The PR Pro's Guide to Facebook
Here's a link to a good basic article about getting your company started on a Facebook presence.
Keep in mind, not all companies NEED to be or even SHOULD be on Facebook. For example, pure B2B organizations may not see any benefit from Facebook and maintaining your FB page, comments and customer interaction could simply be a big time suck.
However, IF you have strong consumer orientation and need interaction with large groups of potential customers, then a Facebook page may be just the ticket to higher sales. A few businesses that benefit from the enhanced exposure might include:
- Restaurants
- Service businesses (auto shops, cleaners, landscaping, remodeling, travel agencies)
- Consumer product companies
- Retail stores (single or chains)
- Non-profits or donor-based organizations
- Advocacy groups and political parties
Just make sure that when you start down the Facebook path (or Twitter or Google+) that you have adequate resources to maintain your page AND follow-up with those people who take the time to support you! Your inaction or failure to keep things "fresh" could hurt your image more than if you'd never done it in the first place.
Comments (0) 10.26.2011. 18:02
Donald Trump and examples of bad leadership
The words "You're fired!" are now officially engraved in the brains of most Americans. If you haven't watched The Apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice at least once, you're probably living under a rock next door to the Geico guys. And while "you're fired" can seem like an easy, simple and often right "answer", sometimes the reasons "The Donald" gives are really guaranteed to produce long-term BAD outcomes.
Taking responsibility
One of the worst offenses I can think of in managing a business or organization is to tolerate or reward employees who never take responsibility for their actions. If something goes wrong, it's always the fault of someone else, the equipment or the circumstances. Blame shifting is rampant in corporate America (and government), so the strategy must work on some level. YET, when someone offers to stand up and take responsibility for the failure (or non-success) of a project, we hear "You're fired!"
Case in point -- Celebrity Apprentice Mark McGrath. When his pirate-themed campaign for Australian Gold suntan lotion didn't play with the execs, he didn't whine or moan that Gary Busey sabotaged the walk-through or that any of his teammates messed up (and they did). Instead, he said simply, if the main reason they didn't like this was because of the pirate concept, then he took responsibility.
Well hallelujah!! More people should do this and they should be rewarded for it. If we can't tolerate failure once and awhile, we'll never see success over the long haul. Instead, we'll get the always safe responses or even more insidious, we'll get untruthful ones. The example Trump set was that wingnuts like Busey can get promoted (kept on) while someone willing to "man up" gets the axe. And that seems to me especially out of sync for high risk, high reward businesses like Trump's.
Now let's apply that same philosophy to our government. Everyone knows we're going broke. Yet because it's always someone else's fault (Bush, Clinton, Wall Street, Obama, whoever), it's never ANYONE'S responsibility to fix it. Instead, they'll all keep pointing fingers at each other until it's too late and the country is "out of business."
If only "you're fired" were as simple as it sounds. And by the way, I won't be voting for Donald Trump for President.
Comments (0) 04.25.2011. 19:05
Look-alike Logos
I went to a fundraising event the other night and, on arrival at the hotel, immediately noticed that the hotel's logo was very similar to a logo project I'd worked on during the 80's for Ektelon, a racquetball and tennis company. (Just to be clear, I was on the client side at Ektelon -- the agency of record was The Phillips Organisation). Here are the two logos:
Which led me to find other logos that have that 3-part flame look to them. In order they are the Epilepsy Foundation, Seagrave Fire Apparatus and Camp Fire Girls.
Then I found an interesting article on the same subject with some great examples: When logos look alike . It's from the fun and educational website, LogoDesignLove.
Clearly, if you are involved with logo design, it becomes more difficult to come up with original ideas given the heavy proliferation of graphic communications, clipart and software that makes designing a lot easier than it was years ago. It pays to search the web just to be sure you aren't copying something too closely. :-) Google Image Search can be used to find similar images but it doesn't always work on graphic files. There may be other resources out there so let us know if you find something interesting or useful!
Disclaimer: Logos above are copyright their respective holders and our use of them is purely educational.
Comments (0) 10.19.2009. 15:01