Does your company have core values? A mission statement?If so it likely has a corporate ethos, a statement of ethics and integrity that the company believes in. Hopefully, the statement isn’t  propaganda, instead reflecting the living culture of the entity. If it’s real, your company may already have an advantage.Companies struggle with personality and tone when going out to communicate in social worlds. At the heart of the issue is getting away from propaganda and spin, and embracing the necessary authenticity of social communications. But you don’t have to look far. Consider Nuts About Southwest (recent flack on flight groundings aside). One of the things during our interview for Now Is Gone that became apparent was the blog’s tone exuded the corporate culture.  Not only the fun, but the way the company reacted to comments and other issues.When a company or social media effort exudes an ethos it attracts that same type of person back. In theory, cultures are developed around customer bases or a defining principle that caused the birth of the entity. So by communicating that clearly, a company attracts the type of potential customers and followers it wants. This can swing both ways, too (image by soldiersmediacenter).Consider the recent popularity of 1938 Media’s videos at Shel Israel’s expense (note: Shel is a friend).  This hard hitting “humor” has in many people’s minds crossed the line into personal attacks. At the same time, 1938’s generating business from this. But what kind of business is it?  If it is dollars you want, dollars you get.  But perhaps a deeper evaluation of the larger brand impact is needed. Gossip attracts gossipers… What does attack-style mockery do? Is this really a long-term play for Loren Feldman?It’s important to note that in both of these cases the actual actions determined the entity’s ethos. You can’t just say you have a certain set of values. Actions in social media unintentionally reveal ethos and values.Social media is really no different than real life. It’s just a different scene with a new ambience. But corporate actions demonstrate true values. So when you consider what you want to do in social media, think about who you are first.

Last night, my speech communications students watched the 2006 TED presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, Do Schools Kill Creativity? Robinson’s thesis is kids will take a chance. They are not afraid of being wrong. We educate the creativity out of our young generation; educating from the waist up to their heads and slightly on one side. This suppressive behavior is similar to how many companies treat employees. Their bodies are nothing but transport for their heads from meeting to meeting. Many of us have been educated out of our creative capacities.

For any social media strategy to be be successful, you must find the spark to ignite successful social media strategies. This spark comes from passionate people. Their creativity and openness is not hampered by fear of risk. Too often in the planning stages of a social media strategy, the passion is not considered a priority nor creativity of content necessary. The social media strategy emulates a cut and dry business plan devoid of life. It is important companies establish the rules of the sandbox before executing social media strategies, but we need to embrace diverse, interactive and distinct creativity to flourish in our objectives.

Robinson likens the creative void to the stripping of our minds like the stripping of earth’s precious resources. "If you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never comet up with something original." Are you prepared to be wrong?

“Video is the wave of the future for business! We’ve got to get some viral videos up and running! Customers love video!”

Simmer down. Now that it’s out of your system, lets look at what it takes to incorporate video into your overall communications strategy.

I worked in television for 16 years — a dozen of that on-air as a reporter. Being a “teevee reporter” isn’t rocket science, but it’s not as easy as you might think. However, there are a number of influences out there that might make you think the leap to video is a piece of cake:

• The equipment is cheaper
• The distribution channels are cheaper than free
• The editing can be done on a home PC
• The quality bar has been lowered by streaming video standards

All of that points to a no-brainer, but video can easily blow up in your face if you don’t know what you’re doing. And believe me, you don’t have to know anything about the subject matter to know when someone is making horrible television.

“American kids know television the way French kids know wine.”

- Lorne Michaels, Producer

Any idiot can grab a camera and shoot some video, even attempt to narrate it. The real skill is the weaving of those words and pictures in ways that simultaneously reinforce each other and amplify the communication. You can pack a lot of impact in a little piece of video if you know what you’re doing. It’s a language — one you have to study for a long time before you understand the nuances. Or, you can hire someone to tell your story for you.

Before you get to that point, and succumb to the You-Need-Videos Siren, please run down the following checklist:

1. Do you know precisely what you want to communicate with a video? (If you’re lucky, the viewer leaves remembering one thing. Just one. Try to say too many things and you say nothing at all.)
2. How are you going to use the video? (If you’re only going to the web, a lower-budget format might be acceptable. If you have designs on using it for something else, the quality will bite you.)
3. Who is doing your editing? (Great video and great content can be rendered useless in the hands of a ham-fisted editor.)
4. Is the tone of the video right for your intended message?
5. Will anyone care? (If you don’t know why anyone will care, then you don’t have a message worth delivering.)
6. How does this fit in the overall communications plan? (Will the video enhance other efforts already underway? Or will it overshadow/undermine?)
7. Do you have a sufficient budget to hire the right people, or get the right training?

If there are any red flags, then just say no. Bad video can kill off any good momentum in your other online pursuits.

(Ike Pigott is an Emmy Award-winning writer, who regularly posts at Occam’s RazR)

Rohit Bhargava’s excellent book, “*Personality Not Included,” was just released. At Blogger Social this week, Rohit took some time to do a video interview with me on his new book (photo by the amazing Jason Falls). It has several key themes that are of interest to Now Is Gone readers:

• Personality infused in marketing
• Social media integrated as part of a larger marketing mix
• Challenges businesses face with personality

Here’s what Rohit had to say about it.

If you read Now Is Gone, you are probably trying to figure out social media for you company. I’d like to do three virtual activities in May to help you. One idea is a webinar on participation or content creation.

But what would make sense for you? A BlogTalkRadioathon? An online chat? Let me know. We’ll make it happen.

Would you sit next to your brand at a dinner party? No, not your personal brand…your company. Was your brand on time for your dinner date? Does your brand have good table manners? Perhaps your dinner party date talked the entire night and didn’t let you speak a word. Would you go out on a second date? Ponder these questions and many others asked in the latest Brandjunkie Survey.

According to survey results, people chose Apple to be their ideal brand dinner party companion.

Apparently, for brandjunkies, the most desirable characteristics in a dining partner are sex appeal, intelligence, sense of humor, celebrity status, and of course taste—both on a literal and figurative level. Picture Steve Jobs wearing Victoria’s Secret but smelling like Chanel while drinking a Coke on Comedy Central (all mentioned as responses).

Brandjunkies are also, well, economical—but at least honestly so. Many chose to bring brands that would pay the bill, from American Express to Oprah. Our readers also seem to enjoy plenty of booze with their dinner, as these brands made the guest list: Absolut, Bacardi, Black Label, Budweiser, Ciroc Vodka, Dom Perignon, Guinness, Heineken, Jack Daniel’s, Johnnie Walker, Kaapzight Wine, Laurent-Perrier, Moët, Mont Blanc, Smirnoff, and Tanqueray. Cheers!

On the surface, such questions may appear ridiculous, but not when you consider your brand equity is dependent on being an integral part of your customer’s social lives. No surprise that Apple took the cake as being one of the most desirable and sociable brands overall.

Consider energizing questions on your next survey. Too often the questions asked are corporate speak and do not explore the link between human behavior and your brand. Instead of basing your SWOT analysis on stale pain-points, consider answering the BRandjunkie questions of your brand and analyze. Shift the context of how you view your brand equity.

In, Who Is Talking About Your Brand, Jay Deragon summarizes the shift of branding into the social mediasphere, "Brands have two choices: deny the process, or engage in it. Now consider how much social networking and related emerging technology has created the phenomena in which the masses are becoming connected with influence. Your brand is largely influenced by what customers testify as to its quality, responsiveness and ability to identify personally with the customer, people."

As an aside, I found the answer to this survey question the most revealing of customer perception, What brand do you think is truly (going) "green"? Answer: NOBODY. Ouch. Doesn’t Al Gore have $300M invested in a global warming ad campaign?

The title says it all.

Maybe a blog isn’t right for your company.  Maybe you don’t have anyone in-house who can step up and be the voice for the firm, the agent of engagement.  But you do need a blog policy, pronto.

Cisco is now in hot water because one of its employees was running an anonymous blog tracking so-called “patent trolls.” When a site is official and transparent, there is no confusion about loyalties or the source of information.  When employees are engaging in underground behavior, their actions can be tied back to you down the road.  That applies to sites they run, administer, or even participate in commenting.

Sun, Yahoo, IBM, and many other companies have publicly available policies.  There are many other resources available to help you craft one.

You may never have a corporate blog.  But you have employees who do, and they comment on things that interest them.  A clear policy can be the firewall that keeps your corporate interests out of the flames.

(Ike Pigott regularly writes at Occam’s RazR)

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!

Often, social media is referred to as “the conversation.” But on tomorrow’s Buzz Bin post, I argue that in actuality for companies conversation is not the end result. Instead it’s just a process to create engagement with stakeholders. Engagement creates strong relationships, in turn yielding measurable results for companies in social worlds (see K.D. Paine for more on this).

In my opinion there are four ways to create engagement with stakeholders using social media tools.

1) Co-creation: The customization of socially enabled product platforms by customers which creates engagement. Customers are excited because they get to build a unique and better business product that suits their needs. Examples: Google front page, Mini Coopers (image is Bobasonic’s custom Cooper), Build a Bear, etc. This can extend to the brick and mortar world, too. Think Harley Davidsons and the vast amount of customization these bikes enjoy. The key is to create a platform that customers and other stakeholders can play with…

2) Collaboration: Think Wikis (and other collaborative tools like text, chat and emai). These are designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals.Wikipedia is the classic example, but other forms include implementations at Adobe Systems, Intel, Microsoft and the FBI. WIkis are really hot for internal corporate environments, and make for a great tools to engage internal stakeholders in larger discussions about business.

3) Conversation: The most talked about form of engagement (pun intended), this embodies blogging and true social networking. Conversations from a corporate standpoint in these realms include corporate blogging, applications for social networks, community forums, even social advertising. Participation in the conversation works better in these environments rather than the tired old one-way approach to communications. Many think the term conversation has become a cliche, or overused, but smart people know that conversation is simply a two-way dialogue.

4) Crowdsourcing: This is a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call. Social technologies are great for catalyzing these types of environments, particularly for product development. Nokia’s Mosh, Dell’s Idea Storm, and MyStarbucks are the most visible corporate examples I have seen. Here’s another example featuring Livebooks. Also, Rohit had an interesting version of crowdsourcing interviews to launch his book.

So, go forth and engage!

A long overdue round up of recent reviews.  Here are snippets from the  five that have surfaced over the past month: 

MarketMe.com’s Brandi Cummings (February 28, 2008) said, “As I said, most of my reading lately has been about new media so I was not entirely optimistic that Now Is Gone was going to impart knowledge that I had not already gained elsewhere. I was wrong to feel that way. “

Web 2.0 Developer (March 20, 2008): “Perhaps there’s an additional audience for this book that wasn’t originally intended; web-heads who want to learn about PR.”

Engage in PR’s Kyle Flaherty (March 20, 2008) adds, “The book not only takes the reader through the detailed steps of what new media entails and what to be prepared for, but Geoff describes how to properly establish a blogging strategy, interact with social networks and even pitching new media outlets.”

The Corporate Communication Blog’s Chris Turner (March 25, 2008): “But here’s the challenge, while there are brilliant minds like Solis and Livingston (and others in my blog role) leading the charge for change, entrenched traditional cultures don’t change that quickly, even if they wanted to. Some organizations show rays of hope, but the majority - especially in larger organizations - maintain the status quo, showing no signs of changing to embrace social media, and probably more accurately not even knowing it exists.”

Allan Cox, author of Your Inner CEO (March 25, 2008) said, “The book is a quick read, yet it carefully explains a great deal of information from a pro who knows how to build successful PR 2.0 marketing campaigns. Don’t read this book alone. Read it with your colleagues and discuss it together.”

Thanks to everyone who reviewed the book, including our new Amazon reviews, too.