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Do you love social media, marketing and PR?  Do you love to read and discuss ideas with other marketing professionals?  If so, the brand new 360DI Book Club is for you.

After our recent team retreat, I was inspired by all the great book suggestions and not only do I want to read them, but discuss and analyze them with other smart folks like you!  Luckily, plenty of my teammates agreed,  so the 360DI Book Club was born.   We will discuss a new book on the second Tuesday of  each month from 6:30-8pm Eastern Time via the hashtag #DIbooks.  The books will be about social media, marketing or business and will be voted on by the readers of the Fresh Influences Blog each month.  If you have a book suggestion, please shoot me a DM via twitter (@SarahMarchetti) or comment on a book club post.  I’ll pick four choices out of the suggestions and have everyone vote on them.

The first 360DI Book Club is on June 8,2010 at 6:30pm, four weeks from today. Since this is our first meeting, I’ll pick the book.  We’ll be reading Influence: the Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D.  This book comes highly recommended by John Bell and is about the psychological fundamentals of persuading someone, be that in a marketing, sales or personal context.  We’ll be looking at the book as it applies to our work in social media and word of mouth marketing.  Please read the book and leave any questions you’d like to discuss in the comment stream below.   Hope you’ll join us for the discussion in 4 weeks.   Happy Reading!

The CDC’s National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media starts tomorrow with an amazing lineup of presenters and keynote speakers. The conference is in its third year and brings together social marketing practitioners, academia, public health practitioners and many others to discuss best practices in health communications and marketing.

I am thrilled to be going to this conference and am looking forward to learning from some of the best social marketing practitioners and thought leaders in the country. I plan on blogging about my experience here on the Fresh Influences Blog with my colleague Kristin Parrish. You can also follow our Tweets @KFoster926 or @sarahmarchetti or follow the conference hashtag #NCHCMM. If you are attending the conference, Alex Rampy wrote a great post you should check on on 5 Ways to Prep for the CDC Conference.

Several representatives from Ogilvy PR’s Digital Influence and Social Marketing teams will be speaking at the conference. If you are going, please stop by our sessions:

Partnering with the AME Church to Educate African Americans about P.A.D. - Erica G.Taylor (International A/B) Tuesday, 2:15 — 3:45 p.m

Twitter Best Practices for Nonprofits and Health Communicators - Sarah Marchetti (Grand Ballroom A/B)Tuesday, 2:15 — 3:45 p.m

Motivating Women to Address Risk Factors for Heart Disease by Creating an Online Community with Customized Social Media Tools - Emily Yu and Kristin Foster (Poster Session)Wednesday, 9:30 — 10:15 a.m

Redefining Teen Health Communications Through Social Media - Trish Eitel Taylor and Caitlin Douglas (Cottonwood A/B) Wednesday, 10:15 — 11:45 a.m

Policy Advocacy: The Fifth “P” of Health Marketing - Bryan Callahan (Dogwood A/B) Thursday, 10 — 11:30 a.m

You can check out the program book for full descriptions of these sessions and all the other presentations that will be going on over the next three days.

Do you have any questions for us while we’re there? Any content you’d like to see here on Fresh Influences that Kristin and I can collect for you? Let us know in the comments.

The two things I love most about practicing Public Relations are promoting a great cause and the urgency and quick thinking required when responding to a crisis. So, when I watched Gary Vaynerchuk’s latest vlog on his personal website I just had to share, because it is such a great example of how to respond to a potential public relations crisis using social media. Gary’s wine social network, Cork’d, was hacked, but through a quick, personal response to the news, he was able to turn what could have been bad PR into good PR very quickly. He explains it much better than I ever could, so I hope you appreciate how great the response was as much as I did:

Any thoughts after watching the video? Is it realistic for a large or average-sized company to do this or is it much more feasible for a smaller organization with a very social media savvy CEO like Gary. I have my opinion, but I’d love to hear yours.

Saturday evening, a discussion criticizing a new Motrin commercial aimed at moms exploded on Twitter.   I’m not going to rehash the entire situation since plenty of mom bloggers and PR and marketing people have already written about it.   But in short, moms on Twitter started discussing a Motrin commercial that they found condescending and offensive regarding wearing your baby in a sling or wrap on your body.   This discussion quickly grew to thousands of tweets, spawning its own hashtag, #motrinmoms, and became the top Twitter search for the weekend.   There’s even a YouTube video made by Katja Presnal that shows the negative tweets interspersed with pictures of moms wearing their babies in carriers.   McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the makers of Motrin, had a full-blown communications crisis on their hands by early Sunday morning.

In a social media crisis, the medium you use to respond to the situation can make or break how severe the crisis turns out to be since communities can be fragmented.   Plus, social media is all about community and starting up a conversation so you should respond to the crisis where it is currently happening. At the time of this post, McNeil’s VP of Marketing, Kathy Widmer, has started replying via e-mail to bloggers who posted about the Motrin ads with a very nice note apologizing for the ad and assuring the moms that they take consumer feedback very seriously and will pull the ads as soon as they can.   I think this is a great first response and fairly timely, but McNeil needs to go further with their crisis response first thing tomorrow morning using social media to address this social media crisis.   What should they do?

• Get a Twitter handle, STAT! This crisis started on Twitter and is still most visible on Twitter.   Motrin should join the conversation using the hashtag #motrinmoms.   Unfortunately, it looks like people have already taken @motrin and @motrinmoms and started posting joke replies to the crisis.   It’s too bad the brand didn’t get ahead of that, but they can still make an impact by starting another handle.   Laura Halsch wrote a great post about using Twitter in a crisis, so get some tips from the Twitter series and start tweeting.   Obviously, it would have been best if Motrin had a Twitter handle before the crisis happened especially since so many mom bloggers use Twitter.   This might have prevented the conversation from getting so big.
• Make a YouTube Video. McNeil should create a short video from their VP of Marketing or other high-ranking mother in the company that apologizes for the ads and provides a place for moms to go to give their feedback.   They should post the video as a response to the video created by Katja Presnal so that everyone who views that video has the option to view the response.
• Create a place on their Website with more information. Twitter isn’t the right medium for getting out more than a few sentences of information, but it is a great way to link to more in-depth content on a Website.   McNeil could use an existing portion of the Motrin website to address moms’ concerns.

Using these medium-specific tatics, along with commenting and continuing to reach out to bloggers, should help mitigate this crisis quickly by reaching the people talking about this crisis where they already are.   Of course, the advice for next time would be to establish a social media presence ahead of time to prime yourself to respond, especially when your target audience is moms.   The mom blogosphere is very powerful and vocal.   Brands would be wise to participate in the conversation long before a crisis.

Twitter can be a great tool for non-profits and issue advocacy organizations to create community and provide useful information to those they serve, volunteers, donors and other supporters. Twitter’s ability to connect people with similar interests can be harnessed for the greater social good if people follow a few key best practices.

The American Red Cross is doing a great job using Twitter through their handle @RedCross.   In the interest of full disclosure, I used to work in the communications department at the Red Cross, but I think the success of @RedCross is pretty apparent, with their more than 2,000 followers and successful engagements using Twitter.   I spoke with Wendy Harman and Claire Johnson, the social media gurus at the Red Cross, to find out the secrets to using Twitter as a non-profit organization.

Harman said that she attributes the success to having a clear goal of what they were trying to accomplish using Twitter. ” We started with a very small focus and tactical use for Twitter: to get important info out to affected people in the immediate aftermath of a disaster. There was not a single thought towards marketing or even public relations – it was purely public information no one else was putting out.”   Since then, one of the most popular and most retweeted features of @RedCross has been preparedness tips.   They also engaged followers with a very popular “roadblock” in September where they encouraged their supporters to tweet about the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund or change their Twitter avatar to one of a few specially created avatars.   You can read all about the “roadblock” on Red Cross Chat or Beth’s blog.

Here are some best practices to consider if your organization wants to start using Twitter:

1. Follow: As with all the previous Twitter strategies, use Twitter Search to find people interested in your subject area.   Follow other non-profits (even your competitors), industry consultants, thought leaders and cause enthusiasts (@kanter, @ntenhross, @beautifulthangs, @SocialBttrfly, @peterdeitz), and of course people discussing your cause.   Also, it is really important to follow most of the people that are following you.   If your cause matters to them, what they have to say is important to you and your success on twitter.   Be sure to do regular Twitter Searches to see who is mentioning your organization and what they are saying.

2.Create Content:   Start out with a clear goal and provide information that is useful to your followers.   The cardinal rule of fundraising is to talk about your donors and the issues that matter to them.   Don’t focus on your organization or you will lose people’s interest.   This rule applies to Twitter as well.   People follow other people and organizations that provide them with something useful.     Claire Johnson said, “If you think of twitter as a public service that your organization provides, rather than a marketing tool, you should be in good shape.”   The Red Cross tweets preparedness tips and disaster information; the American Cancer Society tweets cancer prevention information; the National Wildlife Federation tweets interesting facts about animals.   Think about what kind of value your organization can provide to your followers and then tweet about those things.

3. Engage: Once you have followers and content, you can start engaging with the people who follow you.   Use @ replies to respond to people who mention your organization after you find them in Twitter Search.   You could also respond to people who follow you with a quick thank you and perhaps a question to find out about why they chose to follow your organization.   @BFAS sent me a quick note after I followed them yesterday, and it was a great personal touch that helped me connect with their organization.   After you have a strong base of followers, you can start doing more involved engagement strategies, like the Red Cross “roadblock” or perhaps a Twitter-thon to raise money for your organization.

Here are some other non-profit and issue advocacy Twitter handles that you can follow to see what other groups are doing:

@RedCross                                                                @OxFam

@socialactions                                                       @HumaneSociety

@AmericanCancer                                             @NWF

@Care2News                                                           @greenpeaceUSA

@idealist_org                                                         @AIDSgov

@BFAS                                                                         @amnesty

@womenshealth                                               @greenversations

What are your favorite non-profits to follow on Twitter?   Do you have any best practices to share that have worked for your organization?   Join the conversation here in the comments or on Twitter, my handle is @SarahMarchetti.

Here on the Digital Influence blog, we talk a lot about how important it is for brands to be online, listening to and engaging with their customers.   We are always looking for new statistics that demonstrate to our clients the value social media can bring to their brand.   Technorati released it’s annual State of the Blogosphere study this week with some great data points for your next presentation on why your company or client should be participating in social media.   I recommend checking out the full report, but since we are all busy, here are what I consider to be the Top 5 most useful stats from the study for brands looking to engage in social media:

1. 4 out of 5 bloggers are posting about brands online-   With 80% of bloggers writing about companies, there is a pretty good chance they are writing about yours.   If they aren’t, that’s a major disadvantage since many people are going to to the internet to research products and services before they buy.

2. 12 percent of bloggers are corporate bloggers- A corporate blogger is no longer a lone wolf in the blogosphere. With 12 percent of bloggers reporting that they blog in an official capacity for their corporation and 46 percent of bloggers reporting that they blog about their profession, but not directly for their company, there is a strong precedent of examples to present to leadership demonstrating the effectiveness of corporate blogs.

3. 1 out of 3 bloggers have been contacted by a brand representative- Bloggers, especially the most popular ones are being inundated with requests to write about brands related (or sadly, often unrelated) to the topics they cover.   Make sure your company executes blogger outreach the right way by only reaching out to people who have shown a clear affinity for what you are selling and use a code of ethics to guide your outreach.

4. Bloggers spend three and a half times more hours on the internet than they do watching TV- Influential bloggers are not getting your corporate messages through your television ad buy.   They are much more influenced by other bloggers with 61 percent reporting that they are enticed to learn more about a product or service from other bloggers.

5. Bloggers are becoming a trusted source for information-Bloggers are becoming more and more accepted by the public and the press as experts in their topic area and reporters are going to to them to find out their opinions. 37 percent of bloggers have been quoted in a mainstream press article   Perhaps your company should start sharing your expertise with the world.   You’ll be able to start a relationship with your customers, and might even get quoted in the mainstream press along the way.

Check out the rest of the study for more information about who these bloggers are and what they are writing about.   The data is fascinating.   Feel free to chime in below if you think I missed an important point or another stat should have made the Top 5.

Last week, I attended the Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk D.C. Bash at MCCXXIII, which brought together people in technology, social media and politics to network and drink free wine, courtesy of Wine Library TV. At the event, Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs got some opinions from the crowd on what politicians are doing right with social media and what they can improve upon. He created this video capturing the insights:

The video includes the following and is hosted by: Peter Corbett, iStrategyLabs
Interviewee 1: Andrew Feinberg, CapitolValley.net
Interviewee 2: Julie Germany, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet
Interviewee 3: Alan Rosenblatt, Center for American Progress
Interviewee 4: Sarah Marchetti, OgilvyPR
Interviewee 5: Saul Colt, FreshBooks
Interviewee 6: Jonny Goldstein, Jonny’s Partay
Interviewee 7: Nick O’Neill, Social Times
Interviewee 8: Frank Gruber, AOL/Somewhat Frank
Interviewee 9: Colin Delany, ePolitics.com
Interviewee 10: Robert Scoble, FastCompany.tv

What politicians do you think have been doing a great job using social media?

Last time I checked, bandages and over-the-counter pain medication were about as mundane as waiting in the doctor’s office during flu season. However, I stumbled across a new medical brand the other day that challenges the notion that medical supplies have to be dull. Help Remedies only sells two products; bandages and acetaminophen, but these products’ branding have so much personality that I thought I would share them here.

I’m currently reading Rohit Bhargava’s book Personality Not Included and the premise of the book is that brands without personality aren’t going to survive in today’s competitive marketing environment. Rohit lays out a ton of great case studies in the book and presents a personality filter to help determine if a brand has personality.

There are three elements your brand must have in order to have personality: it must be unique; it must be authentic; and it must be talkable. Together, Rohit calls this the UAT filter for determining personality. When I stumbled across Help Remedies’ products, I immediately thought that they were oozing with personality. So let’s use them as a case study and put them through Rohit’s UAT filter.

1. Is the Brand Unique? At first glance, there is nothing new about acetaminophen and bandages, but there is something that sets this brand apart from its competitors. It is an environmentally-friendly product. The packaging is 100% biodegradable paper pulp and the pills do not contain any artificial dyes or coatings. These are remedies for the growing number of people who care about our environment. Sounds different than the drugstore brands to me.
2. Is it Authentic? Authenticity is all about trust and being able relate to the company as a group of individuals rather than a faceless corporation. Help Remedies has a great back story. Cofounder Richard Fine came up with the idea for the product after going into a drugstore looking for medicine to relieve a headache and found that the packaging for all the medicines were so loud and busy that they made his headache worse. He set out to create something simple and approachable. Help Remedies also gives 5% of their profits to charities that help people without health insurance obtain it.
3. Is it Talkable? Word of mouth marketing has been proven to be one of the most effective ways to reach people with your message. However, in order for your product to be talkable it needs to have something about it that is worth mentioning to your friends and family. Having an effective product isn’t enough because the consumer expects that if they buy a pain reliever that it will treat their headache. In Help Remedies’ case, they set their product apart with their cheeky packaging and corporate website. Infusing their products with a bit of humor makes them different than any other first aid products that I’ve ever seen and prompted me to write this post. They say laughter is the best medicine and that is a corporate message that I can get behind and tell my friends about. Other people apparently feel the same way, since it has gotten great coverage on various health, and marketing, environmental blogs.

Help Remedies launched their products recently so there aren’t any big success stories to point to just yet, but based on their excellent branding I think they have a good shot at differentiating themselves in the marketplace, which is a big help to any new brand struggling to get noticed.

So what do you think? Do you agree that personality can make a brand successful? What brands have encouraged you to take a second glance recently?