Embargoes aren’t for everyone. Last year Michael Arrington made that very clear. Here we are almost a year later, and it’s still a topic that spurs much debate. Yep, more outlets have abandoned embargoes, but it’s definitely not an extinct practice. It’s also not a one-size-fits-all approach.

Source: xuhara hamid

From a communications perspective, you’ve got to consider your client, their story and audience, and develop a strategy that makes sense for the individual situation. Does it even make sense to employ an embargo? It might not, especially for a private company. What may have been standard practice in the past may not apply anymore.

If it does make sense to embargo your client’s news, talk them through the risks involved and do your homework…know the policies of the outlets you work with, and be sure you develop and maintain trust with your contacts. You should also be prepared to move quickly in case the news is leaked.

As the dynamics of the media world continue to change, I expect there will be many more conversations about how to effectively evolve our methods of communication and news dissemination. Will we still be talking embargoes this time next year? Maybe so.

A couple of stories piqued my interest today.

First, E.B. Boyd of Bay Newser reported that McSweeney’s has unveiled a preview of its broadsheet project, the San Francisco Panorama. It’s an ambitious effort to show, in essence, that print’s death has been exaggerated, its worth underestimated, and its creative potential untapped. The list of talent that is contributing to Panorama will make your head spin. To preorder a copy, click here. (Bay Area locals, apparently there is going to be a special Bay Area-only price, so hold your horses).

Story #2 is from Peter Kafka and is in regards to Will Ferrell’s “Funny or Die” setting up a channel on YouTube. You might ask why Will & crew would do such a thing, considering they already have their own site on which to host their own content.

The answer: millions of eyeballs.

It’s all about tapping into YouTube’s ridiculously large audience. They’re taking the funny over to a place where a gigantic community already exists, which should help them garner far more exposure. “Funny or Die” will still premiere content on its standalone branded site and give its loyal followers the first peek before taking it majorly mainstream.

And on that note, I leave you with the classic “Landlord” video:

No, I can’t speak a lick of Latin, but I can convey a thought or two in 140 characters. When it comes to tweeting about their news and events, that’s all the real estate your clients will get to convey their message. To bring that size, or lack thereof, into perspective, my first two blog sentences are a total of 216 characters, well above the Twitter limit. That means you should put a lot of thought into making those 140 characters as impactful as possible.

Consider the title of this post. Let’s take the first part of the original Latin phrase and dissect it to add meaning and value: “Cogito,” which when translated into English means “I think.” I presume you care about Twitter since you’re reading this blog post, either for personal or professional gain, so I ask you to open a separate Internet tab and take a look at your personal Twitter feed. Of the dozen or so tweets on your page, what percentage shows a lack of foresight, care, or dare I say “thought”?

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It is a curious fact that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves seriously.” - Oscar Wilde

As anyone remotely familiar with Eastwick knows, we are big on Halloween.

Though our Black & Orange bash is on hiatus this year, our Halloween spirit is still in full effect. For the Eastwick office party, the one requirement was that people come in costume. Otherwise, all bets were off.

Everyone took the opportunity to exercise their individual creativity, sense of humor, and personality.

A passel of Eastwickers: (front row) Annemarie, Elizabeth, Katie, Sam (holding Dexter), Andrew & Tina; (back row) Elaine, Barb, Elisabeth, Lyda, Rachel, Kevin & Mo

We had:

The pop-culture phenoms: Adrian Monk and Jon Gosselin

The classic archetypes: Witches, Cat, Goddess, Valley Girl, Cowgirl and Gypsy Princess

The rockers: Def Leppard and Alice Cooper

The witty: A White Lie

The totally rad: A Chiquita Banana

Despite calling themselves “witches” for almost 20 years, two of our founders dressed as witches for the very first time.

Jon (Kevin) minus Kate, and the fastidious Mr. Monk (Andrew)

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If I see one more quote claiming that all companies should jump into social media because its free…I’m going to poke my eyes out.  So when I read this morning’s post on the Future Changes blog I couldn’t help but share the insight.  The quote below…and the heart of the post succinctly depicts the issue with why people think social media is free…and why it is not.  A distribution channel or channel for engagement is only as good as the content being distributed or shared.  Yes the channels are free…the content…especially the most valuable kind is most likely not.  Thank you Stewart Brand.

Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine—too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, ‘intellectual property’, the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.

Seems like every week we get asked by a client about social media monitoring tools.  Like us, they’re being deluged with messages about the latest and greatest tool for tracking brands and conversations online.  Everyone knows that conversations are happening online but they’re unsure how to stay on top of what’s being discussed and by whom.  The questions we hear from clients include who are the influencers who matter in my market?  What topics matter most?  How much is our company being covered compared to our competitors?  And what are these online influencers saying about our brand? These are not necessarily easy questions to answer but they’re the right ones to ask.  And they’re the questions we’re asking ourselves as we build influencer strategies and engagement programs for our clients.

But, with what seems like thousands of tools out there claiming to track and provide  answers to those questions, where do you begin? Which tools or tools are the best fit? We’ve tackled the challenge of researching the myriad of useful tools out on the market so you don’t have to, and here is what we found.

• From low-end DIY tools to high end services, tools cover the gamut of needs from identifying influencers to measuring sentiment to simply tracking volume of social media chatter. The key is determining your true end goals and needs  – why you want to have better insight into social media coverage in the first place.  Without that base, you can spend hours walking down the wrong paths.

• So far there is no single solution that does it all, or at least does it all well.  There are solutions that address pieces of the puzzle very well and some that handle a couple of things adequately.  The combined power of using a few of these tools together, however, can really speed the tracking process to give our teams more time to add our knowhow and historical perspective to the mix, giving our clients better insights.

• Take the time to hone your searches and carefully craft the questions you are going to ask. There’s no replacement for applying critical thinking to the challenge before jumping in, overlaying an understanding of a particular market and customers, as well as the movers & shakers and what makes them tick.

• There will be surprises along the way – and that’s a good thing!  In fact, if you aren’t surprised by something you’re learning through a deep influencer review process, you’re probably missing something.  But no matter what tool or tools you choose to use, be prepared to use the most important tool of all — your brain — because that’s what makes the difference between just tracking social media and really understanding where and how influence is happening in your market.

So before you jump in and drink from the social media fire hose, take a few sips with us.   In some cases, it might make sense for you to piggy back on the work the agency is doing because we’re investing in the tools and can make those resources available to our clients.  At the very least, we’re happy to share insights into the tools we’ve become familiar with and to help you reach a better understanding of what people are saying about your brand online.

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The PRSA YP event held at the Eastwick SF Office last Thursday night was a hit! We had a packed house of some great young PR professionals eager to learn about great social media strategies from Eastwick’s own experts Lyda Velez and Rachel Shelton. The presentation covered great social media campaigns from technology companies to rappers using social media to promote their persona (and sell an iPod App). It explored some dos and don’ts of posting for clients and personal life and had a great question and answer portion with the audience.

Thanks to all who came out and we hope to see you at our next event, coming soon!

I honor of Blog Action Day 2009 we got everyone here at Eastwick Communications involved. Check out what our awesome and bright staff have to say about Climate Change.

I am inspired by people and companies involved in The CleanTech Open who are building businesses on green and clean ideas. – Barbara Bates

I continue to be amazed by all the great, practical applications available for the iPhone, especially the green applications.  These apps make it so easy to stay current on the best food choices to make (check out the Seafood Watch app courtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, transportation options (NextTrain is a good one) or connect with other like minded folks (see Twavel, where carbon calculator meets community.)  Who said it’s not easy being green?- Elaine Cummings

Rising oil and air pollution costs have caused serious environmental and economic impact and spawned a whole industry of clean tech solutions. For new, clean energy systems to be effective, we need a practical and cost-effective way to store energy. We are privileged to work with Extreme Capacitors, a company that’s tackling this challenge by developing an innovative new technology that promises a 100X improvement over the best energy storage options available today. It’s a game changer that could pave the way for wide-scale adoption of clean energy-powered cars, homes, and more.- Melissa Neumann

Middle East, Africa get State Department Funds for Social Networking – The US State Dept recently announced grants of $500,000 to $2.5 million.  The program is sponsored by the State Department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), which provides support to the Middle East and North Africa for women’s empowerment, educational advancement, economic development, and political participation.- Mo Mahmoud

I think retailers and grocers should stop giving paper receipts. Can you imagine how much paper (i.e., trees) have been wasted from people throwing away their receipts? Companies have started to go green by encouraging paperless reports, press kits, etc, so it would be nice to have the same mentality applied to our everyday purchases. There is a lot of effort to enhance point-of-sale technology in the retail industry to make shopping more convenient for buyers, including touch screen technology. Perhaps a customer could have the receipt emailed to them via a point-of-sale (POS) kiosk and not have to worry about paper receipts ever again!!” – Elizabeth Hilton

Today’s advances with energy efficient technology and corporate social responsibility means that the large enterprises understand they need to be more eco-conscious. Given this is global concern, that’s a really good thing.- Kevin Cheng

Virtual events are sweet. Isn’t it great that you don’t even need to jump into a gas guzzler to be part of an important event? You can participate from the comfort of your own home…or desk chair. – Katie Zeiser

Technology plays both a thrilling and terrifying role in heightening awareness of climate change. Having had childhood dreams of becoming a “cloud scientist,” I’m fascinated by technology that documents unusual phenomena like noctilucent clouds, grateful for social media platforms that share that knowledge (in multimedia form, no less) to everyday people like me, and frightened that these clouds—potential harbingers of environmental change wrought by global warming—aren’t as unusual as one might hope.  – Rachel Shelton

I think what’s most exciting about working with cutting edge technology clients, especially those working to reduce carbon footprints due to computing, is the sense of passion they convey to be “green.” I get to be on the inside of how computing companies are transforming their respective industries without negatively impacting the environment – it’s a win-win situation for everyone!- Andrew Evangelista

It’s very exciting to see the promise of rapid growth in clean tech and how there is huge potential to positively impact our current economy and environment…Optimism is good!- Joanna Andrade

Apparently, social media is on the rise.  Haven’t you heard?  According to Inside Facebook, more than 12,000,000 users are active on the popular social site. Among the demographic of users, those between the ages of 18 and 34 constitute the largest group on Facebook in the United States. If you’re between these ages, you’re probably dialed into the world of social media already. But how do you apply that knowledge to make you more valuable as a PR professional in the eyes of your clients, company and colleagues?

Come join us on Thursday, Oct. 15, for the PRSA-SF (Public Relations Society of America – San Francisco chapter) Young Professionals program: “How to Leverage Social Media to Advance Your PR Efforts.”  Hosted by PRSA-SF and Eastwick Communications, this free event will provide attendees with the latest tips, tricks and tactics for integrating social media into your public relations initiatives. Eastwick’s very own Senior Director Rachel Shelton and Senior Associate Lyda Velez will discuss how to select the right social channel for effective communications. Learn firsthand how to monitor conversations, engage with audiences and build a community of brand evangelists.

This Thursday night mixer for young professionals will be held from 6 to 8 PM at Eastwick’s San Francisco office, located at 444 De Haro Street, Suite 112. We recommend registering in advance to ensure your space is reserved (friends and colleagues invited too, of course). For directions to the event, click here.

See you there!

With the exception of David Letterman, we all know that business and pleasure don’t mix.  But the line drawn between personal and business social networking keeps getting fuzzier everyday.  We’ve all seen our outgoing co-workers’ embarrassing party pictures on the same Facebook page they promote client news on.

For this, and many other reasons, I’m not surprised by the results of a recent survey by Robert Half Technology.  According to the survey of 1,400 CIOs, 54 percent said their companies completely prohibit employees visiting social networking sites while at work.  Fair enough.  What really interested me was that 19 percent permit employees to use social networks for business purposes only.  Good luck with that.

The Robert Half survey came one day after Deloitte’s 2009 Tribalization of Business Study found that 94 percent of enterprises are looking to maintain or increase investment in social media and communities.  Only 6 percent plan to make less of an investment.  The survey included more than 400 companies.

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