business, taxis must be held accountable for their bad service. Between the hassles of managing to get one on the phone, to the driver’s lack of a sense of direction, wouldn’t it be nice to know exactly where a cab was, allowing you to speak directly to the driver? Someone you trusted like a friend, who could come right to you, especially at those hard-to-find-peak-taxi-hours?

One Chicago man is doing just that; Rashid Temuri (better known as @ChicagoCabbie) has taken advantage of the power of social media by utilizing his twitter handle as a means of personally reaching out to his customers. His service is the epitome of a professional Twitter account – a transparent medium connecting a business to consumers. Travelers can track Temuri through Google Latitude and the Find My Friends app for iPhone so they can know exactly where he is to contact him for a ride.

Aside from ease of accessibility, Temuri brings a personal level of service to his passengers, apparently (we haven’t ever actually been in his taxi rides) he offers a friendly smile, free Wi-Fi (yes please!), and special discounts that he tweets every so often. Temuri often tweets them about their conversation (no, not like Taxi Cab confessions but as a great way of building loyalty with his customers!).  One look at his Twitter stream and one can see Temuri’s friendly nature -and why his passengers keep coming back.

Temuri differentiates himself by providing a solution for those customers who are frustrated with calling a company and not being connected with a driver. In addition, he has provided his distinction using free tools while larger car services put a steep price on the drivers who choose to post their whereabouts on social networks and connect with their clients online (no, we are not knocking Uber and want it in Houston more than the next person… we’re just stating the obvious..).

We salute you, Rashid, for utilizing free social media sources to bring excellent convenience and service to your customers. Now if only we could bring you to Houston…