Remember when Facebook was cool?

I have been using Facebook since freshman year in college, back in the day when college students were the only ones using Facebook, man I miss the old days.

To get back on track, I have seen all the terrible changes Facebook has made to try and compete with MySpace. I never could understand why Facebook did this. I can't stand the advertising on MySpace and I am constantly declining one name friends, such as ginger, rose and candy.

Now I have a whole new set a problems. Not only am I declining chomp requests and pokes, I have to worry about my future employers judging me because I had fun in college and I have drunken pictures of me out at the bars, in Florida, Vegas and Ohio with my baseball team, and of course, football games.

So here is what I came up with, I'm not going to take down all those pictures and I am not going to make my Facebook look like something I'm not, boring. I want a company to know who I am before they hire me because if they're going to judge me for having fun in college I don't want to work for them. What you see is what you get, a person who works hard but loves to meet new people and have a good time.

Tom Tancredo for President!

Well, you can't say he's not trying. Tom Tancredo recently paid for an ad that can be ranked as one of the best worst political ads. Once I figure out how to upload a YouTube video I will include it in the post, but for now you can find it here.

Here is the thing about this ad, it can mean one of two things. He is either desperate about boosting his ratings in the presidential race, or it is another way of marketing his new book, In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America's Border and Security.

One could always argue that it's both, but I think Tancredo wanted attention, and apparently it worked. For the people who like Tancredo, this ad is great and it goes along with his theme of protecting the American borders. For those who are just learning who Tancredo his, the ad is being passed around the blogging community and more and more people are learning his name.
Either way you look at it, Tancredo is gaining some attention, which from the looks of his ratings he desperately needed.

So When Is It Appropiate to Talk Back?

Whether it is looking at an example and discussing if a company should respond, or asking yourself self if you should open up dialog to a certain topic, we have all tried answering the question of when is it appropriate to talk back.

Mike Manual's blog, which can be found here, addresses this issue. He lists three questions that a company should ask itself before responding to a comment:

1) Is the post factually inaccurate?
2) Is the post a fair expression of opinion?
3) Is a relationship with the author important?

I agree with these three questions, and I like how Mike mentions in the first paragraph of the blog that every situation is different and there is no formula that can be followed when deciding if it's better to, or to not, talk back.

So, after a company decides to engage in the conversation, what is the next step? What if a company engages in conversation too early and quickly realizes the pros of talking back are out weighed by the cons?

If a company finds themselves in this position of responding to a blog too quickly, I think the best thing to do is continue the dialog. Of course, this is all situational, but if a company actually has a flaw and tries covering it up by responding to a post, than gets called out again, the worst thing to do is stop the dialog. At this point, I think it's better for a company to address the issue. In fact, being in a situation like this could actually be a good opportunity for a company. If the company continues dialog and updates people about the changes being made to improve the situation, it could result in some positive press.

Is A-Rod Worth the Money

Before I cover this topic I want to make one thing clear, I hate the Yankees. But, I have a lot of respect for the great players that wear Yankee uniforms, like Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada. My reason for not liking the Yankees is because of the money producing an unfair advantage over every other Major League baseball team.

Now that we got that out of the way, I want to talk about Alex Rodriguez's new deal with the Yankees and why I think it was actually a good move for the Yankee's organization.

Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees agreed to the outline of a record $275 million, 10-year contract, a deal that allows for him to earn millions more if he sets the career home run record.

I have heard many speculations about Alex Rodriguez and the fact that he broke his own record of receiving a ridiculous salary, but I don't think the Yankees made a bad move. For one, the Yankee's organization knows Rodriguez is going to be a legend and the Yankees want all baseball legends to end their careers in pin strips. Two, Rodriguez sells like crazy. People pay to wear his apparel and they pay to see the guy play. Three, and what I believe to be the most important reason, the home run record. Unless injury strikes, Alex Rodriguez will break the home run record. Why I feel confident in saying this is because Rodriguez is on 32 years old.

Alex Rodriguez made history before the contract was ever signed. He was the first Yankee to join Hall of Fame members Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle as the only player since 1920 to lead the majors in homers, RBIs and runs scored.

So yes, the Yankees aren't going to win a championship with one player and getting better pitchers is what they should be focusing on, but when you look at the potential in Alex Rodriguez from a franchise stand point, he is worth the money. The Yankees desperately want the home run king wearing pin stripes again.

Social Responsibility? Uh?

Maybe it's because I am a Journalism major and I know that companies throw around the term of social responsibility, but I love to see companies get called out for not being socially responsible.

Kelli Mathews blogged about Consumers International (CI), the international federation of consumer advocacy groups, announcing the winners of its annual International Bad Product Awards.

To view her blog, and the complete list of companies mentioned, click here.

I want to talk about the top prize winner, Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Takeda won the top prize for taking advantage of poor US regulation by advertising sleeping pills to children, despite health warnings about pediatric use.

The funny thing about this is, I can't decide who is to blame, the pharmaceutical company or the American society who gives their children sleeping pills. So I am going to blame both, starting with Takeda.

Takeda has to take responsibility for their actions. Even though it's ultimately up to the parents to decide what medications their children take, it doesn't make it right for Takeda to advertise sleeping pills to children. People look up to pharmaceutical companies and expect them to offer products that are going to protect their families, not hurt them just to make profit. For this reason, I believe pharmaceutical companies are more responsible for endangering the health of children by focusing to much on the bottom line.

Richard Lloyd, Director General of CI said this:

"These multi-billion dollar companies are global brands with a responsibility to be honest, accountable and responsible. In highlighting their short-comings Consumers International and its 220 member organizations are holding corporations to account and demanding businesses take social responsibility seriously."

Now lets talk about the parents. Even though I believe pharmaceutical companies are more responsible, it doesn't make the parents any less guilty. Parents need to educate themselves on the dangers of medications. To many time I see and hear about parents trying resolve all their child's problems with medication. Adderall might as well sit on the shelf next to children's Tylenol and Advil as much as it's used today. But, since we have a drug to calm them down we might as well have a drug to put them to sleep because everyone knows that parents don't usually have a hard time putting their kids to bed and if your kid is restless at night he/she clearly needs medication.

Hopefully you are like me and thinking to yourself how stupid that sounds. We all need to take responsibility for our actions. Being a pharmaceutical company isn't all that different from being a parent. Their actions affect other people, but one can only hope that a pharmaceutical company's action would affect us in positive, not negative, way.

My Answers

After reading Kami Huyse blog, Social Media Measurement: Let's Talk About the Bottom Line and the Dreaded ROI, it inspired me to come up with some answers of my own. I realize as a young professional my answers are not going to be nearly as prevalent as the other bloggers Kami asked to answer her questions, but I thought it might be interesting for others to see what new professionals thought of measuring social media. Those names, and Kami's post, can be found here.

DISCUSS: Do you think measurement of social media is important, and why?
Yes, the more I learn about social media, the more I hear how important it is to measure the effectiveness of these tools. Throughout my college career I have always been told that your objectives must be measurable. Social media isn't any different, in fact it may be more important because social media is such an effective communication tool.

RESOURCES: What are your favorite resources for social media measurement? Do you recommend any methodologies? For those of you that have them, can you point to posts about measurement you have written in the past?

This question is hard because I haven't had any experience measuring social media. The only knowledge I have is what Kelli Mathews has taught me in her class, her choices can be found here. I can say this, with the use of social media becoming more popular, I would like to have more emphasis on measuring social media in our curriculum. Kelli Mathews does a good of this, but on a whole I think classes get across the point of needing measurable objectives, but lack in actually showing you how to do that.

EXAMPLES: Do you have any examples of measurement you have used in a social media campaign. Did these campaigns have any positive business outcomes (ROI) and/or relationships)?

I only have one example of measuring social media, and it's not all that impressive. My company just recently put on a campaign that I was fortunate enough to get involved with. A part of this campaign targeted 18-24 year olds, specifically college students. To better reach this target audience we set up a MySpace page. We did this for a couple of reasons:
1) Inform people about our campaign/contest.
2) Open dialog with our target audience. We encouraged people to post comments/questions that they had about the contest.

To measure this, we tracked the number of visitors that linked to our Web site from our MySpace page. I don't know the exact software they used but for the time invested in making and maintaining the MySpace page, it was definitely worth it. Like I said, weak example, but I am confident that I'll have more/better experiences measuring social media in the future.

Third in the Nation Baby

I don't care if you're a duck or beaver fan, the state of Oregon has to be really happy with where the Oregon Ducks are right now. After beating an 8-0 Arizona State, the Oregon Ducks improved to the #3 team in the BCS. With Oregon State winning back-to-back national titles in baseball, Oregon fighting for chance to win a national title in football, the state of Oregon is getting a lot of national attention.

What does this mean as far as PR is concerned?

Last week Sean Fouts blogged about the need for the Oregon Athletic Department to better prepare their players for interacting with the media (You can read that blog here). I couldn't agree more, both Oregon and Oregon State are getting a lot of national attention and what their players say or do on national television directly affects their programs. Last week University of Oregon's quarterback, Dennis Dixon, appeared on the nationally televised Jim Rome is Burning on ESPN. University of Oregon's running back, Jonathan Stewart, will also be making an appearance on the show. On top of the great year Oregon is having, after last weeks performance, Dixon is now the front runner for the Heisman Trophy and I wouldn't be surprised to see Stewart make the trip to New York as well. Oregon State is no stranger to national media attention. As many of us know, Oregon State is a two-time defending national championship baseball team. In a sport that is dominated by east coast teams, mainly due to whether, last year Oregon State proved the nation that the first national title was not a fluke. Great baseball players are now staying in the NW because of the name Oregon State has made for itself. I haven't even got into Oregon bringing back baseball and Hayward Field hosting the 2008 Olympic Track and Field trials.

I could go on and on about the success of these programs and breakdown every interview an Oregon athlete, or Oregon representative, has had, both good and bad, but it would all lead back to the same point. Both Oregon and Oregon State need to better prepare their athletes, coaches, athletic directors, etc... for interviewing on national television. It is easy to for an Oregon or Oregon State fan to overlook a bad interview because we are biased and we love our teams. But for the rest of the nation, what our players, coaches, athletic directors, etc... say or do on national television is a direct representation of the University. Like University of Oregon's athletic director said in a previous interview, "We should all be held to higher standards, even the duck."