Mack the Flack

Sometimes PR folks try so hard to attract attention that it begs the question; what the heck were they thinking?

Mack offers two such recent campaigns that scream fail!

A Vancouver spa was beat up big time on social media after offering a free message to anyone who could prove they participated in the chaos and looting of the city’s Stanley Cup riot. The blow back from the public was swift and damaging, proving there is such a thing as bad publicity.

An Iowa-based convenience store chain launched a “morale-boosting” contest called “Guess the Next Cashier Who Will Be Fired”. Employees were told “secret shoppers” would be looking for employees out of uniform or providing lousy customer service and then recommending such employees be fired.

The prize for correctly guessing the next fired cashier was $10. The result – four employees immediately quit and the contest was cancelled.

Learn how to launch successful PR campaigns in the SFU PR Certificate Program.

Mack’s colleague, who just signed up for Twitter and has two followers, faces a common Twitter dilemma – now what to tweet about? Mack’s advice? Just babble.

That, according to Twitter Facts and Figures Report, is what most of the more than 200 million people using Twitter do. Less than 40% of users send conversational tweets and only 9% of all worldwide tweets are passed along.

Five years after the introduction of Twitter we know that of all Twitter users:

• Almost half are between 18 and 34
• More than half don’t have kids
• They occupy all income levels
• About 4% tweet about news
• About 6% use tweets for self-promotion

So, what’s all this pointless, one-sided, 140-character, babble worth? Twitter has a current estimated market value of between $8 -10 billion.

Learn all about Twitter and other social media techniques in the SFU PR Certificate Program.

Mack’s three decades in the PR/Journalism game netted few job skills as useful as a professional way of telling folks their work sucks.

Supportive and kind rejection is a good thing. It avoids everything from hurt feelings, anger and tears to fist fights, lawsuits and armed hostage stand offs involving law enforcement.

Here are five suggested less-than-confrontational approaches to rejecting bad work and ensuring the persons(s) on the receiving end don’t react with horror:

· I guess I didn’t communicate some important points to you (your team)

· I think it might be time for an outside perspective

· I was looking for something more along the lines of X

· We’re not quite there yet

· Some parts of this work, let’s expand on that success

Keeping clients and employees happy is about managing expectations and delivering good work. Learn how to deliver PR that exceeds expectations in the SFU PR Certificate Program.