One of the biggest challenges for a public relations professional can be helping a business find a name for a new product, a new service or even a new company. Add to this the complication of trying to come up with a name that works across all media, including social media and, well, you can see how the dream of the new can quickly become a nightmare.
I was working at a startup six years ago and it wasn’t the financing, the staffing, the office space, the suppliers, the distribution or any one of countless other problems that took the most time. No, it was the name of the new product.
Even though I was working with some incredibly creative types (including the great Rob Westcott - @robtnowes) it took days and days to get to the name.
So, in a nutshell, here is the four-step recipe I’ve since practiced each time I need to cook up a new name:
Step 1: Creative thinking
Start by writing a list of words that relate to your new product, new service or new business.
Now mix up those words in interesting ways – using Scrabble tiles, index cards or a whiteboard/chalkboard can help.
Are there words you can combine in playful and intriguing ways?
Are there words that can have multiple meanings?
Are there words you MUST use?
Always keep track of all the names you come up with. Some that don’t click right now might click tomorrow with just a small tweak.
Now write out a dozen or so potential company names and move on to …
Step 2: A pinch of luck
Take some time to look over this list:
Are any of the names distinctive?
Do some of the names resonate more than others?
Can some be taken in a bad way?
Which are easy to spell … consistently?
Which are pronounceable?
Are any incomprehensible?
Run your favorite(s) by a few people:
Do the names sound pleasant to their ears?
Do they instantly get the meaning?
Do they have a favorite?
Do they reject any of them outright?
If you eliminate any names here, go back to Step 1 and come up with more. The key is to have many that you can test when you move on to …
Step 3: The secret ingredient … fun!
OK, so you have several names. Are they fun?
The real secret to a great name is one that is memorable. The shortest route to “memorable” is being fun.
Are their words or word parts you can switch to add a smile? Are there letters you can replace with other letters (“y” for “i” for example) or numbers you can use to replace word parts (“2” instead of “to” or “4” instead of “for”).
Step 4: Finding a URL
A business name that does not work on the Web is a name that has no use.
By using one of the free web tools to check (two I like are Who Is and Go Daddy) you can find out which of your favorites is available.
If a name you like is available as a URL, great! If not, will some small adjustment make it work? If not, do you need to go back to Step 1?
Like all good recipes, this one can always be adjusted to suit your needs. Happy (and creative) cooking as you come up with the name for your next social media business.
“In the Twitter age” is a term I heard this past week from a slightly frustrated public relations professional talking about how he’s been forced to modify his crisis management plan. And change he must. The best-laid crisis management plan will quickly unravel when information – true, untrue or even malicious – starts spreading on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
So how do PR professionals get from “being there” in social media to modifying their crisis management plan in the “Twitter age”?
Engagement: More than ever it’s important that solid social relationships are being built before a crisis breaks. Doing the basics on social platforms is a start; being fully engaged with social audiences will help save your reputation at a time of crisis.
Resources: If you don’t have someone on social media fulltime then you need to have them on it most of the time. Look at how your organization currently spends time. How much effort is still going into maintaining relationships with a few traditional media types? The ratio of time devoted to traditional media vs. social media needs to be flipped … even if slowly at first.
Listening: From basic free tools such as Google Alerts to paid services such as Alterian’s SM2 or Radian6 you can’t afford to NOT be monitoring conversations in social media around your products, your organization and your key people. You don’t know what you’re missing – literally. And that should be a very frightening prospect.
Black pages: If your news web pages don’t have “black pages” (pages designed to go live in response to various issues) you need to prepare them now. Every organization can predict certain types of issues that are likely to arise. Having a landing page that answers some likely first questions and that can go up on your website at a moment’s notice is smart planning.
First responders: You’ve already assigned responsibilities during a crisis, but whose job is it to manage social media messages and to respond to any inaccurate messaging? What is on that person’s checklist? Not responding is no longer an option … if it ever was. In the social world silence can equal acknowledgement that things are bad. Your social media first responder needs to understand this and the critical role they are playing in social messaging.
Prioritizing: Which social media platforms need the most attention? Without a doubt Twitter is an instant news service and deserves the most attention. Don’t be fooled by the numbers of Twitter users in your organization, your industry or your community. Twitter users are some of the most-educated, most-active and, possibly worst for you in a crisis, most-likely to spread what they see on Twitter via word-of-mouth. In other words their broad influence should be of great concern. Facebook is also a default communication platform by people who are concerned. Be sure to message there too and note that once the heat of the moment dies down the conversation around the crisis will likely linger longer on Facebook.
Follow-up: Once the crisis has passed don’t ignore social media. Find a way to post a reassuring video message from the CEO on YouTube or have someone in authority blog about the event and its successful outcome … load it up with photographs. Be sure to reach out to those who were most active during the crisis to alert them to this follow-up.
Can PR professionals control messaging on social media platforms during a crisis? No. But they can be there, be engaged and can quickly tamp down the small sparks of inaccuracy before they become damaging firestorms of bad information. Social media is changing the PR professionals’ job description, what else about crisis management did I leave out?
Social Media is so rapidly evolving and the growth has been so fast in the past 12 months that demonstrating just how big social media has gotten can be hard.
But not anymore – thanks to Gary Hayes at Personalize Media who has put together this very cool Flash App that tracks, in real time, activity on the social web:
I’m hoping you’ll also note that there are “mobile” and “Games” tabs too. This is highly appropriate given how quickly social computing is also coming to dominate both of these areas too.
How useful is this data? In the time it took me to type the preceding words (about 2 minutes $4,000+ was spent on Facebook advertising, 10 times that was spent globally on “virtual goods” and 100 times that was spent on mobile messaging and data.
In the same timeframe 250,000 videos were watched on YouTube, 21,000+ tweets went out on Twitter and more than 2,000 blog posts went live.
For us mere mortals to get our heads around the explosive growth in Social Media, I for one am very glad people such as Gary Hayes are here to help.
I’m looking forward to our upcoming meeting and excited to hear about your business and its goals. I’m glad to hear that you are anxious to get into Social Media and that you are willing to try a new approaches. However, before we meet I would like to be sure we’re all on the same page and not going into this meeting with unlikely, implausible or even impossible expectations. I’d like to talk to you about …
5 Things Social Media Can’t Be
1. A magic bullet. While there are many wonderful tools in Social Media that will help you understand and reach out to customers, employees and/or the community none of them individually or collectively will solve ALL of your business problems.
2. A one- or two-string violin. No matter how many Social Media platforms we agree will help you they will still only be a part of your plans moving forward. We will be looking at integrating tactics in Social Media with some of your existing and traditional customer- and employee-relation, sales and marketing methods. Be assured though, this “multi-string” approach WILL make beautiful music.
3. Left to an intern. To get the best results from Social Media someone in your organization (and depending on its size it may be two or more someones) will need to dedicate time to managing Social Media. While a young intern may understand the tools they likely will need a lot of GUIDANCE on their correct use and the strategy you will be using in Social Media.
4. Cheap. It is true that Social Media tools are usually very cheap or free. However to use them effectively will require a commitment of your organization’s TIME (and other resources) … and well know: Time = Money.
5. Rushed. Setting up shop in Social Media is just the beginning. It should take quite some time for you to work through the steps of Listening, Engaging and then, and only then, Contributing. A small dose of PATIENCE early on can pay big dividends.
Thank you for your interest and I very much look forward to our future successful collaboration.
Getting the CEO to “drink the Kool Aid” and invest in a SoMedia strategy
Using Social Media to sell the idea of Social Media is not a new idea. But here are five ways you can use it to sell the boss on the idea of investing some time and money in a SoMedia strategy:
1. Show him or her how much you can learn about competitors: A few quick searches across LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook on a competitor’s company name, its key executives and its biggest brands will turn up a wealth of information.
Do some of these searches ahead of time and have them saved. Be sure to go first to one or two that reveal something new about the competitor. Explain that your company’s SoMedia efforts would be better because they would happen within company guidelines.
2. Show who in your industry is already there. If there are a lot of other companies in your industry already in SoMedia – “Why aren’t we there too?” If there are few or no other companies already there – “What are we waiting for? We can get way out in front.”
Be ready with questions such as “What’s in it for us?” (More customers and more-engaged customers) and “Will this cost us a lot of money?” (No, but we should re-allocate some of our existing marketing money.”)
3. Point out any existing Social Media expertise in the organization. Someone in accounting is a LinkedIn expert, someone in sales is a Twitter addict and someone in the front office is already blogging. Great. The in-house talent base is already established.
This means the organization is not starting from scratch – always an appealing thought to an unsure executive.
4. Use “What if” questions to pose some possibilities. “What if we start a Facebook fan page?” Or: “What if we start a blog to talk about some of the interesting things we’re doing here?” Perhaps: “What if we try a Twitter account as a way to talk directly to our customers?”
Having plenty of these questions ready will show the boss that you’ve given this some thought and you’re only suggesting baby steps. Yes, eventually you would hope to persuade them that a much bigger effort is needed … up to and including a Social Media plan and a budget to fund it. But starting small can help a nervous boss dip his or her toe in the Social Media water confident that they won’t quickly get dragged under by some underwater leviathan.
5. Try fear-mongering. Ask some of the 15 Questions to Ask a CEO Skeptical About Social Media from Axel Schultze’s excellent post on the CustomerThink Blog. Questions such as “Do you know … how vulnerable you are?” and “Are you ready if your competitors go after your customers in the social web?” ought to get him or her to sit up straight and think about Social Media.
This last suggestion is said only half in jest. For some bosses the only real motivator will be “What will happen if I don’t do this?”
As Social Media takes more and more of your customers’ time the answer to that question might just be … no customers?
Posts
