This CNN/Money report released this morning provides a video interview shot 10 weeks prior to the Super Bowl. It's strong evidence that they were seeking to create a disruptive ad designed to start a conversation. Yes, their creative was perhaps wrong and they did not seem to do any work leading up to the airing of the commercial to avoid any misunderstanding. But, they do seem to be sincere about CSR and trying to be a positive instigator of sincere dialogue.
http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2015/02/02/super-...

Any PR practitioner acting on behalf of a client really should visit and read the posts and available documents (Files) at The CREWE Group in Facebook: Corporate Representatives for Ethical Wikipedia Engagement (CREWE)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/

The Files section of the group contains some very good documentation of best practice and will explain the differences between Wikipedia's perception of a *good* edit and your own. https://www.facebook.com/groups/crewe.group/files...

Contrary to some of the suggestions in this article, to be in compliance with Wikipedia's best practices and avoid a COI - Conflict of Interest label/alert/flag on your edits - everyone is expected to follow this policy. "Conflict of interest (COI) is governed on Wikipedia by a guideline, Wikipedia:Conflict of interest, which strongly discourages such editing, and very strongly discourages it when individuals editing with a COI are being paid." See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conflict_of_interest

At best, PR representatives and company / organization employees are expected to NOT edit the pages. Instead, the expectation is that you will use the "Talk" tab at the top of each page to begin a conversation and notify Wikipedia editors of an error on the page. Best practice would be to create an account that clearly identifies your identity and to provide (a) solid evidence of the error and (b) provide references that meet Wikipedia's definition of a trusted source. Their definition and your's will likely not be the same thing.

An absolute farce. This determination of when to tweet is different for various target audiences.

Danger Will Robinson! ... These types of broad generalities may well cause you to miss your target audience.

For instance, if you're trying to reach college students on many campuses ... after 8:00 p.m. is a wonderful time to Tweet. Hey, they don't even get ready to go out for the evening until 10 or 11 p.m. We could go through many other target audiences and find exceptions to this story's premise.

Intent is an important aspect to consider. I do believe your effort was genuine, sincere and intended to praise both men. Bradbury for his greatness and Pressfield for his new book - and both for their shared character traits.

That said, you certainly did tie an event - albeit a personal one - relating to a very high profile figure to the publication of a new book. It would seem by your own words that you were indeed trying to gain attention for your friend's new book. Intended or not, it was promotion and does have newsjacking traits.

Drawing upon your own observation of common traits the two people shared, you wrote: "What a perfect way to talk about Steve Pressfield’s new book, Turning Pro, which launches today." Looks like promoting a friend's book to me ... and others.

You say, "for it to be newsjacking, you have to be trying for PR or ink or media or controversy." How about if we agree that newsjacking seeks to gain attention to your 'cause' in whatever form it is delivered. One might just be seeking readership, hoping it will be shared, clicks and the many other forms of interaction sought through PR/Marcom.

Your message is below, from your newsletter ... with a stated purpose of: "The Domino Project is a new way to think about publishing. Founded by Seth Godin and powered by Amazon, we're trying to change the way books are built, sold and spread." Sure sounds like a marketing and promotion newsletter to me.

We'll let others draw their own conclusion.

Ray Bradbury passed away today.

What a good life he had.

In 1985, I was lucky enough to work with Ray and with Byron Preiss to bring Fahrenheit 451 to the PC and Commodore 64 as an adventure game. What struck me about the man was his professionalism. He was as far from a diva as a famous writer could be, and it was clear that he had made the decision to do his work, and do it as well and as joyfully as he was able.

What a perfect way to talk about Steve Pressfield’s new book, Turning Pro, which launches today. I’m not sure if Ray knew Steve, but I know that they would have liked each other.

I also know that you will be moved by Steve’s new book. If you create anything at all for a living (and more important, if you don’t–yet), then this one is a must read. I spent the morning listening to it on my headphones.

Thank you Ray, for writing books instead of burning them. And thank you, Steve, for teaching the rest of us how to do that.

My previous reply had links, which I'm guessing Ragan doesn't want. So, without links ... some examples.

OK, here's one from PWB blog: ... thedominoproject(dot)com sent out a newsletter that included their most recent blog post. In it the author expressed how the death of a famous person reminded him of a book he was reading. A book he highly encouraged others to read.

Here's one from techcrunch - @Entenmann’s - they "either decided it would be funny to hashtag surf on the trending #notguilty hashtag or sincerely didn’t look and just stuck a random #notguilty in a tweet about eating tasty tweets, presumably to get pickup."

"This of course backfired. After follower backlash, Entenmann’s deleted the tweet and apologized, 'Sorry everyone, we weren’t trying to reference the trial in our tweet! We should have checked the trending hashtag first” and then following up with “Our #notguilty tweet was insensitive, albeit completely unintentional. We are sincerely sorry.'"

And a local example in my area: Toomers Rolls - a maker of scarves - links to a news story. They then give a link to their site which seeks to sell their product.

Toomers Rolls post to their Facebook page “While arborists work to preserve Toomers Oaks, we too can preserve their legacy, wrapped in spirit, with Toomers Rolls!” No where on their site do I see any mention of – oh, I don’t know – giving proceeds to support the preservation of the trees. Nope. Toomers Rolls has since taken down the post, realizing it was in bad taste. Um, "wrapped in spirit with Toomers Rolls" ... it was just weird.

For people not familiar with the poisoning of the Toomer’s Oaks, just know it is a deeply saddening event for the community. ESPN even made a documentary about the Auburn/Alabama rivalry and it focused heavily on the poisoning of the trees. The Toomer’s Oaks are the centerpiece of one of America’s most enduring and endearing college football traditions.

My point here is that it can work -- GolinHarris has a project called "The Bridge" that does it on steroids (huge project). But, even they could run afoul and harm their client's brands ... if they are not careful.

OK, here's one from PWB blog: http://pwb.com/blog/?p=958 ... www.thedominoproject.com sent out a newsletter that included their most recent blog post. In it the author expressed how the death of a famous person reminded him of a book he was reading. A book he highly encouraged others to read.

Whether it was intentional newsjacking or not, his timely article caused much backlash from readers who accused him of being an ambulance chaser or “shilling at a funeral”. It seemed his endorsement was an attempt to sell the book instead of simply mussing about what he was reading.

The next day he posted an apology out of respect for the deceased, however the damage may have already been done.

Another ... newsjacking on a tweet .... http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/05/entenmanns-hasht... ... @Entenmann’s either decided it would be funny to hashtag surf on the trending #notguilty hashtag or sincerely didn’t look and just stuck a random #notguilty in a tweet about eating tasty tweets, presumably to get pickup.

This of course backfired. After follower backlash, Entenmann’s deleted the tweet and apologized,”Sorry everyone, we weren’t trying to reference the trial in our tweet! We should have checked the trending hashtag first” and then following up with “Our #notguilty tweet was insensitive, albeit completely unintentional. We are sincerely sorry.”

and one I found .... Newsjacking on the back of the poisoning of trees http://www.auburnmedia.com/wordpress/2012/08/10/w...

This tree poisoning incident attracted so much nationwide attention, ESPN even chose to make a documentary about it. The people of Auburn, of course, are very saddened by the experience .... only amplified by the recent pruning of the trees of dead branches. It left the trees bare.

Enter Toomers Rolls - the makers of scarves - writes, “…we too can preserve their legacy, wrapped in spirit, with Toomers Rolls!” (Read it as: OK, we wrap ourselves in your product and we feel better? We help save the trees?”) Problem is, Toomers Rolls is not contributing to the fund seeking to save the trees. They are simply trying to sell scarves.

Are those three examples enough?

How about the issue of newsjacking done right ... and newsjacking done wrong.
- Do you newsjack on top of 'touchy' stories that evoke great emotion from a particular audience?
- Would you newsjack your product in connection with something the community considers a tragedy?
- Do you attempt to say that your product will make you feel better, or cope with, the emotions associated with that tragedy? My thoughts tend to lean towards - no. What say all?

A good discussion, Geoff. I've saved if for use in class this coming semester.

Perhaps I'm being picky, as I prepare for Fall semester. But, I would be wary of calling these propositions theories. The six degrees proposition was called dots and lines in early 20th century cultural anthropology. Chris Anderson's Long Tail was being discussed in social network writings as far back as 1930. That time period is, by the way, where (in academia) the discussion and study of social networks began. It may go back farther.

What's missing in all these attempts to define social networks and influence? Each of the concepts you've shared above have yet to be verified. They have not been tested, in an heuristic empirical sense. I'm referring to any (if it even has been done by any of the people listed above) experimental testing that can be replicated and then - only then - called a theory.

Frankly, all of the efforts in social media that I have seen aimed at defining influence and influencers are tools that seek to (a) drive sales of a company/interest, (b) try to elevate a company/interest into some form of 'thought leader' or (c) pseudo-research disguised as marketing promotion -- maybe even (d) sell a book.

Even today, almost a century after most research into social networks (by anthropologists and communicators), there seems to be little agreement as to a theory that works on a large scale. Small networks may be studied, but their characteristics do not necessarily apply to other networks. Ultimately, there are no absolutes - as is suggested by many (if not all) of those cited above. Further, they are mostly posturing their ideas with anecdotal evidence. You can't build a theory on anecdotal evidence.

Happily I will share that our Carrie Williams who is leading in the competition. Her "Auburn University Students Are Free Enterprise" story has 5,239 views, as of this writing. Carrie's good. As the director of our campus student TV station, her work - along with many other students - has taken the program to a HD broadcast. They are all digital. She's ready for the real world of broadcasting. I'm sure Carrie would welcome more people checking out her story ... visit <a href="http://bit.ly/ajk3o4" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/ajk3o4 We're proud of her. War Eagle! (That's Auburn speak for "We love ya'!")

Ike., you have illustrated the state of our world so well. "The New Normal" may not be what we want, but that may be because of what we have been taught ... our taught ourselves. The walled garden view of PR and journalism had a big gaping hole punched in the wall. I like your phrase, Embedded Journalist. Be the solid reporter. Be the balanced viewpoint. (Oh, how that word 'balanced' has been so butchered and bastardized by some.) You just need to see the new opportunities to still achieve your goals while working in this new environment. It isn't easy, but it is doable.