StevenSilvers.com

Read this before you send that resume cover letter

Dear people wanting an entry-level PR job:

Thanks for your interest.  We’re thrilled that so many of you visited our firm's web site. Those of you who didn’t should consider a different career. Or go work for one of our competitors.

You all have nice resumes.  That’s expected.  But we read your cover letter first.  This was your chance to tell us why we should be interested in you versus the 90 other people who also want this job.

Unfortunately, many of your cover letters were poorly thought out and badly written.  Several were stunning in their awfulness.

Next time you submit your resume somewhere, make sure your cover letter doesn’t get you rejected because of mistakes like these:

No-brainer personality traits.  You love working with people?  Excellent. This puts you above all the PR job candidates who love working with farm animals.

Hyphenation hate.  If your letter reads that “I’m a first class writer with an all out attitude ready to work for a top notch company,” you’re not and you won’t.

Redundant hyperbole over and over.  If you use the word passion more than five times, you’re mostly passionate about not using a thesaurus.

A firm and wordy grasp of the obvious.  We don’t know if you’re sucking up or if you honestly think we’re impressed by you telling us that “It requires a lot of hard work and an exceptional team of employees for a business to become and remain successful.”  Leave the bromidic insights to us pros.

Missing something important.  One letter we received was 400 words long and didn’t mention our company once.

A wrong view of how the working world works.   We know you want things out of life.  We also know we don't want self-absorbed newbies who says things like: “After significant research into your company, I have decided that this position offers me an excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience in a career area in that I am interested in.”

One more thing.  You're not writing a novel.  If we have to go to the bathroom in the middle of reading your letter, it’s too long.

Good luck out there.

Steve
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Also: Five things all PR students should know about their choice of career

(Originally posted in 2010.)

More proof that the Internet needs lots and lots of content

Slate technology columnist Farhad Manjoo posts a 1,334-word diatribe against PR people and other idiots who use two spaces after a period.

Ten billion Tweets means what, exactly?

Most of my clients and colleagues acknowledge the expanding value of social media.  But they still don’t know what to make of Twitter.

Blogs, online communities and forums are relatively easy for them to comprehend as strategic communications tools.  But the incessantly babbling Twitter, with its Gnostic lingo of hashtags and retweeting and @replies, is not. 

So what are we to make of the fact that Twitter has reached 10 billion tweets?  Maybe a lot.  But maybe a lot of nothing.

Consider this unscientific illustration of Twitter’s contribution to productivity.  If each Tweet took on average only ten seconds to be posted and read, then Twitter would already account for almost 28 million manhours.  That’s an average year’s work for 15,414 Americans. 

What value has come of all this effort is debatable, especially when you consider that 40 percent of Twitter posts are what one study called “pointless babble.”  Probably just as many posts are babble that makes a point. 

Twitter also suffers from a growing spam and phishing infestation. A study by online security firm Barracuda Networks estimates that only 21 percent of Twitter users are genuine.

Nobody denies Twitter’s ability to spread the word.  But for many otherwise Internet-savvy communications executives, it’s still far from clear how to most effectively anticipate, respond to and leverage a free online messaging service that by design is a magnet for the world’s clutter.

Also see:

CEOs won't say Twitter and other contradictions about the hottest social media thing since the one before it

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(Above) Social media consultant Muhammad Saleem created this excellent graphic illustrating Twitter’s path to 10 billion tweets and what’s been shown true along the way.

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Health care reform: Blaming bad communications doesn't fix bad attitudes

In the spin following the GOP’s game-changing Senate win in Massachusetts, the White House defended its beleaguered health care legislation with an old standard: What we have here is a failure to communicate.

"We lost some of that sense,” President Obama told ABC News, “…of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values.”

That talking point has been played down since then.  Good thing, too.  Because it’s terrible PR.

Think of health care reform as a high-profile but controversial consumer product being introduced into a marketplace of extreme fans and critics (like New Coke or Windows Vista).  Blaming a flat-out rejection on poor communications might seem a safe strategy. You hold yourself accountable but without faulting your intentions.

It’s not that your product’s bad. It’s the stupid packaging.

Except a lot of people will instead think you’re saying, “It’s the packaging, stupid.”

Your competitors will do everything they can to promote that interpretation.  As MSNBC points out, administration opponents are literally institutionalizing the word “arrogance” in reference to what Massachusetts voters were complaining about and how the White House has responded to it.

At the core of almost every public’s fear and loathing are legitimate issues.  You may think your smarts in creating a value-added product trumps all that.  They don’t. 

You can’t win people who think you’re dismissing them.  Even if you suspect they don’t have a clue what you’re really selling.
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The State of Colorado says you should gamble because your life is pathetic.

The latest TV ad for Colorado Lottery drops the pretense of fun in favor of selling hope.

As in, you’re hopelessly stuck in your pointless little existence unless you “Break free” by winning Powerball. 

The “Don’t Forget to Play” tag adds to the loathing, implying that if you don’t win it’s because you screwed up.

The ad follows a sad-looking white-collar worker trudging through another dreary day, a huge chain shackled to his ankle.  Before eating his little peanut butter sandwich alone he buys a Powerball ticket.  That night a big red ball falls from the sky onto his little weed-infested lawn, breaking him free.  He smiles.

Hey.  Loser.  Don’t forget to play.

We all benefit from lottery revenues.  But it’s cruel for a state with as much recession-induced bleakness as Colorado to tell working people that gambling on a multi-million-to-one shot is their way out of it.
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How breaking news becomes grist for the pop culture mill in only three days

The Balloon Boy hubbub proves a rule that companies in crisis should keep in mind: News is entertainment at the  speed of the Internet.

Here’s how it happens:

The incident goes live. In this case, Balloon Boy’s parents called the TV stations.

The incident becomes breaking news. A herd mentality takes over competing media outlets. Nobody wants to miss the shot that everybody else has. Time elapsed: About half an hour.

Breaking news becomes a national story. Local coverage feeds into national outlets, and everything feeds into the Internet. Live event coverage goes viral. News links and commentary fly around email, Facebook and Twitter. People at work see headlines on the little TVs in the elevators. Time elapsed: About an hour.

The story becomes a controversy. News reports contradict earlier reports, creating scandal. Questions, rumors and speculation become a constant din interspersed with breaking news updates of even the most minuscule facts. Talking heads on cable and radio blame liberals or conservatives for allowing things like this to happen. Internet coverage and chatter multiplies a thousand-fold. Time elapsed: Three to four hours.

The controversy becomes pop culture. The people who started it get interviewed on Larry King. Leno and Letterman make jokes that night. Saturday Night Live refers to it in a promo for this week’s show. Three times the number of media outlets show up the next day, and so do dozens of other people from all over. Some bring alcohol, others bring hand-made posters. Internet coverage and chatter multiplies several thousand-fold. Supermarket tabloids do cover stories. Time elapsed: One to two days.

Pop culture becomes the story. Media coverage and Internet chatter is the same as follows a popular reality TV show. People take sides with and against victims, villains and heroes. Everyone becomes a celebrity. Journalists – many of them ticked off for being played -- investigate school transcripts, arrest records and anonymous tips. Web sites pop up.  Talk shows devote whole hours. Authorities launch formal investigations. Politicians express concern. Somebody announces a book.

Media critics blame the news media. News media blame consumers. Consumers find Balloon Boy Halloween costumes on the Internet.

Total time elapsed: About 72 hours, give or take.

(Photo: The New York Post reported that an online gaming company in San Francisco put “Balloon Boy Game” on the Internet in only about six hours after the news story went national.)
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• The Harvard Crimson:  Sailing away with Balloon Boy
• American Chronicle  |  The "Balloon Boy" and the White House:  Good lessons for not mixing "news" and entertainment
• Philadelphia Inquirer  |  Mr. and Mrs. Balloon Boy did it because we will watch
• Washington Post  |  Balloon Boy, media stunts, dream up your own
  

A business primer on the new FTC transparency rules

Representing its most sweeping action in 30 years, the Federal Trade Commission’s new rules governing endorsements and testimonials will change how marketing is done.

Here’s what the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising say:

ACCOUNTABLE FOR BLOGS AND SOCIAL MEDIA.

The FTC already directs online reviewers to disclose if they’re being paid by advertisers. Under the new rules, however, every blogger, Twitter user or social network member must disclose any “material connection” with a company, product or service.

Taken literally, this connection could result in fines for bloggers who fail to disclose anything from getting a sample can of chili in the mail to having a spouse who owns company stock. While consumer advocates support the guidelines, some prominent bloggers argue that the rules in effect force them to disclose every business relationship they’ve ever had.

Enforcement is another matter. The FTC says it will primarily go after the advertisers rather than individual bloggers, though it will take into account how companies encourage transparency in their paid reviews and freebies. Beyond that, the agency will decide matters on a case-by-case basis – which basically means they’ll know deceptive advertising when they see it. What makes things even more convoluted is that the agency doesn’t say by what means it will handle these situations.

Given that the new transparency standards for bloggers are higher than what’s required of commercial news media and politicians, the FTC rules are generating considerable debate among marketers and social media proponents alike. Stay tuned.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR TYPICAL RESULTS.

Ads that feature individual consumer experiences with a product will have to state clearly what kind of results everybody else can expect. Soon to be history are those ubiquitous ads that whisper “results not typical” while showing some guy who lost 300 pounds drinking vitamin shakes.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR EMPLOYEES.

Employees that promote their company or its products online must “clearly and conspicuously” disclose who they work for.

The FTC urges that companies have social media policies as one way to avoid fines or other actions when employees pretend to be someone else – say, a happy customer or invigorated shareholder.

Keep in mind, however, that a recent Deloitte study found that a third of all employees don’t even consider what their boss might think before posting something online.

ACCOUNTABLE FOR CELEBRITIES AND RESEARCH.

A warning to every company that uses movie stars, retired quarterbacks and 70’s sitcom actors for promotional tours. Under the new FTC guidelines, both advertisers and their celebrity spokespeople can be held liable for making false claims as part of a commercial endorsement.

The ramifications are huge. Celebrities making the rounds of late-night talk shows, state fairs and Twitter feeds must disclose their business relationship with any company or agency that’s paying them to pump movies, books, products or even charities.

Companies that quote research must also disclose if they paid for the studies, or if they have any business relationship with the organization that did the research.

These standards go way beyond front groups and hidden clients. From now on, any failure to disclose corporate affiliations could be considered deceptive advertising. That’s going to hit a lot of marketing PR campaigns.
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Download a PDF of the revised FTC rules here.

Stuff you put on the Internet is always fresh, never frozen.

One of my most popular posts this week is the one I wrote about Home Depot’s customer service problems.  Another blog referred to it in a post titled, The 10 Best (and 10 Worst) Companies for Customer Service.  It’s been drawing hits, links and comments all over the Internet.

The problem is that I wrote the post about Home Depot more than three years ago.  The post it got linked to is three years old, too.

How did a November 2006 post in a niche market blog outsourced overseas rise above the clutter in September 2009?  Hard to say. Somebody pasted the original article verbatim into another site and through the magic of search engines got it to show up. Readers began linking and posting comments to it.  And just like that old stuff is current again.

A good rule to remember about social media:  Criticism and bad news in particular have an indefinite shelf life.
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• Scatterbox |  The business of social media creates new headaches for business reputations

Scattered links of interest

Twitter’s ROI (Forbes.com)
There is a potential danger in that too many people will employ Twitter as a short-cut for customer service.”

Prepare now for “resume tsunami” (Ogilvy Impact)
“With a variety of signs pointing, if somewhat tentatively, toward an economic recovery, it’s not too soon for companies to begin thinking about how they’ll keep their top performers.”

We need a swine flu newsroom (Newsvetter)
“In matters concerning life and death I don't want to be forced to rely (solely) on a news media obsessed with body counts and hot zones.”

PRSA’s meaningless condemnation (O’Dwyer’s Blog)
“…How about revealing the source of your anger? Who in the world are you talking about?”
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Submit links to scatterbox@stevensilvers.com

What's behind The Twitter of Babble

A new study finds that 40.55 percent of all Twitter messages are “pointless babble.”

Of course, that percentage goes way higher if you also include babble that is irrelevant, incoherent or inane. 

But what’s driving this share-your-nothingness phenomenon?  Why are there so many millions of people who feel compelled to tell strangers on the Internet that their feet are cold or that they’re going to lunch?

Some experts say we live in the most narcissistic age ever.  But others think the babblers are filling a void.

“Twittering stems from a lack of identity,” one clinical psychologist told the London Times.  “It’s a constant update of who you are, what you are, where you are. Nobody would Twitter if they had a strong sense of identity.”
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