http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php en ekendrick@hynescommunications.com Copyright 2010 2010-02-23T19:11:36+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/the_portsmouth_herald_profiles_patrick_hynes_and_hynes_communications/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/the_portsmouth_herald_profiles_patrick_hynes_and_hynes_communications/#When:18:11:36Z Hynes Communications President Patrick Hynes was profiled in the weekend edition of The Portsmouth Herald this Sunday. See below for the exclusive by Michael McCord… The exploding PR frontier of social networking Hynes: The Social media revolution is now a permanent revolution By Michael McCord of The Portsmouth Herald, February 21, 2010 PORTSMOUTH — Patrick Hynes didn’t invent one of the social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that have become so ubiquitous — but Hynes Communications has become a pioneer in fully utilizing social media communication for corporations, nonprofits and political campaigns. Founded by Hynes in 2006, the company was a spin off from Portsmouth-based Calypso Communications and it has grown into one of the nation’s leading public affairs agencies with a popular niche in social networking and new media outreach. “I had been blogging for quite some time at that point and I began to recognize that there was this need for large organizations to communicate with opinion leaders online,” said Hynes, who was online outreach coordinator for the 2008 presidential campaign of Republican Sen. John McCain. The company now has offices in Portsmouth and Washington, D.C., and it recently hired a social media expert to expand operations in the southeastern part of the country. Hynes started the company with a deliberate plan to transcend traditional corporate public relations practices. “We want to help these organizations expand and adapt their communications strategies to maximize the reach of the social Web,” he said. “I didn’t see anyone else out there doing it the way I thought it ought to be done.” Hynes now has five full-time employees with most working out of the Washington office. While many of the firm’s clients remain secret because of non-disclosure agreements, Hynes said others include the Freedom First PAC of Minnesota Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the U.S. Senate campaign of former Hewlett Packard Chairwoman Carly Fiorina in California, the Workforce Fairness Institute, AARP, Mayo Clinic, and the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease. Befitting the frenetic, 24/7 pace of social media, Hynes said his day starts at 4 a.m. by collecting as much newsworthy information as possible that impacts his clients and the work doesn’t stop. “I live in a permanent state of news consumption. We sometimes need to monitor developments online on a minute-to-minute basis,” he said. It’s work that requires creative problem solving in real time, said Hynes who admits “perhaps to the detriment of my business model, there is nothing formulaic in what we do.” The firm calculates what information is valuable to users of different social networks, the problems and challenges that need to be overcome and begins working its database of contacts. “I try to package that information up in appealing and compelling ways for people,” Hynes said. “We need to be prepared to insert our clients’ points of view on a moment’s notice. And that means we spend a lot of time researching issues and preparing for various scenarios. Getting caught unprepared in my world is death.” One of the most effective things the firm has done, he explained, was to put Sen. McCain on regular conference calls with bloggers during the 2008 campaign. “It helped to give the bloggers access to a major national figure and it allowed Sen. McCain to drive his message outside the filter of the mainstream media,” Hynes said. The explosive growth of social media communications has changed news coverage and how people get information — and it has altered the boundaries of public relations. “The Internet has extraordinary power,” Hynes said. “Almost 80 percent of reporters say they get story ideas from things they read or see on the Web. In some cases, reporters are writing first draft material for their event coverage on Twitter. “Just as important, the Internet gives a large organization the ability to communicate directly to its constituents without passing through the media filter. This is a complicated process that rewards only the most imaginative and adventurous organizations, but people can establish their own communications pipelines outside of the traditional media.” Despite success in the political arena, Hynes said he wants the firm to maintain its ratio of 75 percent corporate and nonprofit clients and 25 percent political assignments. “Politics pays less and it requires a great deal work beyond the scope of a contract,” Hynes said. “Because of the huge time commitment, we will limit what we are doing (politically) to large impact races with national implications.” One of those races will be the anticipated U. S. Senate race in California between Fiorina and incumbent Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. Hynes believes the firm will triple in size in the next five years and become “the first choice for large organizations” who need social networking methods of communication to get the word out. The firm is already doing sub-contracting work for larger and more traditional public relations agencies. “The social media revolution is actually in a fairly advanced state. I’m still a young man, but the communications world of my youth would not be recognizable to a person just entering the workforce today,” said the 37-year-old Hynes. “This is not to say there aren’t more innovations coming down the pike. In fact, the social media revolution really needs to be understood as a permanent revolution.” At a Glance: Who: Patrick Hynes What: President and founder, Hynes Communications Business: Social media public affairs Where: Offices in Portsmouth and Washington, D.C. Web: http://www.hynescommunications.com 2010-02-23T18:11:36+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/happy_6th_birthday_facebook/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/happy_6th_birthday_facebook/#When:18:34:34Z February 4, 2004, Facebook was born.  Today it is the largest social networking site in the world, acquiring new users daily. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, and his college roomies Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. It was originally intended to be a network for Harvard students, and was formerly known as theFacebook. However in the course of six years, and some fine tuning, Facebook is bigger and better than ever. Today Facebook has opened its doors to everyone from relatives and high schoolers, to Businesses and Mom and Dad. It gives you a wide array of things to do, from games like MafiaWars to Jetman, or creating groups about practically anything. Heck you can even throw a sheep at someone to get their attention by using the Superpoke application. Facebook’s popularity has increased since its adoption, and has given people around the world the ability to stay in touch with loved ones everywhere.  Six years strong and counting. It’s amazing how a simple idea can become a phenomenon with a little entrepreneurship and some hard work. So for everyone, I invite you to say happy birthday to Facebook, if you haven’t already.  Maybe post it on your live feed!? 2010-02-04T18:34:34+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/hynes_57_consultant_candid_with_patrick_hynes1/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/hynes_57_consultant_candid_with_patrick_hynes1/#When:18:56:41Z Originally published by the “National Journal’s Hotline” (subscription may be required) Patrick Hynes is the president of Hynes Communications, a national social media communications agency with offices in DC and Portsmouth, NH. Hynes served as the online outreach consultant for Sen. John McCain’s WH ‘08 camp. Hynes is also the author of the book In Defense of the Religious Right. But today, he is our Consultant Candid. What was your first job? The Weirs Beach Water Slide in Laconia, NH, baby. What is your proudest moment professionally? Helping Sen. John McCain win the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. If you could be in any other line of work, what would it be? Well, I would be a stay-at-home dad with my three kids. Of what political campaign (past, present or future) would you most like to be a part? I would love to have run online strategy and communications for Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign (if such a thing had existed.) What individual who does your kind of work for the other party do you respect the most, and why? Peter Daou, who was Sec. Hillary Clinton’s Internet Director. Daou is a straight shooter and an extremely bright guy. Negative campaigning—good or bad? A good thing. What is your favorite restaurant to meet clients? Rasika on 6th Street in Penn Quarter What is the first section of the newspaper you read? Wall Street Journal editorial page. A question from the previous participant: If you could be any vegetable in the White House garden, what would it be and who would you like to pick you? A red pepper picked by President Obama himself, I suppose. Please pose a question for the next interviewee. Who would win a fantasy presidential match-up between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama? 2010-02-03T18:56:41+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/something_phishy_is_happening_at_twitter/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/something_phishy_is_happening_at_twitter/#When:20:51:30Z Recently, some Twitter users may have been asked to change their passwords out of the blue following receipt of curious emails explaining that their accounts have been victim to phishing attacks. This may sound like deja vu as similar attacks occurred back in November. While the alert e-mail itself looks like a phishing attack, tweets from a plethora of users are proclaiming that the email is in fact 100% true.  To be safe, if you receive this email, go to Twitter via your web browser and try to log in. If you can’t access your account then the email was legitimate and you should change your password as instructed.  Twitter is reportedly working to better understand this latest attack, but they have yet to make a public comment on the incident. Rest assured though fellow Twitter fanatics, don’t be alarmed.  Change your password and keep on tweeting because we all want to read about that movie you saw last night ... and what you’re having for dinner. 2010-02-02T20:51:30+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/youtubes_big_week/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/youtubes_big_week/#When:20:04:17Z YouTube just capped off a rather impressive week full of new feature announcements that appear to be an aggressive push into a broad range of frontiers many wouldn’t have imagined a short time ago. Firstly, Youtube signed a deal with the Indian Premier League on Tuesday to broadcast 60 live cricket matches. Youtube has done live broadcasts before starting with a Katy Perry led YouTube award show, but this is the first time that they’ve signed a deal to broadcast sports and most importantly, secured a contract to broadcast a series. According to Google (YouTube’s owner), viewers of the matches will be able to watch them live from anywhere in the world, select which camera angle they’d like to watch from, and be able to interact with other viewers across the globe via chat boards and the like. Secondly, YouTube has entered the movie rental business. YouTube debuted its first full length movie available back in 2007, but on Wednesday, YouTube announced that they’d be promoting some of the films being shown at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City Utah… for cash. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Google was shopping around the idea to studios, but this week saw the official announcement of YouTube Rentals and the first videos are now available for $3.99 and watchable for 48 hours. Next one. Did you ever wish that Pandora had music videos? Bam. Welcome to the YouTube Music Discovery Project. The service announced this week is just that. You punch in an artist and then hit the fitting “Disco” button and you’re off. You’re able to add and remove videos as they’re suggested, learn about the artist, and even play particular songs on demand which Pandora cannot do for you. Wednesday also saw YouTube announce that they were beginning to roll out support for HTML5 video. True, this technical announcement might sound like the least exciting of the three, but it’s actually pretty on par. Now viewers will be able to watch videos without needing Adobe’s Flash plugin and HTML5 just got a big push as an open standard (making designers across the web giddy with excitement). So, a few months after rolling out 1080p HD resolution and getting everyone excited, YouTube is making some new and even more significant moves. Not only are they expanding into new fields to increase revenue, they just pushed media consumption and the internet forward this week. 2010-01-22T20:04:17+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/republicans_getting_new_media/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/republicans_getting_new_media/#When:15:04:11Z As you have no doubt figured out by now, today is Election Day in the Massachusetts special to replace former Senator Ted Kennedy. For a variety of reasons, the last few weeks have seen remarkable movement in the polls towards Republican State Senator Scott Brown.  At the start of the race, Brown was down by as much as 30 percentage points, today the smart money is on him edging Democrat Martha Coakley in the bluest of blue states. Real Clear Politics looks at how it “may have started with a simple hashtag:” On December 28, Brown announced what became the signature force behind his campaign, his pledge to be a 41st vote against President Obama’s national health care reform legislation. Accompanying that news on his Twitter feed was this notation: #41stvote. Referred to as a hashtag, those nine characters became a mechanism to attract like-minded activists and identify new ones. Reflecting an enthusiasm gap not just in the state but among national politicos, Brown now boasts more than 11,000 Twitter followers, compared to barely 4,000 for Democrat Martha Coakley. That following paid dividends last Monday when, aided by a strong Twitter campaign from Brown and dozens of his newest online advocates, the Republican smashed a fundraising goal of $500,000 for a one-day “money bomb,” generating instead well beyond $1 million. That total from just 24 hours was well beyond what he had raised in the entire previous fundraising period. Where there had been skepticism before about what kind of impact Twitter could have, the Brown campaign is making a convincing case. Throughout the piece, RCP quotes Republican officials and strategists from around the country who have clearly gotten the message: “When I started, everyone joked that I was the director of shiny objects,” said John Randall, director of new media for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “This is not a shiny object. This is industry standard now. It’s definitely something that I point out to all the campaigns.” “It’s absolutely the quickest, most accessible, most open platform for sharing information on the Web,” said Jordan Raynor, a Florida-based Republican online strategist. “Twitter by nature makes information valuable, if it’s valuable information. If you’ve got a juicy piece of news it’s going to spread fastest through Twitter.” “We realized there is a changing phenomenon. More folks, particularly young people in that demographic that frankly our party has not done that well in the past, are getting their information [from social media],” [VA Gov. Bob] McDonnell said at an RGA conference after the campaign. Certainly a number of factors went into Brown’s popularity spike, but the role of new media should not be overlooked.  In addition to a significant edge in Twitter followers, Brown has more than three times the Facebook Fans and nearly eight times the number of YouTube subscribers as his opponent.  All of this has fueled Brown’s populist, “Its the people seat!” message and have engaged the electorate to the point that election officials are expecting record turnouts across the Bay State.  As with seemingly many things in the last few months, Martha Coakley and Massachusetts Democrats lost site of a key component to a 21st Century campaign and this blunder could certainly prove costly.  To really capitalize, however, the Republican Party must continue to invest in and employ these technologies based on the lessons learned in this race.   2010-01-19T15:04:11+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/ny_times_apparently_to_start_charging_online_readers/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/ny_times_apparently_to_start_charging_online_readers/#When:16:15:55Z After two years of being offered for free and two years of internal debate and chaos, The New York Times appears to be on the verge of charging online readers again. With over 15 million unique visitors last month (although down from 19 million in September of last year), “The Grey Lady” has over 3 million more visitors a month than the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. Both, however, have paying subscribers to at least some of their content. The Times had previously tried to use a product called TimesSelect which was an online version of their newspaper, which was free to print subscribers, but cost online-only readers $50 a year.  TimesSelect was ended in September of 2007 when the Times hoped that online ad revenue would increase their cash flow and allow it to hold onto the millions of readers migrating to free online blogs for their news. The Times has been fighting a morbid storm for the last year. With the combination of the unstopping growth of new media news sources and with the drop in advertising because of the recession, the paper is facing huge income issues across the board.  The paper has been forced to repeatedly charge more for its print editions, mortgage its own building, cut staff (8% last year alone) and trim salaries for all employees (5% last year). Apparently set to take action on the biggest question facing the struggling print media, the entire industry, let alone the NY Times, must be holding its breath.   2010-01-17T16:15:55+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/dont_do_it/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/dont_do_it/#When:15:39:46Z If one of your New Year’s resolutions involved possibly spending a little bit less time stalking catching up with friends on Facebook and instead getting outside and meeting your real neighbors, then a Denmark based company may have the solution for you.  NPR reports: But what happens if you get sick of all those messages on your Facebook wall? If you just can’t stand the chatter anymore? Now one Web site is encouraging you to end it all — virtually. “It doesn’t make your life better,” an introductory video on the site coaxes. “You always think you’re missing something. And above all, it makes you more stupid.” The idea of the “Web 2.0 Suicide Machine” is to abandon your virtual life — so you can get your actual life back, Gordan Savicic tells NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly. Savicic is the CEO — which he says stands for “chief euthanasia officer” — of SuicideMachine.org. The site is the work of group of artists, designers and programmers based in the Netherlands who wanted to create a way to let people destroy their social networking accounts. “Basically, we try to remove as much content as possible,” Savicic says. “We change the profile picture and the password so you can’t log in anymore.” Once you’ve decided to go through with it, all you need to do is give the Suicide Machine some information and hit a little button that reads “commit.” Then you can sit back and watch as your virtual life flashes before your eyes. Bye-bye, former friends and followers. So long, profile pictures and passwords. Hello, real life 2.0. The Suicide Machine boasts around 900 users, more than 58,000 friends unfriended and nearly 231,000 Tweets removed. It’s so deadly, in fact, that Facebook blocked the service last Sunday. In a statement earlier this week, Facebook said the Suicide Machine violates their rules of user interaction. The company says it is “currently investigating and considering whether to take further action.” A bit drastic if you ask me… 2010-01-11T15:39:46+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/google_wishes_everyone_happy_holidays/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/google_wishes_everyone_happy_holidays/#When:20:20:36Z Typically during the holiday season Google gives back to its major donors/advertisers by sending them a variety of gifts as a token of appreciation.  Until recently, these gifts were MIA which had some of the high rollers wondering.  Yesterday, they got their explanation. H/T TechCrunch: It looks like Google has sent out a message to all AdSense and AdWords partners letting them know that they’ve decided to do “something a little different this year.” Clicking on the link in the email takes you to a page letting you know that Google is giving $20 million to a group of charity as its holiday gift to everyone this year. Specifically, the website reads, “This gift is for someone very special: Everyone. Because charities are experiencing their toughest year in decades, we have committed $20 million to helping those who help us all. Our gift to you is a gift to them. Happy Holidays.” It then goes on to list the 25 charities that Google has chosen as “intended recipients.” These include: Boys and Girls Clubs, Feeding America, Smile Train, HEAL Africa, Loud Against Nazis, Reporters Without Borders, and many others. It’s not entirely clear if this gift will fully replace the Google swag that they have sent out the past several years, and everyone quickly posts to the Internet. Last year, Google sent out some, but it mostly canceled the gifts due to the bad economic climate. This year, it looks like they’ve taken a higher road. Google also had a holiday to all its users this year: Free WiFi in airports and some airplanes around the country. 2009-12-22T20:20:36+00:00 http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/pepsi_chooses_new_media_advertising_over_super_bowl_commercials/ http://www.hynescommunications.com/index.php/blog/article/pepsi_chooses_new_media_advertising_over_super_bowl_commercials/#When:17:40:01Z ESPN and others are reporting that the Pepsi Company plans to shift a significant portion of its advertising budget away from the glitz and glamour of the Super Bowl to focus on new media operations.  Over the last 10 years Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl, spending over $140 million on ads, which places them second only to Anheuser-Busch.  In total, Pepsi has advertised in each of the last 23 Super Bowls. A Pepsi spokeswoman indicated that investing up to $3 million for thirty seconds of advertising (projected cost for his year’s ads) did not fit with their marketing strategy for next year.  Instead, the beverage giant will shift it focus to be less about a singular event while also targeting their efforts on cause-related marketing.     Specifically, the soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its “Pepsi Refresh Project” which is scheduled to begin next month.  The web-based effort will encourage community involvement by funding numerous grants based on online submissions and votes. The Wall Street Journal reports: Pepsi says it will spend 60% more on online ads in 2010 than it did this year. It will be relying largely on Web ads and public relations to market its Pepsi brand because, it says, that’s the best way to reach younger audiences— Pepsi’s primary target—and to keep consumers involved with its brand. Ads will carry the new slogan, “Every Pepsi Refreshes the World.” Some of the TV ads will appear in February.   2009-12-19T17:40:01+00:00