Archive for April, 2009

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Social Media Needs Shades Of Grey

09.04.30

Shades of greySocial media operates in shades of grey.

The more I think about our application of these new tools to communications and marketing, the more I realize that things aren’t black and white. Ghost blogging is grey. Online personas are grey. The rules are grey.

Why should you care? Because your approach should be no different.

Your approach to social media will probably differ from most others.

Different situations, different approaches

I just finished co-chairing the Social Media Summit Canada Conference, where I watched Aaron Wrixon deliver a presentation on the Workplace Safety and Insurance Bureau‘s (WSIB) approach to monitoring online conversations.

The WSIB, an Ontario government agency, is at the beginning of its use of social media tools. Right now it uses a variety of free tools to monitor online conversations, and is in the early days of responding to them.

The WSIB’s approach to responding to conversations is based around the U.S. Air Force’s own decision tree. However, it is a little more tentative, ignoring any posts meeting the following criteria (emphasis is mine):

  • Obviously angry posts
  • Taunting/baiting
  • “Not of sound mind”
  • Wrong/misguided posts

The last point in this list stands out to me. The WSIB won’t correct misinformation about it online. What’s more, their protocol for responding to conversations is firmly centred around protecting itself, rather than communicating with the public. Legal, IT and Security departments are also heavily involved in the response process.

Remember the context

My immediate reaction, as yours may have been was that this was a poor approach to engaging online. Frankly, the specific and deliberate decision to not respond to misinformation means that (as David Alston mentioned earlier in the day) this information can propagate and in the absence of anything to the contrary, people may simply assume it is correct.

Before you judge, though, consider the environment in which WSIB and its staff operate. Fear 2.0 is rampant – to an organization that, for years, has had the illusion of being in control of its brand, the idea that it might need to engage with individuals is scary. It’s a huge jump for organizations that put layers and layers of approvals between communications staff and the public.

Culture check

One of the first steps on the road to social media adoption is a culture check. Does your organization really want a conversation with people? Is it really ready to accept that, contrary to the rose-coloured glasses people inside might wear, people do disagree with them? Are you willing and able to respond to conversations in real time?

Many organizations simply aren’t ready to engage with people. They need to adjust the way they and their processes work to effectively engage in a timely way (comment on a blog post 48 hours later and (a) most people have already been and gone, and (b) your comment may be buried at the bottom of a long list).

In this context, WSIB has adopted an approach that fits its situation. One might advise them that, at this stage, they’re just not ready to engage with people. They may be better-off monitoring and assessing discussions, and learning within their organization while they get to a point where they can have a positive effect by reaching-out online.

The important point here, though, is that the WSIB has adopted the “rules” of social media to its organization. Its staff listen and, within the context of their environment, they act accordingly.

Is it “textbook”? No. Is it ideal? No. Is it better than ignoring the online space? Yes.

Shades of grey. It’s not just black and white.

What do you think?

Posted in: best practices, social media monitoring

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Swine Flu Showing The Best – And Worst – Of Social Media In A Crisis

09.04.29

I’ve written and presented in the past on potential uses of social media in crisis communications. In the past, it’s been about the potential uses. In the last few days, though, we’ve seen some of the best – and worst – potential uses of online tools (social and otherwise) to communicate with the public in an emergency.

While hardly scientific, here are three of the best ways you can use online tools to stay on top of the latest developments in the swine flu outbreak:

Track it in the news

Google Alerts are somewhat  of an obvious tool, but that doesn’t make them any less powerful. Set up an alert with “swine flu” to track developments in general, or an alert with “swine flu” and your town’s name to keep an eye on local stories.

Track it geographically

Plenty of online maps are available to help you get a sense of how swine flu has spread. Two of the best have been created by Henry Niman, founder of Recombinomics (hat tip to Om Malik), RSOE Emergency and Disaster Information Service (which I wrote about previously here) and Google’s HealthMap. 


View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map
 

Track it in real-time

For breaking news, there are few places better to look nowadays than Twitter. Organizations like the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (also here), the Red Cross,  the folks behind HealthMap and the World Health Organization are using Twitter to distribute their latest updates in real-time.

Track it via RSS

Many of the organizations officially dealing with the outbreak have stepped-up and provided RSS-enabled updates on their sites. Check out updates from the CDC and World Health Organization, and plug them into your RSS reader.

Be careful

Meanwhile, we’ve also seen the risks of relying on the wisdom (and hysteria) of the crowd, with an overwhelming level of conversation around swine flu and information of dubious validity being posted. Make sure you double-check anything you see before assuming it is correct.

Other ways?

What are the best examples you’ve seen of online tools being used to communicate through this outbreak?

Posted in: crisis communications, social media

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Cluetrain Plus 10: People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice

09.04.28

As part of a project to mark the tenth anniversary of the seminal social media book The Cluetrain Manifesto, Keith McArthur organized a project to have different people blog about each of the 95 theses within the manifesto.

I’m writing about thesis number five. For context, here are the four preceding these:

  1. Markets are conversations. (Christopher Locke)
  2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors. (Simon Kendrick)
  3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice. (Keith McArthur)
  4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived. (Shel Holtz, A Shel of my Former Self)

My topic:

5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice

Listen. Engage. Develop.

These three steps provide a simple way for organizations to dip their toes into social media. Of those, the first – listen – is the easiest, the most risk-free and potentially the most rewarding.

It is listening that provides the learning; that shows organizations the lay of the land; that pushes companies to adapt and that enables them to head in the right direction.

It is listening that enables companies to participate in online conversations, not as faceless, message-driven entities but as people within an organization. By listening to what people are saying and adapting communication accordingly, you become an active listener rather than a passive one. 

Why care?

Because people generally don’t want relationships with companies or organizations. They don’t want to talk to Skittles, or to Ford, or to Garmin. They want to talk to people within those companies. They want to talk to people with a face and with a personality.

Openness is a core part of a company’s social media presence. In fact, you should do a “culture check” on your organization before moving deeper into social media. If you’re planning to do anything misleading, don’t really want to hear disagreement or don’t really want to engage with your customers, then step away before you drag your organization down with an ill-advised initiative.

Company employees, when acting online, can and should remember that they represent their organization at all times. However, there’s a balance to be struck between rigid on-message formality (no-one wants to be messaged) and off-target communication that, at its worst, can damage companies’ reputations.

Most people don’t:

  • Constantly try to sell you thing
  • Talk in bureaucratese
  • Treat other people as a statistic

If you approach these tools through active listening and engaging in a way that puts a personality and perhaps a face on the organization, expect an evolution in the way people respond to you as people identify with those on your side of the fence.

People recognize other people by the sound of their voices. If you sound like a robot, expect to be treated like one.

Posted in: best practices, monitoring

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Youth Vs Adults: Strong Ties/Weak Networks

09.04.27

The kids are all about social media. They’re publishing content, streaming video and Twittering wildly. Right?

Wrong.

Just as social media practitioners use and view these tools differently to the general population, we need to remember that young people use these tools differently to us. They’re informed about the tools but while they’re highly active online, we we can’t just assume that “social media tools” are the way to reach them.

Young people ≠ adults

This weekend I attended the inaugural PodCamp London in southern Ontario where Jonathan Kochis ran a fascinating session on Youth, Social Media and the Web, running through some key research around the ways young people use social media. 

A few key points of difference between young people and adults:

  • 88 per cent of teens have participated in online social activity, however their use is driven by friendship and existing connections.
  • Many adults use social media tools to organize events; to build their networks; to promote themselves or their work. Teens don’t care about any of those uses.
  • Teens skew towards MySpace and Facebook. Tools like LinkedIn (business networking) and Twitter skew much older.
  • Young people can see Twitter as Facebook’s news feed with most of the features stripped out. As a result, few teens use it.
  • Tools like LinkedIn and Twitter require an investment in time to gain gratification (establishing a network, creating value for others, delayed rewards). Meanwhile, teens look for instant gratification.

Talking with Jonathan and others after the session, I reflected that much of the difference in perspective, along with these other factors, comes down to the nature of our networks.

Professional adults (successful ones, anyway) look to build their networks. They’re constantly meeting new people, learning, and sharing knowledge. We develop new connections all the time, but many of these are loose – passing meetings at a conference, conversations at parties, conversations over coffee or dinner. Over time we work to make some become stronger, but most remain loose. We have what I call “thin networks.”

Young people, meanwhile, don’t care about developing a “network.” They care about their friends – what they are doing, where they are, what they’re planning to do at the weekend. They have a small network, built on existing relationships and full of strong ties.

Twitter ≠ Facebook

This may explain why Twitter skews much older than Facebook.

Of course, Facebook started with the university crowd which explains part of the younger skew, but it also allows more in-depth connection with people. You can see everything your friends are doing – the events they’re attending, the photos they’re posting, the videos they’re watching and the people they’re talking to.

Twitter, meanwhile, is much more transitory. Conversations come and go, as do connections (it’s much easier to follow someone on Twitter than to add a friend on Facebook). It’s very top-level and, on the surface, one-dimensional (just short messages; no multimedia aside from links to it). For people with small networks who are already closely connected to their friends, Twitter doesn’t (currently) solve a problem. 

This isn’t a bad thing. What’s more, it’s certainly not a universal picture – there are certainly plenty of young people using Twitter. However, in general, I think it’s a useful reminder for us that “we” are not “they” and we can’t generalize our use of social media tools to the broader population.

So what?

Why should public relations pros and marketers care about this?

Because it has a clear and important effect on our communications programs. Twitter may be taking over the world, but only in some demographics. Meanwhile, if you’re trying to reach young people through Twitter or through an approach relying on volume of connections rather than quality of connections, you may be disappointed.

What other differences do you see between young peoples’ and adults’ use of social media?

(Side note: congratulations to Bill, Will, Titus and everyone else involved in PodCamp London. Great job, guys)

Posted in: social networks, strategy

Tags: , , , , , , ,

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Is The Customer The Target?

09.04.24

Every so often I read commentary in traditional and social media circles critiquing particular companies’ public relations efforts. The targeting of the effort is a common target for those pieces, with a common refrain being, “do they know where their customers are?”

Here’s something useful to remember: The customer isn’t always the immediate target.

Companies don’t necessarily look to communicate direct-to-consumer with every initiative. There are many viable approaches to outreach which, while they look at the end consumer down the road  (or businesses in a b2b model), focus elsewhere with their tactics.

Here are a few of the potential top-level groups that companies may be focused-on outside of the end user.

Employees: Domino’s found out, to their cost, what happens when employees go rogue. They’re not alone. Last year, Burger King was forced to take action after an employee was videoed taking a bath in a restaurant sink.

These are extreme examples of idiots being idiots, but the fact is that your employees can be your best ambassadors or your worst enemy. Smart organizations communicate with them.

Stakeholder groups: My background over the last few years is in government communications. I know only too well the effect that stakeholder groups can have on an organization’s agenda. A supportive word from a third party is worth way more than ten of your own news releases. Meanwhile, a negative comment can completely derail your initiative. 

Stakeholder groups are a critical piece of the corporate communications puzzle.

Thought leaders/influencers: If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers, Robert Cialdini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion or any other book on this subject, you’ll be familiar with the concepts of connectors, influencers and so on.

They’re the people that everyone knows, who lead the way for others, and who people look to for advice on topics. 

They’re NOT always the same thing as your customers. 

There are plenty of fields where the influencers don’t share demographic characteristics with the target audience. Think: if you’re looking at outreach that seems to be targeted awkwardly, are they really targeting the people that the end audience looks to?

Government: Organizations will often engage in public-facing communications activities, where the target audience is really the government. Why? Because they want to stir-up public opinion, which has a habit of changing government positions in a way that organizational lobbying can struggle to do.

Don’t get me wrong – the end audience of communications activities is critical. In an economy like this, companies need to be ever-more focused on achieving business goals with their communications activities (and not just inflating their CEO’s ego). However, remember that the end-customer may not be the first target.

Next time you see a communications campaign or message that doesn’t seem right at first glance, ask yourself:

Who is this really targeting?

Posted in: communications, pr, public relations

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The Ostrich Approach Doesn’t Work

09.04.23

Head in the sand

There’s been plenty of commentary around the Dominos pizza videos recently. For some insightful commentary, check out posts by Jessica Levco, Shel Holtz and, for a wonderfully succinct take on the lessons learned, Gerald Baron.

One important lesson from this, in both traditional and social media forums, is this:

The ostrich approach doesn’t work.

No, you don’t automatically have to respond to every negative story. Plenty of considerations come into play, which may mean that a purely reactive approach is suitable. However, when a compelling story breaks which speaks to a critical area of your business, and that story begins to gain traction, burying your head in the sand is unlikely to work.

In many cases a reactive approach does work. However, when an issue grows at the rate of this one, proactive action is more likely needed. It’s also perhaps not the best idea to go on the record that you’re not going to address the situation publicly so it doesn’t gain attention.

A few other lessons learned from this episode (identified by the folks above):

Establish your online presence BEFORE a crisis breaks
Not only does establishing your presence take some time that you may not have in an emergency, if you don’t have one established before an online crisis hits then you don’t have the presence and credibility established either. 

Be transparent in your response to crises 
Be honest and be up-front in your response, especially to online crises. Online audiences in particular have a low tolerance for being “messaged.”

If you’re going to respond, respond quickly
This doesn’t mean at the outset of the event; situations can evolve and change. However, once it becomes apparent that a response is needed, your advance crisis planning should let you respond quickly

Value your customers
Your customers can be your biggest advocates, or your biggest detractors. Customer service is part of your public relations effort. Ignore it at your peril. 

With all that said, it does appear at this point that Dominos responded fairly well in general. While there’s undoubtedly some short-term reputational damage, I suspect  that a relatively rapid and heartfelt response served its purpose.

What’s your take on  Domino’s response to this crisis?

Posted in: crisis communications

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Fast-Tracking to Twitter

09.04.22

Back in February I mused about the apparent greater willingness of companies to sign up for Twitter than to start blogs. I’ll go one further now – I’m starting to see companies skip blogging entirely and go straight to Twitter.

Companies like Fairmont Hotels are by-passing blogging entirely and starting to engage with Twitter as an initial step into social media. Until recently it might have appeared more logical to suggest blogging as a common core step in the social media process (listen, engage, develop) once the groundwork is laid. Nowadays that’s not necessarily the case.

If we consider the different apparent commitment levels of the two tools this isn’t too surprising:

  • Blogs require designing and developing; a Twitter profile has a minimum of setup;
  • Blog posts can take lots of time to draft and edit; Twitter posts can take just a few seconds;
  • It can take a while to start to develop conversations on a blog; on Twitter you can begin to engage in conversations very quickly;
  • As a real-time medium, conversations evolve and spread more quickly on Twitter than on all but the most popular blogs.

Some of these commitment differences are perceived rather than real – you can spend just as much time on Twitter each day as it takes to write a blog post, for example. Still, I find it interesting that Twitter is now sufficiently accepted that it is seen as a potential first step into social media.

Posted in: blogging, social media, Twitter

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Wisdom Of The Crowd Or Idiocy Of The Crowd?

09.04.21

Last night I attended a presentation by Tom Purves entitled How “Augmented Reality” and the Mobile Web Changes Everything. One part that stood out for me, and really got me thinking, was the issue of how applications can leverage the “wisdom of the crowds” rather than being the victim of the “joke of the crowds.”

Joke of the crowds?

Purves was referring to the potential for serious events to get sabotaged by Internet memes – such as the Greenpeace contest to name a humpback whale which ended up with 78% of people voting for the name Mr Splashypants. Other examples include the naming of a treadmill on the international space station after Stephen Colbert and the skittles website fiasco.

The bottom line seems to be – when significant numbers of people get involved in something with no restrictions, there is the potential for the wisdom of crowds to sink to the idiocy of crowds. Just check out the comments on an average CBC.ca or Globe and Mail story, or a YouTube video, to see this in action.

Purves’ solution, with which I tend to agree, is that organizations need to design their initiatives to funnel people into valuable action rather than allow them unrestricted freedom.

For example, rather than offer a widespread list of potential names for a naming contest, run some initial screening and narrow the potential winners down to responses that are acceptable.

Some mainstream outlets have started to move towards this angle by allowing people to vote comments up or down. Others are playing with ways to reward appropriate behaviour by allowing enhanced access to additional content for people who participate “correctly.”

The bottom line seems to be, if your organization is looking to participate in social media, you need to set parameters. At a base level these can consist of a set of social media policies and guidelines to set the foundation for social media engagement by the organization. At a more advanced level, organizations need to design and develop social media programs to support constructive interactions rather than destructive ones.

What do you think?

Posted in: social media

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Talking Twitter With CityOnline

09.04.20

One of the great things about social media tools is that they let you connect with people you’d otherwise never meet.

One of the people I’ve gotten to know and like over the last little while is fellow Brit Danny Brown, founder of the 12 for 12k challenge. We finally met face-to-face at PodCamp Toronto this year; you can see a brief video I did with Danny here. 

Another benefit of these tools for PR people like me is the ability to get to know journalists and the kind of things in which they are interested. Not only does it help me to be better at my job in general; it also helps me to be better if the time ever does come to pitch them. Over the last couple of years I’ve gotten to know numerous journalists including, more recently, City TV’s Kris Reyes.

On Friday these two aspects of social media came together as I appeared on City TV’s CityOnline show with Danny and Kris, to discuss Twitter in the wake of the Kutcher/CNN follow-fest. 

The video of the show (about 20 minutes) is below.

Key points:

Interestingly, from the phone poll conducted on the show, the majority of respondents viewed Twitter as a fad. It may well be; I guess time will tell. From my perspective, the tool itself isn’t that important in this respect; the changing and growing variety of communications tools is the more important part. Kneale Mann has an interesting take on this: 

“The early adopters are certainly tweeting about the many downsides of Twitter becoming the mainstream. That’s what early adopters do. 

If you live on the fringe, don’t expect a crowd. And if it shows up, don’t be shocked. What you were talking about before the masses arrived may actually gain traction and (shock horror) popularity.”

Posted in: Twitter

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Social Media Baby Steps Don’t Have To Be Difficult

09.04.17

Yesterday evening I gave a presentation on “Maximising Social Media for Business” to a diverse group of communicators with the Halton-Peel Communicators’ Association.

As I moved through the presentation, I saw signs that people might be getting a little overwhelmed by the volume of information and tools I was throwing at them. 

My message to them, and to anyone dipping their toe into the social media waters, is:

It doesn’t have to be difficult.

While I like to recommend a gradual process of listening, then engaging, then developing and publishing, the first of those steps can be accomplished in just a few minutes per day and in a few simple steps.

  1. Go to Google Reader (or any RSS reader) and sign up for an account (it’s free!)
  2. Go to Technorati or Google Blogsearch and plug in your name, your company’s name, your hobby or anything that interests you
  3. Subscribe to the results of that search in Google Reader (in Technorati the link is at the top-right of the results column; in Google Blog Search it’s on the left of the results)
  4. Spend a few minutes every day reading what people are saying on your topics. Learn who the key influencers are; where they are present; and what they are talking about
  5. Once you’re comfortable, begin to comment on influencers’ sites

There – in just a few minutes per day, you’ve taken your first steps into social media.

Make sense?

Posted in: 101, social media

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