As my time working as a Marketing Intern with 451 unfortunately comes to an end, it’s a great opportunity to take a look back at all that I’ve had the privilege to learn this semester.  One of the most exciting parts of this internship was attending the Boston Business Journal events each month.  While the BBJ was making sure that the event itself ran smoothly, they relied on the 451 “Command Center” to produce the promotional tweets as well as the live tweets to be sent out during the event.

Laura, Halley and Amanda at BBJ Pacesetters in front of the 451 Command Center

To be honest, as I began this internship, I had absolutely no idea how much work went into this entire process.  To explain the necessary prep work, let’s break it down into two parts:

1. Promotional Tweeting:

In order to build buzz around your event, you’ll want to send out some tweets before it’s set to take place.  We schedule tweets using our beloved Hootsuite Dashboard beginning about 1-1.5 months before the event.  These tweets can be anything you find interesting about the event: a special guest, an award winner, a panel discussion, etc.  They should always contain a shortened link to the event page as well as the predetermined hashtag for the event.  If you’re the one responsible for choosing the hashtag, remember to keep it short so that you have the opportunity to say as much as possible about the event in each tweet!

2. Live Tweeting:

First of all, you should know that you WILL be running around like a lunatic and will certainly be getting a lot of weird looks from event attendees. In live tweeting, sometimes you’re going to have to make yourself look like a freak for the sake of a great photo op.

The first misconception you can have about live tweeting is to think that it’s just that…live.  There is actually a ton of work that has to be done in advance.  Researching sponsors, honorees, and speakers for the event is necessary to ensure that we can get the best, most accurate, and most timely information out to the audience. Getting research out of the way ahead of time frees up time for taking pictures, quoting the speakers, and finding other interesting tweeting topics that will be of interest to your audience.

So, what type of content should you tweet at an event? Here are some ideas:
1. Pictures: Who doesn’t love a good picture? With all the free new mobile platforms designed for photography (Instagram, PhotoBox, etc.), taking pictures has never been so easy! Snap shots of table settings, flower arrangements, cool views, speakers, guests…anything!

During the opening meditation at the BBJ Healthiest Employers event, guests were asked to use peacock feathers as a point of focus in order to clear their minds. It made for a great photo op!

Some BBJ guests thought this was a great photo too....

2. Quotes: Think about what strikes you as funny, inspirational, unique, entertaining, and so on.  If it interests you, chances are it will also interest your audience!

At the BBJ Healthiest Employers event, winners were only allowed 3 words per acceptance speech, with each additional word costing them a $25 donation to Keynote Barbara Lynch’s nonprofit, Meet the Worms. As a live tweeter, this was a dream come true! It had never been easier to remember quotes exactly as they’d been said!

3. Questions: As always with social media, live tweeting is an opportunity for a conversation between you and your audience.  Ask questions! You can ask something that’s been asked by someone else during the event or something as basic as “What do you think of the food?”  You should then respond to everyone who uses the designated hashtag or tweets directly at you during an event.  Let your followers know that you’re really listening and that their opinions matter.  This is also an opportunity for free feedback! Take note of which information was retweeted or earned the most responses.  That’ll give you a clue as to what your audience wants to see or hear next time.

In the age of smartphones and tablet devices, you can be sure that live tweeting will not become a thing of the past anytime soon. So now that you’ve learned some tips for live tweeting, try it out yourself!  Most importantly, remember to have fun with it—it’s a great opportunity to unleash your creativity and further engage your followers!

-Katie O’Brien is a Marketing intern at 451 Marketing

@KGOBrien

Katie is a Senior at Boston College majoring in Communication.

Top Story: Olympics go Social with New Online Hub Connecting Fans and Athletes

The 2012 Summer Olympics are being dubbed the world’s “first social games” where marketers are creating buzz around all social media outlets in hopes of creating awareness around their brands. Advertisers are targeting social media to help raise brand profiles and engage consumers to chat about promotions online.

But it’s not just the marketers chatting on Facebook and Twitter. The 2012 London Olympics created an online social hub for athletes and fans to connect and interact. The International Olympics Committee organized a site called the Olympic Athletes’ Hub as an effort to better engage fans and create interactions with participating athletes.

The hub integrates Twitter and Facebook feeds of the athletes into one combined feed. Fans can sign up and search the directory by athlete name, country, sport, discipline, or event. Currently there are 1,000 athletes in the hub and more participants will be added as they qualify for events.

In order to create interaction and engagement, the hub has created contests for fans to win prizes; including attending the games, by liking athletes’ Facebook pages and following them on Twitter.

During the London 2012 summer Olympics athletes will:

• Have real time text chats with fans from inside the Olympic Village
• Share their results and engage with fans
• Experience growth in their social media following

Springpad recently re-launched with a whole new look, feel and purpose. What was originally more of an individual list-maker and web page clipper is not uber-Pinterest. While it doesn’t have the audience Pinterest does, Springpad does have a more fully built out functionality for individual ‘Springs’ (think Pinning on Pinterest).

The features that really stuck out for me are;

• Product locators for some items. While it does not appear this is fully built out – I clicked on a Spring of a wine, and was given a location to buy the wine by entering my zip code. This online to offline location can be very powerful for marketers.
• Smart Springs. When I click on a food recipe spring it gives me not just the option to say I ‘like’ it but also an option for ‘want’ and ‘cooked’. This recognition of the difference between major Sprung items is a nice touch.
• Private lists. This one is where I feel Pinterest has really fallen short – being able to privately share boards with friends is a basic, but valuable feature.
• Spring breakdown. Springpad automatically categorizes your springs by type (at least on a major category level). It has broken mine down to recipe, book, note, TV show and checklist.
• Notes and web clipping. As Springpad began as more of an Evernote-type product, they have retained much of this functionality. You can easily create checklists and clip Web pages with a simple Chrome plugin.
• Attractive mobile experience. The iPhone app is user friendly, aesthetically pleasing and seems to have most if not all of the Web functionality.

Overall I have found Springpad to be a valuable tool for business and pleasure. Give it a try and find out if Springpad will work for you as well, and let us know what you think!

Around the Hub: The Red Sox Take Some Social Media Initiative

The Boston Red Sox are finally seeming to catch on to something the Celtics, Patriots, and Bruins have understood for quite awhile now. Social media sells. And fans want to hear from their favorite teams and participate in all things team spirit on social media. In all fairness, the entire Major League Baseball organization has been very slow jumping aboard the social media train; not just the Red Sox organization. Sure the Sox are on Facebook and Twitter these days; they just haven’t been too actively interacting with fans or letting us get involved in any promotions.

But with Fenway Park’s Opening Day and their 100th birthday celebration, Bostonians finally saw some signs of life from the Red Sox on the interwebs. And an opportunity to actually get involved. In honor of the celebration, they filled 100 balloons with pairs of game tickets and hid those balloons around Boston. Then, they created a hashtag for the promotion and revealed clues about the balloons whereabouts on their Twitter account. Of course, fans went wild trying to find the tickets and eagerly talked up the team on Twitter.

According to BostInno, the promotion allowed to Sox to double their daily Twitter followers and increase average mentions by 1.5 times. So, was the successful campaign enough to keep the Red Sox going on social media? We think so and have a feeling the 2012 season will be the year we see all of the MLB teams bloom online in a big way. In fact, the Red Sox are very recently joined  Pinterest and Tumblr, too. Now we’re just waiting for them to create a gathering spot for all things social media, like the Bruins recently did. And more of those ticket giveaways, exclusive to followers on social media. Game on.

As public relations professionals, we all understand the need for brevity. We learn early on not to say “The person of the male sex strolled to the area that is not here but in another spot.” It’s better to say, “The man walked there.” Nice and easy to digest.

If clarity and simplicity are the pillars of PR, Twitter is the perfect challenge for  us. Limiting ourselves to 140 characters is the ultimate test of our slicing and dicing abilities. This challenge is welcomed and, for once, we have a MAXIMUM limit. Well, other than those nine or so characters we keep for re-tweeting (please retweet, please.)

What a perfect way for us to showcase our skills. No silly wording or need for fluff. It’s the Donner Party of characters per post… without the cannibalism.

However, many seem to think that with Twitter being a relatively new concept by limiting characters, requires an abandonment of Associate Press Style.

It doesn’t help that we have so much stacked against us.

The following is my little list of AP rules (or just general rules of thumb) we neglect on Twitter. Note: I am not using this information to go Emily Post-al on anyone. Use this list as a reminder to check your AP Style Book from time to time. We all commit these crimes of writing. I probably have broken countless rules in this article, and I have my style book right next to my computer.

1. Dates

-ALWAYS use the number form for dates

-Abbreviate the months for full dates. Examples: ‘Sept.’ for September, ‘Aug.’ for August, and ‘Dec.’ for December.

-And never use th, st, nd, rd, or any other form of date endings. These are a no-no.

-@PRproLaura: “Wow! The event on Feb. 8 was amazing!”

-@failAPintern: “I cannot believe I have to wait until the fourteenth for free burritos”

2. Commas – Commas are the Anne Hathaway of the writing world; they look great, but are not really good everywhere. And too many just ruins everything.

-Use commas to separate introductions or subordinate clauses.

-Don’t think that more commas better; that can just look as ridiculous as Charlie Sheen stand-up

-@PRproLaura: “Other than pizza, I don’t eat much Italian.”

-@failAPintern: “I really think, that, pending a firing, squad, my day can’t get, much, worse”

3. Abbreviations – A good abbrev. is always handy. In a 140 characters, it’s nice to shorten and save. But don’t go too crazy

-@PRproLaura: “I can’t wait 2 go 2 Lion King this evening!”

-@failAPintern:“I luv 2 wrt @ my nu dsk bc my job’s awsm. Cldnt we wrt @ FB 2day 2 get peeps?”

4. Active Voice

-Passive voice sounds silly!

-You can make the same point with more clarity and with fewer words.

-@PRproLaura: “I ate the best pizza today”

-@failAPintern: “The best pizza was eaten by me today” (That was harder to write than the “Abbreviations” tweet. Honestly)

-If something is hard to understand, you lose your audience. They’ve already moved on to Facebook or some hilarious YouTube video. Don’t let the funny hamster win. Use active voice.

5. Capitalization

-A common misconception is that the best way to grab someone’s attention is by being the loudest.

-All caps do not help your point

-If your message is good, don’t use annoying all-caps to ruin it.

-@PRproLaura: “Tickets go on-sale for the dinner with George Clooney tonight!”

-@failAPintern: “OMGGEORGECLOONEYISCOMINGIAMSOEATINGDINNERWITHHIMOMGIAMGOINGTODIE”

What do you think? Is AP style necessary for Twitter? Or do we need to evolve to a new set of Twitter-friendly guidelines? Tweet us @451Heat or leave your comments below!

Thanks to Ryan Schreiner, 451 Marketing Public Relations Intern for this Fun Friday post!
-Ryan (@rschre) is a Junior at Boston University

The 84th annual Academy Awards was a chaotic event to say the least. Between Sacha Baron Cohen dumping “Kim Jong Il’s ashes” on Ryan Seacrest’s designer suit, the cast of “Bridesmaids” presenting their Martin Scorsese drinking game, and J.Lo’s debatable wardrobe malfunction, viewers gave up their regularly scheduled Sunday night programs to see what other vagaries might ensue. While I’d like to congratulate everyone who walked away with an Oscar on Sunday evening (congrats Meryl Streep!), we should also acknowledge one noteworthy contributor to the show’s success that made their “speech” through a different channel…social media!

According to Bluefin Labs, the Hollywood, CA event generated some 3.8 million comments on Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites during its ABC broadcast (compared to last year’s 1 million). This statistic places the Academy Awards just above last year’s MTV Video Music Awards, which produced 3.1 million social media comments. The only award show having received more commentary through social media was this year’s telecast of the Grammy Awards, which had an astounding 13 million comments!

An estimated 57% of the Oscars’ comments were made by women, with the remaining 43% coming from men. Bluefin Labs further analyzed the results to determine that 22% were positive, 16% were negative, and 62% remained neutral.

High-traffic moments occurred somewhat predictably throughout the evening:

1. The most-talked about moment was the Best Picture announcement for the nearly silent film, “The Artist.”

“Last year’s Best Picture: An English dude who couldn’t speak. This year’s: A French dude no one could hear.” – Andy Borowitz author/comedian

“I am officially announcing that I am re-making THE ARTIST with sound.” – Alec Baldwin actor

2. The second peak of social media commentary took place when crowd-pleasing comedians, Tina Fey and Bradley Cooper presented three awards. Cooper’s mustache created a lot of buzz while fans encouraged The Academy to consider Fey as next year’s host.

“Tina Fey should host next year.” – Kelly Oxford writer/famed tweeter

“Bradley Cooper is just in from robbing a train. #Oscars” – Hulu online service for ad-sponsored video streaming

3.  Octavia Spencer’s emotional acceptance speech claimed the third most popular spot for social media discussion. Spencer’s comments additionally ranked highest in positivity ratings.

“Congratulations to @OctaviaSpencer for her Oscar win! You truly deserve it! God bless!” – Kelly Rowland singer

“Yes!!!! Welcome to the family Octavia !! Congrats!!! Amazing!!” – Jennifer Hudson singer/actress

Other unique moments during this year’s Oscars generated additional online discussions, and continues to prove how real-time social media platforms are changing the face of awards show commentary, as well as television watching in general. One such example was the somewhat controversial exposure of Angelina Jolie’s right leg. Viewers immediately shared opinions of Jolie’s wardrobe choice and, almost instantaneously, a Twitter account was created for “AngiesRightLeg.”  The Twitter account currently has close to 35,000 followers and about 30 tweets.

The above statistics and results only reinforce existing research in support of the effectiveness of social media. Clearly, with active individuals across such a broad spectrum, sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. can all assist in amplifying anything – whether that’s celebrity limbs or your brand. Celebrities who utilize social media for public relations’ benefits also have the opportunity to translate the increased popularity of their profiles and pages into potential business success. Advertisements cost $1.7 million per 30-second commercial, but given the popularity of the 2012 award show, it’s likely that this was money well spent.

Were you commenting on the Academy Awards via social media last Sunday?  What was your favorite part of the show?  Do you think social media is changing the face of television commentary? Tweet us @451Heat or share your comments below!

-Katie O’Brien, 451 Marketing Marketing Intern

@KGOBrien

Katie is a senior at Boston College majoring in Communication.

Thanks for the images:

1. www.gradley.net

2. www.laist.com

3. www.hollywoodreporter.com

4. www.blogcdn.com

5. www.cbswbbav.files.wordpress.com/

6. www.laist.com

Top Story: Oscar Tweets Grow in 2012, but Don’t Come Close to the Grammys

If you were on Twitter during last night’s Oscar Awards, you most likely couldn’t ignore the awards show-related tweets. My tweet stream was moving extraordinarily fast, with chatter about who was wearing what and who was winning what. Social TV tracker Bluefin Labs actually counted the number of tweets related to the Oscars and found 3.44 million of them. That may sound like a lot, and it is, considering last year’s Oscar Awards only garnered 966,000 tweets. But still, when compared to the Grammy Awards, the Oscars fell seriously short.  In fact, they didn’t even come close as this year’s Grammys received 13 million related tweets.

Why were there so many more Grammy-related tweets than there were Oscar tweets? Well, for one thing, the Grammys are a whole lot more casual, the fashion is a lot more fun, and the celebrities are a lot more mainstream. There’s only so much for a teenager to say about The Artist winning Best Picture, but there’s a whole lot they can say about Katy Perry’s hair matching her dress. Even this year’s Super Bowl received 12 million tweets, many likely due to the commercial hype.

So, what were the top Oscar-tweeting topics for 2012? Most were chatting about Meryl Streep’s Best Actress win (and the amazing speech that went along with it) and Jennifer Lopez’s ultra low-cut dress. Yup, these are the things we talk about on Twitter.

But still, such an increase in Oscar Award-related tweets will likely only bring good things to the show in the future. It’s clear proof that people are watching, paying attention, and chatting about anything and everything with their friends. Just not as much as they are the Grammy Awards.

Under The Radar: To Sell, or Not to Sell (iPad 2)

With the iPad 3 announcement looming, retailers are starting to prepare by unloading their inventory. Major retailers like Best Buy ($50 cut) and Meijer ($75 cut) have been cutting prices on the iPad 2 to make room for the iPad 3 in the coming months.

If you are looking to trade in your iPad 2 for a shiny new iPad 3 at launch, you may want to sell now. The closer to the launch of the iPad 3 we get, the less money you will be getting for your sale. Currently, the iPad 2 64GB with 3G can be sold for $360 on Gazelle, but look for those prices to drop fast over the next months.

Or you can donate your outdated iPad to Orangutan Outreach, an organization that provides used iPads to orangutans in captivity.

Still on the fence about getting the new iPad? Here are a few [rumored] reasons why you may want to pick up a 3;

• Longer battery life
• Improved camera
• Better screen resolution (maybe even up to 2048×1536)
• Siri
• Improved microphone
• Quad-core chip processor
• Tiered offerings (iPad 2s AND iPad 3)

Will you be selling your iPad in preparation for getting the iPad 3?

Around the Hub: Ben & Jerry’s Not-So-Fortune Cookie

New York Knicks point guard and pop-culture phenomenon Jeremy Lin was honored by New England’s own Ben & Jerry’s with what many deemed a controversial ice cream flavor, “Taste the Lin-Sanity.”  Sounds harmless enough, right?  And delicious too – vanilla frozen yogurt, lychee honey swirls, and (wait for it) fortune cookie pieces.

The backlash on social media and in the local and national media were not far behind – many felt that the addition of fortune cookies promoted racist Asian stereotypes, focusing on Lin’s Chinese heritage rather than his basketball skills or Harvard education.

In response to the controversy, Ben & Jerry’s sent out a tweet. Well, sort of.  They sent out five back to back tweets to apologize. For your viewing pleasure, here they are (click image to enlarge):

Way more than the standard 140 characters. Our thoughts:

Pros: They got their whole message out in real time.  It’s all there, they laid it out.
Cons: The message is broken in to five pieces, doesn’t follow Twitter-ettiquette, doesn’t offer follow-up (ie: where is the link to their official statement, which the tweets reflect?)

The Lin flavor was only offered in the company’s Harvard Square location, so damage was limited and the flavor was quickly changed, omitting fortune cookies for more PC waffle cone pieces.  But we have to wonder – did they handle this public relations issue effectively?  Would it have been more effective/tweet-able/search-friendly  to apologize in a standard tweet with a link to their news release?  We think yes.

Under the Radar: New Social Media Tool Will Help Journalists Find Breaking News on Twitter

Last week, we reported that Twitter broke the news of Whitney Houston’s death. And these days, that’s not very surprising to hear. Most major news does seem to be broken over Twitter. But, of course, there’s also a lot of misinformation on Twitter, as well, including lots and lots of celebrity death hoaxes. So, the question is, how can journalists take advantage of Twitter to build their own stories? After all, if a journalist knows a twitter user is a valuable source, they can take the next step to reach out to them and get more information.

Researchers at Rutgers University and Microsoft are currently working on a new software tool that will help journalists see breaking news tweets as they’re happening. Seriously Rapid Source Review (SRSR) will identify credible twitter users using their Twitter profile, as well as discovering tweets with links and photos, filtering out retweets, and selecting mobile tweets. The tool will help journalists make the decision on whether or not someone appears to be a viable source and whether or not they should take the next step in making contact.

We love that journalists are taking Twitter seriously and are determining methods to make it more useful for creating news pieces. SRSR is still in development stages, but we’re sure it will make the lives of journalists a bit easier in this world of social media information saturation.

Let us know what you think about this week’s 451Labs post – tweet to us @451Heat.

Pinterest is the hot new social media platform that is everyone’s new guilty pleasure! To be honest, I just discovered it about three weeks ago and it has already become part of my daily online routine.  If you’re not a Pinterest addict like me, you may be asking, “What is Pinterest?! What the heck is a pin?”  Below is my Pinterest “How-To” – enjoy!

What is Pinterest:

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the awesome things you find on the internet. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, create a dream wardrobe and organize their favorite recipes! In order to get started you must request an invite.

So here’s how it works – Users collect and ‘pin’ images that they find online. Once the image is on a user’s boards others can see it, ‘Like’ it, and comment on it. The people in your network can also ‘re-pin’ an image that you’ve pinned to their boards. You can create different boards for different topics such as a Wedding board, a Style board, a Recipe board, a Quote board or whatever you want! Here are some examples of popular boards:

Home Décor- a popular board for people to post pictures of new ideas for your home. People post furniture, window treatments, color schemes, accessories and more!

Food & Drink- a popular board people use to post delicious recipes, restaurants and cooking tips for you to try out!

Style- a popular board for people to post the latest fashion trends, hair styles, tips and anything stylish!

Now that you know a little bit about Pinterest, here’s how to get started. When you first creating your account, you want to start following people. Click your name at the top, a drop down menu will appear and you can click on “find friends” to see which of your friends are on Pinterest. The more people you follow the more Pins you see on the main page. You can also follow “boards.” This means you aren’t following a person, just their pins on a specific board will show up in your stream, but pins from their other boards will not show up.

After you start following your friends and different boards you can create your own boards which allows you to categorize your pins. Go to the top right corner near your name and click “Add +” to add a pin or create a board.

When you find something you like and want to “Re-Pin”, “Like” or Comment, hover your mouse over the image and “Re-Pin, Like and Comment” will appear. Click whatever you want to do and re-pin, like and comment away!

Even though Pinterest may seem like a personal social media site, it is actually a great way for companies to promote their products and services. Companies can join as their company name, create boards and pins for their different products and services. Companies can encourage their Facebook friends and Twitter followers to follow them on Pinterest and start pinning their favorite things about their company. Eventually companies can even run promotions on Pinterest, such as voting for your favorite pin or new product! For example, see Layla Grace’s recent Pinterest competition:

Hopefully this has helped answer some of your questions and by now you have now created your own Pinterest account! Welcome to the Pinterest phenomenon! Tweet us @451Heat to share your thoughts! And keep an eye out for future posts on Pinterest by @451Heat with more how-to’s and best practices.

-Melissa Garabedian, 451 Marketing PR Intern

@M_Garabedian

Melissa is a senior at Merrimack College majoring in Business Marketing

Top Story: Google Integrates Google+ into Search Results

As I was scouting out a chili recipe online the other day, I was somewhat surprised to see so many Google results from people I actually know. Who knew that blogger’s chili was so popular that their image is the first result to come up on Google Images? That’s when I realized it had begun: Google had integrated Google+ into search. Up until now, I, like many other Google users, trusted that the search results I was getting on Google really were the top search results. But the other day, I quickly understood that the results I was getting for my chili search were showing up because I was logged in to my Google account. Results were showing up personalized just for me, not only from users I follow on Google+, but also for users it is recommended I follow on Google+. The thing is, I’m not very social on Google+. The social content that’s important to me can be found on Twitter and Facebook and most of the people I trust to get me that top chili recipe aren’t on Google+ just yet. Will the promise of your Google+ content showing up in the searches of others encourage you to use Google+ more actively? That’s certainly what Google hopes.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Many are upset that Google is choosing to promote content from its own service, despite the fact that it’s not necessarily the most relevant content to them. And if Google wants to be trusted as the most reputable search engine, they need to be providing the best results; not the results that cater to their own commercial means. Google will argue that Facebook doesn’t make its content publicly searchable and that Twitter ended their contract to incorporate real-time tweets into search results. But most of that information on Twitter is public, which means Google’s crawlers could easily be bringing relevant tweets to us in their results, too. But they’re not.

There is a bright side, though. Yes, if you’re logged into your Google account, personal search results will automatically show up. But you can easily toggle personal results off with just the click of a button. And I have a strong feeling that’s what most users will be doing.

Under the Radar: Google and the FTC

Speaking of Google, according to a report by Bloomberg, they may be in a little hot water with the FTC. Basically, Google’s expansion into the social space and the implications social search implications raise concerns about anti-competitive behavior – a.k.a. all Google, all the time. Other companies and agencies, including Twitter and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, have spoken out about the narrowing of search results caused by the Search plus Your World feature. We’re looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Google has been criticized before for having selective results, and this could definitely have an impact on the results the search engine returns in the future.

Around the Hub: We Take it Back, MBTA

Last week we wrote about the MBTA missing out on a big PR and social opportunity by not endorsing a Tufts graduate student’s project to improve the design of an upcoming new T station location. Well, a few days after writing about this, the MBTA proved us wrong, launching its own initiative with Hubway.

Together, Hubway (the bike rental service) and the MBTA have launched the ‘MBTA + Boston Bikes Developer Challenge‘ that crowd-sources the creation of 2 different applications and a ‘visualization’. There will be a winner picked for each of the three categories, and the winner receives a one year membership to Hubway, a year of riding free on the T and passes to two food truck festivals. Those are some awesome prizes if you ask us!!

This is exactly what we thought the MBTA was missing out on doing – accessing Boston’s existing creative talent to build cool new stuff while gaining positive PR for working with its customers. The more initiatives the MBTA creates like this, the less the will be slammed on social media.

The three categories are as follows:

• Applications Challenge: This challenge calls on developers to create applications using MBTA data such as real-time and schedules bus, subway, and commuter rail data, together with New Balance Hubway Live Station Inventory Data to create an app, website, or other software application that provides an innovative way to access MBTA and New Balance Hubway information in real-time.
• Visualization Challenge: This challenge calls on developers to create a visualization of, “A day in the life of the MBTA and New Balance Hubway” using both MBTA and New Balance Hubway data such as  historical vehicle location, for the MBTA and Hubway origin-destination data.
• Bonus Challenge Bikes, Lunch, & T Challenge- This Challenge calls on developers to create innovative applications that help hungry residents learn about, locate and get to Boston′s food trucks. This app, for web or mobile, would ideally include locations of the trucks, menus, and routing information on how to get to them by walking, T or New Balance Hubway.

Tool of the Week: Pinterest

We’ll admit it: we’re addicted to Pinterest. In fact, it’s an obsession for some (we won’t name names) in our office. When it first came on the scene as a social tool to share images and ideas with our friends, we were on-board immediately.  Its integration with Facebook made it an awesome way to have a new conversation with existing contacts. And, due to its overwhelming popularity, Pinterest recently joined the illustrious list of the top ten social networks.

The mission of the company is simple enough: to connect everyone in the world through shared tastes and “things” they find interesting.  More recently, we’ve begun to think of Pinterest as a social tool for companies.  As an agency that focuses on consumer brands, having the ability to share images of your products and ideas that complement your brand in a visual way is a very appealing way for our clients to engage with their audience and help them picture their products in the home/in their closet/on their dinner table. Mashable recently released its top list of brands on Pinterest.  We put together our list of the top things we’ve seen brands do to leverage the hot new tool.

1. Clearly Defined Boards: the brands do a great job of dividing their content into themed boards, allowing users to easily follow the types of content that they want to see from the brand.
2. Stunning Images: people pin things they think are pretty.  Having high quality, beautiful images definitely make your pins more re-pinable.
3. It’s All In the Details: well-written descriptions explaining the content and context of an image makes it easier for pinners to add to your pin and share with their followers.
4. Complementary Content: just as with any good social media communication, adding complementary content in-line with the theme of your brand is a good call.  Don’t only talk about yourself: include content that contributes to the topic as a whole.
5. Encouraging Users to Pin Brand Content: Some brands have started to run promotions and contests that ask entrants to pin content from the brand to their own boards for a chance to win a prize. We’ll likely be seeing more and more brand promotions on Pinterest in the near future.
6. How-tos: Many brands are using Pinterest to show users how their fans use their product. For instance, Chobani has boards devoted to photos of dishes fans have created with their yogurt.

What do you think of the new Google social search results? How does your brand use Pinterest to engage with customers? Let us know in the comments section below or tweet us at @451heat.

As we enter a new year, it’s a great time to evaluate 2011 and set goals for the year ahead. With that in mind, the 451 Marketing public relations team put together a list of their resolutions for 2012.

Say “No” More Often

In a job that’s all about client service it’s extremely difficult to tell clients “no,” even in a nice way, when they ask the team to take on tasks that don’t map directly to their program’s goals. In 2012, I resolve to challenge clients more often to allow my team to stay focused on the actions that produce the results we are measured on. I love my clients and get excited along with them about new opportunities, so this resolution is a tough one for me!

– Karyn Martin, Senior Account Director, @karynmartin

Always Do My Homework 

Who can forget the PR blunder that was “Qwikster”? As Jason Gilbert of the Huffington Post wrote, “It should certainly be a first ballot entrant into the Bad Decision Hall of Fame, enshrined next to New Coke, Prohibition and that time Garth Brooks dyed his hair black and played rock music under the name Chris Gaines.” After a disastrous price hike in July 2011, Netflix went on to announce a way to offer users more convenient way to “Qwickly” receive DVD’s by mail while keeping the “Netflix” name strictly for streaming. Judgments about business decisions aside, the launch of their new Qwikster service may not have been such a PR fail if they’d taken the time to actually do their homework. Even a simple Google search (a seemingly no-brainer move) to see if the term was already in use would have done the trick. Luckily, we in PR squealed with delight as we realized before Netflix did that the @Qwikster handle was owned not by Netflix, but by a marijuana-loving high school student; and thus, hilarity ensued. Although I wound up canceling my Netflix service along with  800,000 fellow subscribers, this PR blunder turned out to be a great reminder for us all and something I’ll take with me into 2012.

– Laura Christo, Account Executive,@LauraChristo

Keep Up With National Trends

My New Year’s resolution is to pay closer attention to national trends in food and hospitality before they hit Boston so that I can help our clients introduce these new ideas to our market. It can be tough to take a step back during our busy day-to-day, so I resolve to make time for this in 2012.

-Nicole Russo, Executive Vice President Public Relations, @NicoleRusso

Help Clients Understand the True Definition of PR

In 2012 I resolve to help clearly define what PR is with our current, new and prospective clients, especially in the beginning of a new project. The term “PR” gets thrown around so loosely (“Charlie Sheen is one big PR disaster!” “Ashton Kutcher’s PR team is now Tweeting for him.” “The BP oil spill was a case of bad PR.”) that I think sometimes the true definition as well as the various components of PR get muddled for those not embedded in the industry. Additionally, I want to help clients understand how the different facets of PR apply to them – every client is different, so each campaign is going to be different, too.

- Meredith D’Agostino, Account Executive, @ladymusic

Pick Up the Phone More Often.

It has become very easy to handle communication with clients and reporters via email, SMS text, and even an occasional direct message on Twitter. While an electronic message is often more efficient, it’s also much less personal. In a business where relationships are paramount, nothing is better for building and strengthening a relationship than a personal conversation. While a face to face conversation is always best, it’s not always possible, so a phone conversation is the next best thing.

-Tom Lee, Partner, @TomLee451

Do you have any PR resolutions for 2012? Share them with us in the comments section below!

Last week I found an interesting article on Social Media Today, “How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media,” posted by Rachel Strella. I posted it to the @451Heat Twitter feed and was surprised at the feedback it received. There were a lot of comments with a range of opinions – a couple of people said that they spend their whole day using social media while others said that they really couldn’t measure how much time they spend.

The conversation really got me thinking – for many people in our increasingly digital world, social media is part of the daily routine. There are so many tools and tricks of the trade to make the process of engaging in social media easier and faster.

Personally, I spend about three hours a day on social media. I have a routine where I seek content in the morning to schedule though Hootsuite, my favorite platform for streamlining Twitter, Facebook, and now Google+. The majority of my time is spent on gathering content. I have a process where I like to ask questions and engage our followers rather than just giving them a link to view. This allows me to build and maintain relationships with them.

Certain tools, like the Hootlet extension and the Evernote extension, help to make my time on social media more efficient by creating an ‘easy button’ that gathers the important information while giving me the option to add my own thoughts.

Social media can be fun - but it can also be distracting. I like to Google everything. If there is something I see that might not be the right fit for @451Heat and it’s something that I can post to my personal Twitter or Facebook, email to the whole office, or it’s something that a client can post to their social media feeds, I’ll share it because it’s more efficient to get it off my plate right then and there versus going back to try to find it later. While that may add more interruptions to my day, it’s important, because for those of us who spend our whole day on social media - it is key to be timely, relevant, and consistent.

Since social media is an integral part of my day, for both work and personal engagement, I found the data below to be an interesting find. The report, which was released yesterday by comScore, shows what percentage of time is spent on social media throughout the world. According to the report, we spend an average of 1 of every 5 minutes on social media.

There are certain tools that can help you work smarter, track your time spent, and monitor your engagement with your audience. The key to managing your time spent on social media is balance and quality. Balance between a streamlined process, quality content, and building and maintaining relationships. This could be all or just part of your day depending on what you do.

What is your favorite social media site and how much time do you really spend on that site? We would love your feedback!

Top Story: Twitter ‘Explores’ a New Look and Feel with Redesign

Twitter has redesigned not only its interface, but some of its terminology as well. They went to a simpler overall experience by giving more definite categories and designing the site to be easier to navigate.

Twitter added two categories – ‘Connect’ and ‘Discover’. While neither adds actual features, it changes how you view your content.

Connect – this is now where you will find all interactions: who tweeted you, who added you tweet to their favorites, followed you, or retweeted you. This is somewhat similar to the Facebook activity feed, if you ask us.

Discover – this basically is a news aggregator and it accomplishes this by, putting imagery, trending topics, and hot stories in one area. By pulling in more than just the words that are hot – they have made it into more of an actual news resource.

‘Discover’ is the feature that could really change how Twitter is used. It will now be more appealing to people solely looking to stay up to date in news real time because it has a dedicated page.

Under the Radar: Why is Facebook hiding messages from us?

Did you know that Facebook has been filtering your private messages for over a year? If you’ve never noticed your “Other” messages, you may want to take a look and see what you’ve been missing.

We all know what it’s like to be bombarded with annoying messages on Facebook. From event invites for parties located across the country to band performances from “friends” we talked to once in high school, it’s easy to feel spammed by Facebook on occasion. But what you may not know is that Facebook has its own form of a spam filter set up. It’s a section of your messages called “other” and you may have never noticed it if you haven’t bothered to look. But Facebook has allegedly been implementing this system since November of 2010.

I checked my “other” folder for the first time the other day and noticed quite a few messages in there. Admittedly, most of them are messages that weren’t important and I would have immediately trashed anyway. And, I thank Facebook for sparing me the creepy “I’d like to get to know you better” messages from faceless people. However, there were a few in there, like a special discount from a company I follow and a message from a friend (who I’m not connected with on Facebook), that I would have liked to see— messages that I had no idea were being hidden from me.

Am I mad? Not necessarily. I do think Facebook’s “other” folder is incredibly useful and has saved me much annoyance. But it’s also something that we should have been aware of from the start. I thank goodness for Gmail’s spam filter on a daily basis, but I still like to take a quick look at it from time to time to make sure nothing important is getting by. I’m thrilled not to get all those annoying Facebook messages to my inbox, but at the same time, I would have liked to know that my messages were being filtered and I wasn’t necessarily receiving everything that was sent to me. Check your “other” folder and see what you’ve been missing!

451 Labs Tool Review: Uber’s App—Making it easy to get a cab from your phone

Waiting on the side of the road waving your hand to get a cab to stop is so yesterday. With Uber, you can request a car right from your iPhone or Android. It will come in no time and be a whole lot less sketchy than many of the cabs you’ve likely ridden in before. But what will it cost you?

If you live in a major city, you likely know what it’s like to be frustrated trying to catch a cab. Especially if it happens to be raining out or you stay at the bar until last call and want to get home when every other city-dweller is also trying to hitch a ride. It’s enough to make you want to spend the winter huddled in your apartment to avoid being stranded far from home at all costs. Enter Uber.

Uber is a new service that makes it easy to get a cab. A non-sketchy car that is much more comfy and classy-looking than the average cab. All you need is the iPhone or Android app and you can request a car from anywhere. If you don’t have a smart phone, you can simply text Uber your address. A sleek black car with a professional driver will come pick you up, generally in about 10-15 minutes. Which means you can stick around the bar a little longer, instead of standing on the sidewalk with your hand up waving for a cab, while simultaneously shoving people out of your way and screaming that you were waiting first. Or maybe that’s just how we do it in Boston? (Tweet This!)

Adding to Uber’s appeal is the easy pay option. Instead of making certain you have cash on you or dealing with your cab’s faulty credit card machine (if they even have one!), Uber simply charges the credit card you have on file with them. It sounds super easy, but how much does it cost? Well, Uber charges based on distance traveled and time spent in cab and varies from city to city. In Boston, the base fee is $7.00, plus a $4.00 distance fee per mile, and $0.85 per minute time fee (for when the car is traveling less than 11 miles per hour). So, taking an Uber car will cost you more than a standard cab in Boston (which generally has a $2.60 base charge, plus a $2.80 per mile distance fee, and $0.47 per minute time fee). However, when you factor in the fact that you can avoid waiting and annoyance, along with a potentially sketchy cabby who’s chatting on his cell phone and swerving in and out of traffic, it seems pretty worth it for certain occasions. We’ll likely be saving the luxury for when we’re really stuck and want to get home hassle-free.

Uber’s services are currently offered in San Francisco/Palo Alto, New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Paris, and Washington D.C.

Around the Hub: Foursquare-Amex Partnership comes and goes in Boston

There was a lot of buzz about the Foursquare-American Express partnership when it was announced, but in Boston there hasn’t been much talk about it lately because it wasn’t really activated anywhere in the Hub.

About a week ago, Foursquare quietly rolled out specials at a number of local businesses that have a ‘Spend $10, get $10 off’ specials – provided by American Express. While we are excited to see this feature coming to Boston, it raises some concerns as well.

In Boston, they did not consult the businesses before putting this special up. While the money exchange is done on the credit card, many customers will likely ask the businesses about the specials. It makes sense that Foursquare would want to push this out to many businesses, however they should be giving merchants more information and training staff on the specials. If a local restaurant was consulted on this, they would be able to internally push the promotion to existing customers and get more reach overall.
              

UPDATE: As of this morning it appears the AMEX specials are gone in Boston

Will you be using the uber cool app for your next taxi? Will you be more keen to check your “other” Facebook messages, Will you be more tuned in with the new Twitter, or will you be checking in to see what new discount you can get? Join the conversation #451Labs and drop us a line.