Monthly Archives: December 2011

Hamburglin’: Steal Some Beefy Social Media Tips from McDonald’s

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Despite your position on the merits of the Big Mac, you may be able to benefit from some social media tips from the king of fast food chains. PR Daily reports:

As one of the most successful businesses and most recognizable brands in the world, McDonald’s is no stranger to the particulars of marketing and PR.

But how does the company manage social media?

Rick Wion, director of social media for McDonald’s, spoke with PR Daily about the ways the Golden Arches manages the wide world of social media. From that conversation, here are seven tips for social media success, including how you can take action at your organization:

1. Determine why your company is using social media.

Wion said that McDonald’s uses social media for three main purposes:

  1. To sell products;
  2. To build the brand;
  3. To engage with customers and manage issues as they emerge.

Take action: Sit down with your communications, marketing, and PR departments (and whoever else you think should be involved) and determine your objectives for social media. This way, your team will understand its goals and have structure.

2. Employ different strategies for different platforms.

The social media team doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to social media. It has different strategies for the various platforms on which it operates. “People want to see videos, polls, and brand entertainment,” Wion said of the McDonald’s Facebook presence.

Instead of posting nothing more than updates (or, God forbid, linking your Twitter feed to your Facebook page), set out to entertain your audience, Wion advised. Poll them about current events, post funny pictures and videos, and share stories about your brand.

Wion and his team use Twitter for “general communication, customer satisfaction, and building awareness.”

Take action: Which social media platforms make the most sense for your business? How do you plan to use each platform? When posting, keep the purpose of the platform in mind.

3. Make sure measurement jibes with your strategic goals.

“The blessing and the curse of social media is that you can measure in dozens, if not hundreds of ways,” said Wion. “The problem is that there aren’t any standards for what success looks like.”

As a result, McDonald’s has found that the best way to measure is to do so by campaign, because what is being measured varies by product and brand.

Take action: Don’t measure just for the sake of measuring. Have specific objectives in mind. Figure out what you want to see.

4. Entertain people.

Would you visit a boring Facebook page or regularly check a mundane, repetitive Twitter account? No? Your fans don’t want to, either.

Wion suggests publishing “unexpected posts” on your social media channels. From sharing posts that provide little-known information to drafting humorous updates, you can surprise and delight people and separate yourself from the millions of other updates.

Take action: See what other people are doing on social media and then experiment with your own content. What time of the day do people tend to engage with your page? What kind of posts does your audience respond to most? Respond accordingly.

5. Get organized.

Though there’s something to be said for spur-of-the-moment creativity, it’s not always sustainable or practical to live by the seat of your pants. Wion and his team use an editorial calendar, created using Excel, to manage posts and stories. Your team can use one to ensure that posts are relevant to upcoming holidays, events, and times of the year.

Take action: Create a calendar with your team. Mark important dates and ensure your team is aware and on top of the schedule.

6. Give your social media content some personality.

Wion knows that different social media platforms call for different social media “voices.” On Twitter, the McDonald’s team lets the personality of the Twitter team shine through because “people want to connect with actual people on Twitter,” he says.

The official McDonald’s Twitter feed features a link with the bios of its social media team. On Facebook, McDonald’s understands that people want to connect with their brand, so they use a “voice” that best represents the McDonald’s brand.

Take action: Determine your brand’s target audience. Use the voice most appropriate for that audience and the channels on which you’ve chosen to promote your brand.

7. Provide opportunities for consumers to ask questions.

McDonald’s hosts Twitter chats under the hashtag #MCDChanging to give fans the opportunity to speak with people like the company’s vice president of sustainability and, most recently, its chief marketing officer.

Take action: Find opportunities for your fan base to connect with decision-makers. Show them that they have a voice and that you’re listening to them. You can easily create a Twitter hashtag and promote your chat on your blog, on your Facebook page, and through your Twitter account. Follow other chats first to get a feel for the format and what to expect.

A New Way to Pay for Highways

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How to pay for current and future road repairs is a challenge for nearly all states. The federal Highway Trust Fund is not the answer, at least not in its current form. Governing magazine asked a Tax Foundation expert for his perspective on some alternatives. Governing reports:

Commute to work is a bit on the bumpy side, then you know the answer is road repairs. The follow up question is: Given how long this downturn has afflicted state and local budgets, who’s going to pay to repair potholes and the like?

Well, it’s not going to be the feds. The Highway Trust Fund, which finances an average 45 percent of a state’s highway and transit capital costs, is shrinking. One reason for that shrinkage is that the federal gas tax has been stuck at its current rate (18.4 cents per gallon) since 1993, which means it is not keeping up with inflation, to say nothing of state needs. Congress is not likely to raise the federal gas tax rate this year or next, so that leaves the states. In theory, they have a little room to raise or tinker with their gas tax formula — something most states have not done in years.

Given the importance of a healthy road system to economic development, what approaches could states take to raise revenue for road repair and building? I put that question to Mark Robyn, an economist with the Tax Foundation. Here’s an edited version of our conversation:

Is this a good time for states to raise their motor fuel taxes?

It’s difficult to raise most taxes. The gas tax — an excise tax — is interesting because it’s one of the few that states levy that really looks like a user fee. You pay it when you use a specific service, and the rate is set at a level to pay for the service you consume. It’s like an entrance charge to a state park. You wouldn’t call that a tax as long as that revenue is used to pay for upkeep of the park and the charge reflects what the costs are.

The gas tax, though not perfect, is an approximation of that relationship. Revenue received from gas taxes usually is used for road and highway maintenance; the fee you pay approximates how much road you consume. But different cars get different gas mileages; electric cars don’t even use gas but they also don’t cause less damage to the road. So the gas tax is not perfect but it is similar to a user fee. If states want to structure the gas tax like a user fee and if the state is not getting the money it needs for roads and repair, the next logical step would be to increase the gas tax. But people have to believe the money is being spent wisely. Not all states do that, and people say, "Well, I see this waste of money. If you increase my taxes, you’ll waste a portion of it." When I say states are wasting money, I mean they are using it for road projects that people don’t see as valuable — the "bridge to nowhere." If there are no "bridges to nowhere" and people are driving over potholes, they’ll be more willing to accept gas taxes to avoid potholes.

NLRB Developments This Week

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Here are a couple key developments from the NLRB within the last week. If you’re a business owner, prepare to be annoyed:

Mandatory Posting Requirement
The National Labor Relations Board decided Friday to delay the required posting date of its new NLRB posting yet again — this time until April 30, 2012 (it was previously January 31, 2012). The NLRB’s web site reports:

  • The National Labor Relations Board has agreed to postpone the effective date of its employee rights notice-posting rule at the request of the federal court in Washington, DC hearing a legal challenge regarding the rule. The Board’s ruling states that it has determined that postponing the effective date of the rule would facilitate the resolution of the legal challenges that have been filed with respect to the rule. The new implementation date is April 30, 2012.

Rules Regarding Union Elections
Baker & Daniels reports: 

The National Labor Relations Board (Board) has formally adopted a final rule that will expedite the pre-election process and limit the post-election process in union representation cases. The rule will be published in the Federal Register on December 22, 2011, and is due to take effect on April 20, 2012.

As we previously informed you, the Board enacted this rule, which will significantly impede an employer’s right to communicate with its employees and petition the government for redress, while faced with the prospect of losing its quorum at the end of 2011. The rule focuses primarily on union representation cases in which parties cannot agree on issues such as whether the employees the union seeks to represent are an appropriate voting group. It significantly changes existing procedures in these types of cases by limiting the issues to be determined in the pre-election process and precluding pre-election review of regional office decisions in most cases. This rule will likely mean that elections are held in a much shorter timeframe.

It is expected that a variety of pro-business advocacy groups will pursue litigation in an attempt to overturn the new rules.

Unions will most likely be emboldened by the Board’s action, and it may spark an increase in union organizing. To remain union free, it is increasingly important for employers to focus on positive-employee relations and supervisory training.

EPA Actions a ‘Disgrace’

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Kudos to the Wall Street Journal for this well-timed and well-written reaction to yesterday’s EPA announcement:

At an unusual gala ceremony on the release of a major new Environmental Protection Agency rule yesterday, chief Lisa Jackson called it "historic" and "a great victory." And she’s right: The rule may be the most expensive the agency has ever issued, and it represents the triumph of the Obama Administration’s green agenda over economic growth and job creation. Congratulations.

The so-called utility rule requires power plants to install "maximum achievable control technology" to reduce mercury emissions and other trace gases. But the true goal of the rule’s 1,117 pages is to harm coal-fired power plants and force large parts of the fleet—the U.S. power system workhorse—to shut down in the name of climate change. The EPA figures the rule will cost $9.6 billion, which is a gross, deliberate underestimate.

In return Ms. Jackson says the public will get billions of dollars of health benefits like less asthma if not a cure for cancer. Those credulous enough to believe her should understand that the total benefits of mercury reduction amount to all of $6 million. That’s total present value, not benefits per year—oh, and that’s an -illion with an "m," which is not normally how things work out in President Obama’s Washington.

The rest of the purported benefits—to be precise, 99.99%—come by double-counting pollution reductions like soot that the EPA regulates through separate programs and therefore most will happen anyway. Using such "co-benefits" is an abuse of the cost-benefit process and shows that Cass Sunstein’s team at the White House regulatory office—many of whom opposed the rule—got steamrolled.

As baseload coal power is retired or idled, the reliability of the electrical grid will be compromised, as every neutral analyst expects. Some utilities like Calpine Corp. and PSEG have claimed in these pages that the reliability concerns are overblown, but the Alfred E. Newman crowd has a vested interest in profiting from the higher wholesale electricity clearing prices that the EPA wants to cause.

Meanwhile, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which is charged with protecting reliability, abnegated its statutory responsibilities as the rule was being written.

One FERC economist wrote in a March email that "I don’t think there is any value in continuing to engage EPA on the issues. EPA has indicated that these are their assumptions and have made it clear that are not changed [sic] anything on reliability . . . [EPA] does not directly answer anything associated with local reliability." The EPA repeatedly told Congress that it had "very frequent substantive contact and consultation with FERC."

The EPA also took the extraordinary step of issuing a pre-emptive "enforcement memorandum," which is typically issued only after the EPA determines its rules are being broken. The memo tells utilities that they must admit to violating clean air laws if they can’t retrofit their plants within the EPA’s timeframe at any cost or if shutting down a plant will lead to regional blackouts. Such legal admissions force companies into a de facto EPA receivership and expose them to lawsuits and other liabilities.

The economic harm here is vast, and the utility rule saga—from the EPA’s reckless endangerment to the White House’s failure to temper Ms. Jackson—has been a disgrace. 

The Rest is History: One Resident Strives to Keep Old Indy Alive, Share it With Others

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In a future edition of BizVoice, we'll take a look at historic preservation efforts around the state. But for now, one web site that is gaining popularity is Historic Indianapolis, the brainchild of downtown Indy resident and Los Angeles transplant Tiffany Benedict Berkson. I recently interviewed Tiffany about her site:

Chamber: How long has Historic Indianapolis been up? Why did you launch it?
 
Tiffany: Historic Indianapolis started as a periodic blog in July 2009. I started it as a way to share all of the offbeat finds I discovered as I was doing research on my home. If someone had told me 10 years ago I’d be doing this, I would have laughed. Now, I have trouble imagining doing anything else. The goal is to get people to see that no matter where you are, there are fascinating discoveries to be made that will make you feel a deeper connection to said place. The echoes in history can seem almost magical, but you have to be open to listening and capable of connecting the dots. 
  
What is it about history that appeals to you? Why do you think it doesn’t resonate with some people in younger age brackets? How have you tried to make your site appealing to those people? 
 
I love how history is just one giant game of "Six Degrees of Separation." Everyone is looking for their connection to the story and it’s just a bit more laborious, layered or labor intensive to discover the connections from many decades past — but the connections are there somewhere, awaiting discovery. I think that’s why it doesn’t necessarily resonate immediately with the younger set. If the timeframe/ person being examined is farther removed than someone they have personally known — like a grandparent — they don’t have a first-hand connection, and therefore, it’s too taxing to use imagination to flesh out. There are so many other things vying for their attention, that this one is easy to flush. I try to make the past relevant by presenting the information in a quick, accessible way, for the most part. There are always visuals; the stories aren’t too long, typically; the site can be irreverent — just look at WTH Wednesdays. People have tortured old buildings and done things that even most untrained eyes can discern — this makes for an interesting hook, akin to hiding a kid’s medicine in something they love.  
 
What is your goal with the site? Are you looking to expand it further?
 
The most immediate goal is finding sponsors to help underwrite the cost of running the site. This is a very time intensive endeavor, and there are thousands of visitors each month. Yes, I have a lengthy list of other features I plan to add once more resources are secured. There are tons of ways to get people inspired about community, history, heritage, family and I look forward to making a growing contribution in all those arenas. 
 
You now have over 4,000 Facebook fans? How are you promoting the site to generate that much interest?
 
Recently, I did a small promotion and museum ticket giveaway, but for the most part, I just ask the existing audience if they know anyone else who loves history and heritage or who has pride in Indianapolis and ask them to suggest it to friends. Plus the Facebook page is very active. New photos, questions or posts are added at least once, but oftentimes more frequently, each day.
 
Operating a site like this must expose you to a great deal of information – perhaps some that has been buried, so to speak, for a long time. In your research, what are some of the most surprising facts you’ve uncovered about the city or state?
 
Well, it’s no longer surprising — but at first, I was in absolute shock at what an opulent place this was and what stunning big city, old architecture we had — and that most of it is gone. Indianapolis has earned a nickname relating to wrecking balls. Thankfully, when I get out of the city, there are lots of lovely town squares that remain mostly intact. That’s always refreshing. 
 
Are there people in any other major cities in the U.S. with sites like yours that you’ve seen? Any others in Indiana?
 
I’ve not found anything exactly like HistoricIndianapolis.com; I’ve seen preservation sites, vintage real estate sites, sites for a specific museum, neighborhood, etc., but not one that pushes out seven days a week of content and is not comprised solely of long dissertations, as you would expect from the world of academia, for example. The unabridged version of the story should be out there — and there are plenty of academic journals or publications to accommodate that, but the medium of a website (also accessible by smartphone) almost dictates a quicker breakdown of material, if that makes sense.
  
What have been your greatest challenges in creating the site and keeping it going? 
 
The biggest challenge has been finding the time to pursue sponsorships. Though a number of people have suggested making this into a not-for-profit, I’m not yet convinced that is the way to go. It makes sense from the perspective of going after a big grant versus smaller amounts of money from sponsors and underwriters, but I’m still experimenting. Other than my three weekly contributors and other occasional ones, I do all the content, research, photos, scanning, etc. This is all incredibly time consuming, so adding to that: meeting people and pursuing potential sponsors, following up, and the like… it quickly becomes exhausting. I work at least 12 hours a day, at least 6 days a week. And I love it, but time management is a constant struggle.
  
The site is supported by sponsors. Who are some current sponsors, and what benefits do sponsors of your site receive?
 
The sponsors of static placement have one of a limited number of spaces that appear on all pages of the web site with an embedded link to their home web site or wherever they’d like. The sponsor’s visibility is high because of the very limited space for those. The other opportunity is underwriting the cost of research/ time/ photos for an article or series. For example, a vintage clothing store called Minx, (which is located in an historic building) is going to sponsor Ladies Lounge for a series of weeks. The shop logo and link will be embedded at the top within the body of the article for this weekly feature that regularly explores vintage fashion or other topics more of interest to our female audience. This is a great way for the business to also have something to Tweet out, link to on Facebook, or to list as something they are part of that will be relevant to their audience.
 
For more information, or to inquire about sponsoring, contact Tiffany at feedback@historicindianapolis.com and follow HI on Twitter (@historicindiana).

Governor to Support Overdue Government Reforms

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The Indiana Chamber and MySmartGov have been champions of sensible government reform in Indiana, and have supported suggestions from the Kernan-Shepard Report that would eliminate townships, among other excesses. The Evansville Courier & Press now reports Governor Mitch Daniels will firmly put his weight behind these measures in the 2012 session:

Gov. Mitch Daniels will make one last push for local government reforms – this time, a select and scaled-back set of them – during the final legislative session of his administration, he announced Friday.

Daniels unveiled his legislative agenda for the Indiana General Assembly’s 10-week 2012 session, which starts Jan. 4, during a speech at the Kiwanis Club of Indianapolis.

He said he will lobby for structural changes at both the township and county levels, as well a crackdown on conflicts of interest among municipal workers who also sit on the elected bodies that set the budgets for their employers.

It’s another try at implementing more of the recommendations offered in 2007 by a blue-ribbon panel chaired by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Indiana Chief Justice Randall Shepard.

This year, as freshman Rep. Kevin Mahan, R-Hartford City takes over the chairmanship of the House Government and Regulatory Reform Committee, Daniels said he believes the conditions are right for more progress than he has made in the past.

“We’re going to try to approach it in a little simpler way,” Daniels said.

He said he hopes four local government changes that have stalled out in previous sessions can gain more traction this year. Those four are:

- Allowing counties to switch their executive structure from three-member groups of commissioners to a single county commissioner.

- Abolishing three-member township advisory boards that oversee township trustees’ budgets and bumping their fiscal oversight duties up to county councils.

- Eliminating nepotism – that is, the ability for local elected officials to hire their relatives to do the area’s work.

- Restricting “conflicts of interest,” or situations where those who are paid by local government, such as police, firefighters, park employees and more, also serve on the councils that set their budgets.

“I think if we could get action on two, three, four fronts like those, this would be good. Those are some important reforms. I’ve always believed that we wouldn’t do this in one or two big gulps; it would have to be an incremental process, and this would get the process moving forward,” he said.

Supreme Court to Fill Week With Health Care Arguments

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When the federal health care reform law of 2010 began winding its way through various lower courts, it was not clear whether the ultimate destination would be the Supreme Court. The justices, after all, weigh many factors in determining their caseload.

But some conflicting rulings along the way made it less of a surprise when the "Supremes" recently indicated they would indeed consider various issues surrounding the far-reaching law. Now, even more information has come out about the unprecedented level of attention coming in early 2012. The Washington Post reports:

The high court scheduled arguments for March 26th, 27th and 28th over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which aims to provide health insurance to more than 30 million previously uninsured Americans. The arguments fill the entire court calendar that week with nothing but debate over President Obama’s signature domestic health care achievement.

With the March dates set, that means a final decision on the massive health care overhaul will likely come before Independence Day in the middle of Obama’s re-election campaign. The new law has been vigorously opposed by all of Obama’s prospective GOP opponents.

The justices will start the week of arguments that Monday with one hour on whether court action is premature because no one yet has paid a fine for not participating in the overhaul. Tuesday’s arguments will take two hours, with lawyers debating the central issue of whether Congress overstepped its authority by requiring Americans to purchase health care insurance or pay a fine. Finally, Wednesday’s arguments will be split into two parts, with justices hearing 90 minutes of debate over whether the rest of the law can take effect even if the health insurance mandate is unconstitutional and an extra hour of arguments over whether the law goes too far in coercing states to participate in the health care overhaul by threatening a cutoff of federal money. 

Indiana’s Environment is Changing… for the Better?

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Pollutant levels. Federal standards. State regulations. These factors and more are utilized to determine Indiana’s environmental performance. Three people in the know make the case that our air, water and land are "much cleaner than you might realize." BizVoice magazine has the story.

Fear – it’s a powerful motivator.

It can drive people to all kinds of chilling conclusions, especially when the topic is the environment and the role it plays in the well-being of Hoosiers.

Typically, we hear about the terrible things happening all around us – call it the
“sky is falling” mentality – rather than the many improvements that have been made
over the past 30 years.

Sure, Indiana (like all other locales) faces environmental challenges, both in the near future and long term. However, many of them are out of direct control, including:

  • The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continually tightening standards
  • The unscientific nature of a scientific topic as even experts don’t always know the safe levels for a particular pollutant, many of which are naturally occurring and unable to be destroyed completely
  • A variety of unintended consequences from policy and regulatory decisions, including higher utility bills for the public and the financial toll on industry from increased requirements

While those challenges exist, take comfort in knowing just how far the state has come.

“The environment is incredibly much cleaner than it used to be. A lot of our pollutants are down 80%, so we’ve made great progress. Our challenge is convincing people that it’s true,” indicates Thomas Easterly, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM).

“The environment is cleaner than any other time in our lifetimes, and it continues to get cleaner.”

For more, read the full article.

Indiana Could be Factor in GOP Primary

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Whether in support of Romney, Gingrich, or even Paul, Indiana Republicans and primary crossovers could play a key role in deciding who the 2012 GOP presidential nominee will be. The Times of Northwest Indiana reports how:

The early presidential caucus and primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina will be the center of the Republican Party’s world next month, but Indiana’s May 8 primary could prove more important.

Republican Party rule changes, penalties for early primary states, and candidates with enough money and supporters to remain in the race may all combine to give Indiana Republicans a taste of the campaign fun Democrats enjoyed in 2008.

Gov. Mitch Daniels is among the Hoosier Republicans rooting for a drawn-out nominating process.

"One can conjure a scenario … that might lead to a situation that’s still in play when May gets here, and that’d be terrific," Daniels said. "I thought it was so great when it mattered on the Democratic side last time."

Republicans changed their rules for awarding convention delegates last year hoping to capture the excitement Democrats had as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton battled for months to win the nomination in 2008.

As a result, most early primary states in 2012 will award convention delegates proportionately, based on a candidate’s share of the state’s primary vote, instead of winner-take-all.

In addition, five states that moved their primaries to before March 1 were penalized by the GOP and lost half their delegates.

That means the minimum 1,142 delegates needed for nomination won’t be selected until March 24 and no candidate is likely to win every one of them, putting later primary states with a lot of delegates, such as Indiana’s 46, in play.

Jesse Benton, campaign manager for Ron Paul, said the Texas congressman will strategically compete for delegates throughout the primary process.

"Our campaign has a comprehensive plan to win the delegates needed to either secure the nomination or enter into a brokered convention in Tampa," Benton told POLITICO.

The last time a Republican convention opened without the front-runner in control of enough delegates to win the nomination was 1976 when Ronald Reagan tried to wrest the GOP nomination from President Gerald Ford. Ford lost in the general election that year to Jimmy Carter.

Daniels, who briefly considered running for president earlier this year, believes a brokered convention might not be all bad, even though intra-party fights tend to turn off undecided general election voters.

"At a time when the country is facing just terribly consequential issues, if it led to a good healthy debate about not merely personalities but about what kind of program of change to bring to America, I could convince myself it’s not the worst outcome," Daniels said.

The term-limited governor said he won’t be throwing his hat in the ring at a brokered convention, but he’d enjoy watching it.

"I’ve always said the greatest spectator sport, forget the Super Bowl, if either party ever had a truly deliberative convention in the mini-camera world, it would be spectacular," Daniels said.

Not all Republicans believe the nomination will be up in the air when their convention begins Aug. 27.

Schererville Republican Dan Dumezich, who is leading Mitt Romney’s Indiana campaign, is confident the former Massachusetts governor will have the nomination locked up.

"I think we’re going to have an answer a lot sooner than most people think," Dumezich said. "I’m hoping we have one by January 31."

Brinegar: Focus Shines on Right-to-Work

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Chamber President Kevin Brinegar explains how passing a right-to-work law will help enhance Indiana’s economy by attracting many new companies that currently won’t consider the state, according to site selection agencies. He also lays out the facts about right-to-work, noting how it does nothing to prevent unions from organizing; it just means workers won’t be forced to join to keep their jobs.