Are we winning or losing the latest public opinion battle for Marcellus Shale?

The facts are on industry's side, but emotion is what all too often fuels the public's opinion about American energy.

America's most important new source of domestic, clean energy is a massive geographic structure that lies 9,000 feet below West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and New York. The Marcellus promises to transform America's energy future by providing an estimated 100 years of cleaner energy as well as countless U.S.-based jobs.

At a meeting this week in Houston comprised of leading public affairs professionals drawn from the nation's top natural gas companies, I was fortunate enough as President of Gregory FCA, Pennsylvania's largest public relations firm, to share with the group new public opinion research that showed the current state of public opinion with regard to the Marcellus, as well as provided a road map for better communicating the benefits of Marcellus Shale development for the region and our country.

You can download the latest Marcellus Shale Public Opinion Report now. You can also view my presentation here.



A couple of key takeaways from my talk included:

• Even though there are a number of major shale plays in regions throughout the country, Marcellus dominates the current national conversation, generating more than half of all traditional and social media reporting and chatter on the topic.

Marcellus Shale continues to take hit in public opinion, finds new study from Gregory FCA and GoMarcellusShale.com

We've gotten a lot of feedback since we posted our first study on public opinion about Marcellus Shale development. We recently expanded on that analysis and took a closer look at how Marcellus Shale scores in sentiment in traditional and social media. Here's what we found. You can also download a copy of our study findings for the complete report.

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New Study from Gregory FCA and GoMarcellusShale.com Shows Marcellus Shale Continues to Take Hit in Public Opinion

Surprisingly, Marcellus Shale scores better in sentiment in social media than in the traditional press, while dwarfing online buzz of other major shale plays

ARDMORE, Pa.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--A recent survey of Marcellus Shale public opinion, conducted by Gregory FCA and GoMarcellusShale.com, reveals that this vital source of domestic clean energy continues to take a public opinion thumping as traditional media reporting turns negative toward development of natural gas in the Appalachian Basin.

The study, which includes sentiment reporting by energy type, development method, and company players, is available for download.

Are we winning or losing the public relations battle on Marcellus Shale?

What could be the most important new source of clean, domestic energy has hit headwinds in the court of public opinion. New research shows that public sentiment about Marcellus Shale development is positive, but that sentiment is falling. The oil and gas industry now needs to act to shore up public opinion and guarantee that America benefits from this vital natural resource.

America's most important new source of clean, domestic energy is a massive geographic structure buried 9,000 feet beneath some of the most economically depressed regions of our country.

Stretching from West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania through Western New York State, Marcellus Shale, a geographic formation formed some 400 million years ago, holds more than 10 years of domestic natural gas supply for the Northeast, and that estimate could be low.

For years, the gas was inaccessible. But new drilling technologies are liberating this vast national resource, and bringing it to the surface to warm U.S. hearths and homes, and power businesses. If ever there was a good news story about U.S. energy, Marcellus Shale is it.

Facebook privacy controversy does nothing to damage its reputation

Google "Facebook privacy" today and you would think that recent allegations about Facebook's privacy breaches could potentially threaten its very existence. "Could privacy be Facebook's Waterloo," asks BusinessWeek. "Has Facebook Gone Rogue?" is the title of a NPR segment on All Things Considered.

It harkens me back to 1996 when I sat in on a focus group for PhotoNet, a former client and pioneer of online photography. The group members claimed they would never post their personal photos online because of privacy issues.

Skip ahead nearly 15 years, and it's a requirement for every overly engaged parent to post photos of their six-year-old's weekend soccer game on Facebook.

Against that backdrop, Mike Lizun, here at Gregory FCA, was interested to learn how the current privacy controversy might be threatening the image and reputation of the world's largest social network, with some 400 million users.

He asked Brian McDermott, our director of media research, to fire up Nielsen's BuzzMetrics to identify Facebook's online sentiment by analyzing over 100 million blogs, forums, message boards, tweets, and traditional media.

After following the media, we expected to see big damage to Facebook's image as it deals with criticisms from everyone from Sen. Chuck Shumer to a group called Quit Facebook Day, which claims to have 15,000 members ready to quit Facebook on May 31, 2010.

Well, guess what? Just like the online focus group that wrongly predicted the failure of online photo sharing, the current media and political backlash against Facebook has had no impact at all on the brand or consumer sentiment toward it. In fact, Facebook continues to enjoy a positive 4.6 sentiment rating, with five being the highest and negative five being the lowest.

LIKE: Facebook's sentiment stays positive (click to enlarge)

What accounts for the disparity between the media reports and the consumer reality? First, as the focus group showed, consumers always seem to be more concerned about privacy in the abstract than they are in reality.

How else can you reconcile our willingness to share personal details online, but then object if an entity gathers and uses this information for marketing? Or how about the credit card anomaly?

We gladly hand over a credit card to a tattooed waiter who looks they haven't slept in three days. But entering those numbers into a secure online retailer's website? Well, that makes us squeamish.

We all seem to guard our privacy heroically at times only to misuse it by telling anyone and everyone all we can about ourselves. And that's the very nature of Facebook. For many, it provides a place to tell our stories and share the very intimacy many of us seem to be missing in real-world relationships.

That's a powerful attractant that seems to easily overcome any concern we might have about our personal information ever being used against us. After all, you would think that so much negative reporting and buzz would impact the brand called Facebook. But for now, I have to run and update my status.

UPDATE: Media continues to follow this story, and I left additional thoughts on CNET's coverage and The Wall Street Journal's coverage.

"Precious" and "An Education" to upset Oscars?

One of the things I am most proud of is my work with the Bryn Mawr Film Institute. It's not a Gregory FCA client. Rather, I serve on the Institute's board and do what I can to support the organization, which is committed to film, film education, as well as the preservation of a historic theater here on the Main Line.

Its President, Juliet Goodfriend, is a tremendous advocate and ambassador of film. My support fits well with a lifetime commitment to communications -- this one being in the visual arts instead of strictly media.

For fun, we worked with Juliet to conduct a study of who will win the Oscars. (Incidentally, the Institute is holding an "Oscar Bling Fling" party this Sunday night to celebrate its fifth anniversary and watch the Academy Awards. Tickets are still available online.) We used Neilsen BuzzMetrics to review online sentiment for nominees up for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Actress.

Obviously, no one can predict who will win. But we thought it would be fun to see who had the most positive buzz leading into this weekend's awards. We found that in many cases there was a tie -- and even an upset. The envelope please ...

Gregory FCA's Tiger Woods sentiment analysis grabs attention of Forbes and other media

The Tiger Woods sentiment analysis we conducted struck a real chord with the media. Kurt Badenhausen at Forbes covered it, and it led to a ton of inquires from others who wanted the research. I also got a call from a major sports agent who wanted to see if we could do a similar analysis for a couple of his clients in contract negotiations.

The thing that made this post effective was the effort that went into it. The team worked hard to monitor and analyze the results, and come up with real news, instead of simply pontificating about what Tiger did right or wrong. We were on top of the story from the second Tiger Woods' press conference ended.

It also illustrates the kind of campaigns we are now conducting for clients. They're fully integrated, and use self-publishing, social media, traditional media, as well as hard-core thought leadership to lever open exposure opportunities for our clients.

It was a group effort. I want to give a shout out to my people at Gregory FCA, including Mike Lizun, who conceived the idea months ago; Rich Levin, who rushed the launch of our blog to promote the study; Janelle Kozyra, who did the background posting (I write them, but she posts them!); Brian McDermott, who ran the Nielsen reports and gave me his conclusions; and Jackie Zima, who did the media outreach for the blog post.

Thanks guys. Hey, we made Forbes!

Tiger Woods' reputation craters after press conference

The great PR debate rages on whether Tiger Woods' strategy for reclaiming his reputation worked, and whether the mea culpa performance last Friday helped or harmed his future.

But hey, the proof is in the pudding. You can debate whether Tiger was wooden or sincere, and if his attempted manipulation hindered or helped. But an online analysis that we performed internal to Gregory FCA shows his strategy failed ... miserably.

By analyzing over 100 million blogs, forums, message boards, tweets, and traditional media over the weekend, we discovered that, as of today, Tiger's sentiment among the American public is lower than at any time since the controversy erupted last November. It has fallen further since his so-called press conference.

SUNK: Tiger's reputation is on the downswing (click to enlarge)