Ford’s Explorer Reveal – Unlike the other links that are in this post, this links to a Facebook page. Ford, who is always pushing the social media envelope, revealed the Explorer on Facebook.  The content trickled live onto the page throughout the day. This is pretty cool and came out cleaner than I originally thought it would when it was first reported a few weeks ago.  Seriously how awesome is Mike Rowe?

Can Internet Buzz Actually Hurt Sales? – The buzz around the Old Spice videos won’t die. This post doesn’t beat a dead horse but brings up a honest assessment of why the campaign is not transitioning to direct sales – You can’t polish a turd. Now that statement alone brings the article into the top 5 of the week. I liked the campaign, but I am already an Old Spice customer, as I like the smell.

The clash of the social media know-nothings – Now this article is has a lot of great points as to what we should look for in social media marketing as well as what we should avoid in the snake oil section, however that is not the beauty of the link. The comments are. I don’t think I have seen this many insightful nuggets on a topic in a while. Definitely peep it out.

Should Levi’s disclose sponsorship of viral video? – Scott Stratten makes a great point in this post on this viral video making its rounds across the Web. While the video is pretty cool, it seems disingenuous now as the video was sponsored by Levi’s. Now this was not disclosed in the video, but should have been. What do you think?

A new chapter in personal brands – This article from Jason Falls addresses the move of Frank Elliason from Comcast to Citi. Now while people moving jobs are nothing new, Frank was the face of Comcast. The humanization of this brand if you will, that will surely be missed. Unlike most people leaving a company, the general public liked Frank as he empathized with their problems and helped them get their issues resolved. This is something that companies will have to look at as the space continues to evolve.

Image – Nextup

Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love – For some reason I have been on a Fast Company kick lately, maybe it’s just that they keep putting out odd but intriguing pieces like this one. I am no scientist but this seems pretty cool. If social media is like falling in love, than it is pretty easy to see why we all get so addicted.

What’s at Stake for Consumers in Today’s News Trust Gap? – Trust is something that we often take for granted. This goes for large companies to your friend down the road. Our society is built on trusting things before making a purchase – however with the media saturation that we currently have, there is some disconnect in what we trust. This is a great article on how we can work to bridge the gap.

Social media failure: examples from the travel industry – With any burgeoning industry, there will be countless wins and also countless fails used as case studies. In social media, the wins have been very highly touted and the failures have kind of been skirted under the rug. Unfortunately for the travel industry, their snafus have been complied into an article – worth checking out as a cautionary tale.

The rise of fake PR and how to manage it – With BPGlobalPR grabbing all the headlines as the top spoof account on a social site, fake PR is bad. Not just for companies but for all of us who work in the PR industry. Gumshoe offers some good tips (and cartoon) about ways to combat fake PR.

Not Right Now – I am sure that by now you have heard plenty of reasons that companies don’t want to invest in social media. It probably frustrates you to hell when you get this kind of response from the C-suite, but Danny Brown feels your pain. In this post he mocks the answer and gives some answers.

The first is from Richard Edelman and looks at public engagement in a number of ways, while the second is on how brands evolve with social media. The final presentation is aptly dubbed steal our playbook. They are quick studies and hopefully you can pull some useful nuggets from them.

So before I drop the week’s edition of Five for Friday on you, I will ask that you send some well wishes to my pal Kate Ottavio. Kate is competing for the crown of Miss Connecticut this weekend and I’d like to see if we could send some good vibes her way to help her win. She has told me that kidnapping a judge was out of the question since there is no fan voting. Now with that out of the way, even though the week was a good one, I am looking forward to the weekend. Tomorrow morning, I’ll be heading out early for a road trip to Citi Field to check out the Mets’ new digs with some tailgating beforehand. Any big plans for you? Here’s this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

Pitches, Not Rolodexes, Matter – In this post, Heather Whaling (@prtini) uses a real-world example of using skill in pitching to land a client over someone with “everyone on speed dial). This is a must read and something that we should all take into consideration as we look to hone our craft.

Saving Chevrolet Means Sending ‘Chevy’ to Dump – My boss passed this along on Tuesday morning. Now while I am no brand expert, the move still shocks the hell out of me. Chevy is as American as apple pie and well you would expect it to be something that stays (especially given its place in our lexicon). We’re in a day and age where things are being shortened like KFC and FedEx, why go for the long drawn out name?

Social Media usage worldwide: Australia / Brazil lead the way – If I were to name social media consumption by country, Australia and Brazil would not be on the top of my list. But then again, numbers have never been my strength. But the numbers look more from other past surveys and this makes sense.

Putting the I in Social Media – We all know that there are no I’s in team, but did you know that there are four I’s in Social Media? We all know that I can’t count, but Danny Brown puts four I’s in a row to make a great case for things to ask yourself before entering the space and making it happen.

Social Media Can’t Save Your Business – Zach Cohen makes a lot of good points in this piece. While the target is really the small business owner it also applies to larger businesses as well. Social media is something that is a support the business medium, not an end all be all silver bullet.

Also since Smirnoff has taken down the Bros Icing Bros site, here are some of the better YouTube videos of the meme.

Now my whole fascination with this began after an innocent post last weekend about a license plate that I thought was perfect for a PR pro. However, I soon found out that many in the industry hated the word spin more than Republicans hate Democrats (and vice versus).

Now I don’t hold ill-will towards any of these folks even though there were some heated exchanges over Twitter. While I respect everyone’s opinions, I need to chime in and see if the industry as a whole has a grasp on what spin means. I think it may have gotten lost in translation somewhere.

Sure journalists, bloggers and the industry have banded together to try and eradicate some of our bad habits (blind pitching, spamming, etc.), but I would argue spin is something we all do. Show me a story, pitch or post that does not have a slant to it and I will gladly shower you with yawns or show you my unicorn. We all do it, let’s just get over ourselves, we aren’t that important.

According to Dictionary.com, Spin means (Slang) ”to cause to have a particular bias; influence in a certain direction: His assignment was to spin the reporters after the president’s speech.” Also some synonyms according to the same source are: develop, narrate, relate.

Now that definition validates my view of the word. As a PR pro, it is my job to get my company into publications with positive stories. Now this means that the story needs to appeal to a reporter or lead to a larger trend piece. Please notice that I did not say lie or fabricate facts in there. That is something that I do not agree with and feel that my colleagues mistakenly associate spinning with lying. Now I think a great description was given by my friend PRCog a while back. Spinning is something that we all do as our daily job functions; it is something that drives value. Now you can call it whatever you want fluffing, massaging, smithing or chatting with a reporter – to help you sleep at night.

One of my heroes in the PR field is Thomas Paine. Now I never met the wordsmith, he was dead long before my time; however his spin piece, Common Sense, helped spark the revolution that formed the United States.

With that said, how do you feel about spin? Is it something you do? Or is it something that you feel is an unnecessary evil? Do you disagree with my definition?

All opinions welcome, just be respectful of others.

How has everyone’s week gone? Mine was too short, but I am not complaining. We’ve got a company party today so things should be pretty cool. Rumor is that there will be a dunk tank.  I also wanted to drop a plug for a contest that I am running at Vistaprint for micro business owners looking for a marketing makeover or just want to win an iPad, click here. So with my PSA out of the way, here is this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

Solving Your Personal PR Crisis – with social media, it often becomes which brand you work for, is it your personal brand or the company that signs your check? I am of the mindset that they can coexist, you just need to set goals for each one and stick to them.

The new realities of marketing through YouTube – Times they are a changing. Google has been doing some pretty cool things with YouTube lately and when uploading a video over the weekend saw some new warnings about sound and image quality but had no clue why. This post makes some interesting points about what the changes mean for marketers.

50 Reasons Why I Like Twitter – This post comes way of my good friend Bob Cargill. I like the premise and wonder if we could all rattle off why we love the service so much. Mine would be less eloquent, but pretty similar with a few changes here and there. How do you stack up?

Blogging Tips: 52 Different Ideas! – Everyone is constantly looking for ways to make their blog better. Usually the lists rattle off the same content over and over, but this list has some ideas that I hadn’t seen before, but might look to incorporate.

Social Media Might Not Fix Really Big Problems – Now this is just an interesting take on something that we all have an opinion on – BP. Now I am in Rachel’s camp on SM not being the right route, I just wonder if there is anything that could have been done differently from a corporate level to deaden the blow somewhat.

Random Tangent…

It is now official, I am green with envy of Gatorade and want one of these for my office…Anyone want to help make it happen?

When I ran down to grab something from my car this morning, I saw this beauty on a hotel guest’s car.

Tell me has there ever been a plate better suited for a flack? I really hope this guy is in the field and not a Maytag man.

25 Simple Ways To Earn Trust – Jason Falls hits the nail on the head with this post. There are a lot of ways to build trust, however the more successful methods include remembering the small things. Check out this list to see if you are missing any.

PR pros need to write more like…gasp! Sales copywriters! – I missed this post, but came across it today on Ragan. However, I wanted to link directly to Ms. Mengel’s site so you could check out her other great pieces. This one touches on an area that we can all improve upon – our writing. Question is can we sell like the sales writers?

A crash course in PR from the folks at @BPGlobalPR – Now I will not say that I don’t feel for BP’s PR team as of late. However this account is too good to ignore. The person running the account is witty and outlandish – and did I mention anonymous (unless you count this as a coming out party)? Well now they are offering PR advice in the Guardian a UK publication.

The most important person in social media doesn’t exist…yet – This is a spot on post as to what is wrong with social media within organizations. There are too many chefs in the kitchen. The question really becomes who will step up to be the Bobby Flay of the group?

Disney Puts Tickets on a Facebook Site – I won’t lie, I love Disney and Pixar. Call me what you will, but it is what it is. Now that it’s out of the way, this is a pretty cool new offering from Disney. Buying tickets from where you are playing, works perfectly especially on a branded page with movie tie ins. Pure impulse buy, pure genius.

7 reasons social media won’t work for your company – Social media is a lot like Tickle Me Elmo – a fashionable craze that everyone wants to have. However, it is not the best tool for all companies. This article does a great job of counter selling the point of you not needing social media for your company.

Freeing Yourself From Gurus – Mark Levy uses a real world example to debunk the guru mentality. Sure these folks might be popular and have done great work, but they are not the end all, be all. Don’t be afraid to show your voice – it’s fun and rewarding.

Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small – This article from Brian Solis is really interesting in terms of the adoption of social media by small business owners. Since the tools have a low entry point to market, the usage seems like it should be second nature. I just didn’t expect these numbers.

An analysis of five commonly held beliefs about managing crises that erupt online – This article is a great read that was passed along in #pr20chat during a conversation on crisis management. The conversation was great and a lot of folks chimed in with great offerings on crisis management in general. Check out the piece for some 2.0 nuggets.

Is Social Media a New Way to Build a Brand? – This article came way of my friend and mentor Bob Cargill the other day on Twitter. It’s a pretty interesting look into how brands can be built using social media.

Bonus – Touchy Feely Flackery

Hopefully this flack learned that there are good touches and bad touches and the reporter learned to be polite.

The busyness will pay off though, there are some exciting things on tap that I will share in a few weeks and hope that it’s something that y’all find interesting. So without further verbal diarrhea, here is this week’s edition of Five for Friday.

7-Eleven Wants to Be More than a ‘Blip’ on Consumers’ Radar – This is a very cool partnership between the convenience giant and Blip.TV. Since these stores are everywhere the potential exposure to the contest is really large. It is also an interesting concept where the focus of the contest is using the brand to travel from point A to B. If for nothing less, the partnership raises awareness of the brand. Who knew that 7-11 offered more than taquitos, Big Bites and Slurpees?

When you are the brand – Now I haven’t read Chris Borgan’s blog in months. Not that the content isn’t good, I just haven’t had time and the headlines in my reader didn’t stand out. However this one just reached out and bit me in the ass because it is a topic that I have been both baffled and pondering over the past few weeks. Definitely worth a read.

The Ten PR Dudes with the Smoothest Moves on Twitter & Real Life (2010) – In the second year of the PR Dude’s smooth criminal list, I cracked the top 10 and wanted to pass along the list as a group of folks that you should be following and I am friends with most of them. Also check out his lovely ladies of PR as well.

Twitter vs. Seinfeld – This one doesn’t need much explaining, but if you do not know who Seinfeld or what Twitter is, check out Mike’s breakdown of the eerie parallels between the classic show and Twitter.

Are You Slow Enough to Succeed in Social Media? – With the fast pace of SM you would think that speed was the ticket. Instead Jay Baer makes a good case for the slow and steady tortoise with a calculated method.