Meanwhile Back at the Ranch

Maybe I’m the last person on the planet to discover this tool, but Google Fast Flip is an excellent way to scan through articles on leading news Websites when you want to get the highlights in a hurry.

Fast Flip allows you to view the actual home pages of leading news Websites by recency, most viewed, recommended, or see the headlines.

You can also sort by topic: politics, business, U.S. news, world news, sports, science and technology, entertainment, health, opinion or travel.

Using your mouse, you can scan through difference Websites or scan through the pages of an individual Website in a flash.

Cool tool when you need to know a lot but don’t have much time.

Really dandy post today from Sonia Simone on the perils of using social media.

Her “Seven Harsh Realities…” point out what you’ve probably already learned through bitter experience:

1. No one reads your blog (and if it weren’t for my Mom, no one would read this one).
2. You’ve got to give some of your best [ideas] away.
3. You can waste a lot of time using Social Media (which is one reason I recently deactivated my Facebook account.)
4. Don’t use social media to sell.
5. It’s about what people say about you, not what you say about yourself, that matters.
6. A blog is not a marketing plan.
7. Social media is not the CB radio of the 21st Century. It’s here to stay.

To summarize,

listen-engage-respond.

And wait 20 minutes after eating before you use social media Websites.

Mike Linton has a great post today in Forbes.com.

In his commentary, he laments the lack of creativity we’re seeing in advertising these days and reminds us all that, no matter how much we want to apply analytics and measurement to ensure we’re maximizing our return on marketing investment, having a compelling story to tell is what really sets your brand and your company apart from your competitors in the long run.

For me, it was a breath of fresh air on a day when I:

a) spilled coffee on my laptop and fried the monitor;

b) ventured out in the rain to the police station to pick up a copy of a police report for a client (who had her car window smashed and items stolen while meeting at the palatial offices of Nation Ranch a few weeks back), only to be told that they wouldn’t give me a copy of the report unless I had a notarized letter of authorization; and

c) spent a lot of time trying to remember the impossible password to our wireless internet server so that I could use my clunky old back-up laptop to maybe get some work done.

Linton’s words remind me why I started Nation Ranch in the first place, and why I enjoy helping clients tell compelling stories that set them apart and sell.

So while you’re slicing and dicing your Google Analytics report and fine-tuning your SEO strategies tonight, don’t forget that it’s your own unique story that really makes the difference.

If you think you’re having a bad day, imagine the plight of Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who recently authored a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed critical of the Obama healthcare plan and today is confronted with protests at his company’s stores and a “Boycott Whole Foods” Facebook group that is 1,100 members strong.

My “favorite” part of the story, as reported by Brandweek, is a quote from Scott Frotman, spokesman for the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, whose group is protesting outside Whole Foods stores in Ohio:

“Whole Foods has attempted to wrap itself in a progressive image, but when you peel back the layers you see that it is run by an executive who repeatedly pushes extreme positions.”

Yeah, what an extremist whacko Mr. Mackey is for claiming that health care is not a right guaranteed by the Constitution (sarcasm intended).

The past few weeks have been all sorts of fun for Whole Foods, which has since issued a letter of apology to its cusotmers and done some serious backtracking to separate the opinions of its CEO from its own corporate opinion on the issue (although I’d be surprised if the two were not one and the same), and established a message board on its Website to allow its customers to discuss the issue.

This episode ranks up there with the backlash that hit the Dixie Chicks after band member Natalie Maines made remarks critical of President George W. Bush.

The bottom line is that there truly is no such thing as “free” speech anymore.

We’re all searching for our own personal Holy Grail.

For 20 years clients have asked me how we measure the success of a public relations campaign. And for 20 years, I’ve provided answers that includes pre- and post-campaign consumer opinion research, advertising equivalency, gross impressions, etc.

But I’ve never really “known” for sure. It’s incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to connect the dots between sustained positive publicity and sales and customer loyalty.

Close, but no Grail.

And the social media revolution has only clouded the picture, as now marketers are expected to connect a wider array of dots to demonstrate that a post on a well-read Mommy blog somehow generated greater impact on your bottom line than a 90-second feature on your local television news station. (In reality, it would be great if you got both “hits.”)

The traditional clipping service has been replaced by all manner of technology companies, who promise to fire up their Web engines and show you who’s saying what about your products and services, which bloggers, tweeters and news sites wield the greatest influence, and how all of this Internet chatter is woven together.

One of my favorite terms to come out of this revolution is “share of influence,” which is about as Emperor’s New Clothes as it gets.

As Asi Sharabi recently pointed out in his No Man’s Blog, you can spend a lot of time separating the wheat from the chaff and still not know much more about your brand’s standing in the public consciousness than you would by Googling yourself.

From what I’ve seen, he’s right. Most of the companies cites (no need for me to name names) offer up a garbage in-garbage out accounting of who-said-what-to-whom.

One exception, in my opinion, is an Overland Park, Kan.-based group called Spiral 16.

I’ve been using their Spark software off and on for the past six months, and I’ve found it useful in helping me work more efficiently for my clients by sniffing out opportunities and threats that we otherwise wouldn’t know about and then prioritizing our activities using this knowledge.

It helps prevent us from falling into the “mistaking activity with achievement” trap that befalls so many in the public relations profession. We are no longer forced to do the “dump and chase” routine of issuing news releases and then making a million follow-up calls—we can actually engage our customers, prospects and influencers where they live and via the information they consume.

The truth is, we cannot accurately measure social media yet. But we can use these monitoring devices to keep our fees down and generate greater bang for the buck.

Something that all clients can (and do) appreciate these days.

Not the Holy Grail….but not bad.