To kick off 2012, I'm happy to post this recent interview with colleague and friend Jon Swartz of USA Today.
It's interesting to hear about his use of Twitter for story ideas and information, and it's also an insightful look at how he works, his approach and his predictions for the new year. See it now to see what has already come true!
An Interview with Jon Swartz, Technology Reporter, USA Today from Horn Group on Vimeo.
On a recent trip to visit our long-time partner Brands2Life in London, I had a few minutes to catch up with Co-Founder Giles Fraser. Brands2Life and Horn Group are also co-founders of the Oriella Network of agencies around the world, a network we jointly created to serve our clients' needs for PR on a global basis, and we talked about our shared clients, business, technology and PR trends in the US and the UK.
In general, it has been wonderful to see how many more of our clients are seeking global communications support, as well as the notable increase in need for integrated digital communications across agencies. This means PR programs that include web and social media components. In this regard, we are both building brands and supporting sales. And like the US, our partners in the UK continue to see the cloud and the consumerization of IT as big tech trend. A great visit with some really good people on a shared mission.
Horn Group Innovator Series - Giles Fraser, Co-Founder of Brands2Life and Oriella PR Network from Horn Group on Vimeo.
What is it about "The Way"? In the last few weeks I have heard a lot of people talking about "The HP Way". There's the "Horn Group Way". And then there's “your way or the highway.” But seriously, what is "The Way"?
It’s a series of processes. A culture. An approach to how customers and employees are treated. I think people today like to reminisce about the "old" way things used to be because things are moving so fast. The old way conjures up memories of when answering a call or an email within a day or so was acceptable. Now, people wonder if something bad has happened to you.
But we also know that the old way may not be the way of the future. Things change and require us to adapt. It's life. The problem is a lot of companies and their executives think they have to come up with a "new" way that ends up having no regard for their original core values. So how does one evolve a business while still preserving the core? A lot of companies that are 20+ years old struggle with this as divisions of their business are going online, people are moved around, some business processes become obsolete and new ones are created. Imagine modernizing the way a 100-year-old company operates, what it sells, how it is sold and whom they hire, while preserving what made them great in the first place.
At the end of the day, things like integrity and respect should never go away. It's the processes around which integrity and respect are manifested that can be modernized. But be careful not to change for the sake of changing. When you deviate from your DNA, you risk losing the magic that makes your company what it is. As Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks said recently at the World Business Forum 2011, "Our competitive differentiator is our culture and the way we treat our people and our customers. We may find new ways to sell different kinds of coffee, but ultimately our core values prevail through everything we do."
It's 10 am, I've had two cups of coffee and two pieces of pandesal. I am ready for Advertising Week.
Inevitably, this is a big news week for advertising technology, and kicking it off is Facebook with its new premium ad unit that will be sold direct. ClickZ points out, from an FB product manager David Baser that marketers and consumers, over time, will decide what the appropriate metrics should be behind this ad unit.
I liken this to how Google started paid search ads. No one knew what to make of it, but over time, the industry established metrics, with and without Google's help, to decide what is the right way or measuring the results, and what is the right price for bids. I imagine that FB will take a hands off approach initially to see the uptick and let the industry dictate what is success. An auto manufacturer would be measuring different results from a TV show, or a celebrity.
Of course, what I really want to see, and what is inevitable coming, are social media experts from media, analyst firms, agencies and tech vendors take a stab at what these metrics should be. A year from now, during Advertising Week 2012, we should take a look back and see who got it right. I wonder what Buddy Media's Mike Lazerow thinks about this.
Other News and Events Today
Here's a shout to Horn Group clients IAB and Casale Media. IAB is hosting the sold out MIXX conference today, and Casale Media is presenting a case study there this afternoon.
And stay tuned for a major announcement from other HG clients later today.
...I've actually had more than 20 thoughts in 2 decades but here are the ones that have come back the most often as friendly reminders and occasionally, to haunt me. Enjoy.
1. If you don't have a plan, you don't know where you are going. Have, and share a vision, make sure people can repeat it, understand it and believe it. Have goals that resonate with your employees or clients. And communicate your progress against them, often and through multiple means. Remember, plans can change. Just communicate the new plan and why a different one was necessary.
2. Hope is not a strategy. Plan for the worst, hope for the best. Have a back-up plan. Hoping for good times won’t make the bad times go away. Be prepared to get through them.
3. Most business problems are like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to find the right pieces and put them in the right sequence. I used to be very emotional about things that happened in the business: an employee leaving, an unhappy client, etc. Take the emotion out and visualize each situation as part of one big puzzle. Lastly, watch out for those puzzle pieces that look like they fit but don’t. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.
4. There are always 3 sides to every story. Yours, theirs and some where in between. Learn to operate in between. There are infinitely more shades of gray than just black and white. Most things in life and business are not black and white. Learn to live with gray.
5. Know what you don’t know. Whether you are 30 or 80, there is always something that you don’t know. Humility is an endearing quality: if you don’t know something go research it. If you cant find the answer, ask someone, or just make it up.
6. It’s not about you. It’s about everyone else. Leave your ego at the door. When making tough decisions, you can’t think about what you want. It’s what’s the best for your team or client. Making the right decision may be very unpopular in the short run, but may be what is right for the company in the long run.
7. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If you want a raise, justify it, and ask for it. If you want to win a piece of new business, tell the client you want it. Why not? Most people spend their lives not saying what they really want or believe in and they end up unfulfilled. Ask. The worst is you get a “no” and some new-found respect for your courage.
8. Your integrity is all you have. Life is too short to compromise your values or that of your colleagues. Life is also too short to work with jerks. Get rid of them. There are plenty of fish in the sea.
9. Leadership is a lot about listening and talking about the things that people want to say but don’t. If people would just stop talking so much, they might hear what is really going on. It’s really hard to listen to things you don’t want to hear, but if you want to be a leader, you have to learn to listen. Then, gently, address those things others are afraid to say.
10. It’s not over till the check clears the bank. I don’t care if it’s in the mail. I don’t care if Joe is giving me “his word”. It’s just not over till the check clears the bank.
11. “No.” There are some things that are just not feasible, or realistic. Don’t feel like you have to say yes to everything to please someone. Be honest. Say, “No, I can’t do that now, but I can do it later…” Or give some parameters around what might be possible.
12. Don’t look at what’s there, look for what’s missing. When devising a strategy for a client, or writing a document, assess it after you feel you have finished. What is missing that would really make a difference? Also called exception management, look for those things that are not present, not just the checkmarks in each box.
13. Take the high road, even when it REALLY hurts. You don’t need to have the last word. You don’t need to make the other person feel bad. Deep inside they know anyway. Some day, you’ll meet them again. Why make it awkward? Who knows, you might need them at some point.
14. Positive. Energy. There are two kinds of people in this world: people with positive energy and everybody else. Nothing will get done with a negative attitude. If you think life sucks it will. So join the team, and dream along. If you don’t believe, leave.
15. If something feels wrong, it is. Trust your gut, always, always. There is something to that intuition. Learn to trust it, and listen to it.
16. Life is not about achieving balance. It is about the choices you make. You can schedule your day full of meetings, be late to all of them and come home exhausted with nothing left for your family or friends. Remember, it’ll all be there for you tomorrow. You’re not in a race. And also, decide between what is important and what is urgent. Not everything is urgent. Take care of what is important first.
17. Admit mistakes. Learn from them. Try hard not to make them again. Almost 50% of the time we learn by adding new information to our brains. The other 50% we learn from making mistakes and understanding how to not make them again. Be honest about them.
18. Be smart. Be kind. Be generous. Be curious. And never, EVER, let anyone or anything get in your way. Especially for women in business– there will be obstacles in your lives and careers. But nothing is insurmountable. You can always find a way to work around something, or get around someone. There is nothing that can stop you unless you let it.
19. If you are not happy with the way things are, go out and change them. Whining is the worst. Complaining even worse. Make your time doing any task worthwhile… and make a positive impact.
20. Know when to put the toe tag on it. When you’ve explored all options and tried all avenues, cut your losses and move on. You’ll never win if you try and fit a square peg in a round hole. And you’ll lose precious time fixating on something that will never work.
This week I'm pleased to share a recent video interview from our Innovator Series with Tom Foremski, Editor of Silicon Valley Watcher. http://vimeo.com/24227420
Horn Group Innovator Series - Tom Foremski, Editor of Silicon Valley Watcher from Horn Group on Vimeo.
In this clip, Tom talks about how being a CMO is the toughest job in a company because everything is so fragmented. He also talks about how Silicon Valley has evolved into a media business and his thoughts on the social distribution of mass media. Tom, like other thought leaders, feels we haven't yet fully realized the potential impact of the Internet, culturally, socially, economically and globally and that we are just scratching the surface. Thanks Tom, for your insights and consistently excellent reflections on the heartbeat of Silicon Valley.
This morning, we launched our annual Oriella Digital Journalism Study. This is the fourth time we have
carried out the project since launching in 2008 and this year’s study yielded the most interesting results to date. A key trend was the extent to which social media has infiltrated the newsroom.
For the first time this year, we asked about the tools journalists use to source and verify their stories. Unsurprisingly, the reliance on established sources remains strong, with 61% using the PR agency and 58% using corporate spokespeople. However, what was notable was the new use of social media. 47% used Twitter and 35% used Facebook to source their stories. The blogosphere was also highly valued with 30% using blogs they know to source new story leads. However, a surprisingly high 42% of journalists also looked to blogs they didn’t know.
For the verification stage, the results were slightly lower, but a significant amount still turned to social media, despite its tendency to spread false rumours – a third used Twitter and a quarter used Facebook.The internal use of social media has also helped to shape media outlets' output. For the first time, the number of outlets that offered a Twitter feed and journalist-authored blogs exceeded 50% (55% and 54% respectively). The use of video has also increased significantly with 48% of media outlets now offering this channel. The impact of social was just one of the topics covered in our study – aspects such as audience, revenues, quality and job satisfaction have all been covered.
All the results can be found on our sister site dedicated to the study – do check it out and let us know what you think of the findings.
In this week's Innovator Series interview, I talked with Ann Winblad, Founder and Managing Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners in San Francisco.
Horn Group Innovator Series - Ann Winblad, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners from Horn Group on Vimeo.
What I admire about Ann is how she, and her firm, have stayed the course over so many years, investing in interesting technology companies run by smart, hard driving executives. In this interview, she talks about how the venture model has changed, and what gets her excited, as well as some special advice for CMOs and entrepreneurs alike.
This week I'm proud to share a recent interview with Dave Moore, Founder, Chairman and CEO of 24/7 Real Media.
Horn Group Innovator Series - David J. Moore of 24/7 Real Media from Horn Group on Vimeo.
I've gotten to know Dave over the last several years and he's been a wonderful friend, colleague, and mentor. I admire his skills at running 24/7 Real Media over time. He's weathered and met many challenges in his career, from navigating his company through the first Internet bubble and burst, the sale of his company to WPP, and the last recession and recovery through the transformation of the advertising industry. In this interview, he talks about where he sees internet marketing going, his own role and vision for the space, his thoughts on where the communications industry is going, pay walls, and more. Thanks Dave for your leadership. Your glass is always half full and you inspire all of us!
I’m recovering this morning in Austin, Texas, coffee in hand, after spending the past several days hiking downtown Austin to soak in as much of the South by Southwest Interactive experience as possible. And I’m exhausted.
SXSW celebrated its 25th anniversary this year with another 30-40% growth in Interactive attendance. That’s to be expected – we’re all seeing investment come back to events, along with other signs the economy is eeking its way back – but 2011’s Interactive growth is on top of about the same 30-40% growth in 2010.
In response to last year’s growth – and instead of capping registration or the number of sessions – SXSW organizers spread the interactive conference across 10 venues. What works really well for SXSW music – Austin’s concentration of great music venues downtown which, importantly, are a stone’s throw from one another – just didn’t translate to this year’s miles-apart approach to the interactive venue selection.
The thought was to group related content within a venue, which works in theory, but I was bummed I didn’t have the option to catch half of two sessions this year – because, according to Google Maps, it’s a 32-minute walk from the venue hosting sessions on the future of journalism to the one where sessions on the social graph (with several interesting case study discussions) were held. Or, about 18 minutes from either of these venues to the convention center for keynotes and some more developer-minded content.
I love Austin – I spent my college years here (hook ‘em!) and eight years working in technology communications. But I can’t imagine the city supporting another 30-40% growth in interactive attendees in 2012 without revisiting the structure or length of the conference. But, until we find that out, I wanted to share a few tips with you while they’re fresh:
I did manage to attend several worthwhile sessions at SXSW this year – most notably around social measurement, a timely topic that we talk with our clients about a lot. Panelists from a session late yesterday will share their presentation this week, so I’ll share more on that soon. But, in short, these discussions revolved around accessing more of the Twitter “fire hose,” automating relevant social monitoring, and the metrics that should matter.
Did you attend SXSW this year? I’m curious to know what y’all think! (and, thanks Joe Chernov from Eloqua for the 25th anniversary infographic – I’m a big fan of the content!)
In the second part of our series on online video, we have compiled our top three tips to help marketers and communicators build their brand with video.
Check out our video below, and if you are interested in exploring what video can do for your brand, give us a call today!
Tips to help you get the most out of your online video content from Horn Group on Vimeo.
Hello and welcome to Horn Group's new series on online video best practices!
At Horn Group, we know seeing is believing and we’re big proponents of using video to get messages across. Our Interactive Design practice even has a specific focus on creating compelling videos to help clients maximize audience engagement.
Check out our video on the top four reasons we recommend you start using video in your communications strategy today – and if you need help or want to work with a partner to start achieving success with video – feel free to give us a ring!
If you are looking to see what other leading brands are doing creatively with online video - check out some of these examples:
Last week, a few of us from the Horn Group attended GigaOm's Net:Work conference and enjoyed a spirited session with Marc Benioff being interviewed by Victoria Barrett. Marc's focus was squarely on the impacts of social tools in the enterprise and specifically how Safesforce.com is using their own tool, Chatter, to improve collaboration.
This is of particular interest to me because we've been using Yammer internally at the Horn Group and it has drastically changed how we communicate - especially across our New York and San Francisco offices. Of course, Marc being Marc, he had some particularly strong opinions on the subject of social tools in the enterprise. Below are a few highlights from the discussion.
How are social tools changing the enterprise?
Social in the enterprise is about flattening the organization and bringing out people who are high value but not visible to the leadership (he referred to these individuals as "chatterotti").
What are the advantages of employing social tools?
Social tools introduce a new level of collaboration. Previously, unstructured user-generated data was at best siloed within an organization and more commonly lost forever. Social tools capture, collect and combine this knowledge and in turn create better products and more informed business decisions.
How does this change leadership?
Social opens up the leadership and exposes them to more of the company. At Salesforce's executive meetings they broadcast and Chattered about the topics, recording the entire meetings and capturing the Chatter. In Marc's opinion this is the future of leadership.
A new way to recognize productive employees:
SFDC is developing an analytics product for Chatter and have been using it internally to identify the most valuable social contributors at the company. These people are rewarded financially at the same level as an EVP because, in Benioff's view, they are contributing to the company at the same level.
What about a "Wikileaks in the enterprise" situation?
The threat of a rouge employee doesn't really change between the cloud and an on-premise product. If anything, an open communication network can help prevent resentment that previously unacknowledged employees would experience because they're able to understand more about the company as well as be heard.
Attacks on the viability of the cloud
Ideas like "private clouds" are legacy thinking by old giants trying to slow down progress so they can milk cash cows and keep customers from deploying better technology from competitors (like Salesforce!)
What's next?
The future of work is about embracing new technologies that reflect how we work now. Companies need leadership teams who aren't afraid to take risks - eventually they will be rewarded with improved productively and more growth opportunities generated from employees within the company. Organizations need to think like startups, recognize that everything has changed and make the changes quickly or get left behind.
The more things change, the more they stay the same
Fundamentally the open culture is still about trusting your employees, and this has always been the number one value.
A pretty entertaining session by a riled-up Marc. It's hard to argue that social tools aren't fundamentally changing how we communicate at work. Obviously there are some questions about how quickly companies can make these changes and how much they embrace this new thinking (is your company ready to pay a heavy social contributor like a SVP?). However it shakes out, how we communicate at work in 5 years is bound to be significantly different that today. I can't wait.
Side note – Net:Work was a great show, kudos to the GigaOm crew. I also attended a session on remote workers and will have a follow up post about some the research and different ways that employers are using tools to be more productive when they're away from the office.
Today I came across an excellent 2010 trend story by Richard MacManus of ReadWriteWeb. MacManus makes the case that online reading habits have changed during 2010 due to Web trends such as mobile apps, real-time Web and social networking developments. If he’s right (and I do think he’s onto something), then PR tactics should also change.
One of the best examples has to do with Facebook and the news search functionality they added in September. Through Facebook’s basic search you can find widely “liked” news from all kinds of media outlets. The new feature has to make Google a little nervous because aside from pulling up stories, Facebook’s search vets results with what people “like.” So how can PR capitalize on this?
PR pros should recommend their clients add “like” buttons next to coverage their company hosts in the online newsroom. Having “like” buttons next to coverage is just another touch point and way to increase visibility. It also makes it that much easier for people to share company content via Facebook.
What other PR tactics come out of MacManus’s observations about 2010 reading habits? Love to hear your thoughts.
Recently I’ve been doing more Facebook engagement on behalf of clients. It got me thinking: when are people most likely to see a post from my client’s page or when should I message group admins?
A recent study by Vitrue, as reported by Mashable, answered my questions. It turns out the three biggest usage spikes usually occur on weekdays at 11:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. ET. Even though weekdays are steady, Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. ET is the busiest time consistently, while people are least active on Sundays.
So when should you post content for a client? The study found morning posts are the most effective and get the most attention, even though most people are surfing Facebook in the afternoon. More specifically, morning posts are 39.7 percent better for user engagement compared to afternoon posts.
Knowing this, companies should follow these usage patterns to maximize engagement. The data also suggests knowing when your target users are on Facebook is essential for interacting with them. Following the usage ups and downs means communicating more effective messages.
Now, if you don’t mind me, I have to post this link to Facebook to prepare for 3:00 p.m. surge!
Last week, I had the opportunity to attend Arianna Huffington’s keynote speech at OMMA Global. Huffington appeared in front of a packed house to start out day two of the conference.
Huffington started out with some best practices she has deployed in the short five-year history of Huffington Post. Transparency is key. Data is great, but storytelling is better. Find the buried lead. Don’t examine a story through a left or right lens – look at it from a neutral perspective.
Most notable was her point about staying true to your core principles while at the same time being open to adapting to new technologies. She advised the audience to stay on top of the Zeitgeist, because it is the way to move forward. Huffington practices what she preaches: the Huffington Post plans to launch a divorce section soon, and they are currently experimenting with hyperlocal sites, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Denver.
Huffington’s opinion on how traditional media outlets will survive the digital age: embrace online. She notes the new media outlets that have prospered (HuffPo included) have taken cues from traditional methods of journalism – because it is not either print OR online – it is a hybrid of the two.
She also stressed the reality of social media in our 24/7 news cycle world: we use it to find solutions to problems in real time. Everyone from Snooki to John McCain is tweeting (to each other, it seems). Huffington encouraged audience members to use social media for change: in the form of tweeting at United Airlines to change their policy of showing movies while passengers are trying to sleep.
As an agency that follows the media industry closely, it seems like Huffington’s advice is on the right track. Embracing the characteristics that made traditional media companies successful in the past, such as quality journalism and loyal readers, will help them as they adapt with the times. Whether that means engaging with readers over Twitter or creating open comment forums, staying true to their core value proposition while adapting will be key in the media industry’s growth.
Today the Oriella PR Network published our third annual study looking at the impact of digital
media on journalism internationally. It’s our biggest study yet – with almost 775 respondents in 20+ countries across Europe, the US and Latin America taking part. We found that digital media have hit the mainstream in newsrooms – barely one eighth of the journalists we spoke to said their publications have no digital formats whatsoever.
The increasing prominence of digital channels in newsrooms mean journalists are under more pressure than ever to produce more content in a range of different forms, and continued uncertainty in advertising markets adds to the challenges reporters and editors face. But, job satisfaction remains high – and here’s what’s really important, almost half of the journalists we spoke to found digital media improve the quality of their output.
Here are some stats from the survey, which can also be downloaded from our microsite.
For the first time this year, we asked journalists about their publications’ approaches to paid online content. We are seeing evidence of real interest in paywalls, apps and e-reader formats as proprietors determine whether paid-content could prop-up falling ad spends. Around two-thirds of the journalists we spoke to said their publications were researching one model or another. This means their editors will be pushing them hard to produce material of a high-enough quality to attract the revenues bosses expect.
As PR people, our call to action is to ensure that communications is coordinated across all channels – both digital and offline – and continues to address the basic requirements of news-gathering: strong news, compelling comment, and inspiring visuals. That sounds like PR101 basics, but it's heightened in the age of digital media and page view metrics. Tom Foremski makes this point in his recap of the Oriella study today on Silicon Valley Watcher.
We welcome your views on our findings. Have digital media reached a plateau? Is the e-reader phenomenon a flash in the pan? Are journalists spending too much time online, at the expense of more traditional, time-consuming research? Please check out the report, share you thoughts with us or follow the discussion on Twitter at #odjs.
Joe Ciarallo from mediabistro.com featured an interesting question in PR Newser today: What if only PR pros from Massey Energy were reporting on the West Virginia mining disaster?
The question came from Bill Sledzik, associate professor in the School of Journalism & Mass Communication at Kent State University.
It's a critical question, because a) the answer is painfully evident if you watch the video and b) it illuminates a bit of a misconception about the idea that every company is a media company.
"Every company is a media company" means that all companies have, for minimal capital costs, the means of production to engage directly with their communities, be they customers, investors, curious bystanders, prospects, partners. Or, as Tom Foremski put it in SiliconValleyWatcher earlier today
"Every company must become a media company so that it can claim the high ground in its space. Because if it loses that position to a competitor, it is very difficult to dislodge them. Once a company establishes its media leadership in a particular space it has won an important battle."
You get the point.
It emphatically does not mean that journalism as we know it is irrelevant. Content does not equal news. And I personally am a firm believer that investigative journalism is the lifeblood of a democratic society. Is it because I (vaguely) remember Watergate? Maybe. Whatever.
Journalism (or what some may call "old media") will always matter, at least as long as there is a financial model to support it. And of course the web has enabled bloggers, companies--anyone with a computer and a web connection--to add their voice to the mix. It's a new ecosystem.
So what are the implications for companies as these lines continue to converge and blur?
Bottom line: Companies still need the news media, in whatever form it takes. Influence matters and always will--it's human nature. But direct connection with the people who make your business possible is equally important. Don't discount it. It's an opportunity, not a fad.
Disclosure: Joe Ciarallo is a former employee of Horn Group.
Every company has to have social skills--in both senses of the word." -- Karen Wickre, Google
There's been a swell of conversation lately to the effect that organizations have become media companies. But what does this mean? And how should organizations approach this evolution?
We convened a group of people who are deeply involved in social media and content from a number of perspectives. The panel was moderated by Sam Whitmore, of Sam Whitmore Media Survey, and included:
We started with the premise that brands now have three interactive marketing options open to them: earned, paid and owned media. Sean Corcoran of Forrester has written about this in some depth, along with prescriptions for how marketers should approach the mix. But the implications extend broader than marketing--through customer ecosystems, product development, innovation and recruiting, to name a few.
Some of the key themes that emerged from the discussion:
[UPDATE: Video from the event]
Surprise! You're a Media Company from Horn Group on Vimeo.
Additional reading:
Sean Corcoran, "Defining Earned, Owned and Paid Media"
Brian Solis in Mashable.com, "Why Brands are Becoming Media"
Tom Foremski, "When Every Company Is a Media Company"
Doc Searls, et. al. "The Cluetrain Manifesto"
Chuck Tanowitz, Fresh Ground, "Steve Wildstrom on the New Journalism"
You can take a look at the Tweet stream at hashtag #SYAMC.
It had to happen sooner or later. Activism has gone digital.
Late last week, Greenpeace activists "brandjacked" Nestle's Facebook Fan page in an effort to pressure Nestle to stop sourcing palm oil -- an ingredient in many of their food products -- from producers who, they allege, are contributing to rainforest deforestation.
Jeremiah Owyang at Altimeter Group has been on top of this since it began a few days ago. You can read his summary and recommendations, and catch up on some of the notable news stories, on his Web Strategy blog.
It remains to be seen what Nestle will do with this crisis; after a brief period of defensiveness, they seem to have retreated, leaving the Facebook page more or less unattended. They haven't made a peep on their Twitter page since Friday, when they posted a link to a statement on their palm oil policies. And their last press release, from March 8, announced that they've launched a Jenny Craig program in France.
So I put myself in the shoes of Nestle's executive board. They are based in Vevey, Switzerland, far removed from the gravitational force of Silicon Valley. They're going to need to understand the extent of the damage and what can and should be done.
I worked with Erin Korogodsky of Scout Labs on a quick analysis. Here are a few nuggets that, we think, should influence Nestle's next steps:
It's big. Really big.
Mentions of the Nestle brand among digital media--blogs (and comments), forums (and comments), news stories, Twitter, photo and video sites--is up 22 percent this week, compared to the previous two weeks. When you look at the conversation related to the Greenpeace incident, however, the conversation spikes to 932 percent.
It's hijacked their brand conversations.
So what's the call to action? And if I were an executive at any other company -- whether or not they are engaging via social media -- I would listen to Jeremiah's advice and make a community strategy and crisis response plan one of my top priorities for the remainder of the year. As Erin says, "The voice of the customer is only going to get louder." Thanks to Erin and Scout Labs for the data and insight.
Thirty-seven percent of the online conversation about Nestle this week is specifically about the Greenpeace action. That's more than a third of the total conversation. If I were Greenpeace, or any other activist group, I'd be pretty impressed with myself right about now.
The tone of the conversation about Nestle and Greenpeace is overwhelmingly negative.
Think back to the Toyota "sudden acceleration" crisis of the past several months. Several people have made the case that the backlash against Toyota brought out a passionate majority of loyalists, so the brand wasn't that badly affected. But the numbers here tell a different story. The vast majority of people talking about this issue are speaking negatively about Nestle.
But wait -- there's hope.
This is the part where we need to put it all in perspective. How much has the Greenpeace/deforestation issue really damaged the Nestle brand? If you look at overall sentiment about Nestle, even within the past week, the conversation is trending positive. Lead topics include comments about recipes, products, and their business ethics in the Phillippines. Here's a look at the data. [It's important to mention that algorithmic sentiment analysis usually only agrees about 75% with human analysis, and humans also tend to disagree a lot. So actual mileage may vary].
Even though Nestle seems to be weathering the storm so far -- consider its size and history, after all -- the intensity and volume of conversation is too big to ignore. If I were Nestle, I'd be watching these trends minutely over the next several weeks and months, and finding places to engage with the community to turn this into a dialogue rather than a pile-on.
Three panels, three completely different ways of looking at public speaking. I intended to stop first at the WIRED panel at 12:30, but was intercepted by a young woman with a handmade flyer at the Pepsico podcast lounge.
Just before I hurled it into the trash, I noticed that it announcied a "flash panel" on women and social media, to be hosted by Laura Fitton (@Pistachio), Stephanie Agresta (@stephagresta), Beth Kanter (@kanter) and Sarah Causey (@Sarahcausey).
Do we really need a gender-defined panel at SXSW? I found myself a little wistful that, apparently, we think we do.
It was a relatively quick affair at 30 minutes, and focused almost exclusively on mentoring and the importance of welcoming new voices into the community. This is really the essence of social principles, yet ithe panel felt quite literally like an afterthought, quite literally off by itself in the corner.
Next up: Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), the hardest-working man in show business. Depending on your point of view, Vaynerchuk is an inspiration, a carnival barker, or one of the most authentic voices around, He's charismatc, profane and utterly punk rock, and he's not afraid to tell people when he thinks they're wrong. The crowd ate it up, me included.
Finally I managed to squeeze into an overflow room, where I heard an extraordinarily dull keynote interview with Evan Williams (@ev), CEO and founder of Twitter. Here was a perfect opportunity to use his own "information network" to bring the audience into the discussion, and yet there was...nothing.
Twitter lit up almost immediately, but the speakers seemingly had no idea. The interviewer, Umair Haque (@umairh) of Harvard Business Review, kept inserting himself into the conversation, while Williams looked distracted and checked his watch. Neither betrayed any awareness that they were sharing the room with several hundred other people.
Not everyone is a great speaker in front of a large audience; it's hard and stressful, and it takes practice. Vaynerchuk is a natural, while I'm sure Williams is much more engaging over coffee, which is probably why he chose this format in the first place.
But the part that isn't negotiable is an effort to welcome the audience into the conversation to the extent that the form naturally allows. The women's panel talked about it, Vaynerchuk did it, and Williams avoided it entirely, so much so that (aside from the technical content) the interview could just as easily have been conducted in 1980 as 2010.
As disappointing as that is, I get it. Not everyone is as comfortable in real life as they are online. But do we have a responsibility to find some way compensate for that at venues like this?
I think we do. What do you think?
Say goodbye to the bright, shiny object. Social technologies are no longer a foreign land. "I call it a culture of sharing," says Charlene Li, founder and partner at Altimeter Group. "It's become frictionless for us to share things with each other."
The culture of sharing has changed many things in our lives. President Obama did an amazing job of changing the way politics worked. In the old days, the only way to have a relationship with a candidate was to give big money to his or her campaign. Obama was by far the most successful public figure to use social technologies to reach people directly.
But how do we do this? First, you need to have confidence and humility. Influence is also critically important.
But open leadership is a spectrum, and there are many decisions to be made with regard to information sharing and decision-making. It's not black or white; leaders must think clearly about the extent of the openness they are willing to foster.
With Twitter it's so easy to find those people--those who may be venting, complimenting or otherwise discussing your brand--and engage with them. You can save a sale, or just make a transaction easier for a customer. BestBuy's Twelpforce is a great example.
So what do you do?
I'm here at the South by Southwest opening keynote address. It's a full house for Danah Boyd, social media researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a fellow at the Harvard Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The subject: privacy and publicity.
Boyd is an ethnographer who spends a good deal of time trying to understand how people use social media in their daily lives. Her goal today: to get us to think about a specific set of puzzles she's been working on related to privacy and publicity.
Privacy is not dead.
What privacy means may not be what you think, Boyd argues. Privacy equals control, and when people believe they don't have control, they feel their privacy has been violated.
Consider the recent launch of Google Buzz, which has been amply documented. Says Boyd, "Nothing that the team did was technologically wrong; there were plenty of opt-outs, but it created a PR disaster."
So what actually happened?
"Google juxtaposed something that is very private with something that is very public," Boyd explains. It wasn't the technology, but the expectations that were out of sync, so people were confused and didn't understand the proposition. "They won't watch your video; you need to ease them in." The major mistake here? Forgetting the social rituals that govern people's behavior. Mistaking optimizing an experience for actually improving it. "And If you break that process," she says, "people will flip out."
So just because people put information on the Internet, it doesn't mean that they want it to be aggregated and/or publicized. If you doubt that, take a look at the recent Onion piece: Google responds to privacy concerns with unsettlingly specific apology. Context is incredibly important. Online environments are nowhere near as stable or mature as offline environments, and as a culture we are still working through how all of this works.
Defaults Matter
The recent privacy issues with Facebook came about because people didn't understand that defaults had been changed. As a result, 65% of Facebook users made their Facebook profiles public. Boyd says she's interviewed a number of people about their privacy settings, and found that none of them actually knew what their privacy settings were.
This can have real-world consequences, as with the teen whose father had recently been released from jail, and who created with her mother's consent a very private, protected Facebook profile. Yet once the privacy defaults changed, she unknowingly opted in to an open profile. Was this an acceptable trade-off, Boyd asks? She doesn't think so.
Privacy is Control
Most people don't necessarily understand how their content can be aggregated. Have you heard of the Please Rob Me site?
So how public are we willing to be? How vulnerable are we if information about us is made public?
Take for example your child's teacher. Can she post pictures of herself out drinking with her friends? Can she have an online dating profile? It's great to say that everyone should be comfortable in public, but online is a different, more rigid medium. And many people can be put at risk if information about them is made more public than it already was.
And yet there is a site called chatroulette, on which people share all sorts of personal confessions. It's control. not exposure, that's the issue.
So where does this all lead? Boyd offers a few points of advice:
Finally, Boyd says, privacy is not about wanting to hide; sometimes it's about wanting to create a space to open up. As a result, we need to make an effort to understand people's intentions, what they're trying to do, and how they'll make sense of it. We need to think about the ethics of what we're doing.
"You're shaping the future," Boyd concludes. "Your choices today will shape a generation. Make sure that you are creating the future you want to live in."
Photo courtesy danah.org.
What are social media analytics? And how do I get them? Margaret Francis of Scout Labs joins Blake Robinson of Attention PR to give us a state of the union on metrics.
Their first question: Basic metrics: what the f--k is going on? This gets a wry laugh from the audience.
It's a packed room here at South by Southwest Interactive--to talk about what? Content Strategy. And what is content strategy you may ask? And why should you care about it?
The speaker today is Margot Bloomstein, principal of Appropriate, Inc. The hashtag, if you're following on Twitter, is #contentstrategyforyou or #cswiify. Here's her definition of content strategy:
"Planning for the creation, aggregation, delivery and governance of usable, useful and appropriate content in an experience."
After she hands out homemade cookies (!), she begins by segmenting the audience by function: whether you're a designer, an SEO specialist, a project manager or IA, or a communication strategist, there are critical questions that need to be asked to ensure that you're presenting your brand intentionally and effectively. Some questions to be asked:
For designers: How do you visualize abstract concepts without concrete terms?
For IAs/PMs: How do you budget by page count if you don't know how many pages you need to fully express your key points or complete key interactions?
For social media strategists: How do you get your brand to stop talking about themselves and genuinely engage? And what's an editorial calendar anyway?
There are a ton of considerations here, and a lot of questions and pointers to get this conversation started in a real way. But the upshot is simple: costs savings, better user experiences, more conversions.
Here are some resources to check out for more information:
LinkedIn Content Strategy Group
I was busy before the social world came on the scene. In my role, I need to be present offline and online. How can a CEO or virtually really any executive be present online consistently, in a meaningful way, and where? I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and I try and post regularly to this site. But I don’t have time to update each of these daily or sometimes even weekly. The truth is I could probably spend all day on each of these channels, but of course I cant. So for those executives and well, probably just about everyone else struggling to figure out where to be and when and with what: here are a few recommendations that might work for you:
Today we launced a new social newsroom on horngroup.com. It aggregates content, news and industry insights from Horn Group and our clients in a gallery format. We included social commenting functionality on every page to encourage community response and discussion.
We're certainly not the first to build a social newsroom -- you know the cobbler's children have no shoes. But we expect this kind of newsroom to quickly become a replacement for the static press rooms of most vendor sites and ultimately the entire website. Companies are starting to figure out that they have to publish and aggregate original content, and a newsroom like this is a safe way to embark on a more social form of communications and interaction with their audience. Agencies like ours have an opportunity to be the source for that content and it's design/distribution.
The newsroom was created by our interactive design team. Here are some details about the navigation and content:
Shannon and I spent the evening at the Altimeter Group open house last night, where Deb, Jeremiah, Ray and Charlene debuted The Hangar, a physical space intended to bring together the ecosystem of emerging technologies, thought leaders, business and service providers to innovate and bring new ideas to life.
To me, The Hangar represents something very important amid the chaos of new and old business models, digital media, brand awareness, lead gen and everything we juggle on a daily basis. It's a place for big thinking, tinkering, ideation--a place to stop and imagine what business will look like two weeks, two years or two decades from now.
[The idea of the Hangar also reminds me of a musical notation called a cesura, which refers to a pause or break in a musical piece that allows the listener to rest and absorb what's come before--particularly fitting because all the Altimeter members are musicians.]
In life, it feels impossible sometimes to stop the music and really think. But 105 years ago, it seemed like madness to hope that man could fly. So who are we to judge? Here's Charlene explaining the derivation of the name Altimeter:
Photo courtesy of Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com
In the movies, we know something big is about to happen when 1) an animal stops in the forest, cocks its head and listens intently; 2) a character walks into a darkened room without turning on the lights; or 3) the music swells. In real life, however, we rarely if ever have the benefit of these clues. But three things happened in the past few weeks that are worth a look, both separately and together. In the interest of simplicity, let's call them:
New Consulting Model
Charlene Li, who co-authored Groundswell with former colleague and Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff, actually started Altimeter Group about a year ago, but it wasn't really a group until Thursday, when she announced that Deb Schultz, Ray Wang and Jeremiah Owyang would join her as partners. The focus of the group will be to help clients "understand and adapt emerging technologies into their strategies in a holistic way." Note the conspicuous muting of the terms "social media" and "analyst" in the press release. The emphasis isn't on social technologies; it's on any emerging technology that supports strategic business objectives. And the shift from analysis to consulting is a critical distinction: analysis is becoming a commodity, but people who can evaluate and use emerging technologies strategically are the golden ticket. Oh, and Charlene's next book? It's about a new model of leadership based not on control but on open, intentional engagement with customers.
Implications: Technology is important, but it can also be a red herring. In the coming year, expect to see less focus on trendy social technologies and more on organizational culture as businesses adapt to the loss of control over customers.
New Attitudes
On August 18, Razorfish hosted an event at their San Francisco office called "Your Brand, Their World," in which representatives from Levi's, Shutterfly and Intel discussed the impact of social technologies on their brands -- and how they are adapting to them. It was a great conversation, but there were really three takeaways that I thought were important to consider for the coming year:
Implications: Your customer service organization is already talking to customers on a regular basis. More than any other group in your company, they are tapped in to what customers are telling you. A listening program, using some of the new social monitoring tools like Radian6 or Buzzient, will tell you what they're saying when you're not "in the room." This is why the term "social media" is going to fade in importance: because the customer relationship--not the tools--is the greatest source of change and the greatest challenge you will face in the coming years.
New Research
According to a research study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, multitasking makes you stupid. Clearly, this has relevance beyond driving to the effect of the dreaded "continuous partial attention" that multimedia provides.
Implications: So while we love our Twitter and our RSS and our Facebook feeds and YouTube videos, our brains need focus. Consider this: "Compared with those who rarely used more than one type of media at a time, heavy multitaskers had slower response times, most often because they were more easily distracted by irrelevant information, and because they retained that useless information in their short-term memory." (This means you, LOLcats).
The Bottom Line
When you think about all these subtle shifts collectively: away from social media frenzy, toward clarity, customers and the organization that will support these new relationships, the roadmap for next year looks a little clearer. Follow emerging technologies, sure, but don't let them distract you. Consider your most precious asset--your relationship with customers--and build the organization that will best support it. And above all, focus.
Next stop on the map is Germany as I interview our partners about social media trends around the world. Stephan Fink, and his team at Fink & Fuchs, has always impressed me with his passion for our trade and the notable results of the firm. Similar profile to ours -- mid-sized agency specialized in business and consumer technology. Stephan was also the catalyst for the second annual European digital journalism study conducted by our network Oriella that's due out in September or October.
Here is the transcript from our discussion about social media trends in Germany.
What is the state of social media in your region?
In Germany, more than 90 percent of the so called "digital natives" are using the Internet -- primary uses are mail, job-seeking, flirting and search. Even though Germany is still behind much of Europe in using the social web (only 50% online are using social networks; throughout the world it’s 67%), with a growth of 12% annually we're catching up.
Besides the community-boom, especially German based communities like Xing, StudiVZ and SchülerVZ, Twitter is the big hype right now.
Just for fun, how would you describe your country's adoption of social media on an evolutionary scale: a) cell-like, b) amphibians, c) dinosaurs, 4) primates, 5) man?
Our current stage on the corporate-usage-side is amphibians just coming to land. On the consumer side, driven by digital natives, we are progressing like young men -- nosy and just doing it.
Are there any trends or incidents that have captured national attention and that demonstrate social media adoption in your country?
The Iran elections at the end of May this year and our own elections in Germany where members of parliament were twittering the result of the presidential election before it was officially announced. In the business community, Vodafone Germany started the Real Social Media Campaign at the beginning of July, which lead to interesting discussion within the Web 2.0 community and the national media. And since May, Twitter has gotten unusally broad coverage in all types of media including in prime time talk shows.
Is social media being used at all in business?
Wikis are used for internal and external collaboration, knowledge-, project- and process-management in many companies. Blogs are created for external communication and knowledge sharing, as a participation-platform concerning customer driven innovation. The number of blogs is relatively small. Opinion-forming blogs influencing a certain target-group are rare in Germany, because it’s not easy to create constantly interesting content for a big audience. Many of the most important blogs in Germany are run by journalists, media, companies or NGOs. Twitter has mostly been used as a news-channel or communication-platform for agenda-setting or as an issue-monitoring tool. Here's it's been more evolutionary than revolutionary.
Can you give an example of how you're using social media in your market?
Just last month, we launched an interview with our client Thomas Mickeleit concerning the “Twitter-Strategy of Microsoft PR in Germany”. The first tweet got 62 retweets, direct pickup by two of the leading media and requests for two more media interviews. On the long tail the launch resulted in 1,808 page views of the interview on our website with an average reading time of more than 8 minutes. Two thirds of the visitors came directly via Twitter, Facebook or Friendfeed.
In our day-to-day business the conception and roll-out of social media campaigns is becoming more and more important. We try to address all kind of platforms and we build and run the whole program for clients across Twitter, blogs, social media newsrooms, Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, Facebook and specific groups within communities. This includes developing rich content and the conception of the right dramaturgy and approach to different groups. We're also talking about mobilizing people to participate online in whatever is getting more and more relevant.
At Fink & Fuchs we've been running an agency-wide blog for internal information and communication and we have smaller blogs for different client teams. After a year-long test run, we're about to launch an internal wiki for collaboration, knowledge-sharing and project management. More or less everybody is member of the business-community Xing, by far the number 1 in Germany. We don´t mix private Web 2.0-engagement of team-members with interests of the company.
Fink & Fuchs PR is participating on different multi-blogger-platforms that are related to our core issues. Our website contains a blog-based news-ticker, which will be extended to a living blog-platform. The agency has a Facebook profile; I've had a Twitter handle for about a year and the agency itself is on Twitter.
Overall, inspite of the hype, classic, real world is still predominant here. But social media is gaining more and more importance.
Stephan -- many thanks for your insight. Next up is a conversation with Paul Mottram, who runs Upstream Asia, about trends across Asia and Australia. I hope to drill down on specific regions like China in subsequent talks.
A few weeks ago, Susan Etlinger and I were conducting a Social Media Boot Camp for our Oriella PR Network partner agencies which started a great conversation about social media trends outside of the US. There is so much discussion, particularly between agencies and communicators, on social media here in the States, but not enough about what’s happening in the rest of the world. Depending on who you’re following on Twitter, you might see scattered observations from people’s travel abroad – just enough to pique your interest. Susan had the great idea to talk with each of our partners around the world and post a series of interviews about what’s happening in each of their markets.
Here is the first in what we hope will be a series of conversations with people from some of the best independent boutique agencies around the world. We came up with 5 simple questions to cover the basics and make for a worthy discussion. I suspect there’s a lot to learn from each other no matter how far along each region is on this journey.
First stop: Spain! Deborah Gray (pictured above) is the director at Canela PR in Barcelona and Madrid. I’m crazy about Deborah and her firm (and I love their website). Canela is the Spanish word for cinnamon which is fitting for their spicy edgy work. Thank you Deborah for having the conversation.
Horn Group: What is the state of social media in your region?
Deborah Gray: Until February 2009 the highest ranking social media network in Spain was Tuenti (pronounced twenty). The network was founded by an exchange student who wanted to create a communication channel between students. Tuenti soon evolved beyond being students-only and now is a network “just for friends.” The networks on the site remain private unless a friend of yours invites you into the network – the biggest difference between Tuenti and Facebook.
Facebook wasn’t even available in Spanish until mid 2008 but has since experienced upwards of 1000% growth. The attraction of Facebook has been the ability to meet up with forgotten friends and colleagues. The Spanish Facebook demographic is thirty somethings while the Tuenti target is more focused on teenagers (14-19) and early twenty somethings. And of course we can’t forget Twitter. The country with the greatest Twitter presence is the USA, the second Japan, and the third is Spain. Spanish people use Twitter as a platform to distribute their blog content but also as a way to share knowledge. In the same way, more and more, Spanish organizations are adapting micro blogging in the organizational information flow with tools like Yammer.
An interesting trend that experts are detecting in Spain is that social networks are promoting the use of mobile web. An astonishing 46.5% of Internet mobile users only use social networks. This is the beginning of a new Internet era, the era of mobility, where social media networks will be a key element.
HG: Just for fun, how would you describe your country's adoption of social media on an evolutionary scale: a) cell-like, b) amphibians, c) dinosaurs, 4) primates, 5) man?
DG: For commercial or business use is pre cell-like. But for personal use: beyond man – Jedi!
HG: Are there any trends or incidents that have captured national attention and that demonstrate social media adoption in your country (like Dominos Pizza or the Patrick Swayze rumors in the US)?
DG: In recent months mass media have been discovering social networking tools and are using them as a means to broadcast content. This was exemplified in May with the electoral debate for EU elections, involving Mayor Oreja (right wing candidate) and Lopez Aguilar (left wing candidate). The debate was broadcast and streamed online on the Rtve.es website (Spanish public TV) with the opportunity to upload comments and questions on the Facebook channel prior to the debate that could be used during the debate.
There was also a high profile privacy incident involving a famous football player named Noemí Rubio. Noemi was a football player for RCD Español football team but in her heart she was a FC Barça fan. Both these teams are in Barcelona and are arch rivals. The incident occurred when Noemi uploaded some photos to Facebook of herself wearing a Barça scarf while celebrating Barça’s victory in the Copa del Rey (The King’s Cup). Representatives of RCD Español saw these photos and fired Noemi from the RCD Español football team.
HG: Is social media being used at all in business?
DG: People here in Spain use social media for personal reasons but most companies are still afraid of the Internet and social media. We think there are three main reasons for this:
First, the difficulties associated with the measurement of social media. There aren’t tools to measure the ROI of social media and marketing managers always need the figures. Second, the fact that the message online cannot be controlled scares most organizations. Third, we think it’s an age thing – the average age of somebody in a position to make a decision about social media marketing spending is usually above that of those who are comfortable using social media and really understanding it’s potential. So for now they’re ignoring it.
That said we have noticed some changes as more and more enterprises are using social networks. Some CEOs are using Twitter channels to promote their blog posts on the Internet; some others are using Yammer as a channel of internal communication for employees. Facebook has announced that they will be setting up commercial operations in Spain in the next six months so clearly they see that there is a commercial opportunity in this country. They have announced that they will be targeting the country’s top 100 advertisers as priority customers.
HG: Can you give an example of how you're using social media in your market?
DG: We have used social media in PR campaigns and also for internal marketing purposes. For our client Geo-Xating, we reached out to the geo-caching community via forums and blogs to promote an activity called Geo-Xating, sponsored by our GPS client Mio Technology. Our aim was to encourage as many people as possible to take part in a treasure hunt which led them to discover points of historical interest in the region of Catalonia. We created Geo-Xating profiles in Facebook, Flickr, NavPix and YouTube. We designed and wrote the content for the web page in support of the activity www.geoxating.com and mediated the forum. In a three month period, with no advertising, there were over 15,000 visits to the Geo-Xating web page, which equals an average of over 160 visits each day.
Here at Canela PR we use social media tools to interact not only with journalists; but with our client’s potential clients and colleagues in the PR world. One example is our online press room which is designed as an information source for journalists. It is frequently updated with useful information about our clients including: press releases, images, videos, and products available for testing. Journalists can also subscribe to an RSS feed so that they receive up to date information about the client that interests them the most. We also have a Canela Facebook page where we have added key journalists as friends and use it to invite them to client events and keep them up to date about Canela news. Everybody on the team has their own Twitter account so we can monitor what the rival agencies are doing, and also stay up to date with trends and interesting articles. We are in the process of setting up a group account and Canela channel. And we recently launched Canela Digital which specializes in social media and Internet services.
If you consider that according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 75% of American women use the Internet, it should come as no surprise that it's become a mainstay for the American mom--to handle family finances, shop, research and connect with friends.
Yet despite the prevalence of moms online, marketers' efforts to reach them have hit some serious bumps. Consider the scorching 15-seconds-of-fame sparked by the Motrin Moms ad, which managed to annoy the heck out of the tiny percentage of people who actually saw it. Or the backlash that many brands experience when they ham-handedly approach mom-bloggers. Or just the sheer complexity of Internet space versus real life. It's a huge challenge, and yesterday's marketing tools and strategies come up sadly short, or worse, backfire.
What is a brand to do?
This conundrum was the impetus for Digital Mom, a two-part report published by Razorfish and Cafe Mom to try to help marketers better understand how mothers use technology. It was also the theme of the Moms Who Tech "Birds of a Feather" session hosted last night at Web 2.0 by Sarah Murgel of Razorfish, Beth Blecherman of Techmamas and Silicon Valley Moms, and our own Martha Feingold, also a blogger for Silicon Valley Moms. Here are a few tidbits from the report:
And yet reaching these moms is a major headache for brands big, small and homemade. While the conversation quickly turned to mom-bloggers (how to find, connect and work with us), the real concern in the room was about the intense personalization that effective social marketing entails.
After all, "mass media" is called "mass" for a reason, isn't it?
The Razorfish approach emphasizes segmentation and deeply understanding a multitude of factors including:
But while best practices are emerging (and evolving) every day, the overwhelming need--in this room anyway--was simply to understand: Where are these moms? Who are they? What do they want?
In the end, there were no epiphanies beyond the simple agreement that the focus needs to be on how to build better relationships with people rather than focusing on how to market to them. As Guy Hirsch, CEO of Vestopia (and the only guy in the room) put it, "I'm just here to understand what half the population is all about." In social terms, that's a pretty decent first step.
For a live-blogged transcript of the session, see Beth Blecherman's post at Techmamas.
Time moves so quickly that it's easy to forget that social media is still incredibly new for many, many organizations. Was it only six years ago that Tim O'Reilly and a rag-tag group of media junkies developed the concept of Web 2.0? In human years, that's about the age of your average first grader.
In human terms, we are barely cruising into first grade. We've got tools, ideas and energy to spare, but we still have a lot to learn and a lot of mistakes to make along the way. Certainly there are best practices at a tactical level--whether you are talking about search, blogging, community engagement or even social networking--but what makes social media so confounding for so many is that its success has less to do with tactics than it does with organizational strategy and the ability to effect cultural change for a common goal. And that's a whole lot bigger than Twitter.
This morning I attended Why Social Media Marketing Fails (and How to Fix It), at Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. The session was presented by Peter Kim, Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang, all veterans of Forrester Research (Jeremiah is an analyst there). I sat next to Jennifer Leggio, who was live-blogging the session for Social Business, her newly-renamed blog on ZDNet.
Here's a partial run-down of the questions and answers.
How do I get my culture to adopt social media?
All the participants agreed that social media requires cultural change. To paraphrase Charlene: the only way senior leaders see social media working is aligned to organizational goals. It may take years--it won't happen overnight--but you have to start someplace. Start small. But if you want cultural change, you have to get the big guns involved.
Peter asked the panelists whether organizations should appoint a "chief social officer," and there was general agreement that it's a bad idea: there are many people personally invested in these technologies, and the biggest fallacy of a "chief social officer" is that there is one person who will take care of everything: rather than encouraging accountability and participation, appointing a "CSO" sends the message that social media is somebody else’s problem.
At Charles Schwab, Charlene commented, the CEO has been leading the social media charge. The critical difference is that they don’t call it a social media strategy--it's a customer engagement strategy (which happens to be facilitated by social media).
Jeremiah thinks there are three primary organizational models for social media today:
How can I make my campaign work?
"The biggest problem is doing campaigns," Charlene quipped. "Don’t look at it as a technology. Some companies see social media as a Facebook page, but then you never hear from the company other than their press releases. Have conversations with people on the wall—so few companies do this."
Jeremiah added that some companies have actually turned off the comment features in their communities, reducing their communities to static marketing channels. And Peter said that the ways organizations think about their employees and shareholders, detractors and community members will need to be transformed. It's a difficult road.
Should marketing exist at all?
"Social media is a horrible tool for advertising," Charlene said. Added Jeremiah, "Marketers will have to evolve."
So what am I supposed to measure?
Jeremiah says that most marketers are measuring social media incorrectly; they're focusing on the measurements of yesteryear. There is no access to server logs on Facebook and other tools/networks, so you have incomplete data. And even if you had that data, it wouldn't tell you what is happening: there just aren't good enough automated methods to measure changes in tone. (As someone who does this regularly, I can attest to this: quality analysis doesn't scale that well.) A lot of companies are trying to tackle this problem.
Rather than a dashboard method, Jeremiah suggests measurement more like GPS, which tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going. (That starts to sound a lot more like business intelligence, doesn't it?)
So why measure social media at all?
Charlene says that if you are going to do it, measure it against the other things you’re doing with marketing. It can't be in isolation.
And finally, a fantastic question from a social media strategist at a financial services firm:
We are currently struggling with the challenge of risk assessment: if we engage in social media, what kinds of liabilities are we opening ourselves up to?
Charlene began by saying that the biggest concern among her clients is trusting their employees. But companies are moving beyond those fears into programs that can and do work.
Wells Fargo has been blogging for a while and just launched Ask_WellsFargo on Twitter. Their approach was to caution customers not to share confidential account information, and establish Twitter (as Comcast has famously done) as an open channel to help customers with service questions.
What made this less risky for Wells is that they have a history of blogging, so they have some institutional understanding about how customers will use the channel. Had they started with a Twitter feed, without the back-end processes (to address questions) and understanding (to have a reasonable understanding of what to expect) it would have been much more risky. Finally, my favorite question of the morning:
Does failure in social media matter?
It must, given that Charlene mentioned Walmart as one of the companies who does social media well precisely because they keep at it and have learned from their failures.
After all, she said, "If you're not failing sometimes, you're not doing it right."
For more views on the session, see: Social Business, Fast Forward Blog, Marketing Mystic and Twitter hashtag #SMFAIL.
Several newspapers took advantage of the April Fool’s holiday today by publishing stories that claimed that the publications would now be publishing news exclusively through Twitter. One local newspaper, North Carolina’s Mountain Xpress, even went so far as to load a Twitter feed onto their homepage that is still being updated with news from their staff claiming they’ve created the world’s first Twaper (twitter-powered newspaper).
The Guardian stated in their April Fool’s article that Twitter has "radically democratized news publishing, enabling anyone with an internet connection to tell the world when they are feeling sad, or thinking about having a cup of tea." Funny indeed, but are these articles really that far off from the future of newspapers?
As the Guardian article points out, citizen journalism is on the rise as evidenced by the Hudson plane crash in which Twitter provided the first on-scene photos and the passenger that sent real-time updates when his plane crashed outside of Denver. With many newspapers folding around the country, the way in which the public receives its news is bound to change. But is Twitter the answer? I think for local news publications it could be part of the answer. In small communities, it’s impossible to stay on top of everything going on and for some local newspapers a supplemental Twitter feed might be beneficial, giving a voice to the community and providing a place for residents to share information. But ultimately, a Twitter-based newspaper does not allow for the time and research that is necessary of investigative journalism.
In his letter to the readers, Mountain Xpress publisher Jeff Fobes states that "In today’s fast-paced, multitasking, pause-and-you’ve-fallen-behind world, most of us simply don’t have the time to read long, rambling, 2,000-word print pieces."
He may have a point but most of us don’t need reporters to tell us what happened - we do need them to tell us why.
I recently attended the 2009 Social Media Building Blocks Conference, sponsored by Reality Digital, here in San Francisco. I was really impressed with the great lineup of speakers presenting at the conference, including MTV Networks and the Sundance Institute (Robert Redford was unfortunately not in attendance), who talked about many of the same social media issues that we at Horn Group deal with on daily basis.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that Horn Group has all the answers for our clients when it comes to social media, but the fact that many of the issues being discussed (where to engage, new social media platforms, and how to monetized social media) were topics that have already been breached with many of our clients.
The main message I heard during was that people are confused where to best engage in social media, and subsequently, how much capital it will take to do it right.
Benjamin Wagner, vice president of MTV News, who spoke at the show, might have summed it up best, saying, “At first we didn’t know where to begin, so we engaged in every type of social media thinking bigger was better. We lost sight of who our audience was and how they wanted to engage with MTV.”
In the end, Wagner and his team figured out that while they had been focused on so many separate social media entities (Facebook / MySpace pages, Twitter accounts…etc) that they had fallen behind on keeping MTVNews.com current and digestible for readers. Wagner and his team began to overhaul MTVNews.com, shortening stories and giving all video news segments adjoining editorial content. As a result, MTV began to see better engagement from its core audience (18-25 year olds) and site traffic is now projected to double in 2009.
The fact is everyone needs to take a step back and ask themselves, what do I want to get out of engaging in social media? Will it play a role in how I interact with my future and present customers, is it a way for my organization to better listen to what’s being said about our industry, or is this merely an attempt to jump on the proverbial social media band wagon.
One simple suggestion is something that my mom always said to me (and she still does), measure twice, cut once. Just because everyone you know has made a corporate Facebook page does not mean it’s something you should do for your business. Take a step back, look at your business and figure out which approach will best serve your goals.
Horn Group has been recognized as an agency that "gets it" when it comes to developing a social media strategy for our clients. However, as a PR professional, I’ve recently been thinking about how to develop a social media strategy for ourselves as well.
It’s easy to identify the benefits of growing a personal "brand" online. You’re a visible part of "the conversation," and can be present in a way that you couldn’t necessarily be in the real world. You can directly correspond with people all over the world on common interests and develop relationships. You may even be recognized for relevant tweets (like our very own Martha Feingold).
But, I have to raise the question, how much social media is too much? Should I connect with journalists, clients, coworkers, etc. on all social media platforms? Does my client care if I have a blog, 1,500 friends on Facebook or a robust list of followers on Twitter? And of course, we all sometimes think “what if a client or journalist doesn’t agree with something I post?” Part of the beauty of social media is that it allows you to transparently express your opinions, but when our personal and professional networks intertwine, how do we prepare ourselves to adequately monitor our thoughts and possibly defend them to others?
And, in terms of frequency, how does one walk the tight rope between participation and saturation? Being involved for the wrong reasons is just as, if not more, risky to your personal brand as not being involved at all. No one can afford to become solely @techPRperson (disclaimer: as of 3/05 this Twitter name does not exist) to clients and the media.
On the flip side, would you as a client trust a member of your PR team to sufficiently construct a campaign who didn’t have a personal Twitter or Facebook account for themselves? If you’re not involved in social media personally, how can you guarantee you’ll be able to counsel your clients on best practices professionally?
As with most things, social media is a matter of balance. Here are some tips I’ve found interesting and helpful in building your personal social media campaign:
Horn Group weighs in on the top Twitter Apps and gets some insight from Mr. Tweet.
The results are in! A few weeks ago, Horn Group conducted an informal poll of our Brass Tacks readers – asking for your input and insight on the best Twitter apps, sites and services.
Productivity tools like TweetLater, along with follow management apps like Qwitter and Friend or Follow were among the notables, while mobile apps like TwitterMobile, Tweetie and TwitterFon also got a few shout outs.
So with over 80 votes, who came out on top you ask? Because Mr.Tweet was the overall fan favorite with a vast majority of the votes, we sat down with from Ming Yeow Ng, Founder of Discover.io and the man behind Mr. Tweet, for a little more insight on the current Twitter obsession:
Mandy: Mr. Tweet was the obvious front runner in Horn Group’s informal poll on the best Twitter apps. What’s the story behind how Mr. Tweet got started? How did you come across the concept?
Ming: Our parent company is called Discover.io. We essentially believe that there is too much information and data in the world today, and facilitating good discovery is the key to using that data to add value to people's lives. We were also Twitter users, and we realized that there was near impossible to find people who were relevant to you. You can also see a presentation we did on discovery: http://is.gd/op2.
Put these 3 things together, and you see where we were coming from.
Mandy: For those of us just jumping into Twitter’s follow management space, what advice do you have on how to leverage these tools like Mr. Tweet? How does it work?
Ming: Twitter provides a great place for you to build both your outreach and your knowledge. But most often, people do one or the other, and not both. They are either disappointed no one is listening to them (of course not, you self centered prick), or just listening, without seeking to build their own audience via providing valuable content.
I think that combining both modes work well. Look at KrisColvin's guest posting on our blog for a great example of how someone used Twitter to achieve really great results.
Mandy: What other Twitter apps and services would you recommend? Do you use others besides Mr. Tweet?
Ming: I actually highly recommend Tweetburner. For me at least, it was one of those early apps that made me realize the power of Twitter in syncing up with the rest of the web.
Mandy: A lot of people are still skeptical or still don’t understand the concept of not only Twitter, but social media in general. What value do you find in Twitter?
Ming: Value of Twitter: This is a subject we contemplate a lot. Twitter fills a very interesting, non-intuitive gap in the current social media landscape. The need to easily discover and reach out beyond our current network and knowledge pool. Both of these cannot be done easily outside on any of the other platforms.Some examples can be found here and here.
Value of social media: I think social media is so vastly untapped that it is not even funny. We will see the real value of social media become as obvious as the value in Google.
Mandy: Fast forward to 2012. Where do you see Twitter and Mr. Tweet fitting in to the social media landscape?
Ming: That is... 3 years. For Twitter and social media, I honestly have no idea. I suspect if someone from the 2012 comes here today, this will be our reaction: twitpic.com/1faqu The speed of change is astounding, and you see innovation appearing like never before. Impossible to predict.
For MrTweet, we will be helping you make even more kick ass discoveries far beyond finding people to follow. Hopefully, some that will really change your live for the better.
Special thanks to Ming Yeow Ng for contributing his insight, and to Horn Group’s Brass Tacks readers for contributing their votes and suggestions.
Horn Group’s Ben Billingsley and Joe Ciarallo go back and forth on the real value of Twitter.
Ben: Thanks for sharing the Columbia J-School podcast: Twitter for Journalists, or everything you ever wanted to know about Twitter, but were afraid to ask.
I have to say, many of the industry executives I speak with are still skeptical about Twitter and this conversation went a long way toward answering some of the big questions about its value.
While I remain wary of the hype, the value of Twitter is seemingly more compelling now that more people are using it. This podcast made some excellent points but I was hoping you could help persuade me on a few of my lingering doubts.
Is Twitter really changing the world? I, like everyone in the office, was taken aback two weeks ago by the Twitter photo of the US Airways plane floating in the Hudson River, but is breaking news on Twitter really news?
Couldn’t anyone using a camera phone do what @jkrums did by uploading the photo to any forum? At the end of the day, isn’t Twitter an online forum by another name?
Joe: That is definitely a valid point. However, I think one of the differences with Twitter is its simplicity and ease of use. It is JUST a status update, nothing else. If someone wants to get the word out to their circle of contacts, it’s simply much easier to do so via Twitter compared to other online forums. It has reached the point where there is a massive conversation happening there around the clock.
A fascinating example is from The New York Times’ David Carr on how things can move from Twitter to
mainstream news. In this case it’s a story from Brian Stelter: On Saturday, Mr. Stelter’s wonderful article in The New York Times on how people were working around the blackout on the Olympic ceremony began as a post on Twitter seeking consumer experiences, then jumped onto his blog, TV Decoder, caught the attention of editors who wanted it expanded for the newspaper and ended up on Page One, jammed with insight and with plenty of examples from real human experience.
For something to go from a Twitter query to front page of The New York Times is truly amazing.
Ben: I keep hearing 6 million users - but how many are active? I remember the hype around Second Life and all of the audience figures that were thrown around that turned out to be slightly exaggerated. I get the sense however that this is different.
Joe: A lot of numbers have been tossed around, and with the exponential growth of Twitter you really have to stay on top of things to be sure you’re presenting credible data.
A recent report from Compete.com cited Twitter US growth for 2008 at 752%, while Nielsen Online said Facebook grew 116%, putting it almost even with Mypsace, which was flat. From a monthly unique visitors standpoint Twitter is less than one tenth the size of a Myspace of Facebook.
I don’t think anyone would argue that these numbers can’t be debated, but I think this provides a high-level snapshot of the current landscape.
As far as active users (those who post at least once a month), that has remained level at about 20%, according to an O’Reilly research report from November 2008. So, if we take Compete.com’s numbers of 4.4M monthly unique visitors and multiply that by .2, we come out with 880,000 monthly active users.
Ben: Isn’t Twitter all about establishing a brand online and then expanding one’s personal reach? And for Weblebrities consumed with having a personal online brand I get it - but where is the substance? For example, all those people talking about the Palm launch last month. If you look at the Twitter content it seemed to be more about the person talking about Palm than what they are saying. So isn’t that just noise?
Joe: Obviously, Twitter is incredibly useful for media people of all types in terms of being able to crowd source. But I think it’s unfair to say Twitter is only relevant to those consumed with having a personal brand. Reporters are asking about sources on Twitter, conference organizers are looking for speakers and partners, analysts are asking questions about upcoming research.
In terms of the Palm thing, with any big launch like that, I think there will be a lot of noise.
Ben: Why use Twitter from a business perspective? OK, I follow Rob Hof from BusinessWeek and he Tweeted (still makes me blush) that Mike Arrington from TechCrunch was sick and Erick Schonfeld was covering, which helped with a pitch - but I can’t really be expected to stay on top of all of this information to help manage my business. In order to be effective, this is yet another info stream I need to digest and it becomes an issue of bandwidth. When do we say enough is enough or how do we start to aggregate this all into one spot so it doesn’t become overwhelming?
Joe: I think Twitter search [link: search.twitter.com] has helped enormously in allowing people to aggregate keywords they track into RSS feeds or of course to just search in real time. I personally track all of my clients as well as my personal and blog keywords every day, and make an effort to participate in addition to listening. Many people I know also use different desktop apps such as Tweetdeck, which is especially helpful for aggregation.
Ben: It seems to me that once you start following the right people, Twitter can be incredibly useful, converging some of the best aspects of the Web into a customized info stream. Is Twitter all about the people you are following?
Joe: People use Twitter for many different reasons, but I think you hit the nail on the head here in that it’s all about who you are following. To that point, many of the news sources that I read on a frequent basis (BusinessWeek, The New York Times, MediaPost, Mashable, PRWeek) as well as many individuals use Twitter in some ways as their news feed so I hear about stories and breaking news on Twitter before I do on the actual sites.
Ben: Do you think Twitter will fade away or be bundled into something else? Should Twitter have taken the 500 million from Facebook? Couldn’t Facebook just start pushing its mobile status update functionality and make the Twitter audience seem small in comparison? If social media is all about people, couldn’t Facebook marginalize Twitter?
Joe: Right now all we’ve seen is continued growth, however, I think that’s a question for Twitter investor Fred Wilson. Fred is certainly one of the most well-respected venture capitalists out there and he and his team at Union Square Ventures clearly saw value. He recently wrote on his blog: "Sure the technology allows all of this to be possible, but the technology behind Twitter is not what makes it special. It's the people who are on it and the way they use it that delivers all of the value."
Ben: Thanks Joe. I think this discussion was helpful for all of us as well as other Brass Tacks readers.
At Horn Group, we’re crazy about Twitter. But we’re also going crazy just trying to wrap our heads around all of the sites, apps, and services that have grown out of Twitter-mania. So here's the million-dollar question: just as micro-blogging has moved to the mainstream, what Twitter-inspired sites and services have caught your attention?
We’ve already seen some great accounts of all that Twitter has to offer – from Read/Write Web’s Top 10 Twitter Apps and Darren Rowse’s ReTweet tools and trackers to CNET’s wish list.
But now, it’s your turn. Let us know what Twitter tools you love these days, or if there are any others you think should be added to the list.
P.S. For now, we’re focusing on web apps for mobile, productivity and follow management, but for the complete list, you can always visit Twitter’s Fan Wiki here.
Horn Group talks to Ken Ross, CEO of ExpertCEO, about how his network of resources helps other CEOs navigate through complex business issues and weather an unpredictable economy.
HG: On the ExpertCEO network, senior executives can ask questions, pose scenarios, solicit input—quickly and in confidence—via an online exchange with other professionals. What was the impetus for creating ExpertCEO?
KR: I was in the process of leaving my prior job, CEO of Seriosity, in the fall of 2007 and debating what I should do next. At the same time, social networks like Facebook were incredibly popular and the idea struck me to leverage this type of technology, but gear it toward senior executives. So, I founded ExpertCEO to provide the type of trusted management resource I wish I’d had during my career. With ExpertCEO, I was able to fulfill many roles I really enjoy - a CEO, an advisor to companies (virtually) and go back to my roots as an entrepreneur.
HG: Do you think it’s truly lonely at the top?
KR: Yes! I can state with 99% certainty that every CEO has issues which he or she is passionate about that they don’t feel comfortable discussing with their management team or Board.
HG: Before you started ExpertCEO, where did you get most of your advice?
KR: Back in my Ross Systems days (1970s and 80s), I found great comfort in talking with CEOs of other software companies, on an informal basis. I didn’t belong to any particular CEO groups. I did have a few friends with whom I talked, but they weren’t close to my business. When I spoke with my peers, I was really happy to hear that the problems we experienced were also being experienced by others in my industry.
HG: How is the current economic climate affecting site traffic and the types of questions being posed?
KR: Our site traffic continues to increase as our membership increases – we are currently not charging a fee for membership, that being said, we carefully screen all applicants to ensure they meet our standards. I believe that the financial crisis will drive more members to our site as CEOs look for inexpensive (or free) ways to get the answers to tough questions. We do see an increase in questions related to the crisis such as a recent thread titled, “Deals slipping?”.
HG: What is the most interesting question you’ve seen on the site?
KR: There are many, but two of them stand out now – not just because they’re interesting, but because the quality of the user-generated content is very high and very valuable to our members. The first is “employment terms” – accelerated vesting of stock options on a change in control; and the second is the future of SaaS. The employment terms discussion touches on an issue every CEO will likely consider when joining a company, while the SaaS-based question is an intriguing dialogue amongst members who share their challenges with this business model.
HG: How do you see the site evolving over time?
KR: We want to continue to grow our member base while we build out more functionality in the different sections – such as our resource center. We will probably add premium services of some type for our members.
Hi, my name is Sabrina and I’m a social media junkie. There, I admit it. Anyone who knows me knows that I am truly passionate about social media’s impact on society. On a personal level, I can’t imagine heading to a new restaurant without first reading its review on Yelp. I also rarely make a purchase on Amazon, eBay or other Web sites without first reading the User Reviews section. By the way, perhaps now would be a good time to mention that I grew up with computers. I’m what some call a Millennial.
On a professional level, I’ve witnessed the power of social media when combined with passionate consumers. In my former life as an in house public relations manager, the company that I worked at had a very loyal group of users. We had an active user community on the company Web site, leaving comments on blog postings, and creating user generated videos. We actually found that our product did better in online sales as opposed to in store sales.
So that’s why I wasn’t shocked to read that a recent study published in PR Week found that consumers are turning to blogs and social networking sites to make purchasing decisions. According to the article:
"Not only are people using commercial shopping sites more - the figure has more than doubled since its 2006 study - but they are turning these into places to gather information from peers. Of those who visit shopping sites, 44% said they read consumer reviews and comments posted there, according to the "2008 US Media Myths & Realities" survey."
Let’s break this down. Consumers like to consult social media when making purchases. Companies like making sales and having happy customers. So, how can you, dear reader, get from point A to point B? Embrace the changes that are going on with your consumers! Don’t be afraid of Social Media. Jump on in, the water’s fine! Here are a couple of quick tips to help you put this study to use…
1. Don’t just observe, participate. So you read blogs every morning with your cup of coffee? Great! Don’t forget to leave comments after the blog posts to engage the other readers. Also, consider writing your own blog. It’s a great way to get a conversation going with your customers and potential customers.
2. Monitor customer conversations. Yes, the blog postings are great, but I think the comments section in blog posts and customer reviews are gold mines. Think of it as impromptu consumer research. If you see a common thread of issues, address them quickly. If the customers were frustrated enough to voice their complaint, they’ll be equally grateful to know that you read their comments, valued them, and responded to them. They’re also likely to comment about your commitment to your customers and customer service. That’s a win for you!
3. Find a trusted guide. Whether it’s a friend, coworker, or a consultant, find someone you trust and ask them to introduce you to social media. My friend (and former coworker) Chris introduced me to Twitter. He taught me the basics, gave me some tips for success, and answered my questions. I learned my way around in no time and now I’m doing the same for others.
4. Empower your customers. Encourage them to share their positive experience with others. Based on this study, I think it’s safe to say that there’s a captive audience. Use it!
Have you witnessed social media’s impact on your business? Put tip #1 to work and tell us your story below.
I spoke today at CES at the Social Media Jungle produced by Jeff Pulver. If you haven’t been following these, they’re a series of events designed for journalists, bloggers, marketers, PR people, technologists, business people—anyone, really, who’s interested in and/or already practicing social media. Jeff continues to host them in cities around the world, so click here if you want to check out his upcoming schedule to attend or to contact him about a speaking spot.
A few observations from the day:
If 2007 was the year that companies said, “Show me some examples of what social media can do,” 2008 was the year that they said, “Show me what you’re going to do for me.” And we already know that 2009 will be the year they say, “And how it’s going to help me save money.”
Chris Brogan began by appealing to the pirate in all of us (yep, you heard me); how, for example, the British navy was so hidebound by rules and protocol and tradition that the Queen would have to hire privateers (pirates, actually) who could blow past those protocols and get to the objective at hand; i.e., winning the war.
And--no surprise--he sees the social media consultants as pirates who can ignore those who “don’t get it” and help companies and experiment with social media at a grassroots level. But, as Howard Greenstein points, out, not everyone is an early adopter, and 2009 should be the year that social media consultants stop telling people they don’t get it. It’s our responsibility, he says (and I agree wholeheartedly) to educate and pass what we’ve learned on to those who can use it.
Jeremiah Owyang then presented some data from Forrester on the social technographics of consumers on the Internet. It’s good stuff: you can find a version of it here. (Funny moment: Jeff, founder of Vonage, using Skype for the first time to get Jeremiah on the line. Oh well).
Robert Scoble talked a lot about the tools he’s using to stay connected these days. Of particular note is Upcoming, which he uses to communicate where he is and what he’s up to (fascinating while he was in China, and, as someone pointed out, a terrific way to get insight on what he thinks is worth seeing and doing at conferences).
Beyond that, Friendfeed is a staple now because he can focus just on what his friends are interested in. As he said, almost without noticing it, “In the olden days, when I used Google…” which made several of us nearly fall out of our chairs.
Time flies.
Next up: a few views of ROI; living in the three-screen world, social media for small business, and some practical considerations for corporate communication in the new media age. And, if you want to check out the Twitter stream of the event, go to Twitter search and enter #SMJCES in the search bar.
Think about it. A CEO walks up to a smaller competitor and says “let’s get married.” The other guy says, “Let’s talk.” While this actually happened to Kayak CEO Steve Hafner – chronicled by Sramana Mitra in Entrepreneur Journeys – not all relationships are this easy to establish. Let’s take the one between PR professionals and journalists for example.
Of course, we know the dialogue on the relationship between the two professions has been echoed time and time again – whether it’s being discussed at Horn Group’s recent panel, “Is social media killing PR,” or being written about as PR horror stories on proprtips.com from CNET journalist Rafe Needleman.
Most recently, this conversation on the PR-journalist dynamic appeared after I had a chat with Eric Eldon of VentureBeat via Twitter. What sparked this conversation is that Eric reported on a company by writing what he thought they did, rather than saying that they’re a “SaaS provider of collaboration software.” He “tweeted” about it, and others took notice – including me.
After seeing this, I decided to go head-to-head with him and provide some of my own two cents. The outcome? Some great lessons learned on the value of smart branding and the different roles we play in seeing that brand’s success come to fruition. The question at the heart of the debate is this: Should journalists have to report on how a company identifies themselves – in this case, a provider of SaaS collaboration software – or rather, is this open to interpretation?
After our exchange via Twitter, I came to realize that Eric had some very valid points from the journalist perspective:
Eldon: a PR person is mad at me because i wrote what a company did instead of saying that it's an "SaaS provider of collaboration software" 3:23 PM Nov 20th from twhirl
Eldon: @Elainiac @fourlittlebees @schwarzwald the sad thing is that the company actually was interesting in an enterprise-y sort of way. *sigh* 3:38 PM Nov 20th from twhirl in reply to Elainiac
MissMandyK: @eldon don't shoot the messenger 4:07 PM Nov 20th from web in reply to eldon
Eldon: @MissMandyK what's a better way to respond? 5:45 PM Nov 20th from twhirl in reply to MissMandyK
MissMandyK: @eldon it's not a request of an individual but a ques. of accuracy when it comes to strategic positioning 9:56 PM Nov 20th from mobile web in reply to eldon
Eldon: @MissMandyK my goal is to be clear with readers about what a company actually does, not to help the company with its marketing 10:38 PM Nov 20th from twhirl in reply to MissMandyK
MissMandyK: @eldon your goal & the value it brings to you readers conflicts w/ goal of the company, PR has to represent that.such is life.. 11:16 PM Nov 20th from mobile web in reply to eldon
MissMandyK: @eldon but I guess it's only fair to acknowledge that everything is subject to indiv. interpretation... 9:59 PM Nov 20th from mobile web in reply to eldon
Eldon: @MissMandyK yeah.... although sometimes its the same! 11:27 PM Nov 20th from twhirl in reply to MissMandyK
Here, we see another example of a PR rep and a journalist not being able to see eye-to-eye on an issue surrounding accuracy in content and message control. Going forward, how can we improve?
For one, we can improve this relationship by eliminating complex branding jargon and developing strong content that lends itself to natural semantics. I don’t know about you, but when I’m looking to set up a web meeting I don’t typically search for “SaaS provider of collaboration software.” By doing this, we’re better able to reach customers.
Paring down messaging content into real terms is something that has been discussed recently by both Guy Kawasaki and Richard Edelman. While I’m not the first to say it, I surely won’t be the last, as this is something that’s going to become an increasingly important factor when companies are trying to differentiate themselves based on messaging alone. It’s no longer about who you are, but what people are searching for.
Even the medium has relaxed, and we need to, too. All of our virtual discussions - on message boards, blogs, social networks like our client Hi5, and even the newly-launched MicroPR– are forums for real people to engage in casual and candid conversation. Our responsibilities in PR and for the companies we represent are not to control the message or the content, but to help shape the message in layman’s terms so that people can find it out there in the virtual cobwebs. The content is inevitably going to shape itself because of the new medium.
At Horn Group, we’re seeing the value in Twitter because it’s a virtual forum that allows us to join in on conversations and debate on industry topics we care about from every end of the spectrum. From Twitter to Yammer to Facebook, engaging in these discussions help us visualize where we can improve –whether it’s our understanding, our attitudes, or our branding.
What lessons have you learned from your own exchanges on the Web? Please share them here.
Special thanks to Eric Eldon of VentureBeat for triggering the conversation.
An interesting conversation sparked up today in response to this tweet of mine:
Buddy Media (client) whitepaper: What Advertisers Need to Know About Branded Social Media Applications" http://bit.ly/nW0h
Another blogger, and fellow PR pro, messaged me asking, "Just noticed your use of (client) by the way for client-related "tweets". SOP for tweets from The Horn Group. Just curious." At the time, it wasn't standard operating procedure, (not that we ever try to "slip in" client news - what's the point of that anyway - but more that we just never really addressed it.) However it is standard procedure now because it sparked a conversation here. A follow up message read, "If you invented that style of disclaimer, I want to give you credit by the way when I use it."
I guess I can take credit for making this standard operating procedure at Horn Group, but that's really not important. What is important is that we distinguish on Twitter between things involving our clients and things we are just generally intrested in. I can't recall the exact moment, but I did at one point see someone using the (client) disclaimer, and then began using it myself. As a blogger and PR pro, I felt that the transparency was absolutely necessary and critical to my reputation. With so many of us wearing many different hats these days, I'm curious - how do you make such distinctions?
A few weeks ago, Horn Group and Girls in Tech hosted an open discussion about the future of PR. In the end, we probably raised more questions than we answered. Here's the biggest one: is social media killing PR? I think its closing some doors and opening others. Frankly, if my job was focused exclusively on promoting new products to early adopters, I'd be a little worried. However, there is a whole wide world out there beyond the Silicon Valley inner circle.
In some ways, social media is increasing the need and the opportunity for PR professionals. Company spokespeople no longer have the luxury of hiding behind controlled forms of communication like press releases or keynote addresses with little audience interaction. And this means they are relying on communications professionals more than ever to help them hone their skills. Some executives naturally are great communicators but many are not. One of my favorite aspects of my job is working with someone to find and develop their natural strengths as a speaker and giving them the confidence to put themselves out there. And I'm not just talking about official "media training." We no longer live in a world where companies have a few people who have to be stellar communicators because they are official spokespeople. Today everything is more transparent - customer service reps and community managers interact with customers in public forums, emails sent to employees are leaked to bloggers, employees at all levels are participating in social media. PR people need to be coaches and consultants across all departments of a company.
I'm not sure which of the famous posts--Scoble, Arrington, Calacanis--and the responses from Steve Rubel, Brian Solis and others, planted the seed. Several of us were sitting in an office one day talking about where PR is going, and the fact that in all the noise about the so-called death of PR, no one really talks in an open, live forum about where this industry is actually headed.
And then Jeremiah Owyang put up his heal thyself post, and Dee Anna discussed it with him at an event, following up with an open invitation to bloggers to come see us at work. We discussed putting together a panel--just getting everyone in a room to have it out. Adriana Gascoigne of Girls in Tech (also a client through her work with hi5) agreed to co-sponsor, and the panel was born.
We originally conceived it as a sort of smackdown in which we get at the tensions between PR, media and bloggers, but we knew that'd be over-simplistic and limiting. And it's been done to death.
We wanted to get past all that to what the new media ecosystem will look like. Should companies fire their PR agency, as Jason Calacanis argued? Is a PR firm often unnecessary, as Robert Scoble said?
Does social media make PR irrelevant?
Here's the thing: each company is unique, and, with the groundswell in customer self-advocacy and the availability of social tools (let's not forget the trusty telephone!) there are far too many interactions now to control them all.
And that makes some people very, very uncomfortable.
One of the great things about social, or "new" media, whatever you'd like to call it, is the ease and speed at which it can be created and distributed. For example, take this video interview we recently set up with client Michael Lazerow, CEO of social media application agency Buddy Media and blogger Allen Stern of CenterNetworks. Allen came by Buddy Media's offices Halloween morning with his Flip camera and a tripod. He sat down and chatted with Michael for about 20 minutes on a wide variety of topics. A few hours later, the video was up and streaming on the homepage of his site.
Revolutionary? In this day in age, not at all. However, when you look back just a few years and think about this, it does make you realize how fast things are changing. Sort of like when Erick Schonfeld penned his "six month" post for TechCrunch and wrote, "The worlds of blogging and journalism are colliding and I want to get some thoughts down on this transition before I forget what the old world was like or feel too comfortable in the new one."
Back to the Buddy Media interview, Michael discussed just how the company works to become a social partner of the brands they work with, stating, "We don't show up and say 'here's what we're selling you,' we say, 'what are you trying to do from a marketing perspective and let us come back to you with some ideas on how we can help you in the social world.'" It's a refreshing perspective and one I strongly believe we share here at the Horn Group.
Nobody at the Conversational Marketing Summit could agree on what "engagement" means. Today, the term under debate was "media company." What is a media company anyway? Is it a publisher? Does it sell advertising? I didn't hear a whole lot of consensus during the Next Wave of Social Media panel hosted by Chas Edwards. Is Digg a media company? Is Twitter? One thing I think most of us can agree on: Seth Goldstein's comment that all media companies today are suspended between innovation and fear. I suspect that's true of pretty much everyone at this point.
It made me think about the life span of the term "social media," which brought to mind something my grandmother used to say. When I visited her on Saturdays, she'd often ask if I wanted to see a "motion picture," which sounded odd and redundant until I realized that the idea of motion in film was a relatively new phenomenon for her. That's what I imagine the term "social media" will sound like to my son when he grows up, if people even use it anymore; quaint and old-fashioned, from a time way back at the turn of the century when people only had boring old one-way media.
But the way we talk about social media still seems very one-sided. We are used to being experts, to knowing our tools and how to use them, to knowing our metrics and our stats and how to plan campaigns. Guess what? We are, each of us, unlearning and relearning everything we ever thought we knew about this business. And campaign? That's military language. Buh-bye.
Now we talk about co-creation and community and conversation, right?
So where are the customers in all these industry events? Where are the companies we sell to--and the people they sell to?
Maybe we start with some of that co-creation we've been talking about. Maybe we just ask. I moderated a panel at the Cloud Summit the other day, with Oren Michels of Mashery and Jay Hallberg of Spiceworks. Jay was talking about how, as part of his planning process, he actually asks his customers how he should market to them.
So simple it's brilliant.
I dare you to try it. For that matter, I dare myself.
I caught some of Federated Media's Conversational Marketing Summit yesterday. My pick for can't-miss session? The Super Metrics: Data that Matters in Conversational Media.
The premise-that "the space is littered with disparate and discordant data points, methodologies, tracking and reporting tools" couldn't be more timely. Get ten people in a room and ask them what engagement means, how to measure it and how to calculate its value. (Call me when you're done. And no fair peeking at your neighbor's answer.)
The session was moderated by Jeremiah Owyang, and panelists included Rob Crumpler, President and CEO, BuzzLogic; Avinash Kaushik, Author, Blogger, Analytics Evangelist, Google; Shahar Nechmad, Founder and CEO, NuConomy; and David Veneski, Digital Campaigns Manager, Intel.
Jeremiah began by asking, "What is engagement? No one agrees on what it means," which unleashed a flood of cogent points as well as a few tart one-liners. (As Homer Simpson says, "It's funny because it's true.")
Here are some of the highlights:
Here's a fantastic use case for the power of community to do amazing things.
Tyson Foods, the world's largest poultry company, is sponsoring a hunger relief initiative aimed at providing a source for all hunger and poverty-related data.
Yesterday, they put up a blog post challenging readers: they would donate 100 lbs. of food to the Capital Area Food Bank of Texas, up to a 35,000 lb. truckload.
In less than six hours, they'd filled the truck.
As of this writing, there are 535 comments on the post.
If you were anything like me, you'd think, "Hmm, would anyone actually read a poultry company blog?" And, if you were anything like me, you'd be humbled at being so completely off-base.
If you'd like to follow Tyson on Twitter, you can find them at @TysonFoods. And thanks to Mike Chapman for bringing this to our attention.
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