Talk of boobies has been incessant lately, but not in a “Heidi Montag” kind of way…

Colorful breast cancer awareness bracelets proclaiming “I Love Boobies!” have whipped up nationwide media frenzy and an outcry from breast cancer advocates and survivors alike. 

In hundreds of middle and high schools across the nation, school administrators have chosen to ban the bracelets, feeling as though the bracelets are inappropriate and citing dress codes. Students are asked to remove the bracelets or face further disciplinary action.

The Keep A Breast Foundation’s “I Love Boobies” Campaign is a unique national campaign meant to encourage young people to target their breast health and break down the negative feelings that can be so deeply rooted in body image. The T-shirts and bracelets act as an awareness-raising tool, allowing young people to engage and start talking about a subject that is scary and taboo by making it trendy, positive and upbeat.  

The controversy over Boobies bracelets has been running rampant within the past several weeks with coverage on CNN.com, USA Today, ABC News and dozens of other local news outlets, and we have been honored at Zenzi to manage all of the media efforts on behalf of Keep A Breast.  No matter what your position on this new hot-button issue, one thing is for certain – young people are thinking and talking about breast cancer a lot more these days and the now-infamous bracelets are a brilliant marketing strategy and can be thanked for the sudden burst of breast cancer awareness in our society.

Be Known Be Found Fridays- Series #2
Friday, September 10 at 4:30 PM – 6:30 PM
Hosted at Boulder Digital Works in Boulder

Topic: The New Era of Marketing- Expertise and Tools Every Business Needs To Succeed

We are often asked what we believe are the top 5 things a company needs to master for success in today’s marketplace. Unfortunately it’s not that simple, but here are some must have skills and expertise that need to be developed by every executive and entrepreneur, no matter how large or small their business. We’ve invited thought leaders and industry experts to share their keys to success as well as walk us through how their businesses enables companies to grow. Join us for happy hour & some insightful conversations on September 10 at 4:30 PM- 6:30 PM. Cold beer, wine and apps are provided.

Guest Speakers:
Social Media Engagement (JiveSoftware/FiltrBox, Founder Ari Newman)
Social Media Platform (Close.ly, CEO Perry Evans, Founder of MapQuest & Jabber)
Digital Dashboard (StatsMix, CEO Tom Markiewiecz)

Host: PR & Marketing (Zenzi, Partner Anke Corbin)

Click Here to Register

As a student at USC Annenberg’s School for Communication & Journalism with PR and Communication majors, it was pretty much beat into me by professors and career advisers that getting a job is all about networking, networking, networking.  Thankfully, throughout college, I had access to amazing internship opportunities and a built-in network of alumni ready and willing to help fellow Trojans.  But when I decided to move to San Diego after graduating in 2002, it became an entirely different ball game.  I turned down an offer to continue full-time with the international PR agency in L.A. with which I was interning because I was 100% set on moving to San Diego.  So then began the full-time job search and real world networking in a new market.  It was not easy and took a few months before I found a job but I learned some incredibly valuable lessons along the way that really set me on the right path to develop my career.

Mashable reported this week that the AP Stylebook has added 42 new guidelines for social media.

In traditional media relations, AP style is a HUGE part of what we do.  At Zenzi we hold all of our communications and writing to high standards and aim to follow the rules and adhere to AP style for anything that goes to a reporter.  If it has the Zenzi name on it and a reporter is reading it, there are no excuses for anything but the proper style, not to mention correct, grammar, spelling and all that good stuff.

We often cringe when we run across what we perceive to be horrific abbreviations and misused capitalization in social media (think something along the lines of “RU coming 2 hpy Hr 2nyt?” – not really appropriate by professional standards).  It’s terribly common and someone needed to start setting out some rules, so leave it to the good folks at the AP to step up to the plate.  Interestingly, some abbreviations are now considered official, such as “POS” (Parent Over Shoulder, of course), and some Twitter-iffic vocabulary words have been added, including “trending,” “retweet,” and “unfriend.”

And now it’s time for us to all get up to speed and start implementing these basic guidelines in our own social media writing styles.  The new guidelines seem to cover the full spectrum of how journalists interact with social media, from how to refer to digital terminology to abbreviations and rules of thumb for how journalists should use social media, and how to confirm sources used from “blogs, tweets or other forms of social media,” according to Mashable.  I agree with the Mashable newsroom’s sentiments regarding one change in particular that was long overdue — changing the word “Web site” to “website.”  Guess websites are too common now for a formal name, and it just looked odd to me anyway.   Check out Mashable’s article on these changes, below, and visit www.apstylebook.com to get your own copy of what should be every PR professional’s writing bible.

The AP Stylebook has released its new social media guidelines, including the official change from “Web site” to “website” (a move first reported back in April) and 41 other definitions, use cases and rules that journalists should follow.

Read more here.

The FTC announced new rules to govern social media. The entire document of rules is quite extensive so I have bulleted what seem to be the three most prevalent regulations:

• Any and all “material connections” between bloggers and advertisers MUST be disclosed when an endorsement is made on behalf of the advertiser. This includes monetary compensation AND freebies of any kind. This rule also includes employees. If an employee of a corporation tweets about how great a new service or product is, they must disclose they are a paid employee of that corporation.

•Bloggers are responsible for any false or unsubstantiated claims they make on behalf of an advertiser. Currently, the common practice used to avoid penalties is the disclaimer “results are not typical.” Now, advertisers AND bloggers must breakdown the atypical results and fully discuss the “expected results” in complete detail. For example, if an advertiser sends a prominent beauty blogger a free sample of a new lotion to try and review, the blogger is responsible for any claims she makes about the lotion AND disclosing that she received the product for free. If the blogger uses the lotion and it cures her eczema, she is responsible for making that claim on her blog. If the claim that the lotion cures eczema is unsubstantiated by the advertiser, the blogger is on the hook for her statement.

•A third rule states that any celebrity that endorses a product or service in any informal way, including a talk show appearance or press tour, is responsible for disclosing the nature of the endorsement. Basically, unless a celebrity appears in a traditional TV or print ad, they must make a clear statement regarding their relationship to any product, service or location they endorse. For example, if a “well-known actress” visits The Tonight Show and talks about her great experience at a popular plastic surgery clinic in downtown L.A., she must disclose if she is being compensated by the clinic for the endorsement OR if she received her treatments for free.