We discussed Web 2.0, technology change, security issues, marketing impact, and general business adoption. You can listen to the show here. Thanks to Business Destiny Radio’s John Hrastar for having us.
I’ve been busy the last several days, doing my part to help spread the word about the American Red Cross response to the wildfires in southern California. It is my job, after all.
My piece in this has been helping with the creation of online disaster newsrooms, and in experimenting with the best ways we can use social media to reach out and be more responsive and relevant. We (in the non-profit sector) can be smarter in the ways we engage and inspire our supporters and donors - and it’s analogous to the same results in a for-profit setting.
One thing we all need to remember as we try new things and new tools is that no matter how noble your effort or righteous your cause, there will always be cynics who see what you do as “just PR.”
Show, don’t tell.
In the last couple of years especially, those of us tasked with telling the Red Cross story have seen a change in the way our message gets out. We used to rely very heavily on getting “face time” with local reporters and video crews. Get out there and “tell the story.” Make sure clients know how they can get assistance - make sure donors know where their gifts are being used - and make sure everyone makes that connection between the act of charity and the services being offered. That goes for disasters, health and safety training, military casework, and many other programs.
However, now that we are operating in a new media environment, the 24-hour news cycle has changed the landscape. Getting “on TV” to explain these things is not enough. The new model of “emotional storytelling” and filling that news hole has reduced us in the eyes of some journalists as merely a conduit to finding those “Amazing Survivor Stories” that are oh-so-promotable.
With any luck, social media gives us an additional outlet to show our relevance as an organization - a way to “show, not tell” the impact. With that in mind, I experimented with a series of slideshows at Slide.com. With very little fanfare and little promotion, we started posting the slideshows on the newsroom, and offered them up to others who wished to carry them.
A sour note.
The early comments seemed rather supportive, but it didn’t take long to find a cynic. He logged in as “cynic”, and wrote:
“especially with the text, seems like PR”
Well, I should hope that it does. I would hate to think that my job would be to post every single picture, even the ones out of focus or poorly framed. I shudder at the expectation that I should wait until there is “bad news” to balance the information I am sharing online.
The fact is that “PR” is still a four-letter word for many. They are tired of being spun or twisted or led. You can’t win them all - you can only do the best you can at making information available. Social media and social networks can extend your reach - just be ready to hear from some who don’t trust you.
Five Thoughts Before Jumping In
With that in mind, here are some tips for engaging in new networks:
Be transparent. You don’t have to post every bad picture, but you do need to be up front about who you are. In this instance, the Slide.com account is branded as “American Red Cross.” The url to reach the slides is http://redcross.slide.com.
Allow dissent. I didn’t edit or delete Cynic’s comment. I posted it as soon as I had the access to. If you build a reputation as someone who avoids criticism, you foster the notion you have something to hide.
Give-give-give before you take. One thing is conspicuously absent from those slideshows. You will not see a donation link, nor a call to give. A reading of the Terms of Use for the site does not specifically forbid solicitations or commercial use - but this isn’t a case of “can” but “should.” The goal here is to share information and cement for people the notion that we are in fact on scene and delivering services. Not to shake them down emotionally.
Don’t worry about winning them all. Some people will never support your cause, and will go fiercely out of their way to not do business with you. Social networking is a personal activity, but you can’t let that get to you. You can’t win everyone over, so just be yourself, be genuine, and tell your story.
Don’t start a community without being in one first. Online communities have their own flavors and personalities. Before getting active in one involving your business or group, try being a member of some that are unrelated. Get a feel for the sorts of activities that promote relationships, and the kinds that drive people away. Take “social media” for a test drive before committing yourself to it as a way to reach people. You’ll be smarter about it, and less likely to shoot yourself in the foot.
Brian Solis and I began a series of podcasts to discuss the seven principles of community engagement uncovered in the book Now Is Gone (only 14 days until it’s released). The first podcast focuses on Audiences versus Communities (approx. 12 minutes in length).
We discuss:
One-way communications to audiences versus two-way conversational marketing within communities
The social media release as an example of community marketing
The need to engage in two-way communications, even when its negative
Jeremiah’s original question was “Do you respect media snackers… folks who consume small bits of information, data or entertainment when, where and how the want. If you want to be part of their lives you’ve got to respect them.”
My response is in video below (teaser: there’s a hidden media snack at the end). But before we start, I must tag my six: Kami Huyse, Todd Defren, Sarah Wurrey, Kyle Flaherty, Jane Quigley and Doug Meacham (three of six from Beantown, a heavy Boston contingent to represent the Red Sox). Their answers will be posted below.
Jeremiah’s weekly digest of the social media world is always a great read, and can save time crunched execs from having to fan throughout the blogosphere for info. This week’s top story is MySpace will adapt to challenge Facebook’s rise to prominence.
Our man on the West Coast Brian Solis has an excellent discussion on how news can be broken using social media tools as opposed to the old web 1.0 days of media tours, embargoes and news releases.
It may seem parochial in nature, but the social media strategist must understand that the creation of a phenomenal strategy requires superior content, continued innovation and ongoing creativity.
Unwaveringly, content and and initiatives are created to educate or inform readers, listeners or viewers about a particular or general subject matter. Successful strategy revolves around fulfilling a mission and serving the community. Unfortunately, a classic marketing error involves not understanding the community and what it cares about. This often leads to failed marketing initiatives and rants from bloggers, some of which make it to the larger blogosphere.
Marketing minds have to understand the importance of creating a mission-oriented strategies for their social media efforts. By creating a strategic editorial mission, social media marketing is grounded in serving the community (value) and providing content, regardless of the media form. This enables execution with individual tools in different media forms to stay on track, and creating value for the community by providing regular, prescient content.
And that’s really the rub. Going through the difficulty of creating value for the community so they find it worthwhile (a.k.a. what’s cool for BMW owners).
This requires a) knowing what the community wants, b) understanding the intrinsic value the company has to offer, and c) being creative enough to deliver this value in a way that’s interesting and compelling. At this critical juncture, your team needs to deploy the art of strategic marketing to make your social media initiative successful.
There’s one major pitfall to avoid in an organizational content mission: Trying to overtly promote the company. This error remains one of the most common reasons corporate social media initiatives fail.
Companies engage in social media because they want to market themselves, and think social media forms are just another way to promote their wares. This error creates blogs that are never read, empty community sites, videos that are never played, and podcasts that don’t buyers don’t download.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the privilege of speaking before many business owners and executives on a local and national basis. Last week was the Consumer Electronics Association’s Industry Forum, where I was joined by Chris Heuer on an esteemed panel (see podcast).
Rather than recapping the same spiel, here are the big takeaways that all businesses interested in social media want to know. This is a result of all five engagements I’ve had in the past three weeks. Without fail businesses want to know these three things:
You can achieve ROI on social media marketing campaigns. This range from brand perception changes to hard sales increases. See the case studies tab for examples.
Social media marketing requires a significant change in corporate communications. Namely, one-way communications tactics allowed for strategic approaches like controlling the message. Social media is a form of two way communications demand more openness visa vis participation ethos.
The good news is that this significant change is not a new thing. It’s a return to Main Street ethics and approaches towards doing business. With an eye towards building relationships, businesses can do well.
Usually after, digesting these three points, most companies are ready to talk about how to get engaged in social media.
On a more campy note, I took some video footage of the hours and moments leading up to the CEA panel. Getting ready for these events can be a kind of a nervous, funny time! Here’s the video short.
Our completely shameless monthly exercise in subjective measures of greatness…the Most Influential Blogger post. Winners get complimentary Blogs of Fire T-Shirts.
This list changes quite a bit from month-to-month, ranking by cumulative score allows for a better picture of my most influential bloggers. And this also creates a nice year end post. Year-to date rankings are at the bottom.
OK: October. A hard month, because no one really hit that grand slam (defined as getting a job at Forrester, etc.). But lots of great content across the board. In order…
1) Kami Huyse has done two notable things. First of all, she is the reason why case studies are now housed on Now Is Gone. Secondly, she has really hammered home the industry’s need for measurement. And people are listening. Oh yeah, the rest of her posts have been pretty good, too.
2) Chris Brogan gets a hat tip this month. First of all, he is the most motivational social media blogger our there. And lately I’ve been in “the Dip” so reading Chris has been a bit of a rallying moment. But he also gets it. Consider theserecentposts.
3) Wikinomics blogger Anthony Williams has been outstanding this month. Lots of great quantifiable examples of social media and web 2.0 techs working, and working well. A great addition to any reader. And oh yes, if you really want to understand the sociological impact of 2.0 on companies’ bottom lines, read the book.
4) Brian Solis gets a hat-tip, too. Hard core PR blogging this month from Solis has included excellent pieces on the Future of Social Media Releases, the Future of the Press Release (I & II), Conversational Marketing versus Market Conversations and more. A vintage PR 2.0 month or so.
5) Chris Heuer makes you think. Fantastic keynote at BlogOrlando challenged me, plus continued chats about books, memes, message control and blogging was capped by just an outstanding series of conversations this week in San Diego. I look forward to creating the Von Helsing facebook app with Chris! If we ever get enough time to do it.
For the Blogger of the Year ranking: Five points for first place down to one for fifth place, and cumulating the score. Our weighted 2007 ranking so far…
Jeremiah Owyang - 7
Toby Bloomberg -6
Kami Huyse - 6
Valeria Maltoni - 5
Brian Oberkirch - 5
Chris Heuer -5
Rich Becker - 4
Chris Brogan - 4
Anthony Williams - 3
Kevin Dugan - 3
Shel Holtz - 3
Shel Israel - 3
Brian Solis - 2
Ike Pigott -2
Eric Eggertson - 1
Seth Godin - 1
It’s a tight race. You have to think anyone from Ike up is in the running. It just takes one first place finish!!!
The Gold Group brought is Five Lessons Learned from the SIGGART campaign, a social media effort revolving around eco-friendly water containers. I love case studies that feature hard numbers. Check this out:
SIGGART drew more than 12,000 visits from about 8,000 people. Each visit was a whopping 17 minutes on average; compare with Nielsen’s most recent benchmark of 49 seconds per average U.S. web visit. In total, SIGGART was viewed for 204M user-minutes or, we’d like to offer, 204 mums.
Lewis Green documented how blogging has benefited his business. How is this for hard numbers? “L&G Business Solutions increased revenues by 100 percent in 2007 over 2006, 40 percent of that due to the blog attracting new clients as well as referrals and leads…. [Blogging] accounts for about 25 percent of the marketing budget (includes time) and 40 percent of the revenues.”
Last, but not least is Dell’s Incredible Turnaround, which was written up here yesterday. Moving from Jarvis’s Dell Hell to an intense social media campaign over the ensuing two years, to having Jarvis laud Dell in BusinessWeek = the greatest brand image reversal to date in the social media world. Kudos to the Dell team. I like this one because ROI can be more than just sales. Dell was not a well-liked company out here two years ago, and they’ve done a 180 in two years.
Yes, the social media primer is almost here (November 12), and what better way to celebrate than a great social event? On November 7, there will be an exclusive invite only party at Piola in Arlington for DC-area .
We’re providing hor d’ouvres, beer, wine and soft drinks. Bartleby Press will also have advance copies of the book available for purchase. But would it really be social media if we didn’t let you have an opportunity to attend? Come on out and party!
If you are interested, contact me at geoff [at] livingstonbuzz [dot] com. We will be inviting people in waves, and have a hard cap on attendance at 125.
Our completely shameless monthly exercise in subjective measures of greatness…the Most Influential Blogger post. Winners get complimentary 
Yes, the social media primer is almost here (November 12), and what better way to celebrate than a great social event? On November 7, there will be an exclusive invite only party at 
