Posts Tagged ‘social media’

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Marketing and PR: Can Social Media Bring them Together?

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

In a recent blog post, Beth Harte commented that social media gives us “a window into what our customers are really thinking, where they interact, how to engage with them, etc.”

The question I’ve been absorbed with this week is … who owns that window?

Social media is a tool we can use for marketing, public relations, customer service, sales, networking, conversation and a host of other functions.

For some companies, finding a common ground on strategy, tone and approach between all of these areas is simply a matter of compromise and consolidation.

In most cases though, this isn’t the case.

Survey Says …

My colleague, Kary Delaria, and I are currently working with Vocus on a white paper reviewing the results of a recent survey they administered to nearly 1,000 marketing and PR professionals on the topic of integrated communications. (We’ll be presenting the results in a free webinar next week.)

Social media was a common theme running through the survey data.

It was often cited as the impetus for companies to revisit integration strategies. But, just as equally, it was also cited as the source of some of the biggest turf battles that are preventing integration from being fully possible.

While I imagine these battles are playing out among many departments, this particular study focused on one that may be perhaps the most gnarly: the struggle for ownership between marketing and PR.

Not surprisingly, one of the key findings in this study is that social media is blurring the lines between marketing and PR.

Personally, I think this is a great thing. I love that social media can serve as a “common denominator” for both marketing and PR objectives.

But, apparently not everyone is such a fan of this idea.

Now play nice, you two.

While the big picture data in the Vocus survey was pretty straightforward, it was in the responses to the open-ended questions in the survey where some of those turf battle claws started coming out.

The big surprise to me? How much sharper they were on the PR side than the marketing side.

When it came to their views on marketing, there was an underlying tone of exasperation, frustration and even condescension in many of the PR responses. For instance,

  • “Marketing thinks everything a company does is ‘newsworthy’ when it’s not.”
  • “Whereas I believe PR people understand how marketing works, for the most part, I have found the opposite to be true.”
  • “PR is often used when marketing is unable or unwilling to support either due to resources or timelines.”
  • “Integration shouldn’t be allowed to reshape how PR functions based on others limited understanding of what it is/can do; but should allow it to enhance marketing efforts in its own way.”
  • I believe they should ultimately role up to the same executive, however you need a senior PR person to help refine messages. Otherwise you end up sending messages to the press that are too ’salesy’ or marketing.”
  • “PR and Marketing should work together, but PR should report to the top person of the organization so it is not encumbered with other corporate agendas, which might make it counterproductive.”
  • “PR does more than marketing – it should be integrated as needed with one reporting line for specific programs/projects dependent on the objective.”
  • “Companies that place their Public Relations functions under the Marketing department are missing the boat in terms of building a relationship with customers and potential customers.”

Whoa.

I mean, seriously … whoa.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of the respondents were in support of better integrating marketing and PR functions. Also, there were undeniably a few snarky marketers in the mix that had their own, “over my dead body,” spin on the topic.

However, the number and flavor of these PR responses is of note … and I think, of concern.

Social media is quickly becoming the lifeblood that runs through the veins of both of marketing and PR, whether we want it to or not.

As one respondent said, marketing and PR “Are two peas in a pod … both are an important part of any communications program.”

While two peas they may be, apparently we’ve still got some work to do before everyone is willing to jump into the same pod.

For more on this topic, register for the Vocus webinar on April 29 and receive the complete research report and analysis.


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Posted in New Media Marketing, New Media PR, Thoughts on the Industry | 1 Comment »

Developing Social Media Content: New Game. New Rules.

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

When I ask companies or clients what their content strategy is for their social media engagement, I usually hear one of three responses …

  1. What’s that?
  2. No, I don’t have one.
  3. Yes, I have one (and then they go on to describe the content strategy for their website or brand as a whole).

Each of these answers is perfectly reasonable …

  • If you use social media primarily to “talk to people,” you may not consider the words that you and others type during your conversations to be “content.” (But it is.)

  • If you believe that social exchanges are comprised of “content,” you may not think that this content could or should have some sort of strategic purpose, since that’s kind of antithetical to the very nature of the medium. (But it can.)

  • If you’re using the same content for your social media that you use for your website (which makes sense, since one may likely have been born from the other), then you may think it’s logical to treat them, strategically, the same. (But it’s not.)

Social media content is its own unique beast for one key reason: when you talk in social media, people talk back … and you can never predict what exactly it is that they’ll say.

I think this is fundamentally a “game changer,” that makes social media content worthy of a new set of rules.

It doesn’t walk like a duck. So let’s stop calling it one.

From content to analytics to optimization, as social media matures and grows, we’re learning that it often requires its own unique approaches and processes.

In the case of content, social media is comprised heavily of words, but also just as heavily of communications … the ways in which we exchange that content with other humans in real time.

The intersection of the two is uncharted terrain that is both an art to navigate as well as a science to strategize for.

In this new area, traditional Web rules don’t necessarily apply.

Pile-Magnet-PoetryIf you take your existing content strategy and apply it to the social web, it may be successful (particularly if you are using social media as a broadcast platform), but it won’t create the kind of rabid brand evangelists that are the holy grail of most marketing plans.

Broadcasting a schedule of brand messages in an engaging or entertaining way can convince someone to “fan” or “follow” your brand, but …

  • To get people to fall in love with your brand;
  • To get people do your marketing for you;
  • To get people to virally shepherd your content on your behalf;

… you need to establish a connection or build a relationship.

And that means using social media SOCIALLY.

Do you have a content strategy for that?

A new approach to “content.”

Much of what we could call “social media content strategy” is just revisiting the basics of human psychology and communications that are the seeds of most of the marketing and PR practices we employ today.

What makes us successful in our virtual engagements is the same thing that makes us successful in our face-to-face ones – having the ability to explore and improvise within the gray area that occurs between creating words and exchanging them.

Social media has just made that space a little more gray and a lot more lively.

In social media, your “content” won’t always take the shape of a collection of “on brand” phrases, but rather, will consist of the words you develop and use to:

  • Engage people in an open and interesting way.
  • Actively listen, in addition to sharing.
  • Ask compelling questions based on intelligence you’re gathering in real time (i.e. “Tell me more about the trade show you’re producing.”) rather than topics identified in advance (i.e. “Did you know that my company does X?”).
  • Present your brand as a solution for a client or customer’s identified problem, rather than a kick off for a marketing or sales qualification process.
  • Draw effective conclusions from your interaction that can lead to the next engagement, (i.e. “Are you going to X Conference? I’d love to take you out to lunch and continue this conversation there.)

As a society, we were once great at this navigating this gray area. But after decades of building layers of communication bureaucracy between marketer and consumer, we’ve become pretty rusty at just plain ole talking to each other.

It’s as if we’ve all been using the “communicating with people” script so long that all of our inherent improvisation skills have atrophied.

Get your words back into fighting shape.

I invite you to come explore this topic with me at our Kane Camp event on Thursday, April 15. We’re going to break it down and talk about how to develop a strategy for choosing the words and communication style to use for your social media engagement.

While this is still an evolving concept (I’ve never seen it covered at a conference, webinar, etc.), even if I can’t provide all the answers, I can promise that you’ll leave asking the right questions.

Hope to see you there.

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Posted in New Media Marketing, New Media PR, Thoughts on the Industry | 8 Comments »

Steal This Headline: Thoughts on Day One of SXSW

Saturday, March 13th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

Recently, I was giving a presentation and an audience member asked for my advice on what to do if someone online steals your idea.

“Think of a better one…really fast,” I answered…only half joking.

I told the audience member this: “Your ideas are your weapons and your gift is that you can make more of them. All a stealer can do is sit and wait for something new to steal.”

While maybe not the most satisfying answer, it was the only one I had at the time…and the only one I have still.

It’s a question and topic that I’ve been thinking about a lot here on the first day of SXSW.

I’ve been in a few sessions (including today’s keynote by Danah Boyd) where the topic of conversation has centered on this space where data and technology meet the best and worst in human nature.

It’s not a very pretty place.

The tangled web we weave

The stuff I share online gets stolen all the time. People steal my ideas. They steal my content. They steal my quotes.

And they do so quite easily because I have made this information public within the many social networks I use for my business.

Problems occur because the fundamental weaknesses in social media are also the fundamental weaknesses of humanity.

Although we humans love, share, support and nurture, we also (just as naturally) commit breaches of trust, invade other’s privacy, lie, discredit and yes…steal.

We’ve been doing this since the beginning of time. Now we just have shiny new tools that allow us to do it much faster and with great swarms of people to serve as our audience and oftentimes accomplice.

It’s an intersection that’s producing some interesting (and often disturbing) questions to contend with:

  • Does all this data we’re sharing make it easier to understand and relate to each other or does it just fuel a growing sense of global narcissism and competition?
  • If you need to be socially vulnerable online in order to establish the authenticity necessary to create a productive social interaction, how do you ensure that this vulnerability isn’t exploited (especially when it’s in our DNA to weed out the vulnerable in favor of the “strong?”)
  • What is the line between having your content syndicated and having it stolen? Who gets to make that determination? If it’s your stuff and you gave it to the masses, is it their right to then own it?
  • If our share-centric culture rewards those who are most transparent, what do you do when that transparency attracts people whose only gift is that they have the patience to troll for others’ ideas and the ability to delude themselves that it’s acceptable to pass them off as their own?

These are some of the issues that marketers are struggling to contend with, measure, monetize and control.

Perhaps tomorrow’s session will bring some new answers. But I suspect we’ll continue to toss around these meaty, ambiguous questions.

I look forward to sharing what I learn, either way…even if that means someone out there is just going to steal it.

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Posted in Thoughts on the Industry | 2 Comments »

I Still Want My Golden Ticket at SXSW.

Monday, March 8th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

Exactly one year ago this week, I wrote a blog post called, “I Want My Golden Ticket at SXSW.”

I was on the cusp of attending the conference for the first time, and had many glorious dreams of what the experience would hold in store for me.

As I explained in the post, as a born and bred “Charlie Bucket” (a la “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”), I had been struggling for months to find my voice in rooms full of “Veruca Salts” – people who might have had less ethics, talent or dedication than I, but still tended to get all the attention…simply because they demanded it.

So did I get my “Golden Ticket” at the 2009 SXSWi conference?

Nope.

When I got to Austin, the joint was fairly crawling with Veruca “Twitterlebrities,” basking in the glow of real-time groupie love.

Me? I wandered around in a daze, making connections with people who were often too drunk to remember my name the next day and forming deeper bonds with the people I already knew.

Oh sure, I learned a lot. (To be honest, I could sit in a closet for an hour and still come out with an insight or two.) While not bowled over by the sessions I attended, I learned from the people I observed, the conversations I participated in and the ideas I chewed on in my free time.

A new year…a new bar of chocolate.

So now it’s one year later, and I’m looking back at that blog post with some nostalgia.

I’ve spent the past year learning, training, presenting, teaching, consulting and reading, but none of that has changed my inherent Charlie Bucket-ness.

And instead of finding myself on more equal ground with the Verucas, I’ve actually been overwhelmed by new hordes of them.

In the past year, my market has been flooded with unemployed marketing and communications professionals launching new careers in social media. (My personal favorites are the ones who come to my training camps and then add “social media expert” to their LinkedIn profiles the next day.)

The marketing tool of choice for the “social media Verucas” is also the bullhorn they use to market themselves, transforming some of the social tools I love dearly into echo chambers of posturing and promotion.

In short, the social space has become crowded, brutish, competitive and often just plain nasty.

But like Charlie, I’ve chosen to stick it out, cause really…what else am I going to do?

I was in marketing and communications for more than a decade before I had social tools to work with. And I’ll be here another decade after today’s newly self-anointed “social gurus” have moved on to “the next big thing.”

Cheer up Charlie. Just be glad you’re you.

So where does this leave me as I’m packing my bags to head down this week to “Geek Mecca?”

Well, I’ve been waiting patiently for over a year for the “social media Verucas” to fall down the “bad egg” chute, but that doesn’t appear to be happening anytime soon.

So like Charlie, I plan to just keep chugging forward anyway, simply because I’m doing something that I love, I love the people I’m doing it with and I believe that life’s too short to toss away a gift like that.

Maybe I’m just naive, but I truly believe that hard work, innovation and honesty are the true “Golden Tickets” for success. I just need to keep my eye on the prize and my focus on the future…

If I can just outlast these other kids, I’m going to own this stinkin’ chocolate factory.

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Posted in Thoughts on the Industry | 2 Comments »

Do you integrate PR with your marketing strategy?

Thursday, February 18th, 2010 by Kary Delaria

“A decent PR campaign, rooted in traditional media relations, can be executed on its own. A great PR campaign will work in harmony with each of these other disciplines and guide their success.”

Read my guest post on the Minnesota Public Relations blog.

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Posted in New Media PR | Comments Off

Where are the 201 Conversations? A Social Media Call to Arms…

Friday, February 12th, 2010 by Jennifer Kane

I haven’t learned anything about social media at an event in the Twin Cities in a very long time.

Is this because I’m brilliant?

Heck no.

If anything, I have a lot to learn. And that compels me to continually seek out new educational opportunities at meetings, workshops, webinars, teleseminars and conferences, both locally and nationally.

But lately, everything I go to has had the same soundbite loop of examples, (Zappos!) ideas, (”Listening is key”) and anecdotes, (”Gary V was just a guy with some wine and a dream…”) all framed by the uber assertion that, “Social Media is AWESOME!”

And, sure enough, there is always a hungry crowd of people sitting at these events.

These are, ironically, the same people I talked to about social media more than year ago who regaled me with questions about Twitter as if it were some sort of mythical Sasquatch–like beast that I had stumbled upon in the woods.

In time, these people got the message that social media was here to stay, so they started using these tools, too. And now they too want to get together and talk about how it works, why it works and how to use it for their business.

Don’t get me wrong … I think that’s a great thing. There should continue to be events for these people to go to. (In fact, I’ve created some of these events myself, where, I too, am guilty of using the soundbites mentioned above.)

My problem is that personally, I’m not interested in those questions or events anymore.

I’ve been working with social media intensively, extensively and exclusively for nearly two years.

I’m ready for some new dialogue.

I want to talk about questions like …

  • How do we create metrics that can adequately measure the nuisances in the qualitative and quantitative data gained from measuring social media conversations? (Because, yes, we can measure this stuff. Yes, there is a science to this. And yes, there are whole conferences being devoted to this topic.)
  • How do we navigate the ethics of social media when qualities like, “authenticity” and “transparency” open the door to a host of landmine issues like, “Who determines what data is private?” “Where should the disclosure line be drawn between being someone’s fan and being their marketer?” “How do you maintain authenticity while at the same time being highly strategic about your engagement?”
  • How to we develop and manage a content strategy for social media when the message is not being used for the traditional two-way exchange of sender and receiver, but rather is a living dialogue that ping-pongs between senders and receiver (and each receivers’ receivers) ad infinitum?
  • As more and more learning and interaction happens virtually, what will the new role be for real-time events and interactions? How can we respond to the needs of online communities for face-to-face connection? How do we capture the “a ha!” moments that occur offline and relay them back to the online network?
  • How do we build and integrate social media into a larger marketing and PR strategy so that it serves as an invaluable new tool in a company’s arsenal (with its own strengths and weaknesses) rather than a “bell and whistle” to tack onto an already overextended business workload?

Where are these types of conversations happening?

Locally? Yes. These questions pop up at most every coffee meeting I have. People are creating word-of-mouth support networks, but that’s generally where the “education” ends. Most events are still being built to simply help professionals sell social media to their clients and companies (and that’s a fine goal). But this means that, for now at least, they are trapped in Social Media 101 mode.

At national conferences? Maybe some, but not at the ones I’ve been to lately. Those have been the lands where the giant corporate case study reigns supreme, even when they are entirely devoid of nimbleness and innovation. (Note to conference planners: the hottest ideas in social media are NOT coming out of giant corporations.)

Online? Always. I am currently attending Twitter U to get my Social Media MBA. The ideas are coming in a steady stream from networks and blogs, (thank you Mack Collier, Brian Solis, et al), but the answers many of us seek will still ultimately be found through application and interpretation. For those, we need community and clients – areas where offline interaction can still hold the most impact.

Not sure what the solution is to this problem. But I know it’s not one I can solve on my own.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know I do have good questions, so I’ve pitched myself to speak on these topics both locally and nationally, but have had little success.

I’d build my own events to tackle these ideas but, since I’d be trying to pull in an audience of my peers, I think it’d be an exercise in futility (especially if I had to charge money for the events to cover my costs). As Chris Brogan so aptly put it last week, the Twin Cities is still pretty siloed when it comes to forming tribes to support each other in the social media community. That’s a damn shame.

So this morning, I watched the Twitter stream as the social media faithful here in town gathered for yet another event. They likely tackled social media again, twisting the topic like some programmatic Rubik’s Cube to examine and discuss from some new angle.

Ultimately, I’m not sorry I stayed home.

I have work to do and clients to help. Not sure anything they would have found would have helped me with either.

As usual, for now, it looks like I’m on my own.

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Posted in Events Industry, Thoughts on the Industry | 4 Comments »

The Top Five Essentials for a Successful Company Twitterfeed.

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 by Jennifer Kane

It’s started.

Companies everywhere seem to have received the “We gotta be on Twitter!” memo and are swarming to the application to fire up a feed.

But does anyone care?

Since I’m a “heavy tweeter” and follow a lot of people, I seem to be on the radar of many of these corporate feeds.

The number of corporate followers I get seems to double each week. While the amount of time I have to vet each follower is growing smaller.

As result, I’ve developed a Twitter litmus test to help me decide which companies I should follow back.

Corporate marketers? Take note:

1. Is Your Company’s Twitter Profile Complete?

Your Twitter profile is your company’s online business card. Make it an effective one.

  • Include a picture. It’s O.K. if that picture is your company’s logo. Just make sure it’s a version of the logo that looks good on multiple color backgrounds. I view my Twitter stream in Tweetdeck against a black background. If you use a gray logo with a transparent background as your avatar, I will literally never see your tweets going by.
  • Tell us where you’re located. I make it a point to follow local companies. Leave off your locale and you could be missing the opportunity to transfer the Twitter conversation to a face-to-face forum.
  • Write a keyword-rich, informative company description. Don’t waste this valuable (and searchable) real estate with dippy slogans like, “We work hard, but have fun too!” or obtuse mission statements like,  “Creating authentic experiences for consumers.” I want to know, in a glance, what you do and if it’s relevant to my business.
  • Include a URL. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a link to your corporate website. But it does have to be a link to a location that will provide me with more detailed information on what it is that your company does.

2. Does Your Twitter Profile Show Your Company Having Conversations with Actual People?

When I’m vetting a company, the Twitter profile page is an invaluable research tool.

  • Do you have hundreds of followers, but follow none of your clients or customers back? (My first impression? You don’t seem like a very nice person to do business with.)
  • Do you follow a ton of people, but have no followers in return? (My first impression? You probably post some pretty boring tweets.)
  • Is your feed full of posts, but includes no @ replies? (My first impression? You like to talk…just not to us.)
  • Is your feed full of @ replies, but no posts? (My first impression? You don’t have much to say, so you use gratuitous, “Me too!” and “LOL” comments to make your company appear “engaged.”)
  • Is your feed full of retweets? (My first impression? You have nothing original to say, so you repeat others’ tweets so you can appear relevant in the space.)

3. Is There a Sense of Human Voice in Your Twitterfeed’s Content?

Nearly all the companies that I see jumping on the Twitter bandwagon are under the mistaken impression that it’s the world’s cheapest and fastest broadcast medium.

Couldn’t be further from the truth, my friends.

If I want to know all about your company’s news and hear how awesome you are, I will go look at your website. If I want to engage with you and learn more about why your business may be relevant to mine, I will go to Twitter.

You need to have something interesting to share with me when I arrive.

You wouldn’t just walk around a cocktail party distributing promotional flyers and call that effective networking. Treat your twitterfeed the same way.

Ask questions. Be helpful. Throw your two cents into conversations. And most importantly, give me a sense that there’s a person behind the Twitter curtain.

I don’t care if that person works in marketing, PR, or the C-suite. I just need to know that they are a human.

4. Does Your Company Use Twitter to “Sell” or to “Brand?”

What is your social media content strategy? If you don’t have one, don’t be surprised if you don’t see a big return on your Twitter investment.

Write your tweets so they sound like the sponsorship messages you hear on public radio, not the ads you hear on a Clear Channel station.

Go ahead and mention your company. Share with us what you do and how you feel about the work, (Feelings? In business communications? Why yes!) and ask people questions about their businesses in return.

Structure your content so that the process of sharing and “telling” your story also serves as the “selling” of your company.

5. Does Your Company Respond to Followers and Follow Backs in a Genuine Manner?

I met a really great business contact recently and had some lovely face-to-face discussions with him. Shortly thereafter, I looked him up on Twitter and started following his company (he manages their feed).

In response to my follow, I received an auto-generated direct message with a generic “thanks for the follow” and an offer for me to download “an exclusive whitepaper which could help me double my follower count overnight!”

Needless to say, this person is no longer one of my business contacts.

If I meet you, and you know my name, but you treat me like an anonymous cog when you reach out to me through social media channels, I will treat your business like an anonymous cog in return.

Treat your clients and customers like you’ve had a dirty one-night stand with them, and you’ll see a whole other side of Twitter’s power – a side that has the ability to break your company’s reputation just as easily as make it.

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Posted in New Media Marketing | 5 Comments »

I AM NOT FAMOUS. (AND YOU’RE PROBABLY NOT EITHER)

Monday, August 24th, 2009 by Jennifer Kane

Recently a woman approached me at an event and we had a long chat.

She asked me some questions about a project I was working on. She relayed a story in which she and a group of her friends were all laughing about something I had said on Twitter. She filled me in on how her job search was going. Then she gave me a hug and left.

It was an interesting encounter – mostly because I had never met this woman before.

So how did we end up having a 15-minute heart to heart?

Well first, I made a decision a year or so ago to conduct my professional life in a bubble and I extended an open invitation for anyone to pop by and watch or eavesdrop.

Somewhere along the line, this particular woman took me up on my offer. And something I said or did vetted me and indicated to this woman that I was someone she should definitely meet.

A NEW WAY OF NETWORKING

Networking hasn’t always been this easy for me. In fact, when I started my business nearly 10 years ago, I had to work damn hard to make contacts and build relationships of any sort.

Then social media came along and the whole playing field changed.

Now I’m…

  • More recognized. Pictures of me, attached to things I have said, are floating all around the Internet. I happen to talk quite a lot, so this means that the reach and spread of this information is large.
  • More social. People who meet me already have an ambient awareness of what I do, whom I know and what I’m passionate about. That means I spend less time mired in small talk and more time engaged meaty conversations.
  • More connected. I invest a lot of energy in communicating with others online. As a result my network has slowly but surely continued to grow and evolve.

But you know what social media had not made me?

Famous.

“FAME” AND “RECOGNITION” ARE MERELY DISTANT COUSINS

There is a great chasm that exists between “famous” and “less invisible,” and I am not so naïve as to believe that social media has given me the tools to suddenly bridge it.

Just because someone…

  • knows who I’m talking to and what I’m working on,
  • has conversations about me with other people whom I also don’t know,
  • asks to become my “friend” or to “follow” my adventures,
  • becomes a “fan” of my work or indicates that they “like” my witty quip,

…does not make me famous.

It just makes me an effective participant in the social media space.

I talk a lot, so more people are hearing me.

I reach out, so more people are encountering me.

I share what I’m thinking, so more people are feeling like they know me.

That’s not an indication fame, just strategy and implementation working in calculated harmony.

MASTER OF THE MICROCOSM

Yes, it’s flattering to have complete strangers suddenly know who I am. However…

  • The guy scanning my stuff at Target? He’ll never read my blog.
  • The woman who cleaned my teeth? She’s not on Twitter.
  • My mother-in-law? She STILL doesn’t understand what the hell it is that I do.

This social media world is not really “the world.” It’s just a microcosm of people who are continually opting in and out of the “Jen Kane Diaries.”

So no, I’m not famous. And the cold hard reality is that most “social media celebrities” aren’t really either. (And yes, this post is for you, folks.)

What I am is prolific and transparent.

And, as we’ve learned from reality TV, if you go out of your way to make a flurry of public statements that are remotely salacious, scandalous, riotous or snarky, you will get noticed.

That doesn’t make you the next Dorothy Parker.

It just makes you slightly less boring than most other people.

And for now, “slightly less boring” suits me just fine.

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Posted in Thoughts on the Industry | 3 Comments »

The Social Media Secrets That No One Wants to Tell You

Friday, July 24th, 2009 by Jennifer Kane

Every time I hand someone a strategic plan I get a little sad.

Not because the project is over (I’m usually pretty happy about that.)

Mostly it’s because – if I’ve done my job right – at that moment I’m staring face-to-face with a client who has a little spark in their eyes that seems to be saying, “Awesome. Now we are done.”

Then, like a oncologist looking at a suspicious mass on a CT scan, I have to be the bad guy and say to them, “Know what? Actually the hard part has just begun.”

This is particularly confusing when the client and I are talking about strategies for social media.

This stuff just looks so darn easy. They figure that once I give them a roadmap, some pretty apps and some technical partners to support them, they’re all set up for “strategic success.”

But what I CAN’T give them (and what they’ll need most to succeed), is the “social” part. That part they have to do themselves.

And that’s going to take some work.

There…I said it…successful marketing using social media takes work: dedicated, frequent, thoughtful and innovative work done by someone with some sort of interest and investment in your social circle and your brand.

(so, no…it’s not a good idea to outsource this stuff to a “Twitter intern.”)

Writing this blog post took some work. Sending a tweet out later to share with my network that it’s posted will take some work. Finding the time to read and respond to comments that are posted in reply will take some work.

And it’s going to cost some money.

(Man, I’m just full of fun news today, aren’t I?)

Because while I’m blogging and tweeting and replying, I’m using my billable time. I’m making a choice to invest my time in people and relationships and that may produce a (possibly career-transforming) return on investment down the road…or, just as easily, they may not.

So why bother?

First, It’s about the most fun work you can snag these days.

If you are using social media as a marketing or public relations tool – and you are using it effectively – you won’t feel like a human press release feed, “socially” distributing lame marketing spam to the masses. Instead your job will be to have relationships – share stories, listen to concerns, offer advice, (and yes, from time to time, share your salesy news.)

If you make the process a habit, build a network based on authenticity and genuine interest in others and treat each social contact as the prime client engagement vehicle that it should be, you actually might have a delightful time.

Secondly, the stuff you put work into will last longer and ultimately have more value.

Look at weight loss. There are a million books, plans, tools and services out there that are essentially designed to avoid smacking you over the head with the cold hard reality of the matter: if you want to lose weight, you need to eat less and move more.

No one really wants to hear that.

But the ones who do, and who accept it, are the ones who lose the weight and KEEP it off.

Same holds true for this “micro marketing” approach. Do the work, do it well and avoid being an ass while you’re doing it, and it will work.

Even better, it will deliver benefits to your doorstep that you could have never planned for.

And that, my friends, is the thing that puts a spark into my eyes.

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Listening – the first key to unlocking the potential of social media.

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009 by Kary Delaria

In my last post, I asserted that traditional press reports have no place in social media – online public relations campaigns simply can’t be measured the same way.

In Jason Baer’s (@Jaybaer) May 21 Twitter interview with Radian6’s Amber Naslund (@AmberCadabra), he asked, What do you see as the PR/ad/digital agency’s role in listening and social media?

To which Amber replied, “Translating intelligence into strategy and action. Being a guidepost and putting execution in the hands of the company.”

Beautifully put, Amber. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The value in reporting on social media monitoring lies in how we as PR professionals steer our clients to appropriate action.

Whether clients are active in the social media space or not, we first advise them that at the very least, they need to start listening to the conversations happening about them, their brand, their competitors and their industry.

These conversations are taking place on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, nings and more.

First, figure out what you need to listen for, and start monitoring.

• Establish keywords. Other than your company name, what do you want to listen for? People talking about industry trends? About your competitor? Establish a lean set of keywords that will offer glimpses into relevant conversations that can shape future communications strategy.

• Find your audience. Pay attention to where your key demographic is. If your primary audience is business women over the age of 40, you probably don’t need to spend a lot of time listening to the conversations happening on My Space.

• Observe search engine ranking. Think of SEO is the new “earned” PR placement. Pay attention not only to the rank of your company name, but to how the name ranks with key search terms.

• Consider opinion polling. Recently, I heard someone say they were working to establish a budget to poll a target audience. Gasp! Welcome to social media, where seeking the opinion of your audience is free, as long as you listen.

After monitoring the social media space, (and, making constant adjustments as needed) it’s time to start doing what Amber referred to as, “translating the intelligence.”

What can we glean from this information, and how can it be used to guide communications strategy?

• What is the tone of the conversation? (positive, negative, neutral?)
• Who is having the conversation? And, who is listening to them?
• On what social networks are these conversations taking place?
• How often do these conversations occur?

From this information, PR professionals can help clients to:

• Set benchmarks and establish goals.
• Determine and shape existing key messages.
• Make observations regarding timed release of information to coincide with when the conversations are taking place.
• Guide decisions on when and where to enter the conversation.
• Identify key influencers of your target audience.
• Recruit brand “evangelists.”
• Manage online reputation.
• Improve search engine ranking.
• Set benchmarks, goals and measure results.

So, are you ready to start listening?

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