Category Archives: damage control

February 23, 2012

Should You Remove Your Google Search History Before Google’s New Privacy Policy Takes Effect?

By Giselle Bisson
Google 的貼牌冰箱（Google refrigerator）

Google knows when you've been sleeping, knows when you're awake and even knows what you've been eating. Isn't that a little TMI?（Photo credit: Aray Chen)

You’ve probably noticed this message on Gmail, Google, You Tube and all of the other Google-owned services you use lately. And like most of us, you probably clicked and ignored it.

We’re changing our privacy policy. This stuff matters.

If you do click “learn more,” you get this message:
“Our new (privacy) policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.”
What that really means is that beginning on March 1, 2012, all of your data is being interconnected across all Google products which include the Chrome browser, Google Voice, Google Docs, Gmail, You Tube and their social networking service, Google+. This information can be culled into a profile that knows almost everything about you — what you watch, read, eat, buy, your health concerns, your sexual orientation, your politics, your finances, your friends, who you talk to and how long you spoke to them, even your location at the time you sent that message.
According to Google, they know your wi-fi access points too.
Google uses this information mainly to provide you tailored content — and in highly-targeted data for their advertisers. Some of this data is sold to corporations.
Last week, while attending the SFMusic Tech conference, I got a demonstration of an API (Application Programming Interface) technology that tracks your computer’s location and IP address and lots of other personal data. The man who demonstrated this to me showed me the code generated, and how this information, which includes the IP address of your posts in social media, is sold to their customers, which include services like Intelius.com and other corporations.
It’s difficult to predict now how that information might come to haunt you at some point in the distant future that you can’t even imagine today.
In December, I was at a cocktail party at the very lavish and beautiful Silicon Valley home of a successful man who does investigative research for major law firms. Essentially, data mining. And what he told me was pretty fascinating.
“Nothing you do or say on the Internet or in email is private.” In fact he said, “If you don’t want something uses as evidence in a court of law, never, never put it in email.”
As a PR professional, I always tell my clients there is no such thing as “off the record” when talking to the press. But now, in the era of Internet and social media, we must remember there is not such thing as “off the record” on the Internet either.
So if you want your personal information “off the record” you need to take responsiblity for it. Because services like Google want to encourage you to share and interlink as much personal data as possible.
Yesterday, the Electronic Frontieers Foundation, which acts like the ACLU of the Internet to protect individual privacy rights, issued this bulletin:

“On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google’s other products.

If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.”

For example, when you play certain video clips on You Tube, Google places a long term cookie on your computer. What this cookie could be used for in the future is anyone’s guess, but you might be better off not getting it in the first place.

According to the civil rights organization, ACLU this week:

“…Keep in mind the fact that any data Google collects and stores is available not only to other corporations who buy it from the data giant, but also to the government. The laws governing our digital privacy are woefully inadequate and in some cases incredibly invasive, allowing for police access to our data even if they have no evidence that we’ve done anything wrong.“

I always recommend using a private P.O. box and a voicemail number when entering personal data into online forms and shopping sites protect yourself from potential identity theft. You may particularly want to protect your identity if you are a public figure, musician, performer, CEO or celebrity.

It all depends on how much you value your personal privacy and if you can foresee any time in the future when your search history, email or other Internet data could be supoenaed and used as evidence.

Whether you are large business or a solopreneur, that could have huge implications sometime in the future that you just can’t predict today.

Here’s the Google privacy policy. Take time to read it. Don’t just dismiss it. As Google says: This stuff matters.
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1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Google Wave, privacy, search engine optimization, seo, social media, you tube

January 14, 2012

What makes you influential on social media? (It’s not what you think.)

By Giselle Bisson

What makes you influential on social media?

Just as in mainstream journalism, great content is key. Great headlines grab the reader. Posting frequently and regularly and being the first to break the news is key.

And just as magazines have long known, pass along readership is key to great circulation.

But the main thing that sets social media influencers apart (and sets social media apart from traditional “journalism”) is that they are followed by people who they themselves have strong networks.

An influencer might reach only 1000 people — but those 1000 people also reach 1000 highly connected and active people and so on and so on…which means within seconds, they can reach millions. Which is how revolutions like the Occupy movement and #Egypt managed to spread like viral wildfire.  And why your boring: “I just announced a new product” or “Please like my business” plea is often ignored.

As Haydn Shaughnessy wrote yesterday in Forbes:

“What behaviors make the key difference for people who want to elevate their status online?”  He breaks it down to:

  • Being active in a sufficient number of channels
  • Creating and maintaining a high quality network
  • Frequency of participation
But there’s more.

Social Media is interactive. To have real influence you need to be “social” — and that’s where 99.7% of businesses go wrong.

Social media not a press release or an advertisement — it’s an interactive conversation.  If your content is so engaging and interesting that followers feel compelled to repeat it–you will be retweeted and shared, and quickly reach tens of thousands or even millions of people.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Facebook, personal branding, renegade marketing, shameless self promotion, social media, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral

October 4, 2011

8 penny wise, pound foolish social media blunders that businesses make.

By Giselle Bisson

Q: “What’s the worst thing you can do with social media?”

A: “Ignore it.”

And that’s what most corporations (and small businesses) did in 2009 and 2010. They ignored social media, or they barely paid lip service to it. Business tried to co-opt social media and failed miserably. Businesses tried to ignore social media and it didn’t go away. It turned around and bit them in the…well you know.

They made many of the same “penny wise, pound foolish” mistakes with Social Media that businesses make with PR.

If you ignore the media, they won’t go away. Well, if you ignore the people (the social media) they won’t go away either. Better to act than react.

1. Outsource your social media monitoring and blogging to India. (Watch the TV show “Outsourced” for some hilarious examples of why the culture of India might not relate to your purely American brand they’ve never used before.)

2. Equating something new with “young” and take a misguided trendy approach to social media hiring. (“He has a shaggy haircut like Chad Hurley and cool eyeglass frames! That must mean he knows something about social media and our target Gen Y audience!”)  While sometimes you can luck out and get a very sharp intern who will do your social media for free (for a while) why would you trust your most visible communications to someone who doesn’t even sit at a desk inside your company?

3. Assuming that the audience for Social Media is Gen Y. (The average age of a Facebook user is Gen X, 38, with half the users firmly in the Baby Boom Generation.)

4. Pay a fortune for boring, self serving fake “user generated” videos that never went “viral” on You Tube. (The Hollywood film “2012″ with it’s fake user news coverage on You Tube was particularly transparent.)

5. Build a visually tricked out Fan page that nobody ever “likes” and then spam Twitter with advertisements, contests and coupons.

6. Tweet or post as an impersonal logo or “the brand”, instead of an engaging personality. (Do I really want to be a Fan of Victoria’s Secret Corp.? No. But I might want to be friends with a Victoria’s Secret Super Model.) Do I want to be a Twitter friend with a fertilizer company? No. But I might want to get Tweets from a funky, clever cartoon cow who talks about composting and gives me organic gardening tips. Do you really want to be friends with GE? But you might want to learn more or ask questions about about a specific GE product you own.

7. Tweet or post positive comments as a fake employee or fake customer.  This can be a good tactic if you hire someone outside the company to do the posting.  A little positive news can help turn a negative tide around. Just don’t post from a computer that can be traced to an email address or ID inside your company!

8. Lump Social Media in with SEO/SEM and online marketing. Search Engine Optimization, (SEO) is about generating hits to your website in Google. SEO has absolutely nothing to do with managing your company’s brand reputation or responding to media inquiries when a problem suddenly goes viral. This is why so much early Social Media seemed as intrusive and spammy as a direct mail campaign. And why so many social campaigns were ignored until they erupted into viral PR disasters.

Leave a comment | posted in blog, damage control, Facebook, public relations, search engine optimization, Twitter

January 8, 2011

Latest excuse for sightings of dead birds and fish? Over reporting in social media!

By Giselle Bisson

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably read about the mysterious sightings of dead birds dropping out of the sky, and millions of dead fish and sea mammals washing ashore, all over the world.

The news started with a report on New Year’s Eve of redwing blackbirds falling out of the sky in Arkansas — and soon steamrolled into reports of sudden animal deaths of shellfish, sea mammals and birds, sometimes by the tons, dying suddenly en masse all over the globe.

Dozens of official theories and explanations have been offered for this “aflockalypse” — from fireworks and unusually cold weather to bible scholars saying it’s the day of reckoning and New Agers blaming it on aliens or 2012.

But today’s latest theory about this sudden flock of animal deaths is that it’s because of social media!

Twitter, Facebook, mobile devices, blogs and instant, citizen media enable stories that would have once been local, or not even reported, are now global news.

As more and more of us report our news instantly on Twitter and it shows up immediately in Google search engines, this kind of mass reporting of simple, ordinary things, all over the world, can suddenly looks like a huge outbreak.

But are these  stories that back in the era of local news reporting, may have only made the local TV news or a the back pages of small town paper?

Or is this the first example of citizen journalists revealing a truth that would have otherwise never been revealed before the social media era?

A fascinating example of community-generated collaborative media is here, in a Google map of the sudden animal death sightings.

It will be fascinating to see if the massive bird deaths are simply a series of linked coincidences, brought to light by social media — or if indeed there truly is something fishy about this “aflockalypse.”

Here’s a story in the citizen-generated Examiner that offers social media as the possible excuse:

http://www.examiner.com/headlines-in-san-francisco/dead-birds-fish-kills-update-more-evidence-that-the-die-offs-are-not-unusual

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , | posted in citizen journalism, damage control, Facebook, social media, social media hysteria, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral, viral video, you tube

November 8, 2010

Executive social media jobs exploding. (It’s not just for ninjas, gurus and interns anymore.)

By Giselle Bisson
Look how fat I am on your airline.

Commedian Kevin Smith posted this Twit Pic with the caption: "Look how fat I am on your airline," after Southwest bumped him off a flight for being too fat.

2010 was the year of the uber-embarrassing social media blunder:

  • Southwest Airlines threw celebrity Kevin Smith off a plane for being too fat to fly in one seat. Smith’s Tweets about the incident were not only widely read and hilarious, but a PR nightmare for the airline.
  • The Gap changed their logo and the blogosphere errupted by ridiculing it with the “Crap” logo and the “Gag” logo.

In the wake of so many embarrassing social media disasters, smart businesses are finally starting to take social media seriously. This week, social media hit a new Tipping Point and the Fortune 500 started creating new jobs and investing in seasoned professionals.

Today I did a search in one of the employment databases and found an astonishing 3,193 new jobs created in the US in the last few days for social media professionals! But more amazing, most of these jobs are senior level, VP, Director or Manager positions. This is a dramatic shift from even a few months ago.

Here are just a few of the major brands that are advertising for new social media posts:

Sony, Corning, American Express, Coca Cola, Ingram Micro, Intl, Nike, Accenture, EHarmony, Red Cross, Forever 21, Vocus, View Sonic, ToysR US, IBM, BBC News, Lowe’s, DSW, Chrysler, L’Oreal, Chase, COX, Este Lauder, Yahoo, Vonage, MGM, Citrix, GNC, Kellogg, Equinox Fitness, Bloomberg, HP, Ann Taylor, Starwood Hotels, Omnicom Group, CitiGroup, Lily Pulitzer…

Many web-based businesses and tech start-ups are also searching for social talent: Amazon.com, Tiny Prints, Elance, Moxie, Diapers.com, Yahoo, Tripadvisor, EHarmony, Shopzilla, Vocus.

But not a single ad looking for a social media “guru” or “ninja.”


5 comments | posted in blog, damage control, Facebook, many to many, press release, public relations, search engine optimization, seo, social media, Twitter, Uncategorized, viral, viral video, website, you tube

November 3, 2010

Seven lame, business-killing excuses for not having a social media presence.

By Giselle Bisson

1. You’re too busy.

I don’t think social media is optional anymore — a professional presence in social media is now a marketing necessity, like a business card or a website. You can’t afford not to have a social media presence. You’ll look like a Luddite, like you’re out of step, like you’re stuck in the Eighties — when people actually got their news from a newspaper, bought things from ads and were influenced by television.

For most businesses and professions, social media is important. (It’s not as useful for big brands and large corporations, unless the communication is coming from a charismatic CEO or spokesperson.) Make an investment in social media, plan your strategy first, do it right, and you’ll be paid back ten-fold.

Updating your profile and sending out Twitter updates can become part of your regular routine — like brushing your teeth, answering email and checking your voice mail.

Using free tools, you can interlink all of your social profiles — so that your Twitter automatically updates Facebook, your blog and LinkedIn. You can update everything simultaneously from your mobile phone in a few minutes a day.

2. You don’t “get” this social media thing.

When you tell stories in public, not only do they have to be true (fact checked, verified, libel-free and legal), accurate, spell-checked and well written, but your story needs to be interesting, engaging and continually evolving. If you’re not naturally good at that, or you don’t have time, you’ll want to hire professional help.

Ultimately, you’ll need to be engaged on a daily basis. Celebrities, consultants, musicians, workshop leaders, public speakers and CEOs who “get” social media make it a priority and are personally involved. You can also outsource social updating to a pro. But make sure they take time to truly know and understands your business, know how to tell an engaging story, have a “voice” and “get” the culture, ethics and rules of the community you’re trying to reach.

3. You can’t afford it.

Everything you need is free. If you hire a consultant, you can get a lot of value from a few hours of his/her time setting your site up and coaching you on the unwritten secrets, tips and tricks of really using Social Media brilliantly.

4. You don’t need it.

Just like you “didn’t need” a website back in 2000. Everyone else jumped on the bandwagon, killed brick and mortar businesses, got all the cool urls and are now worth millions. Are you going to miss out on this land grab too?

500 million people worldwide are utilizing Facebook to create their personal brand. Many events are solely promoted on Facebook. You are really late to the program and totally out of the loop and out of touch if you have a stagnant, unupdated profile or none at all.  These days a lot of people think you don’t exist anymore if you’re not in the social sphere because they aren’t even using email anymore and use Facebook or LinkedIn as their main way of communicating with colleagues, or Twitter as their main way to announce breaking news.

5. You’re doing fine with Google adwords.

Oh yeah? Why are you buying search results that will disappear as soon as you stop paying — when you could be using social sites and a blog to build a search ranking that will last forever. Also, you’re totally missing out on a highly targeted market if you’re not also advertising on Facebook.

6. You already hired an SEO guy.

In my opinion, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is dead in 2010. It was important in the age of static HTML websites in the 90s.

Why? Because search engines can only search text! The most important thing you can do is generate tons of text and mentions of your URL that will drive people back to your website.  More about this tomorrow.

7. It’s not necessary.

If you are not on social media, your business reputation is at risk! Ignore social media at your peril–because people are probably talking about you, your competitors and your brand. They’re building relationships without you. They’re inviting people to cool events that you’re not learning about.  If you’re not on social media by now, it’s as if you don’t exist.

Bad PR used to be quickly forgotten when the newspaper was tossed in the trash. Now it lasts forever in Cyberspace. Bad customer reviews can quickly destroy a new product launch, a new event or a beta program.  Bad word of mouth on social networks will severely damage your personal reputation.

Negative reviews on Yelp can kill a restaurant in a few days. Don’t worry, you can now pay Yelp a monthly fee (aka bribe) to remove bad reviews. Better off to not get them in the first place.

You need to be prepared to brand yourself and position yourself wisely. And you need to pay attention to what your peers, competitors and partners are saying in the social realm.

If your business is large, you’ll also need to track the coverage and monitor feedback so you can respond to customers immediately. It’s all quickly becoming as complex as a traditional, mainstream media PR program.

Whatever you call it — Social Media, Emerging Media, New Media — it’s all just a conversation.

But it’s a conversation you can’t avoid anymore.  Ignore it at your peril or it will happen without you.  It’s time to lead the conversation.

83 comments | posted in blog, damage control, Digg, Facebook, MySpace, PR Newswire, press release, public relations, renegade marketing, search engine optimization, seo, shameless self promotion, social media, Twitter, viral, viral video, website, Wordpress

September 28, 2010

Should Facebook add more “in a relationship” options? Or should we just be discreet?

By Giselle Bisson

Is it tacky to announce your relationship status on a Social Network?

Move over Brad and Angie! Now with Facebook, you too can be as embarrassingly public with your infidelities as a Hollywood celebrity!

Unless it’s really going to benefit your business or career — announcing your new relationship status is probably not a good idea in a public forum. And it’s a really, really bad idea if you care about your career reputation.

Personally, I’d like to see people use more tact, thoughtfulness and discretion before they click any “In a Relationship” button out here in Facebook-land.”

Many of my solidly married friends don’t even announce their relationship status on Facebook.

But seems that people who just hooked up two weeks ago at a party are quick to brag about how in love they are and click that: “In a Relationship” button.

And the brutally honest and much more realistic: “It’s complicated.”

I even know a woman who clicked “In a Relationship” when her “boyfriend” was a personal ad pen pal who lived in another state and they hadn’t even met yet.

Social Currency and trust is what it’s all about in the new era of Social Networks. Our network is our net worth. Consider how your actions will be regarded in terms of your overall trustworthiness and “flake factor” before you post anything in a social forum. Relationships come and go, but reputations linger in Cyberspace forever.

I see grown, middle aged adults on Facebook like dumping their ex-spouse for someone they hooked up with a few weeks ago and then announcing and bragging about their new love affair publicly on Facebook.

It can inspire some incredible cruelty and tastelessness. Or what many call: “Facebook Drama.”

Perhaps I am being a bit old fashioned and “Miss Manners” here by suggesting that we wait six months at minimum, until relationships are solid — just as one might want to wait 3 months before announcing they’re pregnant, or waiting until they have an offer letter in hand before announcing a new job.

Today, someone posted this on Facebook:

“I am seeing someone, but that is not an option. Here there’s ‘its complicated’ — but that it is not. And there is ‘in a relationship’ but we are not there yet. We are trying to go slow, but I want a way to know Iam not available but am very interested in someone. Might that change?”

Do you think Facebook should add a new relationship status?

Facebook is considering some new “In a relationship” options. What do you think? Here are some options that readers of “All Facebook” have suggested:

- need a rebound

- in a rebound relationship

- hate my ex and need a rebound

- off the market

- common law marriage

- seeing someone

- confused

- stalkers not wanted

- separated, not looking

- serial dater

- cruising

- just looking

And…

- “I gave up.”

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in damage control, Facebook, privacy, public relations, shameless self promotion, social media

March 24, 2010

Even the richest men in the world can’t maintain Internet privacy.

By Giselle Bisson

Somtimes you don't want attention. How do you bury unwanted news in the search engines?

A gossipy story about Google CEO Eric Schmidt  has been making the rounds on Twitter today.  It’s old news — about his “break up” with Steve Jobs from a pay phone while he was on the lonely road to Burning Man in 2007.

But what’s fascinating and newsworthy about this story is that even if you’re the CEO of Google, and one of the richest men on earth, you can’t protect your privacy in the search engines!

Schmidt was also unsuccessful in getting his ex-girlfriend to permanently remove her tell all blog from Google’s own Blogger.

Google’s own FAQ states:

We run into a lot of people who think that Google runs the web and controls all the sites on it, but that’s really not the case. The sites in Google’s search results are controlled by those sites’ webmasters.

The moral of this imoral story? Even the CEO of Google can’t remove negative publicity from Google.

So if you don’t want unwanted attention to linger, forever, in the search engines and on the web, what can you do?

There’s a cheap PR trick I’ve used with clients that can help you bury news you don’t want people to find. Flood the web with good news of your own by sending out tons of free press releases (and paid releases on PR Newswire or PR Web) filled with feel-good feature “stories” with the same keywords embedded in them that searchers will likely use to find the negative story.  This turns the “needle in a haystack” factor of Google in your favor.

Eventually you’ll knock the bad review so far down the ranks in Google that only the most intrepid researcher will be able to find it.

The other technique? Ignore it, and eventually the fickle public will be twittering about the next scandal and it will be as stale as a Tiger Woods story.

Tiger who?


Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in damage control, press release, privacy, seo, social media, Twitter

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