Breaking News: Dewey Still Beats Truman

The famously inaccurate banner, Dewey Defeats Truman, lives again as CNN is the first to break the news on the Supreme Court health care story. It was the first outlet to have a story at the ready.

Unfortunately for CNN, it was the wrong news. It was corrected only after 5-10 minutes of commentary on its television programming and thousands of people were prompted to read the headline: "Mandate struck down." Some even received news prompts on their mobile devices, feeling a pang of elation or disgust depending on where they stood on the issue.

But whatever they felt was replaced by a momentary lapse of reason and confusion. Whether they believed the headline or not, they were about to discover it was wrong. And in the weeks that follow, they might consider the broader ramifications of what this means beyond a chuckle.

Accuracy is the first rule of journalism and it just doesn't exist.

Eyeballs matter more, even when the news is reported wrong. In fact, it seems very unlikely the person responsible will be fired. They are likely to get a raise. The traffic, links, and mentions drove more traffic and attention to CNN, not less. And most people will forget about it, much like most don't even know who Dewey might have been.


In fact, technically, the media is calling the Supreme Court decision upheld. However, it wasn't upheld on the grounds the government had argued for. The government cannot may you buy a product you do not want or need. It can, however, tax you for not buying that product or service. Go figure.

This isn't the only time CNN or news organizations have been wrong about their interpretations. Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst, originally surmised it would be a 8-1 decision in favor of the bill. Linda Greenhouse with the New York Times aggressively argued the position that the mandate did not exceed Congressional powers.

It seems pretty clear now that both were wrong. The decision was 5-4 and the the Supreme Court was pointed in saying that the mandate could not be tied to the commerce clause. While the decision still expands the power of government, especially the power held by the Internal Revenue Service (the bureau charged with collecting the fees) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (the bureau that eventually decides what health care you will get).

The problem with the reporting, of course, was the result of reading the first few pages of the decision rather than reading the entire opinion before reporting it. The reporting of speculation, on the other hand, was simply a case of people using the news to support a particular position or idea a.k.a. affirmation media that delivers exactly what people want to hear while swaying others too.

The media has to get a handle on what it wants to be. 

Nowadays, business owners and executives would be better off reading social media sentiment analysis than relying on the news to make decisions. The reason is simple enough. Without objective reporting, you can never be sure of the facts or how people will react to the various biased stories.

I don't mean the single error by CNN and other news outlets. I mean everything leading up to it and everything that will follow. The mistaken headline and knee jerk reaction is just a symptom of a greater problem. When the media can no longer be trusted to tell the truth or get it right, it fails to be relevant.

What this country needs now, perhaps more than ever, is a media outlet that restores objective journalism as its central idea. It might even be the right time, given the existing media outlets people turn to the most are failing to separate what constitutes news and what constitutes political opinion or two sets of talking heads.

Or, borrowing from a different example I shared several years ago, we need reporters who will do the hard work. Instead of talking to two people to get their opinions on whether or not a flag flapping in the wind is loud, we need a reporter to go to the location and report on the truth of it. It's loud. It's not loud.

Who knows? Maybe objective reporting could gain a foothold again once people become wary of sensitized stories and hearing what they want to hear at the expense of the truth. Or maybe not.

Reading Reviews: Do You Trust The Data?

Most marketers know that more and more people are influenced by product reviews, but did you ever wonder who is responsible for setting any downward trends? According to one study, it could be millennials.

Millennials (defined by the study as ages 18 to 34) give more 1-star and 2-star reviews than any other generation, with those in Ireland being among the most critical. Gen Y contributes the most 3-star reviews.

The study also reveals a little more than that. Incidentally, however, boomers (defined by the study as ages 47-65) still contribute the majority of opinions — 45 percent of them online. Boomers are also slightly more positive. And so are parents, regardless of which generation they belong to.

Can generational disposition or other factors alter perception?

Maybe. And if it does, it might explain why some restaurant owners I know have asked me about Yelp. They say Yelp tends to be the most critical. According to Quantcast, the site also happens to skew toward millennials. Is there a correlation? Or are the stiffer reviews the result of the community?

It's a good question that marketers will have to take into account. In general, review communities tend to be all over the map in how they share opinions. If you visit iTunes, for example, you might notice movies have very little middle ground. Most ratings come in at 1 or 5.

Music is different. It generally skews positive. App ratings are also different. Among paid apps, 5-star reviews and 1-star reviews are generally written by people who still haven't learned to reset their iPads if the app keeps crashing. App reviews are largely unreliable.

Even more telling is that iTunes book reviews are frequently rated lower than those on Amazon, but without as much explanation. Goodreads tends to stack up more 5-star reviews than other book review sites.

This isn't necessarily new. Entertainment Weekly frequently publishes roundups of critics' movie reviews, along with online sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. Even though it pulls from the same sources, Rotten Tomatoes tends to be more critical.

But what stands out for me even more is that there are always one or two reviewers who separate themselves from the pack. Sometimes it makes you wonder if they watched the same movie as the rest of them. And other times you realize that even professional reviewers have no comparable standard for measurement; a bias for particular studios, actors, and genres; and sometimes a desire to be noticed that affects their commentaries.

All reviews need to be vetted before they become meaningful measures. 

Along with the study that suggests millennials are more critical, another bazaarvoice study suggests millennials are more likely to trust the opinions of strangers. In fact, more than half of them trust user-generated content and reviews more than friends and family and many won't complete a transaction before reading reviews.

For business, this means positive customer engagement is even more important. It means establishing better protocols to address erroneous criticism while vetting valid points and making changes. And it means that being a social business is more critical than most think.

Shopping Smarter: Smartphone Shoppers

There is an interesting ongoing shopper behavior study being conducted by The Integer Group® and M/A/R/C Research. The latest findings suggest that African-Americans and Hispanics are adopting new shopping technologies at a faster rate than Caucasians.

Currently, 18 percent of African-American shoppers and 16 percent of Hispanic shoppers use their mobile devices to make purchases. Only 10 percent of Caucasians do.

This may be especially significant because, combined, African-Americans and Hispanics make up more than 30 percent of the total population (Hispanic, 20 percent; African-American, 12 percent).

Along with making purchases, one in five African-American shoppers (21 percent) use their phones to read product reviews and maintain shopping lists and one in five Hispanic shoppers (20 percent) use their mobile devices to compare prices on products. Only 13 percent of Caucasians do.

Even more interesting, despite adoption, smartphone penetration skews lower among African-Americans and Hispanics than Caucasians. Currently, it is estimated that as many as 50 percent of the total mobile phone population is using smartphones.

Other Highlights From The Integer Group Study. 

• Almost as many shoppers use email coupons (49 percent) as Sunday paper coupons (57 percent).

• Men might be viewed as tech toy lovers, but women are more apt to use technology to shop.

• Having children in the household drives adoption of digital shopping technologies.

"Digital shoppers are just shoppers," said Ben Kennedy, group director of Mobile Marketing at Integer. "Digital shopping tools are illustrative of the continued blurring of the on- and offline spaces. Today's reality is that shoppers use whatever tools they have on hand to make them smarter, savvier shoppers."

According to the conclusions of the study by The Integer Group, companies and businesses would be smart to consider basic mobile communication through SMS, making mobile websites the points of entry. Mobile marketing to multicultural shoppers is a huge opportunity, said Martin Ferro, senior account planner for Velocidad, a Hispanic promotional, retail and shopper marketing capability of The Integer Group.

It could be, but marketers ought to demonstrate some constraint over segmenting their advertising too thin. With each generation, even cultures resistant to assimilation tend to shift toward multicultural messages that are inclusive as opposed to targeted and/or exclusive. For example, many second generation Hispanics are bilingual, but not necessarily literate in their parents' or grandparents' language.

The best part of the study, however, is that it demonstrates that the old perception of tech adoption is outdated. Like many social media and online marketing pros know, the stereotype that the Internet predominantly consists of white tech guys is largely gone.

The study is by The Integer Group (integer.com), one of the world's largest promotional, retail, and shopper marketing agencies, and a key member of Omnicom Group Inc. You can download the study from its site, The Checkout, where it was first published. It requires basic contact information (name, title, business, and email are mandatory).

Being Candid: It's Easier Than You Think

How well do people communicate when faced with a face-to-face communication dilemma? According to a questionnaire created by the Travel Leaders Group, not so well. The research found that many air travelers do not know how to react in uncomfortable situations.

The questionnaire presented a series of scenarios and asked participants how likely they were to handle a situation based on the response offered. The Travel Leaders Group said that airline passengers aren't sure of proper etiquette while traveling. However, given the questions relate to broad scenarios, it might mean that people aren't sure how to communicate in many circumstances, whether they are traveling or not.

Highlights From The Travel Leaders Group Survey. 

1. If another airline passenger seated near you won't turn off his/her cell phone while in flight, what would you do?

34.5 percent would call a flight attendant.
27.1 percent would say something to the person.
23.9 percent would sit quietly and do nothing.

2. If another passenger seated near you is using headphones to listen to music or a movie and the sound is so loud that everyone around him/her can also hear, what would you do?

47.5 percent would say something to the person.
26.5 percent would call a flight attendant.
17.3 percent would sit quietly and do nothing.

3. If a child was seated behind you on an airplane and constantly kicked your seat, what would you do?

62.8 percent would turnaround and say something directly to the parent or child.
10.2 percent would call a flight attendant.
9.7 percent would sit quietly and hope the parent will stop it.
6.7 percent would ignore it because children will be children.
6.1 percent would turn around and glare at the parent or child.

4. If you were flying alone and a couple asked you to switch seats to that they could sit together, what would you do? 

44.7 percent would gladly move, regardless of the seat.
27.2 percent would move if the new seat was not a middle seat.
13.6 percent would move if the new seat was an aisle seat.
6.4 percent were not sure what to do.
4.4 percent would move if the new seat was a window seat.

5. If you were traveling with a companion on a vacation and you received an upgrade to first class, you would... 

38.4 percent said it depends on who they're traveling with.
29.9 percent said they would pass on the opportunity.
11.8 percent weren't sure what they would do.
7.8 percent would give it to their traveling companion.
6.3 percent said it depends on the length of the flight.

6. If you placed a small bag in the overhead bin and were asked to place it under the seat in front of you so someone else could put a very large roller bag above, would you... 

54.6 percent would do so without a second thought.
22.1 percent would do so, but grudgingly.
9.9 percent would politely decline.

7. While passing through a TSA security checkpoint, if a traveler in front of you is taking too long removing shoes, etc., would you... 

51.3 percent said they would patiently wait.
37.8 percent said they would wait, but be frustrated.
9 percent said they would jump in front of them.

While the survey did not seem to include the best possible responses, it is an interesting statement on communication. In most scenarios, the best possible answer is to say something directly to the person.

The hesitation is largely the result that many people don't know how to communicate directly, honestly, and politely. For example, if someone is using their cell phone, asking if she or he heard the announcement to turn off the cell phone might suffice. Or, if a child is kicking the seat, politely asking the child to stop first will usually be enough. Or, if someone is taking a long time in the security line, asking if she or he if needs help might be appreciated. Maybe they'll suggest you skip ahead.

Allowing yourself to become quietly frustrated or immediately resorting to rude behavior only hurts you. Likewise, the questions revolving around courtesy are equally solvable. Unless you have a physical reason for not taking the middle seat, you move. And if someone needs you to move your bag, you move it (perhaps mentioning that they might consider checking such a large bag next time).

This applies to business too. People are frequently afraid to be candid, causing them to accept deadlines that impact quality, make deals that aren't win-win, etc. Most of the time, open and honest communication will suffice and everyone will be better for it. Don't assume, ask questions and find out  if more flexibility is available (assuming you need it). It's very much like flying on a plane. Fly right.

Facebook Screening: Executive Mistake In The Making

Hat tip to David Svet and Shelly Kramer for sharing Mark Story's rebut to bad career advice from Forbes. The original article, Social Media And The Job Hunt: Squeaky-Clean Profiles Need Not Apply, alludes to an idea that some headhunters and human resources pros want to be psychoanalysts.

Meghan Casserly warns that people who scrub their Facebook pages of unflattering poses or risqué postings run the risk of being labeled as having "no social skills." Her advice runs contrary to the other extreme, which is that every Facebook account ought to be polished, protected, and controlled.

Casserly also tells a story about her friend, a 21-year-old screener, who looks for the right "personality match" as conveyed by Facebook, along with the usual qualifications that might make a candidate shine. Her advice, much like Story concludes, is bad. Maybe even more than he might suspect.

Facebook is not your personality in print. Facebook is merely a crude character sketch. 

The comments are akin to Peter Shankman, who said after he reads a LinkedIn profile, he immediately visits Facebook to see what they are really like. His comment inspired me to write "Why I Stopped Worrying About Being Batman." I was equally inspired by Story's debut, but for the right reasons.

What Shankman and Casserly both fail to realize is two-fold. Facebook does not capture who people "really are." And, more importantly, people don't draw the same conclusions from what might be there. For every company looking for a free-sprited socialite, another wants someone buttoned down. For everyone scratching their head about an old college photo, someone else is holding it in admiration.

Nobody can really guess these things. So it's best not to play games with them. You neither have to scrub your Facebook nor plant an appropriate amount of embarrassing moments or poor judgements. All you really need to do is be comfortable with who you are, share what you are comfortable sharing, and always remember that old adage that eventually creeps up in public relations classes. What's that?

Never do anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of The New York Times.

In fairness to Casserly, it seems she was mostly trying to vet the other extreme and built an article around people who subscribe to the notion of letting it all hang out. She cites the ugly survey: "One in five executives say that a candidate's social media profile has caused them not to hire that person."

What is less clear, as always, is the reason why. Few surveys delve into the reason that people decide not to hire someone because of a Facebook account. And even fewer delve into the reason some companies have taken to screening them.

Sure, there has always been the "X factor" in job placement. Candidates who do everything right but are ultimately passed over because of intangible gut instincts. And some, although human resources hopes it will never show up, for anything and everything ranging from haircuts to political affiliations.

But my thought on that is pretty clear. If someone won't hire you based on social differences or a social media profile, then be glad they didn't hire you. There is a good chance you weren't a good fit, but for exactly the opposite reason. They weren't a good fit for you.

Better yet, ask if they would be willing to marry someone based on nothing but a Facebook account. And if they say they are already married, then ask for their spouse's Facebook address. When they ask why, tell them his or her account will tell you everything you need to know about their judgement. Ridiculous? Exactly right.

Retiring A Deck: Social For Strategic Communication

Since my first presentation on social media in 2005 (not counting blogs), I've always considered it a moving target. The average deck lasts six months (or a year with ongoing updates).

The deck I am retiring today served as the framework for two classes at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and five presentations (each customized for a specific industry). The intent of the deck was to get students with diverse and varied backgrounds (some with social experience and some without) to rethink social media.

Rather than simply focus on tips, tricks, and tactics, the 3-hour class is meant to inspire students and working professionals to ask better questions before developing their programs. Personally, I don't think the future of social media lies in social software as much as it lies in understanding people, which ought to be the goal of any social media program attached to strategic communication. In other words, understand what people want you to communicate and then find the right tool to help you do it.

Integrating Social Into Strategic Communication

View more presentations from Rich Becker, Copywrite, Ink.

Anyone who has seen other social media presentations that I've made in the past will recognize a few items that never seem to change such as defining social media as an environment where people use social technologies to communicate. For me, that is what it has always been about.

Some people can make great cases that social media is about sales, impressions, influence, or whatever. But sooner or later the ones that have the greatest successes change their thinking. It doesn't make any sense to teach people how to adapt a social network without considering the organization's purpose or needs.

Instead, communicators and related professionals need to ask what do the people they serve really need as it relates to their product and then deliver it. While a restaurant might share some cooking tips or their latest culinary creation, a motorcycle dealer might feature customization tips, rider profiles, and area club events.

Or, as you will see at the end of the deck, a youth sports program might offer real-time score updates via text messaging and Twitter, team stories, coach tips, game photos, and any number content ideas across any number of social networks. All the while, everything needs to be developed with the organization's purpose in mind. And with that in mind, I hope you can find something useful in the deck too.