When Nightline and ABC News paint with a broad brush

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This evening, ABC World News and Nightline will both air stories about corrupt state legislators. They’re calling the series, “State House Scoundrels”. The teaser says, “a lack of scrutiny breeds scandal among state lawmakers.”

BP vs. Fake BP

Nearly a month after the fake BP Twitter account, @BPGlobalPR, was started, the real BP asked Twitter to enforce its parody policy.

According to the New York Times, BP made the request of Twitter today.

When I first wrote about the BP parody account on May 22, the account had 900 followers. Now over 148,000 people follow @BPGlobalPR and the story has been reported on in dozens of news stories.

Not that BP is taking anyone’s public relations advice, but had BP contacted Twitter earlier as I had suggested, I’m pretty sure that the request would have escaped media attention. (It certainly wouldn’t have merited a New York Times mention.)

BP Gets Brandjacked on Twitter

Remember the brandjacking experience of Exxon?  In 2008, someone set up a Twitter account representing themselves as a spokesperson for the oil company. The account fooled several prominent people in social media who praised the fake Exxon for leveraging Twitter to have conversation about its business with the public. Several days went by before the public realized the account was a fake.

Well in the wake of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico,  now it’s BP’s turn.

@BPGlobalPR (BP Public Relations) started tweeting Wednesday. Although I have to say, it’s pretty clear that this account is a parody.

Consider this:

May 19 – We regretfully admit that something has happened off of the Gulf Coast. More to come.

May 19 – Think about it this way, the ocean is like rootbeer and oil is like ice cream. We just made America a giant rootbeer float!

May 19 – If we can make it so the ocean can be set on fire, doesn’t that make us like the David Copperfield of oil?

May 21 – Not only are we dropping a top hat on the oil spill, we’re going to throw in a cane and monocle as well. Keeping it classy.

May 21 – Beverly Hillbillies marathon on TBS – now THESE guys knew what to do with an oil leak!

Twitter’s Terms of Service allow for parodies, but from my read it looks like @BPGlobalPR might be in violation of the terms because they aren’t clearly labeling the account as a fake.

Maybe that’s why some on Twitter don’t get the joke.

For example @Resplendicity tweets “…YOUR COMPANY WILL NEVER HAVE MY BUSINESS AGAIN”

To which @BPGlobalPR responds this morning:

@resplendicity – You may want to reconsider as we just started our Franks, Fritos & Fanta $3 meal deal. Every Monday between 9-11am.

So all of this begs the question: how the real BP should respond to the account which seems to be gaining traction on Twitter? As of this morning, the account has over 900 followers and is being retweeted by dozens of people across Twitter. (The Beverly Hillbillies crack, for example, has been retweeted by 53 people so far.)

On the one hand, even commenting on the existence of the account may leave the impression that BP has a thin skin. They can’t really afford to say something like, “There is nothing humorous about this disaster which took the lives of 11 of our co-workers and injured 17 more team members.” Nor should they say, “We’ve got more important things to worry about.”

On the other hand, is completely ignoring the account the right response? Some would say doing so creates the impression that BP isn’t fully engaged in managing its crisis response. (Remember, some people are so angry that nothing BP says or does will be enough to satisfy them.)

The answer lies somewhere in the middle.

My counsel would be to work with Twitter to ensure that the parody account complies with Twitter’s terms of service, which require that the account conspicuously identify itself as a parody in its biography section. They should not seek the account’s removal — that would risk criticism that more attention should be spent to cleaning up the spill rather than protecting BP’s reputation.

Instead, they should beef up their existing Twitter account, @BP_America.

• First, they should ask that Twitter grant the account “Verified” status and they should consider managing the account in a more conversational manner. (Right now, it’s largely links to content BP wants the public to see.)
• It would also be smart to identify the real BP employee or employees who manage the account.  (People want to to have conversations with people, not brands.)
• I would also include links to other social media channels where BP is active. (Southwest Airlines does this well, in my view.)

From my view, I think the real BP has done a good job in managing the crisis communications surrounding the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They’ve given quick responses to media questions and they’ve not been afraid to admit that their initial statements about the extent of the spill were incorrect — the disaster is much worse than anyone first realized. They’ve also disputed others’ estimates saying the spill is worse than BP believes it to be.

I’ll be interested to see how they respond to this Twitter parody. What would you do if you were BP’s social media lead?

How Posterous Helped me Tell the Story of the EVO 4G

The EVO 4G from Sprint launches June 4, 2010.

Over the last year, in addition to this blog, I’ve kept a blog on the site Posterous.com. It’s a blog where I focus on technology policy, mobile phones and Sprint.

In my experience, Posterous is substantially easier to manage than WordPress, but it doesn’t allow you the ability to personalize your blog to the extent WordPress offers. What it does offer is a quick bookmarklet, similar to Tumblr. When I spot a story, video or photo on the Web, I can quickly link it to my Posterous. There’s no formatting, no cutting and pasting of links — it’s just a quick and easy upload. I can even post to my Posterous via my mobile phone. WordPress takes me more time to manuever.

My Posterous site allows me to quickly link to a Sprint news release, video or perhaps a New York Times story about the FCC’s latest move and offer readers my take on why it’s important. I’ve set up my Posterous to automatically populate my Twitter feed, so the title of the Posterous post shows up as a tweet with a shortened URL linking back to the site.

Posterous makes blogging easy for busy people.

When the Media Gets it Wrong

This week I’ve learned from the media that my employer hates Catholics and their efforts to help Haitian earthquake victims.

Well, that’s what’s been reported by The New York Times, so it must be true, right?

HA!

Let me give you the back story. I find it to be an insightful view into how the media and Washington public policy advocates work.

Four Years Later: a Look Back at Sprint’s Response to Hurricane Katrina

Four years ago tomorrow, Hurricane Katrina made landfall near Morgan City, La. The storm actually had hit Adventura, Fla. a few days earlier as a Category 1 storm, but by the time it hit Louisiana, Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane.

The storm came just nine business days after Nextel and Sprint had closed the dealwith created our new company, Sprint Nextel Corp. At that point, we really had two of everything. Employees were worried about what the merger meant for them personally. Would I still have a job after the dust settles? Who would be my new boss? Who would be on my new team? Would the projects I was working on still be a priority in the new company? To be honest, it was a time of personal uncertainty for all us.

Washington Post Publisher Apologizes to Readers, Not Employees

The best leaders among us take responsibility when things go wrong.

In today’s Washington Post, the paper’s Publisher & Chief Executive Officer Katharine Weymouth attempted to do just that by apologizing to The Post’s readers for the now cancelled “salons”, the first of which was to be held in Weymouth’s home on July 21. The question remains if her apology is enough for readers whose confidence in the journalistic integrity of the paper has been shaken or for Post employees, who were not mentioned by Weymouth, but who may have lost confidence in her leadership. 

Washington Post Cancels “Pay-to-Play” Lobbyist Dinners

Yesterday was a tough day for the corporate communications department at The Washington Post. A little after 8:00 a.m., POLITICO reported that The Post was asking lobbyists to underwrite the costs of off-the-record “salons” at the home of Post publisher, Katharine Weymouth. The day went downhill from there.

Katharine Weymouth, Publisher of The Washington Post. Image Credit: James Thresher, The Washington Post

Dubbed “pay-for-chat” by The New York Times, the “salons” were billed to lobbyists on Capitol Hill as an opportunity to interact with Obama administration officials and Members of Congress who would have a leading role in the upcoming debate on reform of the nation’s health care system. Lobbyists could sponsor a single event for $25,000 or they could underwrite the cost of the series of 11 events at Weymouth’s home for $250,000. Obama administration officials and Members of Congress invited to the first “salon” on July 21, denied knowing that The Post was soliciting financial support from lobbyists to finance it.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate

One of my favorite movie lines of all time is from Cool Hand Luke: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” That was certainly the case here in Washington during yesterday’s inauguration of President Barack Obama.

AirTran Should Ground Bigotry

Every once in a while someone working for a major corporation does something really stupid which captures national media attention. This week that company was AirTran Airways.