While we see it most often with our political clients, any individual or company is exposed to the risk of getting trashed online. In politics, it means votes. In business, it means dollars. And as comment after comment piles on, each one nastier than the last, panic can set in. As BusinessWeek pointed out:

When the Web turns against them, executives are faced with the problem of how to manage the blowback. They have two choices: ignore the smaller furies and hope they won’t metastasize, or respond outright to the attacks. It’s rarely a good idea to lob bombs at the fire-starters. Preemption, engagement, and diplomacy are saner tools.

There are options. Flat Creek offers a blog clipping service that consolidated blog posts about our clients to give them a heads up about the online conversations that could affect their business and enable them to plan proactively in case an issue does pick up steam.

As an issue begins to heat up, we look at a range of options, but never ever ever is no response a good response. No response immediately gives off the scent of fear and only drives the conversation. Who knows? Most of the time, you have supporters online who are afraid to stand in the way of the mob. But if someone else does it first… it’s just as easy for a positive comment stream to get started as it is for a negative one.

As BusinessWeek advises though, preemption is always the best policy. We make prominent bloggers who write on topics of interest to our clients part of their media relations contacts. Often a blogger will want a lively comment thread but will not allow it to get out of hand with personal attacks.

Ultimately, as with any brand, it comes down to whether or not the experience matches the expectation. If you as a politician or company have not lived up to the expectation you sell, then honestly the online fury may be well deserved. The key is to stockpile goodwill through great customer service, a great product, or a principled message. So when - not if - you are attacked online, your supporters will be there for you and the issue can be neutralized.

At Flat Creek, most of our clients are professional firms — lawyers, architects, fellow marketers, etc. But for every great client we have, there’s a prospective client who tells me “I don’t need a website. Most of my business comes through word of mouth.”

Actually, if most of your business comes through word of mouth, then you definitely need a website. According to a recent study on eMarketer.com, online word-of-mouth recommendations are huge, even among baby boomers:

1. When baby boomers go online, 66 percent of the time it is to research purchasing decisions.

1. Baby boomers get 45 percent of their word-of-mouth recommendations online.

Let me emphasize: these numbers aren’t for teenagers. These are specifically baby boomers (42-60).

It’s easy to see where our friends who still cling to “traditional” word-of-mouth marketing are coming from though. They work in traditional professions with traditional means of reaching clients.

Think about the last time someone referred you to an accountant or attorney. If you didn’t have their phone number already, chances are you went to their website. Actually that’s why most people go to a website - to find a phone number (consider that my free tip for the day).

So take that step, put some muscle behind your website, and wow prospective clients who were just told to check out your firm. Your bottom line will thank you.

Communications professionals tend to spend more time with print reporters than journalists from any other medium. It’s time we challenged that notion.

Granted, PR flacks have chuckled to themselves over the last several years as traditional newspaper empires have wasted away under the pressure from online media. But what they haven’t done is change their daily routine and priorities.

In order for a communications strategy to be effective in the Web 2.0 era, the media mix needs to be re-prioritized:

1. Online media: The Internet has changed everything, so the cliche goes, so it should change how we look at media relations as well. Too often we look at blogs, YouTube, and other sites but we don’t engage in the conversation. Our day should start and end by researching relevant websites, commenting on blogs, and injecting new information into the conversation. Create YouTube video, podcasts, and fresh content for your website. If you don’t tell your story online, others will tell it for you.
2. Events: if you don’t hold/attend creative, meaningful events with a message, there’s really not much to cover now is there? You have a message/policy/product that you want to share with the world. For heavens sake, give them a good reason to find out about it. Seminars, briefings, speakers, rallies, press conferences - the options really are only limited by your creativity.
3. Radio: This may seem counter intuitive, but it could be that your target audience spends more time in the car than anywhere else (other than in front of a computer). Leverage that valuable time when your target audiences are tuned in. Take the time to work with producers and hosts to get your product/service/issue on the air. You may not reach the numbers of people as other media, but you will reach the right people.
4. Print media: Ah, the bread and butter of public relations. Until now. See #1, then spend your time developing relationships with your key reporters. We’re talking daily papers here, not magazines or weeklies. Don’t send them a press release. Call them. Tell them your story. Tell them why it’s important to their readers. Invite them to your event (see #2). Take their call after you’ve been mentioned on the radio. Be persistent but courteous. Your value to your organization will increase exponentially.
5. TV: Let’s face it, out of a 30-minute evening newscast, there’s about five minutes for everything that isn’t sports, weather or house fires. The competition to get on the air is intense and the payoff can be elusive. But if you have prioritized and are ready to take on TV, then be sure you’re pitching them some good visuals. They don’t want stale walls, they want noise and people and colors. How do you do that? Go back to #2.

I know there are others, such as specialty media and long-lead magazines, and going after those may make sense in some cases, but not until you’ve got a handle on the big five. The media environment has shifted. Our media relations strategies should as well.

A new study indicates that more and more people are donating to political causes online. For political junkies, this is really exciting as it opens the door to new donors.

The George Washington University Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet along with the Campaign Finance Institute found that a quarter of donations to Republicans and more than half of donations to Democrats are now made online. Especially exciting is that many of these are first-time donors:

A large portion of small online contributors ($100 or less) gave unsolicited donations. About 46 percent said their first donation was self-motivated, not triggered by a phone call, letter or email. In years past, unsolicited donators had to work harder to find a way to make a contribution.

For anyone who has ever had to file a campaign finance report, compliance can be a nightmare. Trying to hunt down a donor’s details can be time consuming and many times fruitless. Online donations don’t have that problem, as donors are required to enter their information before the donation is processed.

Through our experience designing political websites, campaign websites, and policy websites, we have found several online donation tools with reasonable transaction fees and great service. It really can open the door to new donors, both today and down the road.

There’s a great song by the Freddy Jones Band called ‘Take the Time’ that should be the theme song for every professional. Even those of us who manage to cobble together a strategic plan/ marketing plan tend to throw it out the window just as soon client business gets the better of us. Not that billable clients are a bad thing, mind you, we just don’t take the time to look ahead.

But even as we are servicing our clients, even when we get those terrific phone calls asking us to take on new business, we ought to think back to our strategic plan. Keep a copy on your desk. Write down your goals (measurable goals) and put them on the wall. Put them on the wall in the break room. Put them in the conference room.

New business is good. Strategic new business is better. As the song goes, ‘Take the time to look in front of you…’

Just had a great conversation with a reporter who asked if we work on WAP websites. Well, as I told her, we don’t anymore. WAP sites have become absorbed in the greater web accessibility movement. Whether you call it 508 compliant, liquid design, or device independent, today’s websites should be able to show up on a PC, Mac, Nokia, BlackBerry, or kiosk equally well.

The source of this ability is liquid design, which uses XHTML and CSS, two complementary technologies that make web pages both easier to download and update. Liquid design separates the content of a page from it’s design, or layout. So instead of being stuck in a table, the site is fluid, able to rearrange itself and mold to the screen.

Take for example the recent website we launched for former Congressman Bob Beauprez: www.alineofsight.com. A Line of Sight was created to provide policymakers with resources that may be helpful in a pinch, such as just before a vote or on the way to an event. With limited time, these policymakers get their information one way: via BlackBerry. So not only does the site need to look good on a desktop, it needs to be user-friendly on the small screen.

So we used liquid design, which helps the site mold to BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices with ease. The simple text of the page is in one file, and the design/placement of that content is in another file. The text file references the design file to figure out how to display correctly, no matter what size screen it’s headed for.

So that begs the question: is your site mobile ready? Bank of America just announced that they are adding a feature to allow customers to access account information via cell phones. Yahoo! continues to update its mobile device offerings, called Yahoo! Go 2.0. Google’s homepage has long been accessible via cell phone and PDA, and the search leader is now offering lots of stuff for cell and PDA, such as e-mail and maps. Europeans have used cell phones for web surfing for years, and now Americans are quickly catching up.

So is your site mobile ready? I sure hope so…

The design should be compelling and match closely with your organization’s website, unless of course your organization has a terrible website. It should have some sort of graphical header, but not much larger than 80 pixels high. Especially if you have an “at work” target audience, you will want to focus on what viewers will be able to see in the Outlook Preview Pane. Only allow space for a paragraph or two of text per article, and post the rest on your website. Ultimately, you want to use the newsletter as a tool to drive traffic to your website, so include five to seven links throughout the design.

Content, clearly, is also important because without something to say, your recipients won’t waste their time reading your e-mail. This is worth repeating - if you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all. Keep it to a couple of good articles that relate to your clients. Give them a little bit of consulting for free. If they start to look forward to your e-mail because you give them insights they need and value, you have won.

Finally, you need the addresses for your distribution list. This is one of those places that gives small business owners headaches, especially after the federal anti-spam law CAN-SPAM was passed. The law now basically says that you must have permission from everyone on your list to send them a bulk commercial e-mail. That is, you must have some request from the individual to receive your messages, or a relationship with the recipient.

One question that always comes up: how often should I send? Most small business owners want to send something every week. Why not? If you have the list, use it right? Wrong.

While each client base is unique, and you should test different send times and days of the week, generally, a monthly newsletter is plenty for your customers. We’ve had great success with monthly newsletters for our clients, even sending every other month.

Any other “Grey’s Anatomy” fans out there? Eh, either way, if you watched last night’s episode, Chief Webber destroys Christina in their surgery competition, and he does so with his eyes closed. His trick? “It’s all about the basics” he tells Dr. Yang. She later used that advice to, well, you will just have to watch the show.

The moral of the story for small business? Are you in touch with the basics? Do you have a solid foundation as your company grows? If you don’t, it could come back to bite you down the road. Having the right processes and infrastructure in place now may seem overkill for your small team, but as you grow, that structure will help facilitate growth and, ironically, give you the flexibility to beat the competition with your eyes closed.

Just to reiterate the point from my post a moment ago, Steve Rubel yesterday linked to Technorati’s “state of the blogosphere” analysis, with the obvious implication that having a blog is not enough. Core marketing principles, once again, are core.

According to Technorati, 13.7 million bloggers are still posting three months after launch. So much for staying power. Not only that, but Technorati is now tracking nearly 50,000 blog posts per hour. While early adopters could gain traffic simply by posting new content, that’s way too much volume today to expect that diligent posting will lead to an audience.

So, ironically, we come back to core marketing principles, regardless of the tactical application. Regardless of the medium — be it blogs, podcasts, newsletters, etc — small business marketers still need to think creatively about how to reach their target audiences. Probably these tools are a good way to do that, but it still comes down to proactive outreach with relevant services (and content).

Companies have always, always tried to find new ways to reach their customers. It’s arguably the most important function a company performs, except for the obvious task of creating an exceptional, unique product or service.

And in the quest for a new silver bullet, it’s easy to overlook one of the most reliable, most cost-effective tactics available - the e-mail newsletter. While some companies have found a great niche with direct mail, TV, or online banners, a steady, proactive inbox campaign should be a foundation to communicate with your customers.

Numerous studies have shown that the number one reason Internet users go online is to check e-mail. And even with new anti-spam measures at every level, legitimate opt-in e-mail can still get through to the inbox, and with the right content becomes even more powerful than it was a few years ago.

So what makes a good e-mail newsletter? At FCM, we tend to focus on three parallel components: design, content, and distribution. Over the next few days, I’ll be posting on these components so you can have the foundation to build an e-newsletter program that strengthens customer relationships and ultimately builds business.