I’m going to begin today’s blog by stating that I am mentally exhausted. The Atlanta Falcons playing hacky sack with my emotions for sixty minutes on Sunday really took a toll on my ability to concentrate, and although we squeaked out a win, I still feel like my psyche was the recipient of a haymaker from Mike Tyson. As endurance and perseverance come with the PR territory, I’m powering through my fatigue to bring you some fresh content for the week.

While lurking the web for potential topics for the blog, I stumbled across this Mashable article outlining Skittles’ hilariously inventive usage of their Twitter account. Is their social media team comprised of lunatics or evil geniuses? That’s certainly up for debate; but what does not need to be discussed is the entertainment value of the content they’re providing.

An inherent obstacle in maximizing your effectiveness on Twitter is providing content that other users want to follow. Whether it’s informative and educational with the aim of solving a reader’s problems, or nonsensical and absurd with the goal of humor, you need to create micro-blogs that make people want to engage. In the case of Skittles’ online publicity, 140 characters merely about candy would be excruciatingly mundane, so the company designed a comically bizarre strategy that’s congruent with their commercials and branding.

If you’re embarking on a new social media campaign or tinkering with your current tactics, it is essential to scrutinize your updates before your post them. Are your messages worth reading, or are you simply blasting out tweets for no reason? Content is the cornerstone of any successful social media campaign, and as the folks over at Skittles demonstrated, there are many options when creating an online voice that works for you.

-Carter Breazeale

On Sunday, Kara Alongi was kidnapped from her home; or was she? The sixteen year old posted this portentous message on her Twitter feed at 6:25 p.m. last night: ‘There is someone in my hour ecall 911’ (There is someone in my house, call 911.) She has been missing since the ominous tweet that set off a social media firestorm as the online-world began spreading the message of her abduction. #HelpFindKara started trending across a breadth of Internet outlets, but the issue also brought its skeptics as to its validity, as well. Was Kara Alongi kidnapped, or was her post a not-so-elaborately-crafted hoax?

On the surface, the social media world’s response to Alongi’s tweet is a gallant one. We’ve all seen how quickly the body-Internet can rally behind a cause, from the Kony 2012 campaign to the SOPA/PIPA organized blackouts. From the moment she updated her Twitter, #HelpFindKara had been re-tweeted over 32,000 times and the local police department flooded with phone calls.

The interesting wrinkle here is with the police department’s response. They have issued press statements citing that there appeared to be no forced entry into Alongi’s residence and that they do not believe she was in ‘any immediate physical danger.’ A local taxi company confirms that a call was received from her address around the time of the tweet and a female matching Alongi’s description was dropped off at a nearby train station. Weighing all the facts, it appears we have a very disturbed young girl with an unfulfilled desire for attention.

It appears Alongi has stepped in the e-hornet’s nest, incensing the hive mind who first supported determining her whereabouts, and now would rather find her personally to give her a piece of their minds. While she garnered over 95,000 new followers overnight, the majority of them are now furious with what appears to be an online stunt.

As long as social media users continue taking the bait in situations such as Alongi’s without properly evaluating the facts first, these stories will persist. It’s an unfortunate side-effect of the ability of news to go viral, and only lends to the ‘boy who cried wolf’ mindset that will be established online when someone is really in need.  

-Carter Breazeale

PR/PR Public Relations

I may as well be mainlining black coffee at the office today, as my morning started at 5:00 am in Atlanta. A quick jaunt south, an orange juice and packet of Delta Biscoff ginger snaps later, and here I am, down but not out, ready to bring you your weekly dose of PR blogging. I was in Atlanta to catch the Braves’ weekend series against the Washington Nationals, and with the season coming to a close, Sunday’s game was picked up by ESPN and subsequently moved to 8:05 pm, leaving me to scramble to reschedule an early morning flight today.

The Braves swept the series which made it all worth it, but my public relations gears were still turning even surrounded by throngs of cheering fans; the Braves were actually promoting their players’ Twitter handles on the Jumbotron, something I have never seen at a sporting event. Players have previously been derided for their social media usage; teams have labeled the likes of Facebook and Twitter as distractions and set strenuous guidelines for their respective clubs when it comes to online activity. The promotion of their players’ Internet identities sparked the following question in my mind: are sports organizations now realizing the inherent benefit to an online presence, and if so: how does establishing a digital footprint positively impact the sports business?

A little over a year ago, Marlins outfielder Logan Morrison made headlines for his demotion for supposed tweet-related activities. Now, a year later (and granted, a different team): athletes’ personal Twitter accounts are being displayed by their organizations alongside their stats and pictures. My initial thought is that major league baseball is finally recognizing the value of having their players interact with fans online. In a nation where the NFL is king, MLB has always struggled with attendance and national appreciation for their sport. Getting players involved online generates awareness and relevance, and reignites excitement for a game that has been on the decline since the mid-nineties.

In some ways, Twitter can double as an e-autograph for fans. Let’s face it: if you’re over the age of twelve, pining for a player’s signature is pretty cheesy. With Internet interaction, you can direct a sentiment in a perfectly acceptable manner, and if responded to, you can satiate your desire for some celebrity attention without sacrificing your self-respect. Mark that tweet response as a ‘favorite,’ and you now have an online-autograph that you can share proudly across your social media cache.

There is some speculation as to the legitimacy of celebrity and athlete Twitter accounts; even though many are verified, are they physically managed by the individual or outsourced via a third-party public relations firm? Regardless, their mere presence on social media continues to feed awareness to their cause, and in the case of the Atlanta Braves, they are wholeheartedly embracing this online avenue to promote their business effectively.

-Carter Breazeale

PR/PR Public Relations

As we’re all aware, this is an enormous week for sports. As frequent readers of this blog are aware, I’ll pluck an amalgam of excuses to infuse my weekly postings with anything of the sporting nature (usually consisting of a caffeine-laden rant about the Atlanta Braves – I’ll get to them later.) The 2012 Olympic Games got underway over the weekend, and tomorrow marks my favorite Christmas-in-July celebration: baseball’s trade deadline. With these two events, the social media convergence has begun across every online spectrum, with rumor and conjecture dominating the Major League Baseball landscape and time-delay spoilers raking in the headlines on what’s being coined the first ‘Real-Time Olympics.’

Last week we covered the area of responsible reporting in the Social Media Age – where the news comes to you, whether you’re ready or not. This week we’ll touch on Internet responsibility in the sporting atmosphere, where the Olympics and baseball’s trade deadline have already encountered social media snares with palpable consequences.

Twitter Shocks Ryan Dempster, Ryan Dempster Handcuffs the Cubs

I told you I’d get to my Atlanta Braves sooner than later. Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Ryan Dempster, currently compiling the best statistics of his career and preparing for another mammoth payday when he hits free agency this winter, was all but traded to the Atlanta Braves. In an ironic stroke of bad luck familiar only to lifelong Atlanta fans, Dempster nixed the trade after learning about it – not from his agent, not from Chicago – but from Twitter.

“THERE IS NO TRADE. Don’t know where this info came from,” Dempster tweeted, reportedly infuriated with the Chicago front-office for not first cluing him in on the news that he’d been shipped out of town before leaking it to the media. Dempster then invoked his 10-5 rights (ten years of service time/five years with one team gives a player the ability to veto any trade) to stick it to the team that was looking to revamp with younger (and cheaper) talent, saddling them with the rest of his contract and a disgruntled pitcher. Phrasing it in a way that only an old-school baseball man could, Chicago Cubs Manager Dale Sveum blamed ‘the Twitter, the Facebook’ for the trade’s collapse, and then desperately took to “the Googler” in an attempt to track down answers as to how the “Internet machine” foiled his trade plans.

Social Media and NBC Attempt to Spoil the Olympics

With the 2012 Olympic Games being dubbed as ‘the first real-time Olympics,’ enthusiasts have already encountered issues with NBC and social media that were not present in 2008. It’s safe to say the world didn’t revolve around the online world four years ago as it does now, and with the availability of split-second updates comes a new challenge: preserving the outcome of events for those of us who are unable to watch them live.

The much anticipated Michael Phelps vs. Ryan Lochte 400-meter race was aired on a tape delay, and NBC mistakenly broadcast the results on its Nightly News programming and social media outlets. #NBCSucks soon began trending on Twitter, and joke-accounts began cropping up left and right (most notably @NBCDelayed, which acquired over 1,300 followers that evening.)

NBC went into damage control mode, with executive producer Jim Bell responding to users’ grievances over his own Twitter account. NBC has announced they will now be more cognizant over differentiating between ‘live’ Olympic-happenings and tape-delayed footage, also warning viewers of potential ‘spoiler alerts’ before airing.

We’ve got an exciting week ahead of us, and for those like me who revel spend countless hours with our noses pressed in the sports section, it’s about as good as it gets. We’ve also got a week of learning curves; where producers, editors and baseball front-offices try their hands at adapting to a world where they’re still unfamiliar: the world where social media is the go-to source for round the clock coverage.  

-Carter Breazeale
PR/PR Public Relations