It's Not Delivery, It's Iggy Azalea

Iggy Azalea had a gripe to handle before heading to this year's Grammy Awards, and she took to social media to settle the score. After an issue with a Papa Johns Pizza employee who, according to Azalea, distributed her personal phone number to family members, Azalea tweeted at Papa Johns searching for answers.

. @PapaJohns was my favorite pizza but the drivers they use give out your personal phone number to their family members.
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) February 8, 2015

Papa Johns responded to the tweet, but the response was far from what any patron searching for quality customer service would want in return. Taking advantage of the social media moment, Papa Johns completed their response with hashtags referencing Azalea's lyrics. The response did nothing to suggest a settlement of the issue, had no mention of policy or procedure and made it clear to followers that the issue was not being taken very seriously.

@iggyazalea #We should have known better. Customer and employee privacy is important to us. Please don’t #bounce us!
— Papa John's Pizza (@PapaJohns) February 9, 2015

Azalea continued her protest on Twitter bringing up what, I believe, to be very relevant points about the issue of protecting customer privacy.

When an employee steals information it's called data breach. It's illegal. There are steps a corporation is supposed to follow afterward.
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) February 9, 2015

They don't include tweeting out song lyrics to the customer making the complaint, it's really unprofessional. I want a real answer.
— IGGY AZALEA (@IGGYAZALEA) February 9, 2015

In a day and age where everything ends up online and celebrities are having their privacy breached more than ever, sensitivity and attention to this issue would have been best. Brands and social media managers must be aware that while not everything is a crisis, having a scene play out before the public requires careful handling. Papa Johns may be a respected brand with a loyal following and customer base, but if this is how they treat a public figure, imagine how the situation would be handled with a non-celebrity customer.

 Overall, the response makes Papa Johns look unprofessional and reflects poorly on their customer service standards. There was no public resolution made to the original issue.

But the real winner of the night? Definitely DiGiorno Pizza, who decided to interject themselves into the end of Twitter feud.

.@IGGYAZALEA delivery. smh

— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 9, 2015

The Ethics of PR and Social Media

The discussion of ethics never fails to emerge in one of my courses at least once a semester. This semester, it was brought up in my Social Media course, which is a special topics class within the public relations track here at Temple University. This course is designed to provide an understanding of social networks and basic proficiency in the use of social media in public relations, reputation management and competitive messaging. With this in mind, it is no surprise the ethics conversation was bound to come up.

Every aspiring PR pro knows that PRSSA has their own Code of Ethics that members must adhere to but, after graduating, is ethics truly ever discussed again? I would like to think yes, but in reality, I do not think it is a popular topic of conversation once we enter the workforce unless, that is, if you violate your company or organization’s ethical ideals.

The ethics of PR discussion, though seemingly a common sense conversation, is vital to be a successful public relations professional. Here are the top six, easy to remember ethical standards every PR pro should live up to, especially when it comes to social media management work

1. Honesty: This is a no brainer. Being honest means not exaggerating an opponent’s or competitor’s weaknesses, only forwarding (or from a social media standpoint, “retweeting or sharing”) information that has been verified, and choosing to not spread rumors or falsehoods.
2. Transparency: We have all heard of incidents in which an employee poses as a “customer” on a site like Yelp! and writes a rave review of their own company. Don’t do it. Be transparent and you will have real customers speaking your praises for you.
3. Respect: Always avoid stooping down to aggression or nastiness. Do not use you company’s Twitter account to bash another company of product. People love spreading drama.
4.  Privacy: Be sure to respect the privacy of your company when you are on a public platform.
5. Relevance: Do not change the subject when dealing with an irate customer leaving snide comments on your company’s Facebook page. Be sure to answer the question or concern at hand and engage the consumer.
6. Responsibility: To put it simply, always take responsibility. Never delete a tweet or try to hide a mistake. Address it and take action for or against it. 

Who “Owns” Social Media?

Understanding which umbrella social media falls under in an organization is often debated between marketing, PR and customer service teams. There are companies with excellent customer service social media accounts, such as Comcast and Verizon, and there are even more companies with great social media accounts run by marketing and PR teams. 

So, what is the right department to hold responsibility for social media? PR people will likely say it’s them. Marketers will likely say the marketing department. But, other departments such as Customer Service, Business Development, and Human Resources can also rightfully claim a stake in social media.

Dell and Zappos are among many large organizations that have created cross-departmental social media teams that manage social media interaction and allow the correct department to handle the correct inquiry.

All departments have something to bring to the table with social media. Even if the marketing and PR teams are the best trained for the job, it can be helpful to bring others with different roles together to provide the best experience for customers while networking online.

Brian Solis recently wrote on an eConsultancy blog, “The customer doesn’t see, nor do they care about, who owns social media. They see one company and they simply need an informed and empathetic response.” 

Social media is not best suited to just one department. While it may fall into just one department, that department should look to get a variety of workers from the business involved. Customers can get more out of social media accounts if they are able to network with the entire business – not just one small team attempting to represent the business. 

 This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kyra Mazurek.

PR Pro: The Perfect Social Media Manager

Behind many company social media sites sits a public relations professional. While this is a general majority, some companies are weary or confused as to why the PR department or a PR pro should manage social media. Below are a few reasons as to why PR pros can, and should, manage social media:

We are experienced storytellers: It is the PR professional's job to reach multiple audiences through multiple means of communication. We generate content and engage our audience with relevant and newsworthy topics. Social media is the perfect way to do so and PR pros its perfect master.

We are expert communicators: We are trained perfectionists in proofreading copy. PR pros are well versed in writing and editing and are less likely to publish errors.

We are experienced in relationship building: It is our responsibility to build relationships with journalists and investors in our brand. The goal of social media is to build relationships from across the world and trained to answer questions fast and with a plus in customer service.

We know crisis communications: With many crises, social media response is encouraged if not required. PR professionals are accustomed to responding to a crisis in a timely, appropriate and helpful manner for both the brand and it's customers.

We have always sought feedback: We have a thirst to find out what others are saying about our client. Social media is a great way to monitor public perceptions and gain feedback from consumers at all times that can be used for future organizational change and improve productivity.

6 Pet Peeves Of Social Media Managers

Waking up late and posting a few tweets or Facebook posts may seem like an easy job to some, but does not even begin to describe the difficult task of being a social media manager. Social media managers serve as the face, voice, and often the interactive arm of an organization or brand. It is our job to reach out to you, know what you're talking about, and find the best way to serve you - the consumer.

Managing any social media account, especially more than one, has to be a labor of love. Yes, social media is not a typical 9-5, and there are rarely days off! It is a craft that has to be mastered over time, and many social media gurus put a lot of work into their efforts. That being said, here are 6 things that annoy almost every social media manager:

#6. Hashtags on Facebook: Imagine someone using your well written research paper as a coaster at a party. Social media managers use hashtags to track trends and to better interact with users. Facebook does not currently have a hashtag integration, so seeing them on the site will just confuse and annoy us.

#5. Scheduled Posts: Scheduled posts can either be a life saver or a life ruiner. In the wake of recent tragedies  we've seen how schedule posts can make a brand or organization seem insensitive and out of the loop.

#4. Tweetgram: Each new social media platform offers a new and exciting way to reach and interact with your audience. Twitter gave us words, and Instagram gave us photos, never were the two meant to become one in the same.

#3. The Macro-Micro Blog: Tumblr is another great social media platform offering a microblogging solution for those who have a message to get out in a few less words. So you can imagine how we, the social media managers, feel when we scroll down a tumblr dashboard only to find a 500 character blog post.

#2. Mobile Alerts: There is nothing quite like being right in the middle of a deep sleep only to be abruptly awoken by a Twitter mention. While we can turn off alerts during certain times of the night, the alerts never really stop.

#1. SOCIAL MEDIA: Yes, ask any social media manager and they will tell you that their number one pet peeve is social media itself. Our jobs create the ultimate love hate relationship, and sometimes we feel more hate than love. While we wouldn't trade our jobs for anything, every social media manager has seen or reached his or her breaking point!