In a recent post about the Social Media revolution in the always interesting blog by Brian Solis, we are introduced to this concept of “distributed participation”. The post echoes the results of a Forrester Research study about the use of social technologies in 2009. Not surprisingly the growth of usage is not stopping with only 18% of US adults not taking part in the social game.

Taken from www.briansolis.com

But the real interest lies in the qualitative conclusion that “now is the time to build social marketing applications and that Interactive marketers should influence social network chatter, master social communication, and develop social assets – even if their customers are older”. That’s distributed participation.

As Solis states, it’s about strategic engagement focused on listening and research. We have to listen to the conversations because they take place even if we don’t listen or take part. “We are either part of or absent from the decision making process”.

In the PR world we have always prouded ourselves for “knowing” the media. We should embrace, engage and take part in the new media because it will empower our services, our capabilities and our results.

Dear CEO:

It is tough out there isn’t it? 2010 looks like an upswing year; it seems like everyone is talking about social media, Twitter, Facebook, and all; and you are trying to figure out how to leverage the new media to drive business results. You find yourself asking, “What are we going to do and who do I put in charge?”

Before we answer the question directly for social media leadership, let’s review leadership at your company for a second …

Who leads the strategy and execution to meet various business opportunities and challenges at your company now? I would guess you look for people that have business experience and have a track record of driving business results. Someone who understands the target market you serve, the influencer of that audience, has an understanding of what that target segment values, knows the competition, carves out differentiation, knows how to communicate effectively to drive brand awareness, and someone who drives innovation to maintain industry leadership and customer loyalty. Sounds like the CMO or marketing leader to me.

So now back to social media … I know, your CMO doesn’t really understand social media. To make it even more confusing we all see some of the social media players as snake oil salespersons, MLM schemers, or good honest people that are sharp as can be on social media, but a little green with regards to business and driving product/service revenue and profit. Heck, maybe you have even seen “The Social Media Guru” YouTube video … this certainly does not paint a good picture. But then again, everyone is getting on Twitter and Facebook and you know you need to as well. What to do? What to do?

Let me help a bit because I understand this social media thing can be overwhelming with regards to where to start. First off, I strongly suggest that you look to someone with sound business experience either with significant experience taking your product/service to market or with strong marketing communication skills. This is imperative, because you need a marketing/product/communication plan, as always, first. Social media should be viewed as an important part of your customer interfacing, marketing, and conversation (not just communication) channel. Social media is not a separate “thing”. It is another element that MUST be integrated into the entire business/marketing plan. The social media game plan needs to be owned by your marketing leader – it can not simply be handed to an intern to fill in the gaps.

Once you have selected your leader you should expect, demand of them, that they use continuous innovation to capture market leadership. Today that innovation is social media; tomorrow it will likely be something else. But leaders need to stay students for life, constantly leveraging their rich experience and continuing to learn what their domain area has to offer.

That said, I would like to share with you a few places/people I have learned from recently that have helped me to leverage my marketing, product marketing, and product management experience to drive results with social media. I am a perpetual student and always seeking people and places I can learn from. There is no shortage of places or people for me to thank for things I’ve learned about social media, but these few really rank tops:

Groundswell – Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. This book is a full comprehensive look at social media, complete with case studies, alignment to existing business principles and practices, statistics, theories, and understandable explanations. The book was written two years ago. Many other books have been written since, but from what I have seen, no book has anything dramatically different to say or explain. It started with Groundswell and Li and Bernoff’s book is one I recommend. It will provide a most complete understanding of social media, influence your mentality and approach to implementation, and provide a solid basis.

Now you have your foundation and are ready. You want to set a plan and implement “Social Media Conversion and the Social Media Marketing Funnel”. In my blog, I have suggested the LCR Mentality, things you need to do “Before You Start with Social Media”, and even provided an “Executable Game Plan for Winning Ultimate Customers with Social Media”. But I give credit to Brian Solis for his guidance to answering the question, “What social media outlets do I use?” Brian has an excellent approach to help you determine where you get the most bang for buck (or time investment) when you look at social media outlets. (While Twitter and Facebook get the most hype, they may not return the best results, OR may require other social media outlets to produce great synergy maximizing results.) Check out Solis’ “The Conversation Prism v2.0”.

As I mentioned, you can not stay stagnant; stay ahead of the curve; know where things are going. This requires continuous participation in the social media forums and communities you find most helpful. But if you want a very thought provoking and insightful look at the evolution of the social web, I strongly suggest you read “The Future of the Social Web” by Jeremiah Owyang who was a Forrester analyst at the time the report was released. The report is not cheap, but there is a very good free overview called “The Five Eras of the Social Web” that is very informative by itself.

Social media is an extremely powerful toolset. Yes, there are many out there looking to cash in on a much hyped trend that give social media a bad name. But if you look to put social media leadership and management in the hands of an experienced, proven leader that stays current to maximize company and professional standings you will see winning measurable business results. Just think who you trust and who you want to give the keys to your business.

Best regards,
Social Steve

Here is the third post in a series called, ‘Sharp Points – 2 for Tuesday’.

The idea behind ‘Sharp Points’ is to highlight two blogs from the Junta42 list of top content marketing blogs.  This week we’ll look at #5 and #6 on the list:

#5. PR 2.0 – Brian Solis blogs at ‘PR 2.0′.  I had a chance to say ‘hello’ to Brian back in May at a conference and wrote the following post about his concept of ‘Entering the Statusphere’.  Solis is at the forefront of how the shifting landscape of media is changing public relations.

Sharp Point to share –  Brian wrote a great ebook entitled, “Customer Service – The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media”.  Check it out here.  One point that especially stood out:

Customer service, product marketing and marcom must fuse into a living breathing commitment of inbound and outbound initiatives that not only answers questions when they come in, but also seek them out wherever they seek insight from peers and other experts.

#6. Marketing with Meaning – Bob Gilbreath of Bridge Worldwide blogs at ‘Marketing with Meaning’.  Bob just released his first book entitled The Next Evolution of Marketing.  I love the subtitle which is ‘Connect with your customers by marketing with meaning’.  Bob’s book is a paradigm shifter.  He talks about connecting with your customer as opposed to merely interrupting them.

Sharp point to share: How ‘marketing with meaning’ is different than traditional marketing? (from Chapter 2)

1. It’s marketing that people choose to engage with.

It involves creating something that people find is

worthy of their time and attention, rather than continuing

to look for ways to cleverly (or not so cleverly) interrupt

them.

2. It’s marketing that itself improves people’s lives.Many

a marketer goes to bed at night, proud to support products

and services that add value. Indeed, they may remove tough

stains, put a smile on faces, or enable priceless purchases,

but we too often utilize the old interruption approach to

present these products and services to our customers.

Instead, we must create advertising that actually adds

value—without necessarily forcing a sale.

Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra)  -  Bob offers a free chapter of his book.  Click here to check out Chapter 2 of The Next Evolution of Marketing. If you buy the book . . . he even throws in a handy iPhone app.  Very cool.

]]> http://runmotherfuckerrun.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/twitter-e-alguns-dados/ Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:22:08 +0000 runmotherfuckerrun http://runmotherfuckerrun.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/twitter-e-alguns-dados/

Texto do caralho escrito por Brian Solis. Muitos dados, e todos extremamente pertinentes para entender melhor o Twitter, em especial a queda no número de usuários, assunto de vários posts escritos por aí que eu não vou lincar aqui.

Many argue that experienced Twitter users are simply migrating to desktop and mobile applications to participate in the conversation stream. With the help of Dan Zarrella, we documented that upwards of 41% of all tweets were sourced from Twitter.com with TweetDeck and UberTwitter following with a paltry 6.6% and 4.4% respectively.

The problem isn’t publicity.

Every day, millions of people are introduced to Twitter through traditional media, online chatter, and business marketing campaigns. In July VMS, a media intelligence company that monitors news coverage on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and the Internet, estimated that Twitter received $48 million of free media coverage in June 2009 alone. Online, Twitter received 2.73 billion impressions, with Television contributing to 57% of the PR value, newspapers 37%, and magazines 5%.

Earlier today, the well-respected social media expert Brian Solis posted an item noting that several Internet analytics programs had spotted a slow-down in the use of Twitter (http://bit.ly/tnql).  Several authoritative sources were cited, and an executive at Twitter was said to have acknowledged as much at a recent conference.

Much of the rest of the article was about using various strategic public relations tactics, as detailed in his book, to make the medium more effective.  And all of these suggestions are good.

But, I don’t think that’s the whole story. 

If you assume that Twitter is just one of several media that are used in wide-reaching social media campaigns, and all of these campaigns are similarly lacking in strategic PR, there should be a similar drop-off in other social media as well. So, is that the case? 

The answer is yes, but you have look into each media to see where the slow-down has happened.  In each case, there appears to be a link to how the social media deals with multilevel marketing, emarketing and affiliate marketing. 

To see this, let’s take a look at the growth trends for three of the most popular social media, Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn. 

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

As noted, there’s been a quick run-up in the use of Twitter in the last year, faster than any other media to date. But there was a similar run-up on Facebook that slowed last spring, and between the two, there has been an enormous acceleration in the use of the peer-to-peer networking site LinkedIn over the past few months. 

Since the Facebook slowdown occurred first, let’s take a look at it first.   Facebook has always had misgivings about multilevel and affiliate marketing, seeing the strategy as an intrusion on the more personal social community that it has built. So, while phishers, spammers and MLMs tried various angles at automating the gathering of followers, and using SEO strategies to pull facebook followers in, the powers-that-be at Facebook have largely repelled each of these from the outset.  Now, marketing on Facebook is pretty much limited to advertising or the use of tightly controlled fan pages.

LinkedIn, too, has controlled the ability to gather followers by only allowing connections on the mutual consent of both parties. Too many rejections can cause cancellation of the account.  But LinkedIn does allow discussion groups, and these fit very well within multilevel and affiliate marketing strategies.  In fact, thousands of discussion topics have popped up in LinkedIn emarketing groups’ discussion areas — a common repository for MLM content. Most of these were clearly started by individuals trying to draw in followers and create ‘expert’ status by populating the site with material, a well-known emarketing strategy. 

In just the last few months, there have been so many emarketing  posts within LinkedIn that it’ s impossible to sift through the noise; it’s almost as if suddenly, thousands of self-proclaimed industry leading brush sellers have found your front door.  Eventually, they will realize that they are only competing with each other, and leave. In the meantime, they’re creating quite a din.

Thousands of Brush Sellers

The same thing appears to be happening on Twitter…or rather, it has happened at an accelerated pace.  Since there’s almost no limits on following on Twitter, and a similar lack of concern about returning the favor, there are now literally hundreds of thousands of twitter users whose sole purpose on the medium is to build up a follower list for their home businesses –predominantly MLM schemes.  Many are hoping to rise above the noise by securing the most followers, but in the end, this is nearly as hopeless a strategy as being one of a thousand brush sellers.

I think a lot people who had their hopes set on making money this way, are realizing, wow, there’s a lot of noise out there.  And much of it is being perpetuated by other MLM people. But why does this happen?

Same Stale Strategies

In part, the media are to blame (Hannity would love that idea!). The restrictiveness of Facebook caused emarketers to hit the wall with that platform a long time ago.  LinkedIn is similarly restrictive, but the discussion groups gave emarketers more room before they tapped out.  Twitter, by contrast, is so open that the only thing that could stop emarketers on this channel, is their own lack of creativity.

Fundamentally, they saturated the channels with the same stale strategies, posted to the same discussion groups, used the same keywords, SEOs and searches, and launched the same campaigns.  The sheer mass of of nearly identical efforts made it impossible to differentiate. 

It’s also worth noting, of course, that the federal government has put up some serious barriers to affiliate marketing by declaring that testimonials must be authentic and verifiable — a serious blow to marketers who make a small stipend every time they tweet a product claim even if they have never experienced the product personally.

The downside — and the reason for the Twitter slowdown — is that many fortune seekers are seeing this, giving up, and going home.

But if marketers who are really in pursuit of a dream would focus on tactics and strategies that cater to the interest to their customers, rather than the keywords of their industry, they would be able to break out of this massive cycle and realize their goals.

There are Ways to Be Successful

The upside is, there are ways be successful using social media. And that is the point of Brian Solis’ book.  You can break out.

But you won’t get there by simply being in the same place as everyone else. 

And you won’t get there by leaving with crowd, either.

Social media has drastically changed how people connect, stay in touch and share information with one another.  As interactive websites and user generated content flood the internet, businesses must find new ways of attracting and engaging consumers.  Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge is about the evolution of the public relations industry in the face of these new communications technologies. 

The underlying theme of the book is how to optimize the field of public relations through PR 2.0, a concept which Solis developed in the mid-1990s.  PR 2.0 is the applications of new Internet and other social media technologies to find, communicate to, and interact with your target audiences directly.  Solis and Breakenridge lay out their ideas on the value of PR 2.0 and the future of effective public relations strategies in five main sections of their book.  In the first section, they begin by comparing the old method of public relations – communicating “to” audiences rather than “with” audiences – versus the new, more responsive and interactive method of PR 2.0.  They continue by highlighting the new techniques that are important to the development of a successful PR 2.0 campaign, especially blogging, social media, and video.  Next, the authors give guidance on how public relations professionals can achieve brand maximization in the often overwhelming sea of new media opportunities. They conclude their book by offering some essential ground rules for PR 2.0 given how informal Internet has made public relations messaging in today’s digital age, and outline a path for the future of PR in the 3.0+ world. 

Solis and Breakenridge have clearly thought out what it means to be effective in 21^st century public relations, and how any professional can take the ever-evolving concepts of PR 2.0 and use them to gain the critical feedback necessary to get your message out in the digital world.  As they note, technology is constantly advancing and companies and public relations professionals will always be in a struggle to adapt and keep pace.  A shift to social media based PR requires a shift in mindset from the old approach of controlling the message to a new paradigm of being engaged in the community, discussing and interacting with the audience you are ultimately trying to influence to gain valuable feedback.  One telling anecdote was when Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired and author of The Long Tail, got so frustrated with the barrage of bad public relations professionals that he called them out on his blog for being lazy and response only to find that out other public relations professionals, rather than being defensive, actually agreed that the whole industry needed to better in the digital age.  That seemed to me to be conclusive evidence of the authors’ point that the optimal way of doing PR 2.0 is communication with people, not at people.

The strategies and ideals of PR 2.0 appear to have particular relevance to a client like the Junior League of Washington.  One of the JLW’s key strengths is that it is a member community based on volunteerism, and maximizing how it communicates its goals and events with existing and potential new members is essential to JLW’s growth and success.  Since the JLW’s volunteers already self-selected, improving communications so that they incorporate the feedback of JLW’s target audience will only encourage existing members to get more involved and engaged, while also producing the positive word of mouth for new applicants to the JLW’s ranks. 

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

This principle also applies to PR professionals. In their book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations (PPBPR), Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge, suggest that PR professionals have failed to understand and listen to their audiences, thus turning PR into a one-way communication stream in which professionals talk at an uninterested public. However, Web 2.0, with its vital social networks and long tail of organizations and niche markets, warrants the development of a public-centered PR, or PR 2.0.

Instead of trusting traditional media outlets, consumers now use information from bloggers and social media publishers. Thus, to understand the conversation about a client, PR practitioners must identify where their customers aggregate. The authors suggest that blogs in the “magic middle,” or with 20 to 1,000 inbound links, are most likely to inspire real people to try new products. However, companies shouldn’t just target consumers; they must also listen to consumers. Johnson & Johnson learned this the hard way when it invited mommy bloggers to a Baby Camp event in 2008. Although planned with good intentions, the event failed because it was scheduled during another blogging conference and prohibited participants from bringing their children. The result: the wrath of mommy bloggers (now that’s punishment). Thus, you must know your consumers and build relationships with them; not just use technology for the sake of it.

Death of PR 1.0

 Solis and Breakenridge advocate joining social media networks like Facebook and Twitter to interact openly and honestly with consumers. However, social media isn’t just about PR and can affect all aspects of an organization from marketing to customer service to product development. As PR professionals participate in communities and tell brand and product stories, they’re also in a position to listen to customers and gain valuable insight into the effect of their efforts as well as new communications opportunities.

Public Enemies?

It’s tough to argue with the main tenets of this book because they offer PR professionals pertinent and practical advice. However, I thought this book was too long (very repetitive) and not very innovative (is the idea that PR is based on relationships really new?). Blogger, Bill Sledzik adds to my list of grievances by noting that PPBPR relies on too much opinion (Robert Scoble’s and Chris Anderson’s blogs) instead of quantitative evidence. And in that vein, as soon as this book was published, its references to blog posts were not news, but ancient PR 2.0 history. So although this book may be helpful for late social media adopters, others may find different books more beneficial.

Find the public or the public will find you.

There are already many examples of how companies have built relationships with consumers through social media. For example, Starbucks launched mystarbucksidea.com where customers can offer suggestions and comments to the company.

Companies are listening

Also, companies that aren’t paying attention to, or don’t care about costumers can get burned fast. Case in point: “United Breaks Guitars.” In short: United Airlines broke Dave Carroll’s guitar and refused to pay for it. He writes a song, makes it a video, the video goes viral, and United’s public image is tarnished (Can you say epic fail?). Lesson: We have a voice and companies are listening. What have you done for PR today?

It’s about people and relationships.

Unlike Groundswell, which targets business executives, and Here Comes Everybody and  The Long Tail, which could be used by businesses or the general public, PPBPR focuses on third party PR professionals. PPBPR sums the other books’ themes together. All considered, successful organizations must listen to the groundswell, find out where consumers are (identify niche markets) listen to them and talk with them. Through social media platforms people have the power to publish and share information that make your organization a success or a failure. Technology changes, but relationships with customers will always be most important.

UrbanPromise

PPBPR suggests that UrbanPromise supporters could be the greatest public relations advocates for the organization. With limited staff and finances, tapping into what current supporters and potential want from and think about the organization is essential to success. By encouraging or inspiring them to create positive buzz about UrbanPromise, supporters can raise awareness and empathy towards the organization’s mission.

Authenticity is defined as:

au·then·tic·i·ty

n. The quality or condition of being authentic, trustworthy, or genuine.

So, what does this really mean and why is it up to public relations professionals to be the custodians of it?

At its most basic sense, authenticity implies ‘doing what you say, and saying what you do’. This is true for all elements of business and communications. So who is there to ensure that companies and people are genuine and trustworthy? PR baby, PR.

When you think of the elements that PR are involved in, in a business, it is only natural that we take on the role of custodians of authenticity. From the very beginning in developing the internal communications strategy, crafting the brand attributes and how this translates to every aspect of the operations, through to the external communications, media relations and even social media strategies. This is the opportunity to instill the ‘doing what you say, and saying what you do’ modus operandi.

It’s a natural extension of our evolution kids

As  public relations professionals, we are ultimately responsible for the ‘public’ and the ‘relations’ of our client, our organisation or our Minister. Now we have heard from people like Brian Solis about the new (well, slightly old now) putting the public back into public relations, and the theory of our practice including focusing on the two-way model of communications first advocated by Grunig. He has said:

I think public relations is headed in two incompatible directions… I call these two competing approaches to public relations the symbolic, interpretive, paradigm and the strategic management, behavioral, paradigm.

Now, the second assertion is where I’m heading.

All of this is only positive for our industry, particularly if it is embraced and implemented by each and every one of us flacks. However, it feels for me, there is a missing link which underpins this theory and ethos. Authenticity.

Every element of successful and smart public relations involves authenticity:

Think about it. When you’re drafting a media release announcing some new, exciting development, you wouldn’t lie or massage the facts and figures would you? Or what about when you’re looking at community consultation and setting your parameters, you wouldn’t tell your consultees they have a choice in something that is already set in stone, would you?

Even online, in this increasingly digital age, you wouldn’t post something that was wrong, or comment on something under a false identity, would you? As Daniel Young has said, “Trust is the currency of social media; it forms the basis of our relationships (virtual and real). It is worthy of protection.”

Most of this, we just take for granted. I suspect though, we act in this way to avoid the negative fall-out if we were to be found out. We know people, publics and consumers are increasingly wary and cynical about companies, activities and even stunts. We know we are under a microscope and to risk our reputation would be to risk our sustainability in this current economic climate. But what I’m suggesting, or perhaps pleading, is that we start advocating for authenticity to our peers and to our bosses.

What happens if we don’t act authentically?

Well… close your eyes. I know you can think of a recent case study of a brand or person who has been caught out in less than genuine or trustworthy actions. Take for instance, today’s revelation that Obama doesn’t author his own tweets. Julie Posetti has been very vocal in her advocacy for authenticity in Twitter use, and social media in general, including suggesting (which I agree with) having people of influence or brands declare when or if they are authored by a ghost writer, and to attribute tweets or posts accordingly.

It is easy to spot a non-genuine act or communication. And when we as a profession, are aiming to build trust, respect and currency with our publics, to act in a non-authentic way is to undo all of our effort and success. And, for what it is worth, I argue that one mistake is enough to create a disengaged and cynical audience. Others, like Nathan Bush who I respect immensely, argues it doesn’t last forever. But Australians in particular, are a stubborn bunch and we hold grudges. We don’t forget, especially when we feel we’ve been lied to.

So, what is my thought-vomit trying to allude to?

Public relations, by necessity and theory, should be the custodians of authenticity. We have the opportunity and the ethical requirement to not only ensure that all communications are genuine, trustworthy, and authentic, but to educate and empower our clients or our CEOs to embrace this in all aspect of business. Do what you say, and say what you do.

So what do you think? Are public relations professionals the custodians of authenticity? Are we the moral compass of an organisation?

“Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR” was appropriately the fourth and final class reading. In many respects, Groundswell, Here Comes Everybody, and The Long Tail should be  prerequisite reading requirements for anyone who is about to read this book.

 Brian Solis and Deirdre Breckenridge have written a “how to manual” for today’s public relations practitioners. This book is a must read for public relations professionals that wish to survive in the Web 2.0 environment.  Solis and Breakenridge use their own experience in the PR industry coupled with their knowledge and understanding of the new age of communication to lay out their suggested framework and recipe for PR success in today’s digital market.

Groundswell set the stage regarding the current state of play, Here Comes Everybody explained the social and human behaviors in this new age of communication, and The Long Tail explored the emergence of niche consumption.  Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a “nuts and bolts” user manual for PR 2.0 sucess.

 
The landscape has changed

 Part 1: The True Value of New PR

Along with identifying what is wrong with current PR practices, Solis and Breakenridge challenge the status quo and explain the difference between PR 2.0 and Public Relations.  They discuss the emergence of blogs and compare new journalism to traditional journalism.  Like Chris Anderson, they contend that bloggers are just one example of mass democratization and publication.  In the final chapter of this first section, they discuss the importance of personal relationships in PR.  This is important, because regardless of technological advances, personal relationships remain the most critical ingredient.

Part 2: Facilitating Conversations: New Tools and Techniques

Solis and Breakenridge introduce the reader to a myriad of new tools and techniques that exist in Web 2.0.  More importantly, they introduce innovative tactics to successful operations.  Some of these tactics include: blogger relationships, social media releases, video news releases, and corporate blogging.

Part 3: Participating in Social Media

Solis and Breakenridge explain that engagement with social media is essential, but will involve new and innovative approaches.  In other words, just because you’re using social media, doesn’t mean you can employ tired and outdated tactics.  These new tactics must not be confused with standard marketing and PR tactics of the past.  Solis and Breakenridge provide advice and examples of how to integrate a successful social media plan into any PR strategy.

Part 4: P.R. 2.0: A Promising Future

Here they explore community managers and customer service 2.0, socialization of communication, breaking news and metrics for PR 2.0.    Again, they discuss the new challenges with respect to new influences vs. traditional journalism.  Specifically, they explore how bloggers are involved with breaking news stories and the role of social media and the news process.

Part 5: Convergence

Finally, Solis and Breakenridge explain how the practices of PR 1.0 and PR 2.o can converge into today’s new environment and allow PR professional to succeed in this changed landscape.   As the other readings focused on Web 2.0 from a macro level, I found this reading to be a micro view for the individual PR practitioner.  This book relates to changes that each individual professional must proactively take to steer their respective company towards PR success.

The Coast Guard PR Professional

A rare benefit that the Coast Guard has related to PR is that generally public affairs officers complete graduate work in communication before they are assigned to executing any PR responsibilities.  As such, many of the officers stepping into PR roles are well-informed with respect to PR 2.0 through recent advanced education.  In fact, their overall inexperience doesn’t come with any of the PR 1.0 “baggage” and thus there really isn’t a status quo to change or overcome.  I believe the Coast Guard is well suited to succeed with PR 2.0.

After reading Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge, I have one initial comment: “Duh!”

I realize that is not the most enlightened response, and probably leaves most of you pondering, “What does this girl mean?” But, in all fairness, I feel like it was only a matter of time before a book like this was written and consequently hailed as the gospel for budding Public Relations executives in the 21^st century.

Better yet, a word of wisdom for all of you students studying PR—you had better grab this book now as it is surely on track to be “required reading” in communication classes in Universities across the Nation.

Move over Strunk & White, for Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, is about as necessary in this day and age as the APA Style Guide.

Bold claim? Surely not. Simply put, this book is everything we’ve needed and more. Essentially, it details how Public Relations has changed and how the role of PR professionals will continue to adapt in a world that is shaped by social media applications.

I have taken my fair share of graduate classes in communications and I realize it was only a matter of time before a book with this message was written. In fact, I’m convinced that any one of my esteemed professors could have written the same thing.

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations shows shows a promising future for PR as opposed to the pessimistic viewpoint that people often have. According to the book, social media is drastically changing the way PR professionals work.  Coined PR 2.0, the new age of PR, the industry is borrowing some of the tenants from web 2.0 applications. Instead of PR professionals dictating exactly how the public sees a product or service, it is important to note that everyone has a voice in shaping consumer reaction to a product or service. This book builds on the ideas put forth in previous readings like Groundswell and The Long Tail.

Traditional PR techniques do not work anymore. The traditional press release doesn’t take anyone else’s comments into consideration. PR 2.0 should resemble a dialogue, not a monologue.

Along those same lines, it’s no longer the sole job of a PR professional to “create a message.” Instead, messages are constantly evolving and are shaped by the community as a whole. In fact, it’s the community and the people in that community that are the most important factor in the equation. Think how easy it is to comment on blog post or news story online? At the risk of sounding cliché, “it’s so easy my grandma can do it!” (trust me she has…many, many times).

This book emphasizes the fact that technologies may come and go, but with the proliferation of social media tools, people are engaged and conversing in new ways. PR professionals have to communicate with the public. They can’t just tell the public what they want. They have to listen to the public.

And it looks like this book is just a start. After scouring the Internet, I found that a lot of PR professionals are following ideas from the Book.

Check out this blog by PR professional Kevin Dugan.

This blog gives specific examples of how the PR profession has changed. Professionals cannot ignore web 2.0 technologies and in order to be successful in the field, they have to embrace the power of the community and cannot ignore the presence of social media. Kevin Dugan’s blog is just one example of how PR professionals are changing the way they operate.

The tenants in this book directly relate to how my company, Pixar, is beginning to approach PR. Pixar already has an active presence on Web 2.0 platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Additionally, the Company has introduced some widely successful viral marketing campaigns, including the 2008 release of Wall-E. This Web site was originally sensory-overload for Disney/Pixar fans. But it shows how Pixar is integrating many different applications in their public relation campaigns. PR 2.0 is definitely the wave-of-the-future for large corporations like Pixar. Social media applications and Web 2.0 definitely offer Pixar an unprecedented opportunity to transform they way the Company thinks, strategizes, prioritizes and delivers its PR services in the most successful way possible.

More info here than most of us may be willing to read about the present and future state of  blogging from Brian Solis from a technorati report made at the Blogworld Expo.  Lots of interesting stats and charts.  Of interest to me were two charts that summarized the impact of blogging on various fields in the past and anticipated future. I have copied them below.  There are a lot of things I need to learn!

For the past few months whenever I have been presenting to groups on crisis communication or Joint Information Center operations I have said that the most important job of crisis communication today is rumor management. It most certainly is not putting out press releases, and it may not be that important to put out information releases at all–depending on the event as we will see. The reason is simply that with social media those publics out there have access to all kinds of very fast information they didn’t have before. The emergency management community is struggling with the issue, which I blogged about recently, about how do you handle things when people out there know more than you do?

I was speaking at a state conference of emergency managers about this phenomenon and one of the attendees came up to me afterwards and said it just happened to him. He was responding to a fatality car accident and by the time he got to the hospital, the parents of the victim were already there. They knew before he did.

So in major events that are visible to the public, such as Flight 1549, the public will know more faster than the responders and probably also the media. Such is the power of those little devices we carry in our pockets and the network that makes them live and work. But, one of the truisms of crisis communication is that the initial information about an event is always wrong. And with a lot of people speaking from their perspective a lot of what is communicated about any event is going to be wrong. That’s where crisis communication comes in and why rumor management is fast becoming the biggest and most important job. You have to know what is being said and you have to be able to respond and correct misinformation very quickly. If a lie becomes the truth when it is repeated often enough, just think how often a lie can be repeated when it has gone viral. You’ve got to have the ability to stop it in its tracks before those tracks turn out to be a big honking tank bearing right down on you.

But how? Monitoring has become one of the biggest jobs in the JIC or the Crisis Command Center. I’m modifying crisis plans I’m working on to beef up the staffing for the Monitoring and Rumor Management unit. A sizeable event we were just involved in demonstrated how critically important this monitoring is and how it drives the information that is required.

Fortunately there is an increasing array of excellent tools available to do the monitoring–many or most involving online searches. And many, but not all, are free. And monitoring tools are becoming increasingly sophisticated which means that we have to keep evolving with them. Brian Solis, one of the widely recognized thought leaders in social media has an interesting post today about the evolution of search.

If anyone has any experience with monitoring services or rumor management during a crisis, please let me know. This is a very important topic and wouldn’t mind having a few guest posts on it from people who have been through the mill.

Mike Smith sat down with online community manager extraordinaireBrian Solis at the Public Relations Society of America’s annual conference Monday.

Solis’s main point was no surprise: Social media is changing the game when it comes to marketing and public relations.

PR really needs to be taking a more active role. We need to stop assuming this learning position and really be taking this learning and leadership position. We are losing time and footing to other divisions.

Solis named the customer service and interactive media industries as two areas public relations professionals could learn from when it comes to learning the ropes of the emerging social media industry. PR has a “lot more at stake,” but also a bigger opportunity than it did previously to put the public back into public relations.

Check out Mike’s complete interview in the videos below:

But wait, there’s more!

Check out more PRSA news from Mike or Ashley Houghton, under hashtag #prsa09.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of delivering a presentation to our company’s Business Development Directors on the benefits of considering certain social media tools to reach their goals.

Mixing sales (or marketing) and social media is, of course, done by companies and individuals all over the world every day.  But, if your social media approach is lead by what you’re going to get out of it (ulterior motives) as opposed to shining the spotlight on other people (altruistic motives), make no mistake that people will see right through it.

My main point then was two-fold.  If you’re not participating, that doesn’t mean the conversations aren’t happening, they simply go on without you.  And, once in the game, are you there for the right reasons?  If it’s primarily to add value to whatever community you’re in and to help whenever possible, then the answer is yes.

Thanks to Brian Solis, Olivier Blanchard, John Haydon, Chris Brogan and everyone else who inspires me every day to aide those around me in their quest to make sense of all this stuff.  By the way, I tried embedding the presentation here but apparently wordpress.com doesn’t like Prezi.  At least they’re not playing well together.  Instead, I’ve included the public link.  I hope you like it.

Sales and Social Media: PB & J or Oil and Water?

OK, to those 50 (or so) percent who are not thinking before they tweet, take a second to look at the pretty picture to the left.

From the great makers of the Conversation Prism, Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas of JESS3, comes the brand new Social Marketing Compass.

This brightly colored information visualization illustrates how to cultivate a brand based on key emotions, channels, platforms and players.

According to Solis, the Social Marketing Compass points a brand in a physical and experiential direction to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, and influencers, where they interact and seek guidance online.

In a technological era where tools are continually changing, we really cannot afford to voyage into the wilderness that is social marketing without at least a road map and compass at our side.

Media noise online and off is only going to get louder and some people will choose to combat it with a megaphone and good old-fashioned hollering (as we call it here in the South).

But—you and I are part of a very small and very smart few who know that the best remedy for noise is hanging on to what is constantly good and true. Honesty. Empathy. Sincerity. Are you with me? It’s a return to these virtues that should be the new building blocks for marketing. I think Solis is right on target with his very reminiscent model of the moral compass.

It’s not just a revolution. Social media has hit the fan, and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon.  Web 2.0 networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook and of course blogging are among the few online addictions that are changing the way we communicate. I must admit, I have fallen ill with the social media virus and it has spread faster than, dare I say, H1N1.

From a distance social media may seem like a trend that will come and go faster than one can say “re-tweet;” however, the essence of communication 2.0 is here to stay.

In a recent blog post titled “The Future of Social Media” on PR. 2.0, social media expert Brian Solis comments on the direction of social media as a tool for effective communication. He states that social colonization is the next emerging form of communication.  This phenomena allows users of Facebook and other social media platforms to travel across all networks with the same identity, data and connections. This will not only continue to revolutionize the way we use social media, it will also allow participants to practice transparency.

Social colonization is a perfect opportunity for students of public relations to engage with potential employers and fellow students. Social colonization is also a great way for organizations to listen to what is said about their brand, engage and network with others.

This post is a challenge to all individuals or organizations that are sitting on the social media fence. It’s now or never, so join us and engage with your audiences. You won’t regret it.

I was talking with a friend of mine this afternoon, obviously about social media. My friend who is in the Health Care industry was pointing out that he was un-aware of all the social media channels out there (besides Facebook & Twitter). He also brought up an interesting point that I sometimes forget. His point was: that if I was selling him services in social media he would rather know less about the process and more about all the social media channels available and how they are categorized. Basically, if he had to get out his branding message, what mix of channels should he use and why?

Simple question right?

As this big social media evangelist that I am, my answer to him was… “well you obviously know many of them and what is more important is what your goal is and leave the channel picking to me.”

The more I thought about it, the more I believe his point is valid.

We as evangelists in social media need to always keep in mind the audience that we are talking to. People think end result when it comes to business offerings or services. When you are selling a car – the customer wants to know all the cars and options available to him/her. They don’t always care about the process it took to build the car. End result, nuff said.

Back to the conversation with my friend – I quickly called up for him two really good landscaping models on social media landscaping – this one by Brian Solis of FurtureWorks.  As we further develop and carve out this fledgling industry of social media, we need to always be aware of the information the client needs to be able to make informed decisions. Social Media Landscaping models like this help clients understand the options.

I also started looking at the model in more detail and noticed that besides all these channels in the landscape there were social media tactics that were not represented. Like and Idea website (encouraging users to add comments, suggestions and feedback). It reaffirmed my belief in the power of social media and social networks – but more importantly made me realize that we need to continually update these models – especially the landscape ones, not only for clients but also for social media practitioners.

I enter part two of the review of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations reminding you that I think the book  is  valuable.

Putting the Public neatly summarizes the demise of the traditional media and the rise of the social media and PR 2.0.

It’s  ironic that the authors understand and capture  well the new media and the need to communicate ideas  in a quick, concise, clear way that’s tailored to our particular audience, and it takes them 300 pages to do it.

-A 300-page novel is not outmoded.

-A 300 page book on social media is.  With more thought and a good editor it could have been at least 50 fewer pages.

-As soon as it’s published, any references to Robert Scoble’s posts, or Chris Anderson’s blacklist is not news.  In the PR 2.0 world, this stuff is ancient history.

Granted, the  book is both a guidebook and history. But 300 pages is still too long.

The authors repeat things over and over.  I’m sure they’re doing it to drive home their points.  But I, like others, am reading this book because I already read the leading blogs,  listen to podcasts (which is where I heard an interview with them, leading me to buy the book), engage in Twitter, read AdAge and Wired and and follow Scoble.

In the larger picture, these are niggling complaints.  The authors have done a service to a profession in profound evolution, providing a pioneering work that’s  a textbook for the future of PR.

As the authors point out, we’re in the time of a huge transition.  PR is in an era of telling stories and being a part of a community that we understand and contribute to.

With each chapter I found myself grabbing a pencil to mark passages where Brian and Deirdre offer up insight, truth and a clearer way into PR’s future.

Just as importantly, I’ve subscribed to their blogs and sites to keep up with the conversation that they initiated.

Continuing an awesome and awfully insightful discussion between Brian Solis and some of our fave celebs who are connecting with the world using social media, Anthony Edwards (in talking about how the old way of doing things pales in the face of social media) equated a white person coming into an African slum with a camera to Godzilla walking through their village (this is the old way of doing things).

You give the women of the village  (he was informing us about a slum in Africa that has 1.2 million people living in a place the size of Central Park, essentially) Flip cameras though, he says, and let them do the flimling, you’re going to get a more authentic perspective.

He later talked about how, after finishing his talk on the panel, he was going to tweet for the first time to support an effort to raise money for a hospital in Africa — he’s @anthonyedwards4 on Twitter.

When asked if there were instances where anyone had created a relationship from social media, Jermaine Dupri explained the story of an amateur singer who was a singer, videotaped herself singing everyday, and posted the videos to YouTube. She had 2 million followers. Someone on JD’s staff brought his attention to the girl, and she is now a signed artist with him. When her biggest YouTube fan told JD that she knew more than anyone else about the artist because she’d followed her form the beginning, JD gave her a job.

Robin Antin says that she actually checks out videos of dancers and choreographers when they let her know about them.

A woman from the audience with a question got into an exchange with Jermaine Dupri about a celeb’s responsibility to engage with followers. J.D. quickly reiterated that he’s not going to tweet or follow anyone just to be polite. The woman from the audience said that whether he responded or not, as a follower, she had the write to post anything she wanted. JD’s point – in the realm of social media, he makes the rules of engagement for his involvement in SM tools – nobody else.

The session wrapped with a bunch of iPhones, digital cameras and video cameras doing the paparazzi thing. I asked JD: How do you convince non-believers that social media is legit? His answer: You can’t. Keep doing your thing.

BlogWorld Expo 2009 is hot, energy is infectious. Check it: http://www.blogworldexpo.com/

No photos today…it was a late night for everyone in Las Vegas.

We ended up going to the BlogWorld party last night at Jet in the Mirage after a full day of streaming and recording. It was a great day of sessions yesterday, we had Jermaine Dupri, Brian Solis, Leo Laporte and many more take the stage.

One of the coolest sessions was The State of the Blogosphere. I would reference that video and presentation anytime someone tries to say blogging is dead.

Techcrunch has the presentation online – I will send the link soon.
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Un’elaborazione di InformationIsBeautiful dei dati postati da Brian Solis, riferiti al mese di agosto 2009 negli USA e recuperati da Google Ad Planner*

* nel post di Solis si trovano anche dati su Education, Children in Household, Household Income e Age (qui lo spreadsheet)

These are notes from a presentation I gave at CUPRAP in Oct. 2009, hoping they’ll be helpful to the audience and my general readers.

Started with podcasting in Oct. 2005. We began with the concept of weekly interviewing freshmen to get their experience, growth, learning first hand as they experienced it. We branched out into interviews with faculty, administration, other students, alumni. We’ve done more than 200 shows and get about 500 hits a month from 10 countries around the world.
Conclusion: Start with a solid concept, knowing your show will evolve. This is the way of social media: content must be good; evolution is inevitable.

Two years ago we began producing and uploading videos on YouTube.
Later, IT created a Mansfield YouTube channel so all videos are uploaded there.
We use Animoto. Upload slides, choose music and it will play the slides in synch with the music. We’ve had a lot of success with it.
IT created Mansfield Facebook page. They synched our news page with so whenever our news director posts a news release it appears on Facebook.
IT ran photo contests and drawings to attract fans. We have about 1300 fans, not bad for a university of 3500 students.
Created Mansfield Twitter. Jury still out on that.

Last spring I started a weekly half hour TV talk show called Conversations.
Concept: 1-2 guests that will be of interest to cable viewers. No special effects. Some B-roll to break things up. Sometimes we go into the field for interviews. Informal dress to avoid image of stuffiness. No ties allowed.
The show has no budget. The only cost is my time and the time of my producer to record and edit it.
We also upload the show to YouTube.

Summer 2009 I started the MU Blog.
Concept: 300 words or less. Can be read in two minutes, but have enough links that it can last two hours. I try to find off beat and human interest things. Try to include as many photos as possible. In one blog linked to photos, web sites, video and podcast.
Whenever I publish a post, I announce it on my Facebook, Twitter, & our internal daily announcement list.
The blog underscores another important concept — on the Web there is no  linear time. I can link to videos and podcasts done a year or two ago. To my blog audience, it’s all new.

The blog opens a whole new world of quick, direct writing, a world of subjects, and multimedia links.

September 2009 Terry’s Take, a 2-minute video news cast went live. Again, no budget. Terry records directly into a web cam, does very light editing and posts. Content is news of interest to faculty and students.

Our home page has become the center of all news activity. It’s where people  go to find news and answers.

in 2008 we formed the Web Advisory Group and meet monthly — the admissions director, news director, myself and IT folks.

The above sounds overwhelming, but you must jump into it. There are perceived challenges:
-the administration doesn’t understand the new technology or the social sites
-administration is wary of it and are afraid of losing control of the university image and message (they’ve already lost it)
-administration is wary of letting you take control because they don’t understand (teach them)
-you don’t understand the full scope of the new media (learn — quickly)
-you don’t have the technical expertise or experience to do a blog or TV show or podcast (well, learn it!)

Other Notes:
Traditional media is plunging into irrelevancy.
Students, parents, alumni, are talking about you in various social media settings.
You need forums where you can engage the above in conversations and share your institution’s stories.
You don’t shotgun your message out and hope people see it and believe it. They find you and if your message, your story is simple, real and sincere, they’ll follow you.

Quality has taken back seat to content. If you have good content you can get away with lesser quality. Cannot have bad content and bad quality.

Excellent quality with bad content is also worthless.

To stay up-to-date with social media, subscribe to:

www.bloghighed.org

Recommended reading:

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge. This is the book on how social media is reinventing PR.

Personal:

Questions?  Email me at dmiller@mansfield.edu Put in the subject heading CUPRAP

Note: CUPRAP is the best PR organization in the world.