The public relations team of a major religious organization asked me to lead a social media seminar with a particular emphasis on digital crisis communications. Here is the result of my work.

1. Gutenberg vs. Moore
The Fight of the Centuries
Kevin M. Brett
May 14, 2013

2. Catholic Brand in Play:
15th Century
Johannes Gutenberg & A Famous Pupil

3. Program or Be Programmed
“With the printing press came writing. The Bible
was no longer set in stone, but something to be
changed – or at least to be interpreted. Martin
Luther posted his ninety-five theses, the first great
„mod‟ of Catholicism…” – Douglas Rushkoff

4. The Gatekeepers:
They May Not Support Your Agenda
Access to Printing is Limited;
Printing Expensive; Poor Business Model

5. Social Media: 20th Century
Gordon Moore and Moore’s Law: The
number of transistors on the chip doubles
every 18-24 months

6. Just a Few Key Strokes by Anyone
from Anywhere at Any Time
Your Brand is in Play 24/7/365
Live with It…
Deal with It…

7. Social Media: 21st Century
• Within 5 Minutes
• Wikipedia Post
• YouTube Videos
• Twitter Tweets
• FB Mentions
• LinkedIn Posts
• UO Brand in Play

8. Catholic Brand in Play: 21st Century
• About 45,500,000 results (0.29 seconds)
• “But why isn’t Bernard Law in jail?” – Slate
• “Disgraced US Cardinal…” -- Guardian
• “Bernard Law Hid Pedophiles” – Care2.com

9. Catholic Brand in Play: 21st Century
• About 587,000 results (0.18 seconds)
• “For Cardinal Roger Mahony, social media is a powerful
pulpit.” – LA Times
• “Cardinal: LA’s Mahony Should Help Select Pope.” –
KABC 7 News
• “Cardinal Roger Mahony Tweets, but not about
Deposition.” – ABC News

10. The Numbers Don’t Lie
• 2/3rds of Global Internet Population Uses Social Media
• 10 percent of Total Internet Time is Social Media Time
• More Popular Than Checking E-Mail
• 93% Believe a Company Should Have a Social Media
Presence
• 85% Companies Should Interact with Customers
Through Social Media

11. Democratizing Communications
Internet Access; A Few Thoughts; A Few Key Strokes

12. The Basic Truths of Social Media
1. Ubiquitous, but NOT Monolithic
2. Digital is Eternal
3. Conversational Marketing
4. Thought Leadership

13. Blogging is Alive and Well
• 54.1 million WordPress sites
• 327 million subscribers
• 2.5 billion pages
• 500,000 new posts daily
• 400,000 comments daily

14. Almost DailyBrett is Alive and Well
• 204 Posts
• 183 Comments
• Nearly 20,000 Total Page Views
• July 2009: Seven Page Views
• April 2013: 1,627 Page Views
• SEO: Tagging
• SEO: Promoting on social media
• http://almostdailybrett.wordpress.com

15. From Dorm Rooms to Wall Street
• LinkedIn, 2003
• MySpace, 2003
• Facebook, 2004
• Flickr, 2004
• YouTube, 2005
• Twitter, 2006
• What’s Next?

16. SEC Sets Rules for Disclosure
Using Social Media – NY Times
• FB, Twitter Use OK
• Must Inform Investors in Advance
• Same as company website

17. Tale of Two IPOs
• Networking Strategy
• 200 million subscribers
• $19.5 billion Market
Capitalization
• $723 million in
revenues
• $13 million in profits
• Debuted at $45; Now
$176.34
• Social Media Strategy
• 1.1 billion subscribers
• $65.5 billion Market
Capitalization
• $4.3 billion in revenues
• $714 million in profits
• Debuted at $38; Now
$27.13

18. Rolling Stones Social Media
• 12.67 million likes
• 376,674 friends
• 331,542 followers
• 214,172 subscribers
• No LinkedIn page
• No blog

19. Proposal for 50th Anniversary Tour
Drive likes to 20 million
Drop MySpace efforts
Tweet at least twice daily
Post a video of a song per
concert
Use to talk with sponsors
Blog at least weekly

20. Digital is Eternal

21. “Really Checking Her Out”
Facebook Page of Fired Secret Service Agent

22. Brand Train Wrecks

23. Word of Mouth on Steroids

24. Thought Leadership
Does Your Bishop Have “Standing”?

25. Is “Ghostblogging” Kosher?
• “Okay” as long as ideas come from exec: 71-20
percent; 8 percent neutral
• Should be publicly disclosed: 56-35 percent
• Respond to comments: 56-35 percent
• Respond to other blogs: 42-44 percent

26. What Now?
Strategies to Succeed in a Digital World

27. Underpromise; Overdeliver
“…Word of mouth works a lot faster on the Internet
than it does person-to-person because you can
just e-mail a bunch of your friends and say „hey I
just had this amazing experience.‟ That is one of
the reasons that we wanted to keep upgrading
shipping.” – Alfred Lin of Zappos.com

28. The Trading of Brands in
Cyberspace
“More young people will learn about IBM
from Wikipedia in the coming years than
from IBM itself.” – New York Times
Columnist Thomas L. Friedman

29. 24/7/365 Monitoring & Response
“The digital bazaar is a many-to-many
conversation among people acting in one or
more of the cultural roles. It is too turbulent
to be directed or dominated.” – Author and
Columnist Douglas Rushkoff.

30. Doing Good, Not Just Doing Well
“Can companies do well by doing good?
Yes…sometimes.” – University of Michigan
Professor Aneel Karnani

31. Wisdom, Even from Corvallis
“I tell our players all the time, „As soon as you start
going down the wrong track and you start doing
something wrong, the clock starts ticking until the
day you are caught, because it‟s going to
happen‟…In our world today, you think it‟s not
going to be found out eventually?” -- Oregon State
Football Coach Mike Riley

32. Not A Matter of “If,” a Matter of
“When”
• Tell the Truth
• Tell it All
• Tell it Fast
• Move On

33. Appreciate the Difference Between a
Homily and a Conversation
• Two-Way Asymmetrical Theory: Research-
based message delivered to audience
• Two-Way Symmetrical Theory: Two-Way
Conversation Among Equals

34. Diffusion of Innovation Theory

35. Manage or Be Managed:
Your “Brand” is in Play