Pierpont Communications, Inc.

Over the past few years, Facebook has been constantly changing and evolving – and this year looks to be no exception. Two articles out this week highlight recent major Facebook developments, with significant potential to impact the social media community.
 
The first article, "Facebook Secures Patent for News Feed," discusses the major news, released today, that Facebook now owns the patent for its news feed. This has big significance for other social sites, as Facebook can now use the patent to force MySpace, Google and/or Twitter to change or take down their own news feed functions.
 
The second article is a study, published in the Harvard Business Review, on the relationship between Dessert Gallery’s Facebook fan page and its customers’ behavior. The results were big – as customers who become Facebook fans spent more money at Dessert Gallery and had a stronger loyalty to the brand. Additional studies will be conducted to determine just how much a fan page contributes to positive behavior – but this study proves a definite step in the right direction.

If I may wax poetic, I’m noticing a trend coming to an end.

In the past five years or so, have you seen designers resorting to pasting up images, textures, patterns and type, one on top the other, creating a crusty montage? Have you noticed the addition of spray paint runs? The use of antiqued, weathered, scratched or otherwise damaged type treatments? Standard industrial inks and brown-ish earth colors? Aged paper, wood or rusted metal backgrounds? All this combined with the use of 70’s-ugly type fonts for headlines? This is (or was) the hallmark of Grunge Design.



My theory is that this movement grew as a counter to the linear visuals conducive to website design. What resulted was a discordant mix of vintage print elements processed in a Photoshop blender by composition-challenged ADHD art students who became pros, and seasoned with a giant dollop of rock ‘n’ roll (not necessarily a bad thing).

But times are changing. Grunge design seems to be going the way of the post-modern Van Dyke goatee (replaced BTW, by the bad-boy stubble beard). I’m noticing a stylistic rebuttal to the scrapbook collage of roughened images, type and texture in the refreshing resurgence of simple, clean, sharp visual messaging as dictated by design scholars for generations — smart, impactful headlines; compelling, hi-def imagery; spare, intelligent copy; and brilliant, efficient use of color and composition. And the charge is being led by some very big brands.
 


For more examples, see "The 30 Coolest Minimalist Print Ads." 

Can this be the new golden age of advertising, heralded by the AMC show Mad Men? Time will tell, but from the standpoint of this consumer, it’s a visual breath of oxygen-rich air.

Or, as I call it: The Rebirth of Cool.

In the hours, days and weeks following the disastrous earthquake in Haiti on January 12th, through all of the news reports and horrific images, one message came through loud and clear to most Americans: Text HAITI to 90999 to send a $10 donation to the Red Cross. (As a side note: this program is still active, so go make a donation if you haven’t already!)

Within days, the media reported that more than $5 million dollars was raised through this texting campaign, with donations still coming in. It was an incredible show of generosity from the American people. I know; I donated. The ease of donating by text and the low dollar amount makes it pretty hard to do nothing in the face of a tremendous natural disaster.

The Red Cross and other aid organizations certainly deserve kudos for being so quick to jump to using mobile marketing to raise funds. The concept of mobile marketing is generating a lot of buzz, particularly through iPhone aps, but it’s rare to see an effort spread nationwide, across multiple platforms and carriers, even to those users who – dare I say it – don’t have an iPhone or even a smart phone.

Here are a few takeaways that we’re discussing:


For the latest on the Red Cross’ recovery work visit http://newsroom.redcross.org/

The importance of having a crisis communications plan was thrown into stark relief last Thursday when a disgruntled man flew a plane into an office building in Austin.

The office building hit was close to our Pierpont Austin office and immediately, our staff was bombarded with calls from worried family members and friends asking if we were okay.

My father called me after seeing the news break on TV.  I told him we were all okay. He said he would relay the fact that I was fine to the rest of my family.

This is where things went south. 

The lack of information in the message he sent out to my family made it sound like I was hurt or involved some way. Needless to say, my mother and grandmother were quite worried before the miscommunication was cleared up.

This whole situation reminded me of how important it is for a company to have a crisis response plan in place BEFORE the crisis happens and how critical it is to communicate clearly with your employees, their families and the media.

If you are speaking on behalf of one person or an entire company in a crisis situation, your first message should always contain a general description of what happened, a time and place and the steps being taken to handle the situation. You should also use a spokesperson you trust (sorry dad!) and provide updates periodically. Never guess, lie or speculate and always know what you want to say before you step in front of a crowd or camera to speak.

My father’s miscommunication was resolved in a matter of minutes and a couple of phone calls. However, if you don’t communicate clearly when there are hundreds of employees or thousands of consumers involved, the results could be disastrous and you could end up with bunch of needlessly worried mothers and grandmothers.

This week, we’re attempting to shed some light on two pressing issues within the realm of social media: how do we manage it, and how do we measure it?
 
The first article, “4 Steps for Managing Social Media Attention”, goes through critical ways to manage and effectively use the enormous amount of online content we consume each day – on average about 34 GB. It details tips on not only how to stay sane, but also how to stay focused and make sure our attention doesn’t get so divided that we end up ineffective. Here’s the link.
 
The second post, “Does Social Sell?”, is a recent article from AdWeek that outlines three brands that are plunging into social media efforts – despite the fact that there is no standard ROI measurement. These companies, Pepsi, Dell and H&R Block, are using innovative methods to measure their participation, and justify their social media budgets. Here’s the article.
 
Happy reading, and have a great weekend!