Fellow SEMA Members,

I am running for a seat on the YEN Select Committee, and would appreciate your vote. Some highlights on why I would be an ideal candidate include:

• I am a life-long enthusiast from a car family. My first car build ended up on the covers of Hot Rod and Mustang & Fords
• Over a dozen years in the industry, having worked 11 consecutive SEMA Shows.
• Media background: I have worked for Petersen, Primedia, Edmunds, and handled PR for the top brands in our industry
• Small business owner: I understand what it takes to run a small business in the current climate, and what it takes to succeed
• The manufacturer’s perspective: my best clients and friends are auto aftermarket manufacturers. I will represent the manufacturer’s point of view on the council
• Social Media Expertise: It’s what we do, every day. I will help bring fresh ideas to the table and would love to help fellow YEN members succeed

After a decade as a proud SEMA member, I’ve decided its time to give something back to the industry and organization that has been so good to me over the years. I’m running for a seat on the SEMA Young Executives Network (YEN) Select Committee. YEN honored me a few months ago with a nice profile piece on the SEMA site and in SEMA News, so most of my background can be found here.

In a nutshell: I started working in the auto industry in high school, working the sales counter at a well-known speed shop in Los Angeles. I honed my writing skills, then made the jump to magazines as a writer and photographer at 18. I went on to work at some of the best automotive media outlets in the country, including Petersen/Primedia, Edmunds.com and more. Eventually I made the leap to automotive PR, where I have run accounts for some of the biggest names in our industry. Eventually I started my own PR and Social Media Marketing firm in 2008 and haven’t looked back. I’m honored to have a fantastic group of clients and we are doing really exciting work pushing the limits of viral marketing and PR for the automotive aftermarket.

So why the YEN Select Committee? Because I’m a pretty young guy considering I’ve worked 11 consecutive SEMA shows, and I feel that our industry is filled with young, eager, forward-thinking entrepreneurs. From business owners and manufacturers to reps, dealers and media personnel, we’re all very fortunate to have a passion for cars and the ability to earn a living talking about what we love. I will help fellow YEN members in any way I can, keeping the committee focused on the needs of fresh new companies and fast-rising young executives. We should be heard, from our ideas on new media marketing to reaching Gen Y and Millennials. I will bring new ideas to the table about how to market the organization to business owners and how to help members move their businesses forward.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I encourage anyone with questions about my goals for the YEN Select Committee or even those looking for advice to email or call me anytime.

Sincerely,

Dan Kahn

President, Kahn Media

Dan@KahnMedia.com

818-881-5246

The last six months have been really interesting from a crisis PR standpoint. The combination of the public’s insatiable demand for information, the online media world’s never ending quest for clicks, and some unforeseeable circumstances have created some really interesting case studies on how a crisis can unfold and how companies should deal with them in the current new media landscape.

I know this topic has been done to death, but a month later now that the dust has settled, it’s interesting to see how things unfolded. In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, the public had been clamoring for more info on the upcoming iPhone 4G, which Apple wouldn’t even acknowledge existed. Then, in late April, the news broke: Gizomodo, a tech blog owned by Gawker Media (which also owns two of our favorite sites, Jalopnik and io9), had possession of a top secret iPhone 4G prototype, dissected it, and they were telling all. Sounds like a hollywood gossip column piece.

As it turns out, an Apple engineer went drinking, forgot the prototype on his stool and an observant (but unscrupulous) passerby picked it up, figured out what it was, called a different tech blog, and when they passed called Gizmodo – who paid for it. They photographed the phone, posted the story, and it got so much buzz is promptly crashed the Gawker comment server. That same night, a lawyer from Apple swung by Giz editor Jason Chen’s house and picked up the phone. Then, the police raided Chen’s home, seized his property, and Apple made rumblings about theft and lawsuits. As it turns out all pretty much settled back down to normal, and Chen ended up scoring huge traffic for his site without anything more than a verbal slap on the wrists. Then the buzz began that Apple leaked the phone on purpose to generate buzz, a silly notion to anyone who has witnessed one of Steve Job’s well-orchestrated summer unveils at Macworld. This is a company that likes to control every minute detail of its message, so leaking a story to a snarky tech blog isn’t its style. Even Gizmodo says so.

At this point, the good news is the world is snapping up iPads like crazy and people are clamoring for the new 4th Gen iPhone. On the other hand, the company’s handling of the situation (denial, then a theft complaint resulting in a raid) makes the normally friendly feeling Apply seem pretty Orwellian. So… less than a week later when Ellen DeGeneres makes a cutesy little farse commercial for her talk show about how hard texting on the iPhone can be (she’s right… especially if you have fat thumbs), you’d think the Cupertino company would just roll with it. Nope… they made a stink with the network and demanded Ellen apologize. You can see the commercial and the apology here:

So… now the company has two killer products, one that’s selling like mad and another coming soon, and Jobs looks like Darth Vader piloting the Death Star. Not good. What could they have done differently? I’m sure the company has a few agencies on 7-figure budgets to tell them, but in my humble opinion they should have done the following:

1. Stick with “no comment” until the phone was confirmed missing

2. Once confirmed, own the mistake, admit it was a prototype phone, thank Gizmodo for finding it and returning it (even before they did so… put the pressure on) then make a statement explaining that every once in a while these things happen, they’re glad reaction has been positive, and thanks to Gizmodo for treating the phone with respect. Other changes are imminent, so this isn’t the final model, but everyone got a sneak peek.

Once the cat is out of the bag, ride the positive PR and buzz and move up the release date. Oh… and don’t put the smack down on the friendly dancing TV host. She makes a living being snarky and poking fun at things… why make the target on your back even bigger?

First and foremost: I know there are companies out there that develop and make money with those cutesy little social networking games like Farmville. Strictly speaking, I’m not a fan. I don’t care how many pigs you bought or chickens you traded, and don’t really want it cluttering up my news feed. However, there are a few companies out there doing an excellent job using Facebook to help further their business. They key here is that they don’t push a specific product or try to tell you anything – they use Facebook the way it was originally intended when it was a social tool developed by a few Harvard students – as a fun, entertaining branding tool. The best corporate Facebook pages I’ve seen weren’t even profiles, they were fan pages.

A company with an active fan page that gets updated regularly, has an energetic fan base that posts and replies to content daily and grows constantly is a powerful thing. Again – not to sell X number of widgets through SALE SALE SALE! type tactics, but by developing a relationship with an audience so they look forward to and enjoy your content – and by extension, your brand. We do that through on-the-scene video clips, guessing games, behind-the-scenes photos and more. Comp Cams does an excellent job with their fan page, and I have to give a big tip o’ the hat to Chris Douglas and his crew for the work they do – if you haven’t seen it, log into Facebook and search Comp Cams, it’s worth it.

Now for my rant – having recently been inundated with a few hundred resumes before hiring a few new staffers, let me float this out into the ether: to all of you under the age of 30 hoping to one day gain work in the real world: over-sharing on the internet is not a good idea. I have friends, family and even some business associates that insist on sharing totally inappropriate stuff on Facebook on a regular basis. No, I don’t care when you’re eating chicken. I don’t want to hear your racist political statements, and I don’t want to see a picture of you hammered in the bathroom. Please keep in mind this content lives forever on the web and can one day bite you in the ass. A status update is not a note passed in homeroom, it can’t be thrown away. Same goes for your business fan page: have fun, make it entertaining, but be weary – it will live forever.

To wrap things up, I’ve got a link to a fantastic story about how to best utilize Facebook for business written by Ayelet Noff at at TheNextWeb.com. From tips on increasing exposure to making the most of your content, her story – 10 Steps to Create The Ultimate Facebook Fan Page for your Brand – is a great read. Enjoy.

Until Next Time,

Dan

First and foremost, welcome to the new Kahn Media website. While the last CSS based site was fine, it didnt’ really convey the look and feel of our work the way I wanted it to. As most of you blog-savvy folks have already figured out, the new site is based on Wordpress software, with lots of custom HTML tweaking thrown in for good measure. If nothing else it’s easier to navigate.

Other big news – we made several new hires in the past few weeks, and our team of hardcore social media geeks and gearheads continues to grow.

Last but not least, we’ve signed up several new clients, including one of the most well respected wheel brands in the world. Look for an update on that one shortly in the news section. In the meantime, I’ve got lots of social media stories to share so standby!

Thanks, and sorry for the long wait!

Dan

Kahn Media client Spectre Performance has just done the near-impossible: finished an all-new racecar mere hours before it was set to debut, taken it to the famed Bonneville Salt Flats and set a new world record.

In this case the car average 330 mph over two runs, making it the World’s Fastest Cadillac and the World’s Fastest Blown Gasoline Streamliner. Quite a feat for a new team and new car. We not only provided PR for the effort, but also promoted it in advance with a newsletter and created a a dedicated blog page, where we liveblogged the entire four-day event with photos, videos and info posted real-time from the salt.

The PR story is spreading like wildfire on the web, including on the following sites:
Top Gear
Wired
Autoblog
Jalopnik
WebRidesTV

In the meantime, SEMA News has a fantastic story in its latest issue about the importance of marketing to Gen Y, how to reach them and why manufacturing companies should care. Yours truly was quoted extensively in the story – even though I’m a few ticks too old to be in the actual demographic.

You can read more about it here.

Thanks to Alysha Webb for doing a great job on a much-needed story.

Also, the Performance Therapy Contest is up and running. Basically this is a social media car show concept developed in-house at Kahn Media for Hotchkis Performance as a means to drive brand awareness, promote the hobby, let gearheads know that even in this economy its ok to have fun with their car, and drive traffic/SEO to sponsor sites. Co-sponsors include Hot Wheels, Yokohama, Red Line Oil, Rushforth Wheels, Baer Brakes, Lifeline Fire & Safety Systems, Flowmaster and MSD.

All entrants have to do is submit a picture and a short caption explaining how they enjoy their car. Click a photo to vote, and feel free to promote yourself on Flickr or Facebook. Top vote getters will receive a T-Shirt or gift certificate. The Grand Prize winner (determined by a panel of sponsors and journalists) will receive nearly $40k in free parts from the sponsor companies. Autoblog, Motorator and several forums have already written up great pieces about it.

I’ve got lots of info to share, including notes from a few of the more interested SEMA lectures on SEO and Video Production. In the meantime, here’s a bit o’entertainment.

Wired Autopia just put up a fantastic list of their favorite car commercials.

My favorite of the list (and one I’ve never seen before) is this killer homage to Ferrari Grand Prix racing from Shell: