Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Tideworks Technology’s President, Michael Schwank, recently contributed an article to Cargo Systems sharing his perspective on how the down economy has given ports and terminals an opportunity to evaluate and implement new technology.
In the article, which is slated to be published in the coming issue of Cargo Systems, Schwank outlines how the container industry experienced significant traffic leading up to the economic downturn. In an effort to keep up with increased demand, many port operators were unable to dedicate the time and resources to evaluate and deploy new technologies, even though the new technology would enable them to be more efficient and reduce operating costs. Since the downturn, container traffic has decreased and operators are taking advantage of this time to implement new technology in anticipation of a future recovery.
Supporting Schwank’s assertion, Tideworks has recently announced new deployments of its solutions with San Marta International Terminal Company (SMITCO) in Colombia, Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) at the Conley Container Terminal, as well as with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) at the Seattle International Gateway (SIG) and CSX Intermodal’s operations at the new state-of-the-art Northwest Ohio Terminal.
To learn more about these announcements from Tideworks please visit the following sites:
Cargo Systems
Container Management
Cargo Business News
Progressive Railroading
The Journal of Commerce
To learn more about Tideworks and its technology solutions visit http://tideworks.com/.
SAM Medical Products, a developer and manufacturer of innovative medial products used for emergency, military and hospital care, is featured in the December 2009 issue of Popular Science (cir. 1.3 million). SAM Medical Products is awarded the “Best of What’s New 2009” award for its innovative dual-purpose, hemostatic gauze, CELOX Trauma Gauze.
According to Editor-in-Chief Mark Jannot, for the past 22 years, Popular Science has given the “Best of What’s New” award to innovations that are making a difference in the world and challenging what is possible.
CELOX Trauma Gauze is the only two-in-one gauze that can control life-threatening bleeding from traumatic wounds as well as protect and cool first- and second-degree burns. Woven from chitosan fibers (essentially a product which is derived from the shells of shrimp and other sea crustaceans), it absorbs 16 times its weight in blood. In addition, it can be used for burn victims. When soaked in water, this gauze turns into a gel-like bandage that evaporates to cool burns by 10∫ F for 20 hours.
We provided public relations services and counsel for the launch of this product, and as a result had the chance to test the gauze. CELOX is unlike anything we’ve ever used. It is certainly an innovative product that will make a great impact on emergency medical technicians, burn and wound victims and military medics.
To view the “Best of what’s New 2009” feature, click here. You can also visit http://sammedical.com/ to learn more about SAM Medical.
On Mon., Nov. 16, our client, Digonex, announced the release of its Sports & Entertainment Analytical Ticketing System (SEATS), the first fully automated, dynamic pricing system for event ticketing.
The ticketing industry is facing many challenges including a tough economy, declining event attendance and competing forces for the entertainment dollar. While sophisticated pricing models are still a relatively new concept to the market, the impact that dynamic pricing solutions can have on buying and selling behaviors is significant and can make a positive impact on the event ticketing market.
SEATS leverages dozens of parameters to calculate the best price for event tickets such as seat quality, number of performances, rival performances, third-party offerings and sales patters, among other variables.
Al Branch, senior news editor of TicketNews.com, published an article about the announcement entitled, “Dynamic Pricing Showdown: Digonex Launches Competitive Product to Qcue.”
You can also view the full press release by clicking here.
Communiqué PR attended a Puget Sound American Marketing Association (PSAMA) event on Wed., Nov. 11 entitled, “Building Brand with Social Media: How Starbucks does it and what they’ll do next.”
The speaker, Brad Nelson, principal tweeter for the @Starbucks Twitter handle, previously worked for Starbucks as a barista before joining the company’s marketing team.
Interestingly, Starbucks, which in 2008 was named one of the worst brands in social media, now has more than five million fans on Facebook and nearly 500,000 followers on Twitter. Starbucks has more Facebook fans than Coca-Cola and is now the third highest rated brand in social media. Starbucks’ social media initiatives are intimately integrated with traditional media efforts and enable the company to build its brand, listen to conversations, gather feedback from consumers, answer questions, and launch new products and promotions.
Brad provided some interesting insight on the use of social mediums, such as Twitter and Facebook, and how companies can leverage these networks to interact with and provide value to consumers.
Some of the highlights include:
Social media is about engagement. While social media can be used to provide valuable information to key audiences, it is really about meaningfully engaging with consumers and other key audiences. It’s not about talking at others; it’s about talking with others.
Responses on Twitter should be instant. Starbucks does not employ an approval process for Twitter responses. While some companies have approval policies that may cause them to take up to 24 hours to respond to direct messages and questions on Twitter and Facebook, Starbucks is able to respond almost instantaneously because Brad does not have to secure approval for his responses before replying. Brad’s use of Twitter is similar to the discussions a customer might have with a barista in one of the stores. After all, a barista does not check with upper management before interacting with or responding to a customer’s inquiries.
Social media is not a fad – it is here to stay. According to Brad, the first social medium was instant messaging, which became popular in the early 1990s. Over the years, social media has evolved and matured. And it will continue to grow in the years to come. Those who are not engaging and learning about social media will be left in the dust as more employers and companies begin to leverage these mediums and expect their employees to have experience and knowledge of these platforms.
To learn more about leveraging social media to align with business objectives, send us an e-mail at [email protected].
Follow Brad Nelson on Twitter @Starbucks
Follow Communiqué PR on Twitter @Communiquepr
The past couple of times I’ve given presentations on social media, I have received questions from members of the audience about the best Twitter tools. Given the high-level of interest in this topic, I decided to do additional research, test out some of the most highly-recommended tools and publish my findings on the Communiqué PR blog.
Here are my favorite four tools:
Tweet Deck. This is my favorite tool because you can so easily filter information. I use it to follow keywords, handles and news. It makes it easy to customize your Twitter experience with columns, groups, saved searches and updates.
Social Oomph. I use Social Oomph to schedule tweets. This can be helpful if you have news to share at a particular time, but cannot be in front of your computer. I will admit I found the interface to be a bit confusing. It is not as easy or intuitive as Tweet Deck. However, once I got the hang of it I found it valuable for setting up a series of tweets, vetting followers and much more. I am using the free version of this tool, so I have not explored all of the functionality available in the paid version, but I really love the ability to schedule my tweets for an entire day. It allows me to share the information I want and frees up my time to respond and engage with people later in the day.
CoTweet – In conducting my research, I found many positive reviews of CoTweet. I knew I had to try it. The benefit of CoTweet is that it allows businesses to manage up to six accounts through one login, assign tweets to colleagues and share the responsibility of being the one on Twitter duty. With CoTweet, you can assign tweets to different customer service or marketing folks. For companies, such as Alaska Airlines and Starbucks, which are monitoring a lot of conversations and providing customer service via Twitter this tool is valuable. Colleen and I are still in the process of coming up to spend on this tool this for Communiqué. Once we have more direct experience with it, we’ll update the blog.
Bit.ly – Finally, I want to mention Bit.ly. This is a wonderful tool for shortening, sharing and tracking links. With this tool, one can track real-time traffic and get a sense of how many clicks your links are receiving (referrer data). Tracking is available after users shorten their long links with bit.ly by clicking on the “Info+” link on bit.ly, or just adding a “+” sign to the end of any bit.ly link (for example, http://bit.ly/n0og+).
What tools are you using to manage Twitter and other social networks? We would love to hear from you, if there is a particular solution that is helping you achieve your business and communications objectives.
I recently participated in a webinar hosted by PRWeek surrounding the new rules of media relations.
We all know that the media landscape has changed with publications shutting down or moving to online formats. But interestingly, the rise of social media, namely Twitter, has really changed the playing field in how media source their content for stories and interact with PR professionals.
Moderated by Rose Gordon, news editor for PRWeek, the webinar featured journalists including Chloe Albanesius, news reporter for PCMag.com, Kevin McCormally, editorial director at Kiplinger and Ivan Oransky, executive editor for Reuters Health, to lend their insight on how PR professionals can build better relationships and partner with them on stories.
From what I learned during the webinar and in my own personal opinion, the rules for meaningfully engaging with media haven’t changed much. It’s still important to:
- Do your research on the publication and journalist before pitching a story to ensure it’s relevant.
- Keep your pitch succinct; get to the point of what you’re pitching and clearly outline the call to action.
- Offer resources whenever possible (i.e. analysts, customers, data, experts, etc.)
- Understand what the journalists’ needs are so you can better position yourself and your company or client as a resource.
While these rules are still tried and true, more and more journalists are using social networking platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs to source content for their stories. The way journalists are coming up with story ideas or finding sources today is much different than in previous years.
The panelists across the board said social media tools are critical in helping them track particular industries and companies, as well as gaining immediate insight into public sentiment on a particular product, service or issue. This reinforces the importance for companies and brands to engage via social media not only to reach their target audiences, but to raise awareness with relevant media.
The panelists also mentioned that engaging with them via Twitter or other social media networks is often a great way to reach them to build a relationship or pitch a story. Since many of these reporters are on calls or in editorial meetings most of the day, social media platforms are a place they’re always tracking no matter where they are.
It’s certainly an interesting time for PR professionals as we continue to evolve how we build relationships with media and counsel our clients on how to leverage social media. While the basic rules of engaging with media haven’t changed, social media is definitely adding another interesting element.