2000 – “Check out our awesome website!”

Strategy in three bullets:

- Treating stakeholders as one group
- Push the “web-savvy” ones to your website
- Have a “really cool” site all about you

2005 – “Check out our really awesome website!”

Strategy in three bullets:

- Treat stakeholders as one group
- Push and pull them all (everyone is web-savvy now, no?) to your website
- Have a “really, really cool” site mostly about you and a little about them

2010 – “How can I help you?”

Strategy in three bullets:

- Treat stakeholders as individuals
- People (not your website) become the focal point of your online engagement efforts
- Reach a lot of people one-at-a-time by being where they are, giving them what they want, how and when they want it

Soooo…what’s next? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

A new report from Nielsen reveals Americans are spending more and more time on social networks. I guess that’s not surprising. But would you believe social networking now accounts for more than twice the amount of time spent online compared to any other activity? According to the report, social networking represents 22.7 percent of the time Americans spend online (from computers, as opposed to mobile devices)– that’s a 43 percent surge from last year. Online gaming (10.2 percent) and email (8.3 percent) fall in second and third place. You can check out some extended findings and useful comparisons, tables and graphs on Nielsen’s blog.

Perhaps it’s fitting I first learned about this newly released research during one of my handful of social media perusals throughout the day. Case and point? Well, maybe not. I don’t track my time online to the minute, but I honestly don’t think the time I spend on social media surpasses the time I spend on email. Not yet at least. I do, however, find myself spending more and more time on Facebook and Twitter, both for personal and professional reasons. For example, I often find Twitter to be the most useful tool for keeping up to speed on what my top media targets are writing about and to interact with them in a casual, non-intrusive way.

Taking into consideration Nielsen’s findings (and that I sometimes notice the reported trends in my own behavior), what does the uptick in online time spent on social media sites mean for our clients? Is it realistic to think PR professionals should be connecting with reporters more often on Twitter? Should we be making sure your clients’ messages are heard loud and clear on Facebook? Or maybe we should make like Old Spice and better utilize online video as a PR tool. After all, as Big Mouth Media pointed out, U.S. Internet users streamed an average of 3.25 hours of online content in June. What do you think?

Numbers and statistics, of course, can sometimes be interpreted in different ways and should not be solely relied on. Rather, PR professionals can use research findings, like this recent set from Nielsen, to help make well-informed, guided decisions when it comes to our own use of social media and steering our clients in the social media direction that makes the most sense for their businesses.

Last month, my colleague Melissa blogged about whether or not social media is a valid investment for brands. Melissa made a key point in her entry: at the end of the day, it’s between you and your client whether Facebook and Twitter are the right move for their brands.

Since then, new research was released that may make the argument to use (or not to use) Twitter a little easier for brands.

A recent study about moms using Twitter revealed that not only do the majority of moms use Twitter to find out about new products and keep up with businesses they like, but they’re also interested in getting links to news and articles on topics that matter to them.

The most important factor for moms to follow a business on Twitter is because the business provides useful information. The study found that other important factors include:

• A desire to find out about the company’s products or services (67%)
• To get good deals (60%).
• To follow businesses on Twitter because they’re already customers. (67%)
• To follow up on a retweet (41%)
• Famous person doing the tweeting for a business carries little clout with moms (6%).

Does this make the argument to join Twitter any easier? Is your business or brand on Twitter?

Amber Naslund, the director of community at Radian 6, posted a story over at Marketing Sherpa last week called “Measuring Social Media’s Contribution to the Bottom Line: 5 Tactics”. (This story is useful, as is most of Amber’s stuff, so if you’re not already following her, you should be.) Measurement is something we talk about a lot around these parts – amongst ourselves, with our clients and with industry peers. It’s a historically tough nut to crack for PR pros and social media has made the formula even more complex. Watch this space for more on the measurement topic from me in the coming weeks.

Today, though, I’m taking a step further back from measuring social media to look at the decision of when is it (actually, “are they” is more accurate I suppose) an appropriate path for an organization to explore. My initial thoughts are summed up in my comment to Amber’s story, which you can check out below. (Another topic you’ll hear me start to bang on about is efficiency, so I’m taking the opportunity to avoid wheel reinvention by re-purposing my own words here!)

Very good stuff, indeed, Amber. One thing I’d add (realizing you weren’t trying to do everything in one article!) is that organizations need to take a hard look at whether they are the type of business that should be embracing social media from a cultural / philosophic standpoint.

For example, is Virgin considered a customer-centric business that drives loyalty b/c of how well they do social media? Or is it that customer-centricity is at the core of the Virgin business, so they naturally do social media well (further benefiting both their customers and the business)?

A related element to this is understanding and accepting what social media is good for (and, hence, really should be measured against). Your mileage will vary depending on whether you are all about customer acquisition or if you place an emphasis on lifetime customer value.

Probably seems self-evident / blindingly obvious, but too many companies rush into the “let’s use to social media to drive sales” mindset without first taking a look at whether what social media requires and delivers fits with their core business philosophy and strategy.

What do you think? Is social media right for every company? What should the criteria be?

We’ve all gone through the pros and cons of whether a client should start a Facebook page, but thanks to a recent survey by social media measurement firm Syncapse, that pro/con list might become a bit clearer.

The survey resulted in some interesting stats – like the average fan is worth about $136.38 – that show social media engagement can be linked revenue generation:

• On average, fans spend an extra $71.84 they would not otherwise spend on products they describe themselves as fans of, compared to those who are not fans.
• Fans are 28 percent more likely than non-fans to continue using a specific brand.
• Fans are 41 percent more likely than non-fans to recommend a product they are a fan of to their friends.
• An average fan may participate with a brand ten times a year and will make one recommendation. But an active fan may participate thirty times and make ten recommendations.

Similarly, social media guru Brian Solis also reported yesterday that social media engagement does indeed have its rewards, quantifying word of mouth leads Facebook and Twitter can generate for brands:

At the end of the day, it’s between you and your client whether Facebook and Twitter are the right move for their brands. But surveys like these showing the potential return on investment make it hard to hold out for much longer.

Peter Shankman makes all the right moves.

The guy is brilliant and, if you’re in PR, you can’t help but know that he has a cat named Karma and, when he’s not jumping from an insane altitude, he’s training for an Ironman. Oh, and he’s the founder and CEO of a PR/journalism game-changing company called Help a Reporter Out (HARO).

HARO was founded on Facebook in 2008 and has since grown to be THE social media services company that connects writers and sources. In my opinion, two things make HARO particularly unique: It’s a free service for all involved and it’s a no-BS community where PR pros are held accountable for the pitches they send. Users get booted for spammy, spray-and-pray pitches and, as a result, HARO is somewhat of a safe haven for members of the media.

The lucrative HARO “sponsorship” program that Shankman created is also noteworthy. He places advertisements at the start of each email, which are chock-full of media queries, and the open rates are said (by HARO) to be about 75 percent.

In fact, this business model is so remarkable that, just last week, Shankman announced that his little enterprise had been scooped up by Vocus, a company that provides on-demand software for public relations management and manages the press release distribution service called PRWeb.

We join the industry in congratulating Peter Shankman on this significant accomplishment. According to a Mashable story, he will continue to build the HARO brand with the help of the folks at Vocus and, more importantly, the service will remain free. We look forward to seeing what the future holds for HARO – and continuing to use this fantastic service to supplement our daily PR activities and outreach!

Are bloggers wired differently than traditional journalists?

This week I came across new research by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism that uses hard data to quantify the differences between the news agenda of new and old media.

The Pew Research Center’s study, titled “New Media, Old Media,” collected a year’s worth of data on the top news stories linked to on blogs, discussed on Twitter, and shared on Youtube. The major finding was that each social media platform “seems to have its own personality and function.”

Among the other key findings:

·         Bloggers tended to focus more on stories that “elicited emotion, concerned individual or group rights or triggered ideological passion.” Often these were stories that people could easily share on social networks with their own personal thoughts;

·         Social media tends to focus on stories that don’t get a lot of traction in the mainstream press. Rarely does a story get picked up in social media first, then by traditional media outlets;

·         Technology is a big topic of discussion on Twitter, while politics is less so. Blogs tended to focus more on politics and foreign events, less on technology;

·         All three social media platforms (blogs, Twitter, Youtube) shared the common characteristic of not staying on one story very long.  On blogs, 53 percent of top stories remain on the list of the most discussed stories for no more than three days, while on Twitter, the same is true for 72 percent of lead stories.

What does this all mean for PR professionals? Keeping in mind the different personalities of the new and old media, and how they interrelate, is key. There is a huge disparity between what the mainstream media considers to be the most important news and what each social media platform is most interested in discussing. It bears close watching as to whether traditional media outlets will continue to adjust their news coverage to better align with the interests of each social platform.

One of the things I love about working at a PR agency is no client is ever the same. There are always new challenges, new pitches and new strategies to be deployed. Though our clients often have products to be launched and reviews to be secured, recently I’ve had the pleasure of working on an account in which our team must rely on the expertise of the company’s executives for pitch fodder. We’ve had some fun and learned some lessons along the way, especially when it comes to responding to breaking news. Recognizing the valuable opportunity breaking news presents for us to mobilize the company’s very-willing executives to comment on relevant topics, our team identified strategies that work well for both our client and reporters.

Of course, with breaking news, there’s really no time to waste and fast action from PR pros (and clients!) is essential. Here are a few additional strategies that have worked really well for our team:

Anticipate the news: Sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to read minds and forsee news. While I don’t have superhero powers, by persistently scouring news outlets and trade publications, it’s not too difficult to identify soon-to-be hot topics and upcoming announcements that are just the right fit for a clients. When you have an idea of what’s coming down the pipe, it’s so much easier to anticipate what reporters will be writing about and to pitch them valuable insights from your client or to provide them with an unexpected angle.

Develop colorful quotes from a company executive: Once you have an idea of what tomorrow’s news will be today, touch base with your client to ask him/her for some insight on the topic and to explain how consumers (or other audiences) may be affected. With your client’s help, you can develop dynamic, attention-grabbing quotes to share with your media contacts. Make sure the quotes are short, interesting and could translate effortlessly into a news story. This will help you secure an interview for your client. Alternatively, a reporter on a short deadline (we’re talking about breaking news after all!) may be able to quickly insert one or more of the pre-written quotes into an article.

Respond to reporters who already published articles on the topic: Let’s face it, we can’t always anticipate the news or connect with a reporter before he/she has published an article. It never hurts to follow up with reporters who have already covered the breaking news. Perhaps they’re working on a follow-up story or can direct you to a colleague who is developing a different angle and needs expert input.

Tune into Twitter (and other social media): When it comes to breaking news, it’s not uncommon for an outlet or reporter to post a quick news update on Twitter with a note that the full story is to come. It’s a great day indeed for PR pros when this happens, as it makes it even easier to target pitches and focus outreach efforts.

Surely there are many approaches to PR efforts surrounding breaking news (here are similar but more detailed tips); the above are just a few short and sweet ones that have worked well for us. We’d love to hear your tips, too! What’s worked well and what hasn’t? Please feel free to share.

Use of profanity is traditionally accepted as an occasional outburst reserved for situations of duress or frustration, but as recent events have demonstrated, it can also be used to ring in historic government change. By now, we all know that Vice President Biden said on-air, for millions of Americans to hear, that the new healthcare bill was a ‘big f***ing deal’. It sure is. However, as a PR professional, I find the response tactics employed by the White House and the national media disconcerting.

Putting aside all political alignment and opinions of the current administration, the fact remains that Vice President Biden and President Obama are international public figures and as such, the eyes of the world follow them and many aspire to one day achieve greatness like them. Is the use of profanity appropriate for the second-in-command of the free world? Of course it is…as long as no one catches you.

Moments after the bomb dropped, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted, ‘And yes Mr. Vice President, you’re right…’  As surprising as this bluntness and lack of embarrassment may be, Mr. Gibbs was simply following suite with what was coming down from the big man himself.

President Obama was later quoted at a press conference saying “You know what the best thing about yesterday was? Joe’s comment.”

The White House further dismissed the incident as Biden told supporters at a fundraiser in Baltimore late Wednesday that Obama was not mad at what he delicately termed his “faux pas.”

CBS News later made light of the story by stating that Biden’s F-bomb was ‘the highlight of the day.’ 

From Twitter to late night television, the Biden F-bomb is being tapped as a source of comedy. With a bit of Googling, one can even find and purchase a t-shirt with an image of Biden and the phrase in question scrolled across it. Some comedic highlights from Tuesday night include:

Jimmy Kimmel suggested that Biden get a “swear jar” after playing the video on his show Tuesday night. Jimmy Fallon: “Joe Biden got himself in a bit of trouble. Did you hear about that? Apparently it sounded like Biden said to President Obama, ‘This is a big f-ing deal.’ In response, NBC picked Biden to host the show, ‘Big F-ing Deal or No F-ing Deal.’”

Jay Leno: “In my lifetime, I’ve been fortunate to hear presidents say great things. I heard John F. Kennedy say, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.’ I remember Ronald Regan saying, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’ On this historic day, I got to hear what Joe Biden said to our president. This is real.”

So, comedy is the answer, right? Well, what was the alternative – a formal apology? In my opinion, yes, a very brief formal apology would have been appropriate and would have shown Americans and more importantly children, that this is not an acceptable way to speak. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine a child seeing someone they are taught to admire uttering this phrase and then seeing people respond by smiling and laughing about it, and then feeling comfortable repeating it. Perception is reality and I think that Biden and to a lesser extent Obama, have lost a bit of respect by shrugging this incident off. If history has taught us anything, it’s that public figures can do some pretty heinous things, but as long as they apologize, their halo will not remain tarnished for long.

It’s no secret that social media has become a business imperative for both B-to-B and B-to-C companies. Clients come to us everyday seeking counsel on social media, wondering where they need to be and how to get started.

I admit it; I wasn’t so excited when Twitter came along. I wasn’t the first one to sign up for a Facebook account. Heck, I didn’t start IMing until around 2000. So years ago when one of my colleagues stood up and said we need to know about social media…MySpace, Linked In, Second Life…I scoffed and reluctantly got up to speed, figuring I would learn what I need to know by reading, exploring but would never fully embrace it.

As an agency we push ourselves to be ahead of the curve through education and by adopting social media practices. We take pride in our expertise and for anyone who may be wondering how to gain a better understanding of social media here’s my sage advice. There’s no better way to increase your understanding of social media than to join the conversation. The beauty of it is you just need to be yourself: create your Facebook account, get tweeting, join a message board.

So have I fully embraced social media? Ten years later…I start my day by checking in with Facebook and a message board. I scan blogs both professional and personal. I have two Twitter accounts, one for my personal interests (yes, I follow Snooki and Pauly D) and one for professional interests. I maintain a professional network on LinkedIn that I literally would feel lost without. And now, I am blogging.