#WHATPRPROS SHOULD KNOW #ABOUTSTATE.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been playing around with the State app.

Pitched as the global opinion network, it enables users to post their opinions on a range of topics, organizations, people, and current events—from PSY and Snoop Dogg’s latest collaboration to gun control.

As people post their opinions, the data from keywords generate a graph that maps out user sentiment, along with a keyword cloud showing the most common terms associated with the subject.

Opinions of friends are displayed on the user’s home page, so it’s easy to add your two cents to a relevant topic. State has also taken a leaf out of Twitter’s (recently revised) book and enable users to mute (or tune in to) selected friends’ opinions and specific subjects.

The company has grand visions to democratize online discussion, and co-founder Alexander Asseily has positioned the platform as giving everyone an equal voice—in contrast to platforms such as Twitter, where a small number of opinion leaders dominate conversations.

Here’s how State co-founder Alexander Asseily describes the site:

You don’t need to be famous or savvy with hashtags. The only requirement is expressing an opinion and we connect you with others who share the opinion.

From a PR perspective, the platform has the potential to act as an important reputation indicator and source of feedback for brand managers, politicians, and others who are willing to listen. For example, a search of Starbucks shows 362 opinions (at the time of this writing), which are collectively balanced. However, looking at the user-submitted keywords, it’s clear that a significant percentage of users have a low opinion of the company’s product and consider it overpriced.



State also has the potential to become a go-to source of social media insight for journalists. The platform displays the collective opinions of users in a simple and clean format and enables users to examine comments under specific keywords. If State becomes the shiny new thing online (a big if), expect media to ditch the obligatory quote from Twitter and Facebook in favor of comments, keywords, and stats from State.

All of this sounds great—in theory. However, the platform is still in its infancy, with a small user base. The other downside is that the opt-in nature of the platform will not always make for accurate brand sentiment metrics.

State has gone to the trouble of adding more than 10,000 expressions to make it quick and easy for users to state their opinions in a way that reduces complexity, making it easier to graph data. Though convenient, the various ways in which cultures use words within the English language is likely to create inaccuracies. For example, Australians’ use of the word “sick” is wildly different from the way it is used in many other English-speaking countries.

These suggested options for responses will also have a significant impact on the results, and it’s highly likely that most users will select from the first couple of options available (the most popular ones) rather than searching for a word that more accurately reflects how they feel, further tainting results.

Faults aside, the team at State should be applauded for its efforts to create a global opinion network that people might actually use. If it should garner widespread adoption, it could have a significant impact on proceedings in the court of public opinion. With the 2016 election on the horizon, State could be a dark horse. 

#THEMATTELAUNCHES #ENTREPRENEURBARBIE TO BUILD GIRLS #BUSINESSASPIRATIONS.

Do you know a young lady with a birthday coming up? We have the perfect gift.

Barbie has been an astronaut, flight attendant, dedicated fast food employee, doctor and star of sport and screen—and now she’s leaning in. Mattel has partnered with Girls Who Code, Rent the Runway and One Kings Lane to create Entrepreneur Barbie.

According to Mashable, the entrepreneurial version of the famous doll was “created in hopes of inspiring girls to dream bigger.”

Any good campaign has a microsite, and this one is comprehensive and awesome. Barbie is celebrating women entrepreneurs in style with all sorts of content that encourages young ladies to understand that they, too, can run a company.

The message is strong, positive and presented extremely effectively.

You know where this is headed, folks. We’re just a hoodie away from Startup Barbie.


What do you think, PR Daily readers? Is Entrepreneur Barbie a total success

#THEAGENCY #BAITANDSWITCHTACTIC TO #WATCHOUT FOR by Scott Signore.

We’re in the running for some dynamite new PR and social media business, so we’re assembling our teams and preparing presentations.

At my agency, Matter, we bring to the meeting only those who will work on the business, and we’ve always approached new business with this philosophy. We’ve found it makes for a better agency/client relationship in the long run.

Not everybody works that way, though. Here are three ways brand managers can avoid bait-and-switch tactics during an agency search:

First, although a PR and social media team needs a leader, it typically doesn’t need a small army of leaders. (There is some merit to leadership by committee, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.)

If you sit through an agency presentation and get the feeling that the other side of the table has too many senior people, I strongly suggest waving a red flag. Even if intentions are sincerely positive, the model at most agencies won’t allow for the regular and consistent contributions of several senior staff on every account. If the pitch team appears top heavy, it probably is. A balanced team is one best positioned for success.

Second, if in the pitch meeting you ask the question, “Who’s my day-to-day contact?” and the response is anything but clear and immediate, then the assembled crowd probably isn’t sure how your business will be staffed.

It’s a glaringly obvious sign that some at the table are temporary additions—hired guns who won’t be part of the account team for the long term. That’s a bad sign. You want to make your agency decision based on who’s in the room at the time of the pitch, and who will be responsible for specific parts of your communication programs. Good agencies understand this and will put forth the people who will be doing the work.

Third, if the senior representatives from the pitch team deliver the bulk of the presentation, it’s obvious you have a problem. The entire team should have a vested interest in the opportunity, and the agency should have the team dedicate time and energy toward the initiative.

Contributions during the pitch should come from all members of the assembled team, not just the senior crowd. As I mentioned in the last point, it should be clear who will handle each part of the program, and those people should speak to their assigned areas. Be certain the proposed account team members provide credible content about what they know and how they will contribute, or you could end up with unfulfilled expectations.

These three scenarios can help you determine whether you’re going to be the victim of an agency “bait and switch.” Am I missing other signs? 

#AMERICANAPPAREL ANNOUNCES #CEOOUSTER BY Matt Wilson.

In a Wednesday night press release, American Apparel announced that its board of directors has voted to fire President and CEO Dov Charney “for cause.”

According to board member Allan Mayer, the decision to fire Charney stemmed from “an ongoing investigation into alleged misconduct.” The board voted unanimously to oust him.

“We take no joy in this, but the Board felt it was the right thing to do,” Mayer said in a statement. “Dov Charney created American Apparel, but the company has grown much larger than any one individual and we are confident that its greatest days are still ahead.”

The Los Angeles Times has some details about what that alleged misconduct may be:

In 2011, American Apparel lashed out when four female former employees filed a sexual harassment suit. At the time, the company told The Times that the four women were friends who were colluding to "shake down" Charney and the company for money and that it had "voluminous evidence" to prove that the allegations were false.

In 2012, Charney was accused in a wrongful termination suit of choking and rubbing dirt in the face of a former store manager in Malibu. Charney also was accused of calling the employee "a wannabe Jew" and a "fag" and asked if he was sleeping with a certain girl. The company denied the allegations.

Charney reportedly hung up when a Times reporter attempted to contact him for comment.

John Luttrell, the company’s current chief financial officer, will serve as interim CEO while the board seeks a permanent chief executive.

Though news of a vote ousting the company’s founder after years of accusations is PR problem enough, the release from American Apparel adds this tidbit: “As a result of the management changes, the Company may have been deemed to have triggered an event of default under its credit agreements and will be in discussions with its lenders for a waiver of the default.”


What do you think, PR Daily readers? This is certainly an immediate PR puzzle, but will it serve American Apparel in the long run to have voted Charney out? 

#THET-MOBILECEO #TWEETSAPOLOGY AFTER #COMPANYCOMPETITORS TO #RAPISTS By Matt Wilson.

In its recent ads, T-Mobile has painted itself as the mobile phone provider that gives its customers freedom from contracts. It has used striking comparisons—including a pair of animated hands breaking shackles—to make that point.

Now, company CEO John Legere has taken it a step further, and for many critics, it was a step too far.

In remarks at a Wednesday night presentation unveiling two new programs—free streaming music and a test-drive program—Legere said, “These high and mighty duopolists that are raping you for every penny you have, if they could do something nice for you they would. The f—ckers hate you.”

It wasn’t his f-bomb that set off a wave of backlash, but the comparison between T-Mobile’s “duopolist” competitors, AT&T and Verizon, and rapists.

The responses to those tweets are largely supportive of Legere—many people piped up simply to say they weren’t offended—though a few said they won’t be using T-Mobile any time soon. You can hear Legere’s remarks in the video below at around the 1:12 mark. (Warning: There is some NSFW language.)

#ISTHEGOOGLE'S #NEWALGORITHMAPOCALYPTIC FOR #PRWIRESERVICES.

Last week some major wire services, such as PRWeb and PR Newswire, lost a lot of traffic overnight. It looks like Google dropped the hammer on most wire services with its latest algorithm update. And it’s bad. Really bad.

What happened?

After Google announced it was rolling out Panda 4.0—the latest update to its ranking algorithm—there have been numerous stories about big sites taking a major drop in search rankings.

According to traffic data, we can see that PRWeb.com (an arm of Vocus) has lost nearly a half-million daily sessions, reducing traffic to a fraction of what it was getting before. 

The above chart shows a significant drop in organic search traffic starting May 28. Most Google algorithm updates have an impact on the organic traffic, but these drops are stunning. For some sites, we are seeing an overnight drop of over 80 percent.

Why, Google?

The overall trend of Google’s updates is to make it harder for webmasters to try to “game” the system. Google’s goal is to keep searchers satisfied, and one way they do that is by ensuring searches present relevant results that carry high-quality content. Content farms and sites with low-quality content get shut out.

With this latest Panda update, Google is simply following through on what it has hinted at for a while.

Here’s a quote from the blog of Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team: “The objective is not to ‘make your links appear natural’; the objective is that your links are natural.”

Google is not our enemy. It’s a smart company that reminds us time and time again what people want: great content, natural distribution.

Wire services are not what PR is about

If your primary tactic for PR is blasting link-stuffed press releases across the wires, then you probably should rethink your approach. Consider this: A wire service is an automated network of sites that copy and syndicate news releases online. Automated. Google isn’t big on automated content.

Although a lot has been said about “changing old-school strategies” (Tom Foremski, econsultancy.com, and a blog post of my own), it’s surprising to see that a lot of brands/PR agencies have not changed the way they work.

What’s worse is that most people don’t realize they are actually violating a lot of Google guidelines when they use a wire service such as PR Web. Choosing a “distribution” package for your news release on any wire service will end up hurting you.

What does this mean for PR?

For brand managers that are doing it right, this is great news, but it does make the job a bit harder.

Good content always trumps lazy link-bait. That’s why everyone in PR should take extra steps to convince the new-and-improved Google they are not trafficking in paid links, nor buying exposure through an automated link scheme.

The move simply forces us to do our jobs more effectively.

The more obstacles to automated press release sites there are, the more benefit there will be to real PR services.

Additionally, it clearly sends a message to the lazy agencies out there that there are no shortcuts. Online PR (and SEO) will become what it always should have been: “The art of creating compelling content targeted to specific audiences.” 

#THECONDOMBRANDS LOOK TO SCORE WITH #WORLDCUPTIE-INS By Kevin Allen

The World Cup is sweeping the globe (even the United States!) and among the hordes of swag you can purchase, one of the hottest is of the adult variety.

A fast-selling condom bares the colors of the Brazilian national team and is flavored like the country's national drink, a caipirinha. Washington, DC-based non-profit organization DKT International ordered the condoms, which were produced by Karex.

It’s all part of DKT’s effort to promote safe sex and raise awareness for HIV/AIDS prevention.

According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 850,000 units sold out in just 15 days.

"Major sports or cultural events attract a great number of people and garner much attention, providing a good opportunity to spread a pleasurable and fun safe-sex message," according to DKT director for Brazil operations Daniel Marun, who spoke with WSJ.

British condom maker Durex has also jumped the on the World Cup bandwagon, with an ad that tells soccer players (and customers) #DontFakeIt. In the case of te soccer players, it’s about injuries: