LaunchCamp divided pretty easily into two camps, companies and executives who:
Understand social networking technologies inherently; and
Know they need to do something, but are not sure what.
This divide isn’t new and frankly, it’s not going to end any time soon. In the past I’ve been asked to design training programs only to find that some people within an organization understand social technologies and concepts very well and wanted to move on beyond the basics. Then there are those who are still figuring out how to sign up for a Twitter account or maybe have just dipped their toe into Facebook.
With this type of audience one size never fits all.
During the startup panel it became apparent that most tech-based companies being founded today are steeped in social networking tools. Not just because the founders are young, in fact their ages run the spectrum, but because the genesis for their ideas come from first understanding social networking. In other words: the aspect of marketing that takes conversation into account is built in. It’s part of their DNA.
Jules Pieri, CEO of the Daily Grommet
Take the example of the Daily Grommet. When moderator David Beisel asked about how much each company spent on launch marketing, the answer came back as nothing. Though, as Jules will tell you, it was nothing EXTRA. Frankly, marketing is baked into the idea of “Citizen Commerce,” which is the idea that the customers drive the direction of the products featured each day. This isn’t a one-way system of “we produce, you buy” but community conversation of “we find what you want.”
Since the community members are, by nature, excited by the products they’re more likely to take action and talk about them.
The same goes for Runkeeper, which factored sharing right into the product. From the start the idea wasn’t only to use a mobile device to track your routes and save information about you, but to share that information with your friends. By doing that you are, in fact, sharing the product you’re using. If friends want to share back they need to get that product too. The viral nature is built in, not tacked on later.
By contrast I hear from companies that have traditional business models and are looking for a way to build social networking into their marketing programs. This isn’t a bad thing (in fact, it’s great) but it’s also just the start.
To truly engage in this world each company must look beyond their marketing departments and find their communities, then use the tools to engage them. After all, that’s how new companies are finding their way.
During a recent Journchat, Chris Anderson and I had a bit of a back and forth about the idea that journalism is a state of mind as much as it is a profession. “It is a profession. Sorry. 100%” he Tweeted. Yes, he agreed that everyone has the power to communicate, but, he believes, journalism shouldn’t be the goal. “Everyone is empowered now. Zero barrier. But you don't want to be a journalist -- it's an unholy priesthood,” he continued. “It is essential not to paint yourself into a corner. America has rejected your sort of "objective" journalism for dead.”
Fox news and MSNBC have proven that bias can attract an audience, but by the same token, the New York Times continues to act as a standard base. What’s more, Wikipedia keeps making adjustments and changes meant to eliminate the bias from it stories, focusing entirely on the facts and grows stronger because of it.
No, journalism isn’t dead.
But the original question Chris and I were debating centered on whether content creators (bloggers, tweeters, Facebookers, you name it) are journalists. I believe it really depends on the mindset of the person creating the content. Some will consider themselves journalists, and they and their readers will hold them to journalistic standards, while others will not care about those standards, wanting just to tell the story of their day. The trick for us, as readers, is to separate the two.
This is an issue Sree Sreenivasan and I touched on during our podcast conversation. He looks at it from another direction: turning people with other skills into journalists. Sree pointed to the trend of the “programmer journalist” someone who has skills as a coder as well as a journalist. “I would hire and consider somebody a journalist if they make iphone apps with a journalistic mindset,” he told me about 10 minutes into the podcast. That mindset includes finding the truth, maintaining ethics, getting the story right and being able to get it out on deadline.
As for whether journalism is a mindset or a career, that depends on the person. “It can be both. It can be one for some, the other for others and both for many,” Sree says.
Part of our job as PR people concerns understanding this landscape so we can better guide our clients. We need to understand what gives a individual influence so we can better keep them updated with information.
Back at my previous job a member of my PR team messed up big time. Long story short, she made an edit that she thought was innocuous, got a story placed and later found out that her edit changed the very nature of the story itself. After hearing from the client’s customer and the editor of the publication, we cleaned things up, but during the issue the team member tried to put things aside by saying “it’s not like someone died.”
No, no one died. But I told her in no uncertain terms that the error got in the way of the editor’s credibility, and that’s all he and his publication have to sell.
Our job is to understand and respect that, whether we’re creating content for our clients or pitching stories. We can’t feed them false information and expect to be taken seriously.
One of the more interesting discussions at last week’s Highland Capital Partners Sales 2.0 event surrounded the lessons enterprise software has learned from the consumer world.
The Old Sales Process Via Cosmic Kitty on Flickr
Many years ago, while representing Alfresco Software, I remember CTO John Newton talking about the affect Google had on enterprise document management. As he noted, people could go to Google and find what they wanted in a matter of milliseconds, but couldn’t find an internal document without enduring a frustratingly long hunting process.
People wanted the ease-of-use they experienced at home to happen in their corporate environments.
This same logic has invaded the enterprise sales process. Anthony Deighton, senior vice president of marketing for QlikTech divided enterprise sales into 1.0 and 2.0 time periods, with 1.0 marked by such antiquated notions as:
Always say “yes” -- Dieghton jokingly pointed to the example Q: Does your software toast bread? A: yes, with the right configuration our software can toast bread.
Sell 1st, deploy 2nd -- Never confuse the two and don’t let the sales person near the customer during the (long and messy) deployment process
Only use the scripted demo -- Why risk failure by showing something live that may not work?
Don’t let the customer touch the software -- Only show them what they need to see
Reality is a guide, sell the possible
Anthony Deighton of QlikTech
All of this, he said, has been replaced at QlikTech with the simple download. Users can download the product and use it on their own computer. Should they want to deploy to more members of their organization from a central server, then they need to buy the software and pay.
If this sounds a little familiar, it is. The model is lifted entirely from the open source model, something Deighton acknowledges.
Joe Liemandt, CEO of Trilogy
So, what does this have to do with PR? Because part of the process according to Deighton as well as other speakers such as Joe Liemandt, CEO of Trilogy, is the idea of “low cost customer touch.” That is, without having a sales person on the road to do a lot of show and tell, and with more power falling to the consumers, the need for online information rises. This is where videos, webinars and blog content come in as educational tools designed not only to inform, but also to eep the customer engaged.
While most see PR in the category of processes that drive prospects to the website, PR continues to fall into the “driver” category. Marketers see PR as one of the many check boxes needed to drive prospects or gain awareness about a company. However, PR’s true value is in storytelling and that transcends reaching out for new audiences.
So when we talk about PR 2.0 or the changing PR landscape, this is where things truly get interesting. At Fresh Ground our goal is to help PR move from the very top of the sales funnel to a content driver and community development engine that helps power everything.
Just about every crisis PR person on the planet says that Tiger Woods is handling his current PR problem in the wrong way. A quick recap: admit your problem, come out with it fast, don't let someone else break your news.
OK, with that aside let me point out why we care: Tiger Woods isn't just a person, he isn't just a golfer, he's a brand. For many companies he is their face and their reputation. Like many sports celebrities, his golfing is just a means to an end, it's a way for him to keep a public persona so he can keep the ad dollars flowing.
How much? In September Forbes noted that Tiger became the world's first $1 Billion athlete. ESPN predicted that Woods could be the $6 Billion man. In that articleRick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon called Tiger "the perfect earner."
And we, as consumers, continue to buy what Tiger tries to sell us. If we didn't his promotional scheme wouldn't work. So when callers on radio talk shows say things like "we should leave the guy alone," they're wrong.
Tiger the Famiy Man
We never left him alone, and it's made him a wealthy man. But it's also made him a public man.
Tiger the Brand
That being said, we can learn a lot from this since we are now our own personal brands. Yes, you have a brand, you use it every time you Tweet, every time you put something on Facebook and every time you add to Google's ever growing library that tells the story of you.
But worse, that brand can be threatened if you end up on the wrong end of a police investigation, or just have someone start badmouthing you on a blog. So listen to the advice of the crisis PR folks and file it away.
Just in case you find yourself in a car accident at 2:15am.
"Tiger Woods is the perfect earner," says Rick Burton, director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.
The New York Times has a rather odd piece from Sunday discussing how the film industry is cutting back marketing budgets and focusing on public relations instead. I'm sure there is more to this story, but I'm not interested in debating the merits of paid versus placed media.
I zeroed in on this paragraph:
Disney recently went so far as to develop a computer program to help it determine how much monetary value was coming from such publicity efforts. It can quickly plug in data — “Access Hollywood” had a 30-second interview with a star of “The Middle,” a new ABC comedy — and the program spits out what that same 30 seconds would cost to buy.
Seriously Disney? The minds that come up with some amazing and creative stoytelling looked deep into the marketing analytics and came up with ad equivalency?
I hear that a lot. And not just about Twitter, but replace "Twitter" with just about any social networking tool and you get the idea. However, these assumptions are pretty dangerous.
Taking a break from working on the job.
Let's look at general contractors and construction workers who build skyscrapers and state-of-the-art hospitals. You're probably thinking that these folks aren’t checking their twitterfeed or reading blogs online, participating in webinars, let alone viewing video blogs on their iPhones.
Well, you're wrong. Vico Software, which makes software for the construction industry, gets 17 percent of its Website traffic from work it does on LinkedIn. That's nearly as much as it gets from Google. This is, of course, thanks to the work of the marketing team who works hard to keep the Vico User Group vibrant and updated, but they also reach out to the 27,000 general contractors they communicate with regularly on LinkedIn.
The executive team and product managers blog regularly about current industry news items, trends, and best practices. These blogs are shared on LinkedIn and new discussions start every day, leading to new connections. According to Holly Allison, VP of Marketing at Vico Software, “The LinkedIn Community is ripe with networking, opinions, and sharing what works. Our target audience utilizes LinkedIn and other social media outlets on a daily basis in order to stay one step ahead of the competition. And in this rough economy, every advantage counts.”
Vico also hosts a bi-weekly educational webinar called Fridays with Vico. Over the last 5 quarters more than 7000 people have viewed one of those webinars, either live or recorded, with 25 percent of those being new prospects, all generated from social media outreach such as LinkedIn, Twitter or a forum in which Vico participates. As far as leads go, those 7000 people turned into an average of 90 leads a month to each US sales representative.
All this outreach has the industry talking, with partners telling Vico executives that they see Vico Software everywhere.
Let's move on from construction workers to teachers.
Credit: Chicago 2016 Photos via Flickr
Picture a public school teacher in your head. She is on her own in the classroom, maybe with an assistant, but facing a roomful of children. What if she has a question? What if she needs help, on the fly, with a lesson? What if a student asks a sensitive question and she just doesn't know where to go with it?
Twitter to the rescue!
Thanks to Karen Miller of DoInk.com, I learned how teachers are reaching out to each other through Twitter. So if a teacher has a question or needs help, he simply picks up his mobile phone, sends out a Tweet and in minutes has an answer from a community of teachers around the country.
So, what if you're a company, like DoInk.com, that has a business model focused on attracting teachers? Then you get involved in those teaching discussions, and that's just what Miller and her team do. That work has led to a boost in traffic for the young company and increased use among students.
So before you dismiss any social media tool as being "irrelevant" to your audience, take a listen. You may be surprised at what you find.
Today the name of the game is to create compelling content that gets your community (customers, partners, investors, etc.) interested and invested in your brand.
What's interesting about the campaigns profiled in the piece is that social media does not play a supporting role, it is the main focus. Most PR agencies are still media relations agencies that are tacking on social media programs to simply support what they're already doing.
These programs took a different tact from day one, though for large brands. That's similar to the work we at Fresh Ground are trying to bring to the SMB audience. Of course, this doesn't mean throwing out traditional influencer relations completely:
And while they haven't completely abandoned traditional media outlets, big-name marketers such as Procter & Gamble, Best Buy, MasterCard and Coldwell Banker are among those who have taken matters into their own hands by creating content and bringing it straight to consumers.
The great part about social media is that size doesn't matter. Even a small real estate agency can create localized content that would put them on the map, it doesn't have to be Caldwell Banker. The goal isn't always to reach the largest audience, just the right audience for you.
When Todd and I set out to create a content strategy we first want to understand the corporate marketing goals. It's the only way we can measure what's working and what painpoints the content must answer. All these pieces are intertwined.
And for you, the right content strategy will help reach the right audience like nothing else.
George Snell points out quite accurately that for many PR people a hit in BusinessWeek is at the top of their list. It's the kind of thing that impresses your clients, colleagues and bosses. It's what will earn you kudos in company meetings and help you get a prize from the professional PR community.
But the whole organization is worth about $5 million. That's what Bloomberg spent to buy it, though it also took on another $10 million in liabilities. The Wall Street Journal expects Bloomberg to brand the magazine Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Not that you needed more proof of the shrinking of traditional media, but the trick is knowing what a hit in BusinessWeek truly means. It helps in regards to traffic, but it's biggest boost is in credibility. If a BusinessWeek reporter writes about your company it gives you a virtual stamp of approval and it gives you third-party content to send to your community.
Provided you have spent time developing your community.
All that said, Peter Kafka has the memo sent around internally from BusinessWeek Publisher Keith Fox announcing the sale. It contains a rather telling line: "Online, BusinessWeek.com and Bloomberg.com will have more unique visitors than any non-portal business and financial site."
That's an interesting qualifier, because combined (assuming no overlap) the two sites trail Yahoo Finance significantly.
But for PR people and clients paying them the issue is much more tactical. Opportunities in BusinessWeek take time to develop and require quite a bit of work on behalf of both the client and the PR person. A PR person's time is what costs money. Getting a one-off hit is fine, but if you're not prepared to take advantage of that hit, then how much is it really worth to your PR and marketing campaign?
Mark Rose is asking all the right questions. In his post on the recently launched Google Sidewiki, he asks:
What’s your social media PR strategy?
What’s your Wiki strategy (Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Google Sidewiki)?
What is your social media news creation and delivery mechanism?
He goes on to point out how PR is no longer about getting coverage and is, instead, about “How do we impact our audience through our own media?”
Exactly!
That point came up, albeit obliquely, during the PR panel at the recent Web Innovation Night in Boston. I’m not going rehash it all here (you can read severalgoodposts on the topic) but anyone trying to market their organization or product, especially those in the entrepreneurial realm, needs to look beyond coverage and take a hard look at their assets.
Do we have a passionate spokesperson who can produce content?
What channel is best for reaching our audience?
How do we access those channels and become involved in conversations?
This isn’t to dismiss the importance of media relations. It is certainly an important part of any outreach program, though here at Fresh Ground we include media relations under the heading of “influencer relations,” as the tactical implementation of reaching out and setting up briefings is the same whether it’s a journalist, blogger, analyst or any other individual who has broad influence.
But for most companies, the days of paying a big retainer just to try to get in the press on a regular basis is over. The ecosystem of media that existed to support this idea has changed drastically, leaving companies with a need to shift how they approach their PR.
From the start the idea wasn’t only to use a mobile device to track your routes and save information about you, but to share that information with your friends. By doing that you are, in fact, sharing the product you’re using. If friends want to share back they need to get that product too. The viral nature is built in, not tacked on later.
New York Times continues to act as a standard base. What’s more, Wikipedia keeps making adjustments and changes meant to eliminate the bias from it stories, focusing entirely on the facts and grows stronger because of it.
7000 people have viewed one of those webinars, either live or recorded, with 25 percent of those being new prospects, all generated from social media outreach such as LinkedIn, Twitter or a forum in which Vico participates. As far as leads go, those 7000 people turned into an average of 90 leads a month to each US sales representative.
top of their list. It's the kind of thing that impresses your clients, colleagues and bosses. It's what will earn you kudos in company meetings and help you get a prize from the 
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