Yesterday I read a spiffy article in Wired magazine about microcelebrity. It's not a new concept, but the term is. It refers to a person who is not well-known except to a few dozen, hundred or thousand people on the internet. The most common examples are bloggers or persons who post often on well-read forums.
Here is the article.
The same trend happens on Facebook and MySpace. Jim posts a bunch of photos online from a party and tags Joe in one of them. Some of Joe's friends who don't know Jim go check out the photos and some more of Jim's photos, and maybe his profile, too. Jim has some funny posts and memes on his blog, so a few people subscribe. Suddenly Jim is well-known to several people he has never met. The article quoted a woman who one day stumbled across a forum of 125 members (the creation of which she'd had no knowledge) about her blog. It happens.
How does this relate to PR? With our Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, LiveJournal, Blogger, Webshots, Shutterfly accounts and an increasing number of personal Web sites in addition to a person's presence on any number of forums and online games, everyone has a more well-known image to maintain than he thinks or knows about.
All these networking sites and web behaviors are most common in our age group, and the article pointed out that 20-somethings also handle microcelebrity best of any group as well.
We dress up to look good when we go out to the club, the bar or the house party because we know someone there will be taking photos, and we don't know where on the web they'll end up. We carefully select the privacy settings on our MySpaces and Facebooks so that only our friends can see the party photos, so our parents can't check up on how we're spending our college funds, so future employers can't search us and read about that hook-up. We post to our blogs on protected settings so as not to incriminate ourselves for the entire world of the web.
We're more visible than ever and naturally adapting to practice personal PR daily for our images. Most of us don't realize we're doing it. I hadn't ever thought about it before reading the article, but looking at my web presence, postings and settings, I realize how very carefully I moderate my image. And when I start applying for a job in the spring, I'm sure I'll be even more critical of what the world sees of me.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Ketchup
Diversity Issues at work:
Often at Sears we have customers who call and ask for someone who speaks Spanish...in Spanish. I panic. I don't speak a word of Spanish and don't know what to say. I stumble over a "Uno momento?" and put them on hold. Then I desperately call and page every department, searching for a Spanish-speaking associate, only to have the customer hang up for being on hold for so long. Or even worse...call back.
It hasn't been as bad in recent months because we have 3 Spanish speakers on staff - at least one is usually in the store. But 3 out of 80 or more employees really isn't enough to serve as many Spanish-only speaking customers as we have. None of our managers speak any Spanish either.
With high turnover and a smallish applicant pool, we can't require anyone to be bilingual for a job, but it would help a lot.
It's a lucky thing Sears feels like small-time business in the Golden Triangle Mall because I'm sure no PR firm could get away with such an inability to serve and communicate with its clientele.
Too bad I didn't minor in Spanish, I guess.
Often at Sears we have customers who call and ask for someone who speaks Spanish...in Spanish. I panic. I don't speak a word of Spanish and don't know what to say. I stumble over a "Uno momento?" and put them on hold. Then I desperately call and page every department, searching for a Spanish-speaking associate, only to have the customer hang up for being on hold for so long. Or even worse...call back.
It hasn't been as bad in recent months because we have 3 Spanish speakers on staff - at least one is usually in the store. But 3 out of 80 or more employees really isn't enough to serve as many Spanish-only speaking customers as we have. None of our managers speak any Spanish either.
With high turnover and a smallish applicant pool, we can't require anyone to be bilingual for a job, but it would help a lot.
It's a lucky thing Sears feels like small-time business in the Golden Triangle Mall because I'm sure no PR firm could get away with such an inability to serve and communicate with its clientele.
Too bad I didn't minor in Spanish, I guess.
Catsup.
If Steve Jobs really wanted to apologize:
I'd like to sincerely apologize to all Apple consumers for making you feel cheated by the iPhone price drop. It was our intention to provide a quality product to as many people as possible, not to alienate a smaller group. I would like to rectify the situation by offering a $100 rebate voucher to those who bought the iPhone in the 2 weeks preceding the price drop, and I encourage all our customers to write to us on the Apple forums with suggestions about how Apple can best serve you in the future. I want to open the lines of communication with the Apple community and promise the best service we can provide for current and future products starting today. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to hearing from you.
I'd like to sincerely apologize to all Apple consumers for making you feel cheated by the iPhone price drop. It was our intention to provide a quality product to as many people as possible, not to alienate a smaller group. I would like to rectify the situation by offering a $100 rebate voucher to those who bought the iPhone in the 2 weeks preceding the price drop, and I encourage all our customers to write to us on the Apple forums with suggestions about how Apple can best serve you in the future. I want to open the lines of communication with the Apple community and promise the best service we can provide for current and future products starting today. Thank you for your continued support and we look forward to hearing from you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)