Many industry members are attending the NewComm Forum this April 22-25th in Sonoma County, CA. One of Now Is Gone’s primary sources Communications Overtone’s Kami Huyse has kindly asked me to join here one pre-conference workshop on the 22nd as well as main conference session on the 24th. Here’s what you can expect…

Pre-Conference Session: Tuesday, April 22 - 1:00 - 4:30 pm: Building Integrated Social Media Campaigns: How to Leverage New Media in Existing Communication Plans

Social media is often approached as a separate discipline than traditional public relations and marketing. However, while effectively engaging in social media requires a shift in strategy, it shouldn’t be considered in isolation from the strategic communications or marketing plan. This half-day seminar is designed to give participants what they need to start incorporating social media into their public relations and marketing plans today. Attendees will learn a three-step process that will allow them to include social media tactics as they research, plan, implement and measure their overall communication strategy. They will also learn how to appropriately engage online communities and create programs that are designed to find the alignment between organizational and constituent goals. Participants will:

-Learn to incorporate social media into their overall strategic communications plans
-Leave with resources to start engaging in social media immediately
-Have a clear understanding of how to measure success

This should be interesting because integrating social media into a larger marketing plan only makes sense, yet many folks still struggle with how to engage in social media correctly. We are already modifying several of our past processes to deliver something completely new for NewComm Forum pre-con attendees.

On Thursday morning, April 24 at 10 a.m Kami and I pick up the beat again for, “Building Your Brand with Conversational Media.”

Millions of people are creating content on social networks as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. In today’s world, quick and portable micro content is king. Moreover, stakeholders are demanding that companies interact with them in real time. Communicators, from the independent to agencies to corporate communications departments, are increasingly under pressure to help their clients and companies navigate this new era and remain relevant. In this seminar, learn about the online culture and how to engage with it through a logical three-step process. Hear how other companies have used social media to position themselves as thought leaders in their field. You will:

• Learn about the latest social media tools and techniques
• Take away a three-step process to begin engage right away
• Understand how micro content will help you to position your brand
• Hear about case studies that you can apply to your own business needs

Another three-step process, hmmm. Really this session will have a lot to do with WOM, and third party credibility.

Bonus Miles

I will be in the Bay Area for most of the week and am actively trying to arrange a Tweet-up in SF of some sorts on the 21st or 23rd. If anyone would like to get together during this time, please let me know! Social media always gets great when it becomes an in person thing. Heck, I may even wrangle Kami into it!

Kami Huyse kicked off the measurement session. There was a pre-post on Communication Overtones.

Money is not synonymous with measurement. Trust is a key outcome. Measurement lets you know if you are making a difference or making mistakes in the social media realm.

Kami did a video with Katie Payne of KD Paine & Associates on the six steps of measurement.

Here’s some of the discussion from individual slides…

Setting objectives: Things you can measure: Attitudes and behaviors, outputs, outtakes and outcomes. Outcomes are the best (subscriptions, viewers, etc.). Without objectives, measurement is meaningless.

Community of Stakeholders: Understand who you are talking to…

What Metrics Matter Most: Relationships, analytics and outcomes (renewals, etc.)

Measuring Analytics: Number of unique users, returning new readers, referring traffic, links from other sites, Google PageRank, Technorati Authority, time spent time on site, ratio of blog comments.

Measuring Relationships: Harder You do this by interaction: conversation index, quality of relationships, and building mutual trust. Control mutuality, trust, satisfaction, commitment, exchange relationships and communal relationships are six things to measure relationships.

Outcomes and the Dreaded ROI: Benefits, costs and risks of social media. For example, Sea World had 500,000 video downloads…

Kami referenced the media snacker meme as measured by Radian 6. The most commented on posts were:

• Now Is Gone, Geoff Livingston (27 comments, WHAT”S UP!!!!)

• Every dot Connects, Connie Reece (21 comments)
• Web strategy by Jeremiah, Jeremiah Owyang (19 comments)
• Web strategy by Jeremiah, Jeremiah Owyang about Utterz (18 comments)
• Engage in PR, Kyle Flaherty (12 comments)

Kami also gave a three-step to play in social media: 1) Listen to the conversation. 2) Contribute briefly in the conversation and make sure it’s a win-win, that the community will care. 3) Get out there and participate with your own social media initiative.

Healthcare 100 was cited as an example of an organization that contributed to the community, and developed significant in bound traffic.

I enjoy sorting things, it makes me feel more in control of the massive volume of information coming my way every day. it also helps me to explain things to others in a direct and simple manner.

In my opinion, there is nothing more in need of organization than the flood of social media tools and platforms that keep popping up.

In that spirit, last April I posted at Communication Overtones a list of seven major categories into which you could sort various social media platforms.

Geoff has decided to use this list in “Now Is Gone,” so am I republishing it here.

Social Media encompasses a broad variety of things. Better definitions can also help public relations and marketing professionals integrate social media into their public relations planning.

So, here is what I have come up with so far. Some of the examples I give cross over into other categories, but I have chosen the category in which I feel each example primarily fits. For instance, I put YouTube in “Social Networks,” but the site also allows the promotion of content and could technically fit into “Democratized Content.”

I did not try to exhaustively include examples, though I did try to showcase some of our marketing/PR resources (plus some of the more well-known platforms) to make this a useful list. Please feel free to add your own examples and categories in the comments section.

Seven Categories of Social Media

Publishing Platforms: These consist of platforms and tools that allow the author(s) to set the content of the initial offering. Most offer a way for others to comment on the content and include RSS feeds to syndicate the copy

• Examples: Blogs (Constatin Basturea’s List of PR Blogs), Podacasts (Shel Holt’s list of podcasts), and Vlogs or Video Blogs (Beet TV is one of my favorites).

Social Networking Sites: These sites allow users to interface by becoming friends and/or sharing favorites. They allow the individual user to have their own space, while also incorporating links and other connections to other users

• Examples: YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, and Facebook

Democratized Content Networks: These sites allow all users to contribute equally, usually with some sort of ability to vote for the best content, or to override, in the case of Wikis, previously submitted content.

• Examples: Digg, NewPR, Wikipedia and old-fashioned forums of all kinds

Virtual Networking Platforms: These often require third-party interfaces to participate (though some can be accessed through the browser), and consist of a virtual reality experience with other users.

• Second Life (my avatar is Kamichat Watson) and There.com

Information Aggregators: These are publicly available, machine driven aggregators of niche content, usually with some human editing (such as adding RSS feeds) involved in the process.

• Examples: Techmeme and Power 150 Kitchen Sink

Edited Social News Platforms: These are sites where users recommend links and can make comments on the stories that make it through the human editors

• Examples: Fark and Spin Thicket

Content Distribution Sites:
Sites that allow the user create, collect and/or share content and distribute by providing RSS, code and/or e-mail options. Widgets would also fall into this category.

• Examples: Scrapblog, Del.icio.us and Clearspring

tags: Social+Media, Categories, Public+Relations, Marketing, PR

Part of participating in social media is sharing. Bloggers such as Todd Defren are rightfully calling for us to share more practical and successful social media case studies.

So, last week, I dug up a few case studies I had been saving as my own best practices guide and shared them at my main blog, Communication Overtones. This included one I had written up as well.

But it didn’t seem like enough. Geoff and I came up with the idea to start a running list of social media case studies here at “Now Is Gone.” It is the perfect venue to share and share alike. So you might notice the bright, shiny “Case Studies” tab in the top right corner. And selfishly, we can take a look at some great best practices on a regular basis.

So, consider this post a “call for entries.” Write up your case study on your blog and let us know so that we can link to it, and while you are at it, turn it into a pdf and send it to Jen McClure at the New Communications Review, where you can find a growing list of case studies as well. Better yet, enter the Excellence in New Communications Awards, which are due on September 28, 2007.

In a comment to this thread on David Jones’ blog, Brendon Hodgson made a comment that really resonated with me:

I also tend to think there’s way too much punditry out there and (still) not a lot of crunchy doing (for clients, and for ourselves)…I’m feeling less inclined to read those who talk, and focus more of my time on those who ‘do’….”

So, let’s show off all of that crunchy doing!

tags: Case+Study, Case+Studies, PR, Marketing, New+Media, Social+Media