Marketing, public relations, social media... and a little of this and that.
I just checked my FeedBurner stats and was pleasantly surprised by a pretty drastic jump in the sites RSS subscriptions. If you haven’t signed up yet, please do so you can easily view updates via your favorite RSS reader or have them sent directly to your Inbox.
And if you’re reading this post via RSS… a bit “woot woot” to you. Thanks a ton for following this blog.
This post is part of my ongoing “Get Fit” series, which is outside the typical marketing/public relations focus of this site.
I’ve been working out at a pretty steady rate now for three weeks; last week was a bit off due to the holiday, but I still managed to get in some good workouts.
My goal is to get a bit more toned, but also lose a few pounds along the way. The weight factor can be a mental road block if you have unrealistic expectations – especially when you’re working out at a pretty good rate, but don’t seem to be shedding any weight.
I’ve now lost two pounds since I started my healthier lifestyle a few weeks ago, but that didn’t happen until last Saturday.
Let’s take a moment and circle back to the “mental road block.” If you overlook the fact that you are building muscle at first it could be a crushing blow. There’s nothing worse than doing extremely hard workouts, but feeling as if you aren’t getting results. And for the average person, the scale is the only result that matters.
Mentally prepare yourself and you’ll have a much better experience.
Oh, and yes, I’m still on track with my new eating habits. I’ve had fries twice in the last three weeks, which is a big deal for me. The cravings are still there, but I’m learning to fight them (I’m not sure healthy eaters know exactly how hard this can be).
Heck, this happened just last night.
I got home around 9 pm and had absolutely no interest in making dinner. I instantly started thinking about going to Wendy’s – it was as if I could already taste the food. I’m not joking when I say this, but I sat in my room staring at the wall for about five minutes justifying why I was/wasn’t going to Wendy’s. In the end, I stayed home and had a peanut butter and banana sandwich.
I’ll keep sharing my experience with you and hope that you’ll find it motivating in some way. If I can change my bad habits anyone can.
Yesterday I talked about how a media outlet took action to implement social media suggestions, but today I’d like to talk about the exact opposite.
My hometown paper, the News & Record, doesn’t seem to be as keen to change. And to be clear, I know lots of great people that work for the paper and think they do good work (most of the time).
For this post I’ll stick to their activity on Facebook (their reporters are active on Twitter and do a good job with that) and how they are using the network.
On the News & Record home page you’ll occasionally see a blue banner (highlighted in the photo above) that tells readers to “Join News-Record.com on Facebook Now and Stay Up-To-Date on the Latest News and Headlines.”
Out of curiosity I’ve monitored their page during the last month; during that time their fan base has grown by around 150 people (totaling 889 as of this writing) – not exactly huge growth.
Their Facebook page can be seen above, and if you are an avid reader of this blog you’ll immediately notice two things:
I’ve casually talked with a few folks at the paper about their Facebook content and tossed out some ideas, but I’ve not seen any implemented thus far. Here are a few:
I’m sure lots of other ideas could be thought of as well, but I surely hope they make a change at some point – for their own good. The lack of fan growth over the past month is proof that something isn’t working.
As more people move to online sources for news, it’s important that print publications have a clear understanding of how to drive traffic to their site and engage readers in the social space – and I say that as a reader and an advertiser.
PS – Like my ideas or not, using social media to simply push is not a best practice – and down right dull.
Speculation.
It’s something that you have to address at some point. Silence, in some cases, simply fuels the speculation and can seriously tarnish a brand.
Tiger Woods for instance is a perfect example.
By now you’ve heard about his 2 am car accident, and you may have even read a quote from him asking for people to respect his privacy. Sure, we all deserve privacy, but he has some serious issues that need to be addressed.
For starters, the domestic violence and cheating rumors need to be dealt with. If they aren’t, they will continue to gain steam and tarnish the enormous brand that Tiger has built. If he has cheated, it’s going to come out (it always does – ask John Edwards) and he should hit the issue head on.
The time span of this “story” is, in a way, in Tiger’s hands.
I think it’s great to see how TV and newspaper organizations implement social media. Furthermore, I think it’s great when they respond to suggestions from their audience.
Neill McNeill is an anchor at the local Fox affiliate (WGHP) in my hometown of Greensboro, and he’s an active Facebook user. One thing I’ve seen him do for a while now is promote a 5 pm video news tease via his profile.
Last Tuesday, like many times before, one of his updates showed up in my Facebook stream. This time, rather than ignoring the message, I stopped to think about why I had never clicked on any of the links. The short answer that I came up with is because I didn’t want to jump through hoops to watch the video.
I tend to be somewhat outspoken (imagine that) so I offered a suggestion to Neill – read the correspondence below.
The very next day I received a message from Neill stating that you could now watch the video teasers directly on Facebook. Kudos to the team at Fox 8 for trying something new and testing out ways social media can be utilized.