The MoPR Blog

The PR profession is buzzing this morning. My colleagues and peers are worked up by something they saw on CBS Sunday Morning and read on the program’s website. I’m worked up too.

Here’s an excerpt from what CBS legal analyst Andrew Cohen had to say:

“Show me a PR person who is ‘accurate’ and ‘truthful,’ and I’ll show you a PR person who is unemployed.”

The irony of an attorney making a blanket statement about another profession is in and of itself comical. That this attorney works for a news organization infamous for its own casual handling of “facts” and “truth” transforms the statement from merely ironic to absurd.

To illustrate how ludicrous it is for an attorney to cast blanket aspersions on all practitioners of another profession, I tried an experiment which you can do yourself at home. Google “all lawyers are” (be sure to use the quotes). Here are a few choice examples from among the some 57,000 results returned – and I only scanned through the first 30 results:

• …all lawyers are basically immoral
• …all lawyers are crooks
• …all lawyers are a- -holes
• …all lawyers are d- - - - -bags
• …all lawyers are evil
• …all lawyers are dishonest

I for one don’t agree with any of the characterizations above. For example, the corporate attorney for Mobility PR, Matt Lowe of O’Donnell and Clark, is one of the most honest, moral and ethical people I know. The last corporate counsel I worked with, Bruce Posey at iPass, raises ethical business practice to a new bar.

But here’s a news flash for CBS and Cohen, the vast majority of public relations “flacks” (as Mr. Cohen calls us) are likewise honest, moral and ethical. In our agency and at agencies large and small throughout the U.S., we counsel clients to tell the truth, urge transparency in online communications and to address problems head-on, “warts and all.” Show of hands across the PR profession of those of us who had such a conversation on these subjects with their clients in the last week? I was in two myself.

Imagine the fall-out from a situation where a company knowingly lied about a product or service and then was caught doing so. First, sue-happy ambulance chasers would no doubt take legal action. The company’s public perception would be substantially damaged, perhaps irrevocably. The hard-earned relationships forged with those in the media would be severed and the PR flack who suggested that strategy would probably be fired. Mr. Cohen, the PR persons who are “inaccurate” and “untruthful” are the ones who are unemployed.

Mr. Cohen, I don’t know you, but when I review the above list of adjectives I found for attorneys, I’m reasonably sure you aren’t immoral, a crook, evil nor dishonest. But I’m going to leave it at that.

You know a technology has gone mainstream when popular hip hop songs are being shared across the Internet about it. So there is no arguing that Facebook has totally arrived.

We’ve been blogging quite a bit about Facebook and so we thought it would be appropriate to share this track from up and comer NSANE titled, you guessed it, “FACEBOOK.” The 17-year old artist is making it big on OurStage, a site for emerging musicians. OurStage has some pretty neat programs running for both emerging artists and the fans that support them which you can check out here: www.ourstage.com/about/news

WARNING: If you listen to this song all the way through more then once, you may have trouble getting it out of your head. You may find yourself humming, “I was on Facebook” at random times throughout the day. If this will get you in trouble at work, perhaps you should wait to listen to this song until you are home tonight. Seriously.

Check this out:

My favorite lines from the track:

“When I came across you, I knew instantly that you had to be my boo, and yeah it’s got to be real, I was on Facebook.” - - It really has to be real. I mean, he was on Facebook.

“This can’t be Facebook love, this gotta be true. I changed my status yesterday to say I’m in love with my boo.” - - He’s right, it can’t be ‘Facebook love”. Let’s face the facts. He changed his status for her. That is true commitment.

“I wanna get my hands off these keys and start feeling you” - - Nice, at least this shows that the youth of today do have the desire to transfer their experiences from a virtual world to the real world. There is hope.

In all seriousness though, this is a fun song and NSANE has done something as an artist that we are constantly counseling our clients to do in their own communications with their audiences - - BE RELEVANT!

NSANE took something (Facebook) that is extremely relevant to his audience and used it to communicate something he was passionate about (his Boo).

From blog posts to press releases one of the keys to good SEO and online pickup is the content’s relevance. In order to gain the interest of your audience, your message must be relevant in relation to something top of mind for that audience (an issue, a trend, or a question). When the major elements of your message have relevance to your audience they are more likely to pay attention to the rest of your message and absorb the details. And if you are consistently delivering relevant messages to them, they become more and more likely to align you (in their hearts and minds) with whatever the topic is that you are communicating about.

So will NSANE become the defacto rapper about Facebook? No. But because he was able to smartly leverage the hot topic of Facebook, he just might make a name for himself as a smooth R&B artist writing songs about the realities of modern day love - - which today, could very well start on Facebook.

In a world dominated by text message voting, is it any surprise that Americans are considering it for the presidential nomination? Samsung posed the following question recently:

Are you willing to vote for the next president by way of SMS text message?

An astonishing 61 percent of Americans 18 and older said yes.

And as the age decreases, the number increases to a whopping 80 percent. But not to worry, these kids can’t vote…yet. Isn’t it interesting to think that in the coming years, when this percentage of text messagers is old enough to vote, they may actually have this option!

The idea of text message voting is alluring to Americans, especially those who don’t want to drive to the polls or spend $0.42 (and rising!) on a stamp. In a country that prides itself on laziness (come on now…we did invent the TV tray), it’s absolutely no surprise that we are opting for a text message vote.

I must admit, I think it’s a pretty fantastic idea. But that’s exactly what it is right now. A fantastic idea, derived from the fantasy that someday we will all be able to text our presidential vote while watching the latest episode of The Office.

ABC News aired a story recently on Americans cramming 31 hours into a 24 hour day. The simple conclusion: Americans want to multi-task and are growing increasingly impatient. We want it all. Now.

Yes, the faults are countless. How would you verify the voter is who they claim to be? How can you tell the age of the voter? How can we ensure the voter is registered and even a US citizen? Isn’t there the chance that a system could crash, that votes could be spoofed, or the system hacked? These are all problems. In fact, I’m sure one could argue there are far more cons than pros for this imaginative idea. However, it’s still fun to think about. And can you envision the voter turnout?

So, I guess the question is: Would you vote for president via a text message?

And no, you can’t text us the answer - yet.