There’s a new video making its way around the Web today from a company called Grasshopper, which markets virtual phone systems for entrepreneurs. I found out about it when a friend of mine (who’s also a reporter at Fast Company) posted it on Facebook. I subsequently saw that it’s been featured on The Huffington Post.

In one day, the video has garnered nearly 200,000 views on YouTube. It seems well on its way to going viral. Why does it work? A spoof of Jay-Z and Alicia Key’s wildly popular “Empire State of Mind,” it pays tribute to the New Dork instead of New York. It’s well produced, clever and speaks directly to what makes entrepreneurs tick (in this case, I am their target audience).

This is the kind of “advertising” that people are responding to in 2010 – Grasshopper has shown through this video that they get the world I’m living in and they want to entertain me as much as they want to inform me. I may just give them a call.

I was reminded of the importance of word choice this week when my journalist husband sent me this video, which pokes fun at the word “revolutionary” and PR people who take themselves too seriously.

There is definitely a place for superlatives in public relations – as there is for embargoed news releases and exclusives. And I do believe you often need to shout from the proverbial mountaintop to be heard. But if engaging with third-party influencers (i.e. journalists and bloggers) is part of your strategy, it’s critical to remember that they cover news.

While (I hope) this video is intended to be a parody, I am afraid it’s not too far from reality. Several years ago, in one week’s time, I had three clients in three different businesses tell me they’d come up with the same positioning statement: “We get the right information to the right people at the right time.”

Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony award-winning composer/lyricist and Alexander Hamilton aficionado.

Alexander Hamilton was an author of the Federalist papers and first secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He was the leading champion of a central government and was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.

A little boring, right?  How about this:

“How does the bastard orphan  

Son of a whore and a Scotsman 

Dropped in 

The middle of a forgotten  

Spot in  

The Caribbean

By providence

Impoverished

In squalor,

Grow up to be a hero

And a scholar?”

Aside from his Tony award-winning musical In the Heights, a less well-known demonstration of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s storytelling genius is a rap he composed about Alexander Hamilton.

That’s right, rap. The Hamilton Mixtape, part of which Miranda performed at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word in 2009, engages and entertains like no dry history textbook account could.

We as public relations professionals are essentially storytellers.  We spend much of our time researching our clients and choosing the right words to tell their stories.  Relating the facts isn’t enough.  It’s our job to tell each story well. 

Good PR people don’t distort the facts of any story to make it more provocative or sensational.  Facts reign supreme.  But we must strive to humanize the message – tying it in to something with which the receiver can connect and delivering it in a way that resonates.  Doing so shows a depth of understanding – not only of our clients and their stories, but of the audience for which each message is intended.

Telling a story well lifts the veil that separates the sender from receiver, enhancing the transparency that is so important to an organization’s credibility and, ultimately, its authentic connection to its audience.

A recent article in The Daily News calls the select journalists who attended Tiger Woods’ apology “stooges.” The reporter suggests their agreeing to attend a press briefing during which they’d be allowed to ask zero questions should have earned them “T-shirts reading: ‘2-19-10. I attended Tiger Woods’ Bootlicker’s Ball.’”

The article goes on to say, “There was a time when reporters would not genuflect, not bow down, not adhere to rules set by some celebrity-punk looking to control them. Nor would they listen to some shifty PR flacks or enabling agents, like the ones who look the other way as their married clients morph into womanizing, cheating creeps.”

In the spirit of full disclosure, I know personally one of the three reporters who agreed to attend the “Bootlicker’s Ball.” All journalists are in the business of breaking news. My colleague, who works at Bloomberg News, was the first to write about the apology with this article that scooped his biggest competitors.

Not only was he first with the story, but the piece led to his being interviewed by dozens of other media outlets, including CNN Headline News and Good Morning America. The coverage was great exposure for him and his employer. Plus, he didn’t simply publish Tiger’s statement. He found other people to fill in the gaps for the story he wrote after he attended the event. A stooge? Hardly.

Is the idea that someone in power put restrictions on the media really new? Sure, there are circumstances where reporters won’t acquiesce to the demands of their sources (e.g. they can get the info elsewhere or they know the source needs them more than they need the source). It’s impressive that the Golf Writers Association of America boycotted the event. But, in the era of citizen journalism, Tiger Woods would have found a way to get his story out even if the others had followed suit.

I appreciate the idealistic notion that media should be able to report a story the way they see fit. But I don’t subscribe to the idea that journalists are more easily influenced by people in power today than in the past.   

Crass? Of course. Offensive? Surely some listeners thought so. Unexpected? Not so much if you’ve ever heard Silverman open her mouth before.

Chris Anderson, the TED organizer who invited Silverman to speak in the first place promptly tweeted about how “god-awful” she was. A Twitter-based ruckus between Anderson and Silverman featuring a bizarre side battle between Silverman and Steve Case (Case jumped in to defend Anderson) then ensued. The media hopped on the bandwagon shortly after and buzz and press coverage about the incident spread.

Love Silverman or hate her, my question is this: What was Anderson thinking when he invited her to speak in the first place? It sounds like she delivered material right in line with all the other material she usually delivers and he was taken aback?

The net-net from a communications standpoint seems to be a basic lesson: Do your homework before you hire a speaker. Keep “good” company, or at least know the company you keep.

The new director of global news at BBC recently told the organization’s journalists that they either need to embrace social media channels or find jobs elsewhere (good luck with that, Luddites). In an in-house publication, Peter Horrocks said, “This isn’t just a kind of fad…I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary.” It may sound harsh (particularly if spoken with a British accent), but he must have sensed resistance and deemed a mandate necessary.

It’s not news that many journalists and publications are using social media channels to broaden their reach. We recently met with an executive from Meredith Publishing (Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies Home Journal are among their many titles) who told us their Twitter feeds are often the top drivers of traffic to their destination sites. I believe the line between “traditional” journalism and social media will continue to blur to the point of non-existence. There are a lot of hungry journalists out there and it seems those who understand the need to diversify the distribution of their content (not to mention better communicate with their sources, peers and audiences) will endure.

Of course, we still need to resolve how media outlets will make money going forward. Or there will be no journalists to fire.

If Toyota did indeed have a plan, it didn’t adhere to the core principles for communicating during a crisis. Once synonymous with safety, Toyota has backed its way into a corner in which company executives are being reactive rather than proactive.

The crisis began with a lack of responsiveness to consumer complaints. In an age where conversations on social media channels can cause irreparable damage to a brand, Toyota drivers first learned about the potential mechanical/safety issues from other irate Toyota owners. From the start, Toyota didn’t take control of the message.

Toyota drivers also seem to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. Just this week, the recall expanded to 436,000 hybrid models including the popular Prius because of a malfunction in the braking system.

So what core communications virtues did company executives ostensibly ignore?

1. Honesty: The company should have publicly acknowledged the situation long before it did. The delayed response caused consumers to believe executives were being dishonest. Even if they didn’t know the extent of the problem they should have communicated potential issues about other Toyota makes and models.
2. Explanation: It took executives too long to offer up an explanation.  And when one was presented it seemed to point fingers at part makers and manufacturers, looking to place blame elsewhere.
3. Apology: Toyota’s CEO,Akio Toyoda, has been widely criticized for not being sincere in his initial apology in late January. He continued to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos despite the fact that his company was facing the worst crisis in its history. His driving off in an Audi also didn’t inspire confidence in the Toyota brand.
4. Learning: We’ve yet to hear the company’s learnings from this incident and the policies and procedures it has created (or will) to ensure that this never happens again. The company still needs to reassure consumers that future models aren’t impacted.

The company’s handling of this crisis will shape perception of the brand for months and years to come. According to a PRWeek blog, consumer opinion of Toyota has dropped below the Hummer, arguably the most vilified gas-guzzler on the market. Significant damage is already done, but there’s no time like the present to get the brand back on track.

I think the worst offender was a company that makes a product I love. I wrote a passionate letter to the founder. He responded immediately, thanked me for my advocacy and agreed to engage in a conversation about how we might help them build their profile. He introduced me to their head of marketing over email who asked if we could set up a time to talk via phone. First, he wanted to see our initial ideas. We don’t typically like to generate ideas without some strategic insight from the client. But I know this product line intimately and we’ve marketed many products to this audience: moms. So my team got together and came up with a series of creative ideas. The prospect acknowledged receipt and promised to set up a meeting the following week. Long story short, I never heard from them again. I’ve watched them implement several of the ideas we proposed on their own. And I just discovered (several months later) they hired another firm. All’s fair in love and business, but a little common courtesy goes a long way. I’ll stop short of exposing their bad behavior in any public way. But, you can be sure I won’t use or actively endorse their products again. In the end, a botched business communication is bad PR.

Of course, prospective clients aren’t the only ones to blame. Anyone looking to hire a “vendor” should consider the time and energy prospective companies put into winning their business. It won’t always be a buyers’ market and you never know when you might need to cross back over that bridge.

So if you’re the world’s largest public corporation by revenue, and stockholders, journalists, bloggers and pretty much everyone under the sun is watching what you’re up to, astroturfing is a disaster waiting to happen – especially if you were caught doing something similar back in 2006.

But that didn’t stop Wal-Mart from setting up a fake community group to drum up support in Chicago, where the company is gunning for a second store within city limits.

When the Chicagoist blog received a series of pro-Wal-Mart comments from unknown screen names in response to various posts, blogger Kevin Robinson decided to investigate. He discovered that, with the help of PR firm Serafin & Associates and the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Wal-Mart is behind the phony advocacy group, “Our Community. Our Choice,” which was linked to the blog comments.

Wal-Mart and its associates have every right to plea the corporation’s case to the people of Chicago. And the citizens do, too, if they’re legitimate. But establishing a fake community group that professes to stand for residents and their interests is undoubtedly devious and a tactic no PR firm or brand should use.

I was invited to attend Sidoti & Company’s (Wall Street’s largest independent small-cap equity research boutique) Second Annual Business Services Conference on February 2. Hosted by one of their senior equity analysts, David Gold, the day was filled with presentations on topics ranging from litigation trends to the outlook for commercial real estate.

Among the presenters was Patrick Carroll, Securities & Commodities Fraud Supervisory Special Agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) New York office. He gave an inside (as inside as the FBI will go) look into how the agency tackles securities fraud in our nation. The crimes they pursue include corporate fraud, Ponzi schemes, market manipulation, insider trading and wire/mail fraud. He’s currently working on the Madoff case, for example.

Interestingly, he talked several times about the role a company’s brand – and media coverage in particular – plays in preventing or prosecuting fraud. The FBI relies on a number of information sources to uncover new cases. High on Agent Carroll’s list was what he called “open sources.” He noted that journalists were very good at uncovering fraud and that broadcast and print coverage often lead to investigations. He also joked that he watches both Fox News and CNN to ensure unbiased research.

Some of the recent trends the FBI is seeing are tied to the subprime crisis, bail-out schemes and alternative investments, such as hedge funds and private equity. He urged attendees (who were largely analysts and investors) to “scrub down” the source of funds before getting involved even if they’ve done business with the individual or company in the past. He suggested they ask themselves, “Is the risk worth the impact on my brand?” One other area of concern is “con men” that target hedge funds and private equity firms. He said they often get away with their schemes because they assume their victims won’t turn them in to authorities. Most organizations don’t want to admit they bought into a con man’s pitch, let alone see their naiveté played out in the media.

Call it a “scrub-down” or call it due diligence, the message was clear: The impact of an investment to your brand should be considered alongside its financial return.