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Visualize your Facebook friendship

Have you ever thought about your friendship with someone and said to yourself “I wonder what our friendship would look like visually?” Neither did I until I stumbled upon a somewhat buried feature on Facebook called “See Friendship.”

screenshot

To access this feature:
1. Go to any friend’s timeline page in Facebook.
2. Select the gear box in the upper right corner of the page, next to the message button.
3. Select “See Friendship.”

Once you select this feature, Facebook creates a page titled “You and _____” (the blank being your friend). On this page you will find: all of the photos that you and your friend are tagged in, wall posts on each other’s pages, events you have both attended, a mutual friends list, and what likes you both share.

Whether or not this is useful feature is up for argument, but if nothing else it can be entertaining. Have fun.

example page screenshot

An example page with my cousin and I.

 

baby chicks

Cute animal blah blah blah

The other day around the office, we were discussing what makes for a successful viral video. Like the true professionals we are, after hours of thoughtful analysis, we hit upon the answer of “cute animals.” As a purely scientific experiment, we decided to make some example videos, just to see what happens. I’m posting mine today, and then Alexis will follow suit shortly. Allison will finish up our experiment with a bang on Friday. Stay tuned, and try not to die of sugar shock.

Oh, and one last thing. Yes, I’m aware this first offering has vertical video syndrome. It was the only way to catch Sophie, my wife’s and my Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, in all of her vertical tap-dancing glory. Also, notice the ensemble, specially designed to keep the ice cream off of her lustrous and dreadlocks-prone black coat.

Happy viewing.

mars surface

NASA’s Curiosity explores outer and social space

At at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, NASA again made history. The organization has made a habit of doing so over the years.

After descending through “7 Minutes of Terror,” The Rover Curiosity, of the Mars Science Laboratory Program, landed on Mars. It came to rest at the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain three miles tall and located inside the Gale Crater.

mars rover meme

Curiosity carries the most advanced suite of instruments for scientific studies ever sent to the red planet. This camera-loaded, rocker-bogie-suspensioned, rock-vaporizing, nuclear-powered, remote-control geology lab on

wheels is also the largest rover to be sent to Mars. At 2,000 pounds, 10 feet long, 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall, it is is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Opportunity. It’s an amazing accomplishment anyway you look at it.

My question for NASA is: For an organization so technologically advanced, that prides it self on world firsts and that has so successfully conquered outer space – why has it taken so long for you to truly embrace social media? For example the aforementioned Mars Science Laboratory Program passed confirmation review back in 2006, but the Facebook account was not started until half way through 2010. Because I know everyone at NASA reads my blog, if you could just get back to me on that I would appreciate it.

Whatever the reason, NASA has recently blasted off into the social space. With this most recent rover landing, it seems the organization was ready, and I for one am very excited to have people all around me talking about our space program. Hopefully this is a trend that will continue for the foreseeable future.

NASA’s Social Stats:
Video: Challenges of Getting to Mars – Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror has 1.6 million views.
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity has 243,000+ fans.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/marscuriosity has 900,000+ followers.
Mission pages have been regularly updating and even live streaming:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/building_curiosity.html

The internet has responded favorably, even spawning some new memes.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/the-internet-responds-to-the-mars-rover-landing
http://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/getting-to-know-bobak-ferdowsi-nasas-mohawk-man
https://twitter.com/SarcasticRover (60,000 followers)

mars scoreboard
FAST FACTS:

Mission name: Mars Science Laboratory
Rover name: Curiosity rover
Size: About the size of a car — 10 feet long (not including the arm), 9 feet wide and 7 feet tall!
Weight: 900 kilograms (2,000 pounds)
Features: Geology lab, rocker-bogie suspension, rock-vaporizing laser and lots of cameras
Mission: To search areas of Mars for past or present conditions favorable to life, and conditions capable of preserving a record of life
Launch: Between Nov. 25–Dec. 18, 2011, from Cape Canaveral, Florida
Arrival: August 2012 on Mars
Length of mission on Mars: The prime mission will last one Mars year or about 23 Earth months.

Mission Slogan: Dare Mighty Things
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

For information about Curiosity’s power source and to obtain high-resolution images, visit:
http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/newsroom/

MeetUp - the social site that encourages you to meet in person.

MeetUp – The greatest social network you’ve never heard of

– by Cam Clark

One of the most prominent complaints I hear against social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter is that they actually make us less social. They suck you into interacting on a superficial, virtual basis rather than face-to-face.

There are arguments for and against this thought process, but for the past ten years one social network has been quietly and successfully nullifying these two assertions right under our noses by creating a network of people who meet virtually and congregate physically.
 

Meetup.com is one of the rare websites that actually encourages people to meet in real life. The website aims to help people create communities unified by a common interest, such as: politics, books, sports, movies, health, pets, jobs or other hobbies. Members just enter their ZIP code or their city and the topic they want to meet about, and the site helps them arrange a place and time to meet.

Meetup’s mission is “To revitalize local community and help people around the world self-organize. Meetup believes that people can change their personal world, or the whole world, by organizing themselves into groups that are powerful enough to make a difference.”

This under-recognized social networking site is the world’s largest network of local groups, with people getting together somewhere on the planet every 13 seconds. Meetup boasts an impressive 9 million visitors per month in 45,000 cities worldwide, and has 280,000 monthly Meetups on every topic imaginable. Sure, compared to Facebook numbers, 9 million is a drop in the bucket and the site could use a visual overhaul, but just because this site has been outshined by others does not mean you should ignore it.
 

 
I personally have made some great connections through this site, and in a very short time frame. I’ve pub-crawled with the “20 and 30 somethings in Portland,” happy-houred with the “Happy Hour Aficionados of Portland,” run with the “NoPo Run Club” and even sung my face off with the “Portland Karaoke Singles.” There is so much fun to be had.

If you don’t think you have time to check it out, do me a favor. Go to meetup.com, enter in a topic that interests you and your zip code, and just see what comes up. If you are unable to find anything interesting, come to one of our PR 3.0 meetings and I will buy you a beer. Or, maybe, just maybe, you will find a group of people that will forever change your life. Either way, what do you have to lose?

spies

Buzzmaker – One Tweet is Never Enough

Nobody does it better than our buzzmaker. Well, mostly nobody. OK, so there are quite a few people who do it better. Octavius Wrathchilde might not be the greatest spy in the world, but fortunately for him, he’s well matched to his adversaries. Oh, and he mixes up a mean Facebook status update. Sit back, buckle the seatbelt on your ejector seat, and prepare for the most hair-raising fake spy film trailer in the history of YouTube. Or at least the last 15 minutes.

timeline timewarp

Let’s Do The Timeline Again

facebook timeline

– by Jake Ten Pas

Alexis Dane loves cats. Cam Clark pumps out the party jams. Family is of utmost importance to Pat McCormick, and his daughter, Allison didn’t fall far from the tree.

These are the things the new Facebook Timeline profile format tells me, and perhaps in the bigger scheme of things, these are the most important things for me to know about each person. I sure hope so, because I’m not going to glean much else from the image-heavy, text-poor space “above the fold.”

If the phrase “above the fold” means nothing to you, then chances are you love the new profile format. You didn’t grow up reading newspapers, and it could be that your interest in words goes no further than the often unpunctuated, under (or OVER) capitalized, fact-check-free asides that pass for communication these days.

Just in case your curiosity runs deeper, “above the fold” refers to the space above the crease in a newspaper. It’s the real estate that peeps through the window in the newspaper box you might still occasionally see on the sidewalk downtown. It’s where the most important, or at least most eye-catching, stories and photos run. In my former life as a copy editor/page designer, I was often committed to getting as many stories as I could above the fold.

chronicle vending stand
Facebook used to be committed to this idea, as well. If not stories, it at least prioritized interactivity and the sharing of information. At the top of my page were (are, depending on whether you read this before or after my transition to the new format) my vital stats: My name, birthday, where I live, where I went to school, marital status, etc. There were a number of photos, often a status update and some recent activity. In other words, there were numerous ways to engage.

Now, when I go to the page of one of my coworkers listed above, I’m slapped in the face with one gigantic photo. This slap is followed by quick jab in the eye with another smaller photo and, eventually, actual info about the person and ways to interact with her or him. Granted, I often work on a small laptop, and I can see twice as much information on Pat’s gigantic monitor, but the message remains the same. Image has superseded the written or typed word as the communicator of choice as far as Facebook is concerned.

Whether or not this is another step toward global illiteracy remains to be seen, but it is, at the very least, sad. Considering that more people now check Facebook on a daily basis than read a newspaper, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable in drawing these kinds of comparisons.

Photos are more universally accessible. I get that. Anybody can grab a camera or digital phone and snap a picture. It takes practice to put words together in an order that makes sense and transmits an idea, information or feelings to others. People can take just about anything away from an image. Maybe that means that images allow the consumer more freedom of interpretation, and words direct us to specific conclusions. I don’t necessarily agree with that, but there’s certainly an argument to be made.

Personally, I like to communicate more with words than images. I love words, and I feel as comfortable working with them as an artist might with paint or Photoshop. As a movie lover, I understand the power of the image, and I understand the skill it takes to produce an image that is truly powerful. A great photo can tell a story as well as any combination of words. Just not in my hands.

This isn’t about that. It’s about Facebook tipping the scales of word-image equality. From my perspective, the social media behemoth is simply holding the mirror up to society. Most people seem less concerned with speaking or writing in either a proper or effective manner than they once were. People would rather speak with images, and Facebook is only too happy to enable that inclination. Also enabled are the rest of us, who’ve convinced ourselves that we don’t have time to read, but only to glance at a photo, and preferably one unburdened by caption.

Facebook image
Facebook devoured MySpace for a number of reasons, but one that’s always struck me was its streamlined, easy-to-read format. By not allowing an overabundance of customization, they created a user experience that was clean and consistent. Whether folks wanted to share with words or images, their profile and, more recently, the news feed, maintained an uncluttered flow.

Now, not only has written communication been devalued, but by allowing increased customization of the profile space, Facebook has allowed user profiles to look almost as messy and impenetrable as MySpace pages once looked. Granted, there are no fit-inducing flashing widgets yet, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In this online version of scrapbooking, some new visual corollary to the triple exclamation mark must re-emerge.

It’s not that I don’t get the Timeline metaphor. It’s that Facebook’s execution of this metaphor is shoddy at best. It looks less like a timeline than a dreamboard in a teenager’s bedroom.

Every time Facebook unleashes a new iteration on its users, there is backlash, and I’ve no doubt that some of you with the attention span to read this far are accusing me of simply contributing to the most recent wave. Could be. I simply ask that you consider that this new format represents a bigger change than most, and what that change says about how Facebook, and those of us who use it, view the shape of communication to come.

Meanwhile, I’ll be contemplating how to fit all these ideas into a single image that can be rapidly consumed by those who don’t have time or inclination to read below the fold.

Twitter sliced

Twitter becoming critical tool for crisis communications

by Camrick Clark

As any firefighter will tell you, the best way to put out a fire is to prevent it. But when something does catch on fire, a quick first response can help keep things from going up in flames.

Using Twitter for crisis communications is fast becoming a critical component in any company’s strategy. Twitter is as much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown crisis as it is about communicating quickly to key stakeholders and the public once a crisis has happened.

twitter image blue

Crisis communication is a public relations activity that, with careful planning, rarely needs to be implemented. Still, it’s very important to have a plan in place when an emergency rears its ugly head. When a product fails, an accident occurs, financial crisis arises or natural disasters happen, whatever the case may be, crisis communication plans keep the peace and give direction to chaos.

Social media has changed the landscape for the development of crises and offers a critical communications channel to address and abate a crisis. Social media can blow up a situation in a matter of minutes. When a story breaks, people are actively looking for answers, and more people than ever are turning to Twitter for those answers.

As in all business communications, Twitter needs to be part of a broader strategy, and one of a variety of channels you use to listen and share with your employees, customers, clients, and industry. This is true both when it comes to prevention and when it is time to react.

How to use twitter for crisis communications:

  1. Educate – Bring yourself and your staff up to speed on how Twitter works and the social norms of the platform.
  2. Plan – What will you do when something bad happens? Identify and plan for crises you can foresee, and those you’d never expect. Think about thinks that could happen to you – disasters, etc., and crises that are self-inflicted – product recalls, hazardous materials spills, etc. Who will be the one to speak on behalf of your company? Answer these questions and more by creating a crisis communications plan.
  3. Listen – Good communicators are always good listeners first. In other words, you won’t know what’s happening unless you’re actually listening. If you’re not on Twitter, then you won’t know who’s talking about your brand in that space, much less take part in that conversation. You shouldn’t join Twitter just to react to an issue. Creating a presence pre-crisis helps develop a network you know shares an interest in you and what you do.
  4. Be Active – Become part of the online community. Don’t wait for the building to be burning down around you to engage your public. Prevention is always better than reaction. There are also many great free tools for tracking what happens on Twitter. Use those to preemptively ease into the conversation before a crisis even hits.

Twitter, faster than earthquakes?

facebook colors

Facebook Profile changes to Timeline

by Cam Clark

This Wednesday, Facebook will release the new “Timeline” to the masses to what will, more than likely, be mixed reactions.

I am a bit of an oddball in that I enjoy change. Not many people do. The ratio is 5 to1 against change, according to a poll by Poll Position. Whether it’s Apple releasing a new gadget or Facebook pumping out yet another change to its format, I usually embrace it. It’s almost like a game to me. On your mark, get set, figure this new thing out.

zuckerburg image
I had a chance today to try out “Timeline”, witch will be replacing your current profile and have some mixed feelings myself.

1. It feels very busy. The new layout with the altered sidebar released last week, chat and advertising in the middle essentially equates to four columns of data. Much like America’s waist line, it’s busting at the seams. Seems like a lot of info to look at all at once.

2. It feels exposed. I’m not usually one to shy away from parts of my life being public. Especially since I have posted all this info myself. But I have posts going back to 2004, and something feels different about having it all condensed in one place. It feels a little drafty seeing it all all hanging out in the breeze like that.

3. I like strolling memory lane. It is fun to look back at the things that were happening a few years back. To be able to easily peruse pictures and posts that were significant is a good thing. It’s like scrapbooking without the work.

Overall, I am happy Facebook is trying new things. Unlike others. Especially in this industry, you either innovate or fail.

Timeline releases this Wednesday to the public. I hope you have fun exploring all the new options.

https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

cam clark facebook

spokesthing

Building the Perfect Spokesthing

Mr Show pIt-pat Spokesthing

The “magical, pan-sexual spokesthing” Pit-Pat is introduced by David Cross’ character on “Mr. Show With Bob And David.” While the sketch lampooned business and marketing alike, it’s proven to be a great influence in the creation of several social media characters by yours truly.

By Jake Ten Pas

I don’t know who first coined the term spokesthing, but I initially heard it on a “Mr. Show With Bob And David” sketch about a decade ago. Being the irreverent sorts they are, Odenkirk and Cross used it to poke fun at marketing/advertising types, and they hit the nail on the head. I won’t link to the sketch in question here because it is full to bursting with foul language, but if you desire to seek it out, I certainly won’t try to stop you.Regardless, I just like the word spokesthing. It’s funny and gender-neutral and hints at the meta nature that marketing achieves at its most clever.

When I made the jump from journalism to public relations, one of my first tasks was managing the social media presence for Tillamook Cheese. One day, I thought it would be funny to tweet at people as if I WAS the Baby Loaf of Tillamook Cheese, and when a follower responded, “Is @Tillamook Cheese tweeting in first person? Brilliant!,” the character of Loafy was born.

 

Loafy

Yes, that’s me dressed as Loafy. No, Tillamook didn’t let me keep the costume.

Notice I didn’t say that the character was born when I thought of him. The character was born when one of Tillamook’s fans responded to him. That’s the way social media works. People don’t want to be marketed to anymore. They want you to have a conversation WITH them. When I realized this was a concept with resonance, I set about fleshing out the character of Loafy, and an entire mythology of my new spokesthing was born.

Recently, when AM:PM PR was hired by The Original WOW! Burger, a new gourmet burger joint soon to be debuting in the Portland market, I again started thinking about what makes for a great spokesthing. Creating a good character that will resonate with your fans is important, but as Pat likes to say, we were born with two ears and one mouth for a reason. You can be the cleverest boy in all the land, but if you don’t listen to what your customers are saying and respond to them genuinely, it’s all for naught.

Dean Winters Allstate

The one and only Dean Winters plays Mayhem, Allstate’s imaginary reason to buy more insurance. Not sure if the Facebook account is written by the same folks that write the ad copy, but both are pretty choice.

One of my favorite spokesthings is Allstate’s Mayhem persona, who is played on TV by the killer character actor Dean Winters of “Oz,” “30 Rock,” “Rescue Me” and “Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles” fame. The commercials are short and humorous, and the Facebook posts carry that over well. Not sure why Allstate hasn’t brought this character to Twitter, where it would fit in well. My only complaint is the imbalance between the number of posts “likers” of Mayhem are leaving on the page and the number of responses Mayhem is offering. Clearly, the account is doing a great job of generating interest, but as a listening tool, it’s somewhat less effective.

Back when I was still managing the Tillamook account, I quite enjoyed posts by the Quiznos Toaster, more conceptually than consistently in practice. For some reason, I’m drawn to the notion of inanimate objects talking to me, which could explain part of my love for Tom Robbins’ “Skinny Legs and All.” Unfortunately, the Toaster got increasingly lewd as time went on, and it appears that Quiznos has now pulled the plug on him. I like to imagine a Hal 9000-esque scene playing out at the end there. The Kool-Aid Man had a funny Twitter account for a while, too, although whether it was ever connected to the brand remains a mystery to me. It no longer exists, which makes me doubtful.

Elsewhere, a slew of companies continue to try to convert their advertising spokesthings into social media spokesthings. From Bob’s Big Boy to Cheetos’ Chester Cheetah to M&M’s to the unholy insurance onslaught of Progressive, Aflac, Geico, etc., they achieve their objectives to varying degrees. The true measure of a spokesthing’s success in my eyes isn’t to transition the same old marketing messages over to social media. It’s to capture the imaginations of fans and inspire in them the desire to essentially create short bursts of fan fiction about you.

Even more, the goal of any spokesthing should be to disarm fans and followers and make them feel comfortable engaging in a conversation with you. If you can do that, and turn off your clever little marketer brain long enough to listen to what they have to say, then you’ve accomplished two invaluable goals at once – learning and creating. You’ve learned what your customers want and created a whole new legion of brand ambassadors in the process.

yogapose

We’re Better at PR than… “Yoga”

In the latest installment of AM:PM PR’s “We’re Better at PR” series of videos, the gang tackles yoga, with typically inept results. AM:PM PR is a public relations firm based in Portland that believes humor is one very important tool of good communication. If this video makes you chuckle, drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter.