Archive for July, 2009

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Social Media Agencies and Transparency

09.07.30

On Tuesday, Rachel Kay asked a thought-provoking question during a Twitter Q&A with fellow PR practitioner Sarah Evans:

How involved can an agency get in a clients SM execution & remain transparent?

In my view, agencies can get involved in every aspect of clients’ social media execution without sacrificing transparency. I say that not just from personal opinion, but because I’ve been there.

Note: I say “can” not “should aim to be.” More on that in a moment.

I place great importance on transparency (see my earlier posts on ghost blogging if you need convincing). However, that hasn’t stopped me from being involved in the full gamut of social media strategy development and execution, from brainstorming and drafting through to manning the Twitter account and blog.

How do you achieve that level of involvement while maintaining integrity?

Disclosure.

We make a point of disclosing client relationships at every turn. That runs from disclosure in blog comments, to naming individuals in bios on blogs and Twitter accounts, to even naming who is writing individual tweets. By disclosing who you are, transparency is maintained.

Now, on to an important issue: I don’t think this is an ideal long-term solution.

In the short term, there are many reasons why an agency might get involved in executing social media tactics:

  • Clients may not have sufficient capacity to undertake the work
  • Clients may lack the expertise necessary to execute at the best level
  • Clients may want to pilot-test an initiative before committing in-house resources

All of these are valid short-term reasons.

However, in the long-term I think the best solution is for much of the tactical execution to be taken in-house if appropriate staff with the right skillsets and framework within which to operate are available. Agency roles in the long-term are best played as a strategic advisor, training staff, developing ideas and strategic direction and offering advice on tactics where required. Agencies can also play a valuable role doing some of the “arms and legs” work – monitoring, reporting, designing and developing online properties, email campaigns, etc.

In summary, agencies can be involved in every aspect of social media execution without compromising transparency. That just doesn’t mean they always should be.

For the record, here’s Sarah Evans’ response to the question:

“I think that agency SM involvement should ultimately result in biz’s online sustainability (i.e. can they do it themself?)… #prexaminer

It’s a lot about working with them, teaching, listening, identifying (or creating) the right tools. #prexaminer

…I created a “clients” section on my blog to disclose who I’m working with. I’ll be up front if we’re connected. #prexaminer“

What do you think?

Posted in: best practices, ethics, social media

Tags: , , ,

77Comments

Enough With Misusing Social Media ROI, Already

09.07.28

ROI-graph

I’m a little tired of abusing the term “ROI” – giving it new meanings just so they can say they’re measuring it. “Return on Interaction”… “Return on Engagement”… enough already.

Breaking news: ROI may well not matter for your social media program. (Edit: At least, not as a direct, immediate metric.)

Except this isn’t breaking news – people just don’t seem to hear it.

Here’s a definition of ROI from Wikipedia:

“Return on investment (ROI) [...] is the ratio of money gained or lost (whether realized or unrealized) on an investment relative to the amount of money invested.”

There’s even a formula:

ROI

ROI is a finanical term. It has a set definition, which carries plenty of weight in companies. However, that doesn’t mean you can always relate your programs directly to it.

For the formula to work, you need to know the cost and benefits of your program in dollar amounts. You should know the cost of your investment, but the gain may be hard to attribute (especially to a single factor). What’s the gain from improved customer service? From relationship-building? From increased employee engagement?

Sometimes you CAN identify a specific gain from your investment. Sometimes you can tie specific activity to conversions and have a specific value for those conversions. In those cases, you’re in luck – you’ve hit the communicator’s nirvana. The rest of the time, just accept it:

ROI may not be the right measurement for you.

Does that mean your program isn’t valuable? Does that mean you’ll never get executive sign-off? Does that mean it’s not worth measuring your program?

No.

It means you find appropriate ways to tie measurement back to your objectives. Those last four words are key: “back to your objectives.” Because everything should lead back to them.

As we’ve navigated through this recession, we’ve seen clients become (rightly) more and more focused on measuring outcomes, not outputs. It’s music to my ears, because this gives us the opportunity to (a) measure the heck out of a program and (b) adjust programs to ensure they achieve the right results for the client.

Those measurements don’t have to lead to a financial formula; they just have to tie back to your client’s goals. Do they want to drive sales? Address customer issues? Be perceived as leaders in their market? I could go on and on. Each of these has different end metrics, along with different proxies along the way. They’re all valuable.

So, please – enough with “return on influence” and other variations on the term “ROI.”

The fact that you’re not measuring ROI doesn’t mean you’re not measuring success or impact. In fact, it may just mean you’re measuring the right thing.

What do you think?

Update: Oliver Blanchard made an excellent point that I neglected to include here – Ultimately, all of these measures SHOULD feed back to ROI. If your company isn’t tying its activities back to that eventually, you risk both the cost of an ineffective program and the opportunity cost of missing more effective investment elsewhere. I would add that there may be intermediate steps between your program and the ROI calculation. Making-up new metrics because you can’t tie directly to ROI does nothing to help you.

(Images: Investopedia, Shutterstock)

Posted in: measurement, pr, public relations, social media

Tags: , , , , , ,

79Comments

Do Damaged Brands Have More Opportunities In Social Media?

09.07.27

Do problems with your brand mean more opportunities in social media?

I spend a lot of time thinking about how companies can use social media tools to enhance their communications efforts.

  • Some involve a new take on traditional outbound or inbound marketing.
  • Some are conversational, building relationships rather than “selling.”
  • Some focus on customer service and solving pain points for people.

It occurs to me that to some extent, the effectiveness of two of the options above may depend on the state of your existing brand.

Caveat: This is by no means the only factor involved in this decision, which is why companies need to approach social media from a strategic perspective (with full consideration of multiple factors) rather than a tactical one.

If your brand is healthy and people generally think positive things about your organization, well-targeted communications along interruption and destination-based lines may be well received. However, if your brand has little equity and people are distrustful, it may be that you have more to gain from other social media approaches than healthy brands.

Why?

Because the bar is set low.

Angry customer on the phoneWooden corporations can benefit greatly from allowing some personality within their online activities. As I often say, people don’t want relationships with brands; they want them with people. (Note: I’m not talking about slick artwork and design; I’m talking about real people.)

Similarly, if your brand is on thin ice, online customer service improvements can be received with open arms. Peoples’ expectations are so low that just solving problems (essentially, taking them from a negative to a neutral state with the product/service) can have positive effects on your brand. Companies like Dell and Comcast bave benefited greatly from this approach.

As I noted recently, it’s when times are tough that you can differentiate your company.

What do you think? Do you think companies have more to gain from social media when their brand is suffering?

(Image: Shutterstock)

Posted in: branding, communications, social media

Tags: , , , , , ,

30Comments

Coordinate Multiple Twitter Accounts With CoTweet

09.07.23

CoTweet LogoIf you work on a multi-person social media team, you’ve likely encountered issues coordinating responses to online conversations. You’ll spot a mention of your company and reply to it, only to find that another one of your colleagues has already replied, or that there was a reason they hadn’t done so.

Tools like Radian6 accommodate built-in workflow management to help teams to coordinate interactions across multiple platforms. However, they have their shortfalls.

Now we have a new kid on the block. CoTweet, which bills itself as “a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter,” is a solution for companies managing teams of employees across multiple Twitter accounts.

I participated in CoTweet’s closed beta testing period, but it recently emerged into open beta meaning you can sign-up and try it yourself.

Some of CoTweet’s key features:

  • Multiple accounts – nothing that tools like TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop don’t already offer, but a must-have nowadays for large companies and agency types/power-users like me who need to juggle several profiles.
  • Multiple users – CoTweet lets you invite multiple users to Tweet from an account. You can coordinate who’s “on duty” at any time, and assign tweets to other users (which triggers a notification email).
  • Conversation threads – one short-coming of some other systems is that they don’t allow for threading of conversations over time. CoTweet rectifies that, allowing you to see conversations between your team and any person over time, see which tweets have been replied-to and ensure you don’t contradict an earlier response from a team-mate.
  • Integration with bit.ly – TweetDeck and the like let you use bit.ly to shorten URLs and an even link them to your bit.ly account, but CoTweet integrates the analytics from bit.ly into its interface.
  • Web-based – while I have no problem with downloadable clients, there are plenty of people around who don’t have that luxury thanks to restrictive IT policies. CoTweet is browser-based, so there’s nothing to install.
  • Cotags - CoTweet defines Cotags as “short signatures that allow you to identify yourself as part of a message while sharing an account with multiple people.” It provides transparency as to who is tweeting when multiple people could be posting. We’ve manually entered “[initials]” for our clients in the past; CoTweets lets you automate that so you never forget.
  • Persistent search – TweetDeck’s key feature early-on was its integration of persistent searches into your interface. While CoTweet doesn’t quite do that (you need to go to a search screen), it does provide persistent searches that are fully integrated into the interface.

Overall, CoTweet is a powerful new tool for companies managing multiple Twitter accounts and users.

What are your early impressions of the service? What stands out for you, and what would you change?

Posted in: social media, tools, Twitter

Tags: , , , ,

17Comments

Set Yourself Apart In The Tough Times

09.07.22

Winningo on the uphillSeth Godin wrote an interesting post yesterday about “winning on the uphills” that really resonated with me.

The crux of the post:

“On the uphills, I have a reasonable shot at a gain over last time. The downhills are already maxed out by the laws of physics and safety.

The best time to do great customer service is when a customer is upset.”

It’s great to pat yourself on the back when things are going well, it’s when things get tough that you can set yourself apart and when you can either lose customers forever or cement their loyalty. I’ve seen it happen many times – it’s something we do on a daily basis on our clients’ behalf.

Of course, you never want your customers to be upset. However, when it happens you have an opportunity to deliver service that they will remember.

You can turn a customer from the position of ranting about your company’s problems to raving about their great service by being:

  1. Available
  2. Human
  3. Helpful

You don’t have to change something every time someone complains. You don’t have to reveal confidential information. You won’t always have an answer that makes them happy.

However, you can listen to people (Marcel Lebrun calls it “answering the social phone“). You can explain things more clearly so people understand the issues. You can fix mistakes. And you can show people who reach out to you that you care about their business.

What about your organization? Do you just bask in the moments when it comes together, or do you also make the most of the moments when it doesn’t?

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Posted in: communications, social media

Tags: , , , , ,

20Comments

One Person Does Not Equal “Everyone”

09.07.17

A couple of months ago I wrote about the challenge that communicators face in recognizing that we are not the same as our audiences. A similar dilemma sits alongside that for communicators engaged in social media: one person does not equal a majority.

Just as the fact that you think something doesn’t mean everyone does, the fact that one person complains about something online shouldn’t mean you go into crisis mode. One complaint doesn’t mean you have to change your business processes.

Caveat.

Social media can, and frequently can be, the canary in the goldmine. If you see a steady trickle of people complaining about something over a period of time, you should pay attention. That doesn’t mean you automatically have to change things, but remember: direct feedback is one of the most powerful benefits of social media.

Also…

One thing to remember: While one person’s moment of pain may not be something that requires serious change to your processes, you need to separate that decision from that of whether to engage with that person to solve their pain.

This is an area where experienced practitioners can help companies as they plot their way through the social media waters. People who aren’t familiar with the space may blow something completely out of proportion (or, on the flip side, not heed the warning signs when they are present).

So, next time you see someone complain about something online, stop and think: is this the canary in the coal mine, or are you about to cry wolf?

Posted in: social media

Tags: ,

17Comments

Public Relations People And Bloggers Can Work Together

09.07.15

Blogger relations is not a win/lose tacticMarketing Vox featured a thought-provoking post yesterday entitled “PR Blackout Challenges Mom Bloggers to Return to Basics.” To boil the post down, it summarizes a call by mommy blogger community MomDot for a PR blackout this August. As they put it:

“…our site, and many others, are inundated with hundreds, if not thousands, of product requests each year resulting in massive obligations and deadline stress equivalent to what the General Motors CEO must feel every time he drives into work.”

I reacted fairly strongly to the post. Not because I disagree with the idea of a week without PR-pitched products, but because it appears the situation for some people has deteriorated to the point where this kind of statement is necessary. Blogger relations shouldn’t be a win/lose game.

While the post does make a point of highlighting the work done by those at the other end of the public relations scale – those who do their jobs properly – the impact of the others is worrying, and once again casts a shadow over all of us.

Two aspects to this make me uncomfortable:

Public relations people shouldn’t pressure bloggers

I’ve written plenty of times about my thoughts on how to – and how not to – go about approaching bloggers. While my thoughts have evolved over time, one thing remains consistent: public relations people need to look beyond their own objectives and consider the other side. As I wrote to Stefania Butler in a Twitter conversation about the post (which you can check out here), good PR people should marry both sides of the equation by matching the vested interest of the client with the needs and wants of the recipients of pitches.

How do you do that? You build relationships. You don’t do it by spamming people. You certainly don’t do it by creating obligations and pressure for people who may be doing this for a hobby.

A few pointers for PR people:

  • Build relationships with the key bloggers you’re looking to reach (I agree with Beth Blecherman on this one)
  • Don’t spam people. With the first point in mind, find a balance between volume and customization.
  • Aim to help bloggers, rather than use them. This doesn’t mean fogetting your client’s objectives; it means finding a balance between the two.

Bloggers have a choice

Unless you make an income from your blog’s traffic (which I have nothing against) or post on a group blog on a schedule with others, there’s little to force you to adhere to others’ timelines (there are likely other cases too). These are valid pressures, but I highly doubt they cover the majority of mom bloggers. In most cases, bloggers can choose whether to write about public relations pitches or not. What’s more, they have control of the deadlines they write under.

With the exception of the cases above, you should feel free to publish under your own deadlines. If something comes up, or you don’t have time, or you just feel like taking a day off writing, then don’t post that day. The idea that bloggers are under “massive obligations” indicates a situation that requires fixing, and while we can (and I will) advocate against bad PR practices, bloggers have to take some of the initiative themselves to avoid putting themselves under this kind of pressure.

So, to mommy bloggers, I offer the following advice (and pleas):

  • If a PR person who pitches you pressures you, or does anything other than work with you, let them know you’re not comfortable with it. If they don’t, hit “delete.” If they continue, hit “spam.”
  • If you are putting yourself under pressure, ask yourself if it is necessary. What can you do to reduce it?
  • Remember: We’re not all like the bad apples.
  • Without doing anything onerous (because the onus should be on communicators to do their research), consider creating pitching tips or, as Butler has done via her blog categories, collect posts you’ve written relating to outreach together.

I’m not just a PR guy – I’m also a blogger. I receive plenty of bad pitches too. The fault usually falls on the side of the person pitching, and they need to get their act together. Still, if you feel pressured by PR people, there are things you can do too, if you choose to. The alternative is resorting to negative pressure – the same approach that upset you in the first place.

What do you think? I’ve had some fascinating conversations on Twitter about this, but I’d love to hear from people on both sides of the fence on this one.

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Update: CNET has a slightly different take on this issue here.

Posted in: blogger relations, pitching

Tags: , , ,

64Comments

In Defense of the Devil’s Advocate

09.07.14

One of my favourite parts of agency life is getting the chance to collaborate with a bunch of really smart people on a daily basis. Whether it’s my colleagues (who I learn from every single day) or clients, every day sees at least a couple of discussions from which I learn something completely new.

In the face of this constant flow of ideas coming from these people send me, I tend to play another role: that of devil’s advocate.

Reading Kyle Flaherty‘s excellent (and now ex-)blog, he listed several reasons why he often plays the contrarian:

“I do it for one of three other reasons:

  1. To determine if you REALLY believe what you just said;
  2. To introduce another line of thinking that ultimately will shape your thinking;
  3. To determine if I REALLY believe what you just said”

Wikipedia defines a devil’s advocate as:

“In common parlance, a devil’s advocate is someone who takes a position he or she disagrees with for the sake of argument. This process can be used to test the quality of the original argument and identify weaknesses in its structure.”

Asking tough questions won’t always make you popular, but nonetheless I think it’s an important role for every team to fill, whether one person or the team as a whole fulfils it. It’s not a role to play for the sake of it – it’s a vital part of team dynamics. Here are six reasons why:

  • Sound strategic development: It’s all too easy to let tactics drive a strategy. That’s like letting the cart lead the horse. I think it’s important to ensure that a strategy doesn’t get formed around a bunch of tactics – that tactical ideas are filtered through a mesh made-up of carefully considered objectives, audiences and considerations.
  • Staying on that strategy: Good public relations programs are strategic. They link with the company’s business objectives, sync with it’s target audiences, consider the organization’s external influences… all of the things I discussed in my eBook on communications planning. Sometimes we have good ideas which don’t fit the strategy. It’s important to identify those cases.
  • Ensuring measurement is considered: I don’t know about you, but I’m finding that clients are more and more interested in measurement recently, likely due to a scarcity in resources in this economy (we could debate the measurement of a TV spot, or a magazine/newspaper ad, but that’s for another post). That means we need to build measurement into our programs from the ground-up, and a simple MRP report may not suffice.
  • Avoiding groupthink: It’s all too easy, in any group, to avoid conflict and agree with everything to make life easier. This rarely has a happy ending, as ideas end up poorly considered and half-baked. Asking the right questions can help to avoid this.
  • Convincing others: Some ideas are well thought-through. Others are off the top of someone’s head. Both have an important place in brainstorming sessions (which is not the time or place for playing the devil’s advocate), but only one has a place in a communications strategy. Getting people to think their ideas through helps, at the same time, to narrow ideas down to the good ones.
  • Convincing myself: I often take convincing before I “see the light” of a new idea. I need to look at things from multiple angles; to see how they fit in with other approaches; to consider how multiple stakeholders will view them. In order to reach that comfort level, I ask the questions that I can’t answer myself.

The role of devil’s advocate isn’t an easy (or necessarily popular) one. You’re asking tough questions, and you can sometimes find yourself saying “yes, but” when others are all gung-ho. A few tips for reducing the pain:

  • Be constructive – don’t be “that guy” – don’t just shoot ideas down. Ask questions constructively.
  • Don’t do it just for the sake of it – if you’re convinced and an idea is well thought-out, your job is already done.
  • Explain yourself – explain what you’re getting at with questions, so people understand why you’re asking.

What do you think? Do you play this role? What tips would you offer on playing it more effectively?

Posted in: communications

Tags: , ,

28Comments

Does Self-Promotion Really Equal Community-Building?

09.07.08

“Community” is a popular buzzword nowadays, even more so since the explosion of social media. But are we really using it the right way?

Think about the most high-profile proponents of social media. The people you think of likely have large followings and significant engagement with their work. Now, ask yourself – does that mean they have built a community around themselves ? Or are they just talented self-promoters who know how to build fans?

The answer seems obvious, right? I mean, we rail against overt self-promoters and embrace community builders… or do we?

Wikipedia looks to the definition of true community as defined by Scott Peck, as “the process of deep respect and true listening for the needs of the other people in this community.”

“Community” is an easy word to throw around. It’s easy to say that because people comment on your site, or re-tweet your Twitter posts, that you have a community. However, if those people aren’t truly engaged with you (and vice versa), is it really a community?

Does a community have to be a two-way dialogue?

I can think of some ‘A-listers’ who have reached out to me privately to head-off a discussion, but when I responded to their intervention and attempted to engage in a friendly discussion, I received no response. That suggests to me that those people haven’t built a community – there’s no true listening and there’s no deep respect. They’ve used social media tools in a traditional marketing-based fashion to build numbers, but have little connection to those people.

To make the conversation even more interesting, we could also debate – which gets better results for businesses? From my perspective, a following can get you short-term benefits but a community is more likely to be successful in the long run.

Some of the people who, I think have been successful in creating a community for themselves, their product or their initiatives include Joe Thornley, through meetups like Third Tuesday Toronto, Chris Brogran and the folks at Radian6.

Part of the problem, as I’m sure people like Brogan can attest, is scaling. As volume goes up, the amount of attention you can pay to each community member goes down. When that happens, you can start to approach that line of promotion/community-building again. I suspect the difference comes down to the bonds you’ve created to and within your community – does it pull together and support others in the community, or does it always look to the figurehead. In other words, is it a true community or is it a group of followers with a leader?

I’m curious to hear what community managers like Amber Naslund, Erin Bury, Melanie Baker, Keith Burtis and David Spinks have to say on this. Is there a line, and where is it, between self-promotion and building a community, and how do you deal with the volume issue?

How about you? How would you separate people who have built a community from people who just have a large audience, and which approach do you think makes sense for businesses?

Posted in: pr, public relations, social media

Tags: , , , ,

87Comments

Think PR People Don’t Need Math? Think Again

09.07.06

Public relations folks aren’t generally very good at math, according to their reputation, anyway. They’re creative people, you see? They work magic with words; they build relationships with people; they persuade people. So what if they’re no good with numbers?

I argue: it matters. A lot.

Here are just a few of the tasks that you need basic math to accomplish:

  • Social media and traditional media audits
  • MRP analysis
  • Social/traditional media monitoring analysis
  • Situational analysis for plans
  • Any kind of statistical analysis for data-based news releases
  • Market research analysis/recommendations

Get my point? “I’m no good with numbers” just doesn’t cut it.

I’ll admit it – I’m a math nut. I’ve worked as a data analyst and I nearly took a math degree (deciding instead to shoot for business) so I have a bit of an affinity for this stuff. Regardless, if you work in communications and you break into a sweat at the first sight of a graph, you need to study-up FAST if you want to progress.

No, just being able to create a graph in Excel does not cut it. Data alone does nothing. You need to be able to analyze that data. It’s not rocket science, but at a minimum you really should be able to, for example:

  • Compare two sets of numbers and calculate the percentage difference between the two
  • Know that 100% growth is different to 100% of something
  • Conduct simple statistical analyses of data – is there a trend?

In reality, we as a profession need to raise our game beyond statistical basics. We can’t just think about the numbers after the fact – a results focus needs to feature in every aspect of our work; especially online where data is so readily available. It takes planning and forethought to cut through the mass of data and turn it into useful, actionable, relevant information.

For a great example of how we should be building analysis points into all of our campaigns, check out this excellent post on integrating bit.ly and Google Analytics in a campaign. It shows a relatively simple process for integrating basic analytics into the links we publish on different social media platforms.

Results matter. That means numbers matter, and you need to know how to handle them.

Are you up-to-speed on these skills? How have you found ways to integrate analysis throughout your plans?

(Update: Radian6 just announced new features on their platform that may make this process easier – check out the Radian6 post on web analytics integration)

Posted in: pr, public relations, statistics

Tags: , , , ,

64Comments
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