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Media Guerrilla

Mike Manuel shares his experience and opinions on social media, public relations and online marketing.

Why Blogging Has Become HarderJanuary 2

So I spent some time over the holidays looking back over my blog, my tweets, my status updates and the like, basically, reviewing all the places I’m active online and, well, it turns out I’m really not that active at all. Or at least I’m less active than I used to be.

Am I surprised? Nah, not really.

The truth is, last year was an amazingly good, but challenging year for me at Voce. We won several big accounts. We grew our team. We formalized partnerships (and forged new ones). We innovated. And where we could, we shared what was working. And amidst all of this, I must admit, I felt an increasing need (really, a responsibility) to focus whatever extra a

Can Social Media Work Protect Your Job?December 8 2008

So I’ve been working with one of our clients on the development of a fairly complex social media monitoring and response program, and inevitably, as you dig into initiatives like this and begin enlisting the help of subject matter experts inside the organization, you get the question:

“So, what’s in it for me? Why should I do this?”

Over the last few years, this was one of those soft ball question, you know, the kind you hope someone floats across the meeting room table so you can talk about the “virtues and values” of one-to-one communication and all its promises and potential for companies on the web. There’s always been an easy emotional appeal here as well, one that gets to an employee’s desire to contribute to the health and fortune of their great company, and, well, let’s admit it, there’s an appeal to their personal ego here too — because after all, you know, they’re the experts.

Nowadays, however, with recent shifts in the economy, answering this question has taken a twist.

“What’s in it for you? Well, it could be your job.”

The Web Divides: PR vs. AdvertisingOctober 29 2008

Alright, I guess it’s inevitable that amidst this economic shake up, we would return to the age-old argument of Public Relations vs Advertising, and debating where your business dollars are better spent, and you know, whatever, that’s fine, it’s not without good reason.

In fact, I’ll admit, this was a hot topic at last week’s SMC meetup, and again at this week’s PRSA International conference, but here’s the thing: if we (the PR industry) are going to collectively make the business case for a shift in corporate spending, we need better leverage, and man, if there was *one thing* we should be leveraging to our advantage in this argument, you’d think it’d be all the benefits and potential of the social web for business, right?

Sadly, the PR industry, for being inextricably tangled with the web, continues to oddly struggle with how best to use it for communications — and t

The Push-Pull of Social Media ProgramsSeptember 16 2008

Alright, so despite efforts by some to paint and position social media work as radically new and different, if you take a minute to strip things down, there are still traditional marketing mechanics underlying most social media programs — much of which can be distilled down to simple push-pull tactics.

Push tactics are all about, well, pushing a story out to the marketplace.

Push tactics tend to generate a lot of attention and discussion, unfortunately it’s not always the right kind. These are your A-typical proactive pitch tactics. Placement tactics. Sometimes response tactics too.

I think it’s the comfort of something that seems familiar (i.e., media relations) that attracts and compels PR folks to think about social media activities in this mode first and label them such (e.g., “blogger relations,” “influencer outreach,” etc) — be that, you know, for better or worse. And in all fairness, push tactics,

PlayStation’s This Week’s PRWeek Cover StoryAugust 12 2008

Aarti Shah with PRWeek pens this week’s cover story (PDF) on client Sony PlayStation. The piece is a bit of a case study that recounts some of the company’s fairly well-known missteps over the years, but more importantly, it digs into PlayStation’s rebound and recovery efforts the last 18 months — and how their social media strategy is leading the way.

“After a huge misstep in the blogosphere, Sony PlayStation has come back with a plan to engage consumers and win back trust.”

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know I’m a big believer that our industry *desperately* needs more case studies. I started to talk about this program for the first time earlier this year at the NewComm Forum. This cover story peels back another layer, and we’ll continue to share more leading into the fall at a handf