Why PR Practitioners Should Care About Content Marketing

Michael Pranikoff, global director of emerging media at PR Newswire was the featured speaker at the PRSA Luncheon and Professional Development seminar in October. His luncheon presentation addressed the alignment of PR and Social Media because they both focus on storytelling. His focus on content marketing came from this statistic: 27 million pieces of content are shared daily. Here’s a brief video interview with Michael. You can follow him on Twitter or see some of his many presentations on Slide Share.

Changing the Game: Move Your Social Media Plan from Conservative to Advocacy

Despite the proliferation of social media tools, evangelists and thousands of column inches on why you should, how you should and what you should be doing in social media, there is still a prevailing group who haven’t jumped in. How can this be? Aren’t all public relations practitioners advocating the latest and greatest in their organizations?

The answer is probably yes, followed by a long sigh. If you have been unsuccessful or are meeting resistance in moving social media off the “to do list” and into the daily fabric of your organization, you are not alone. And you probably need encouragement and tools to help you along your way.

One great resource for public relations practitioners is Ike Pigott, Communications Strategist for Alabama Power. Ike was in exactly the same spot more than a year ago and devised a great approach for taking a conservative corporate culture and moving into a social media advocacy role.
Using an analogy that follows the Pacman game (surely you remember the Pacman game!), Ike’s Pacman Paradigm…and social media for that matter….are likened to game theory. First you need to know the lay of the land – the boundaries and rules and objectives. Next you need to know where you stand – know your map, know the enemy, know the escape routes.

Ike’s presentation at the recent Ragan Coca-Cola Conference opened avenues for many PR practitioners. He offered five qualities that a social media advocate needs to make change happen in their organization. You must be patient, analytical, creative, mentoring and nimble. (if you spell out the first letter, it spells Pacman!).

Here is Ike’s best piece of advice about making change.

“One of the biggest barriers to communicating these tools is language,” Pigott said in a recent interview. “Much of what people do in social media is emergent, and not easy to describe. That’s why the networks have such silly-sounding names, and that gets in the way of being taken seriously.”

There are lots of emerging examples of what not to do when starting social media strategies in your organization. Pigott takes an example from Hollywood.

“You don’t want to end up like Tim Robbins’ character in The Hudsucker Proxy – running around with a goofy smile and a picture of a circle, and shouting ‘It’s for kids!’ When the time is right, you need to approach others with a solution to a problem, a better way to reach their existing goals. Once they feel like there’s a tangible result from which they could benefit, you’ll have their attention long enough to explain just what that circle really is.”

If you’d like to connect with Ike, he’d be happy to share his journey. You can connect with Ike on e-mail at: IPIGOTT@southernco.com , on Twitter or on his blog.

Expedition 206: Coke’s Multi-faceted Fan Campaign

I recently posted a story here about how Coca-Cola is elevating discussion of its brand with community concepts. While attending the Ragan conference at Coca-Cola World Headquarters last month, I also got to hear about the nuts and bolts of Coca-Cola’s Social Media Strategy, courtesy of Adam Brown, Director of the Office of Digital Communications and Social Media for Coca-Cola (@adamcb).

While many companies are focused exclusively on conversations in America, Coca-Cola has 478 brands sold in 206 countries, so all their conversations are global! The Coca-Cola team’s approach is comprehensive and multi-faceted; too much to cover here. One campaign, however, is worth sharing.

Expedition 206, announced last year, puts three “happiness ambassadors” on a year-long tour to every country (206 of them!) where Coke products are sold. Fans submitted video applications to become one of the three who represent the company and fans voted on the final group. As well, fans have been determining where they go and what they do.

The tour kicked off in January and the team posts text, video and short reports on Expedition 206.

The Coca-Cola communications team had 6 months from idea to delivery, which, according to Brown was 6 months shorter than their usual planning cycle. While the idea came from the public relations side, the marketing team quickly got involved to add elements to the project.

According to Brown, their campaigns are focused on earning sustainable relationships, leverage existing audiences and grow those audiences for the future. Expedition 206 seems to fit all those parameters. Take a look at a short video announcing 9 finalists and how to vote for the winners. Or follow the team on Twitter @x206. Of course, we all want to hear about the results at year's end.

Examples of PR/Marketing Strategies Using Social Media

Sometimes, it helps to see case studies of how others are doing things. For some reason today, I've come across several articles and blog posts that point you to some examples of how organizations have used social media as a communications strategy. Take a look!

"10 Social Media Campaigns that Rock! Learn How to do the Same!" ThoughtPick blog (June 8, 2009)

"iPhone Apps Put Brands in Hands," list of the successful brands and apps that best fulfill the promise of utility -- as well as some prominent missed opportunities, by Brian Morrissey (Nov 30, 2009)

"Twitter Success Stories," report details how 11 innovative businesses and associations use Twitter to improve their marketing and business objectives. (2009) [PDF]

"26 Social Media Marketing Examples in Detail," by Lisa Braziel (September 09, 2008; dated but useful)

Helpful Tool Created Jeremiah Owyang on the Eight Stages Of Listening

The decision to use social media at the organizational or corporate level requires looking at the culture of the organization itself. Are you ready to be in real conversation with your customers or partners? Are you ready to listen?

Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group has developed a web strategy matrix that he calls "The Eight Stages Of Listening." I like it because -- like most things in life -- it's not an all-or-nothing approach. Take a look and see where your organization is in the matrix. It's a good tool as we set goals for 2010.

Think of the Social Media Release as an Online Press Kit

The social media news release concept has been in a kind of development stage for several years. During that time, we’ve seen creative ideas and lots of confusion. The main point of contention is the mistaken idea that the social media news release should replace the traditional release. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

What is the Purpose a Social Media News Release?
The social media news release is really an online press kit. It provides your news in ways that assist journalists and bloggers to write stories about your news. It gives people tools to share your audio and video clips, download logos and photos, and immediately find key stats and quotes rather than sorting through prose. Since a sizeable percentage of stakeholders are generally online, they are more likely to get your news there.

How do You Use Both Kinds of Releases?
There is still value in the traditional release. Some trade publications in your industry may still practically print your release unaltered. And it presents your story in a narrative form. Storytelling is good. I’ve also found that when there are lots of internal levels of approval, the final traditional news release serves their purposes, while the social media version is more of an aid to journalists.

There are several places you can go to learn more. One of the best recent ones is an audio presentation delivered by Shel Holtz, ABC, co-host of the For Immediate Release podcast. You can listen to his engaging down-to-earth speech and see his ppt presentation online. It’s a great way to get a crash course on a powerful communication tool.

Some First Steps for PR Folk to Engage with Social Media

Let’s say you’re a high-level PR professional. A boss or an owner. And you’ve avoided dipping into these new-fangled social media things for some logical reason like the time required or because the way you’ve been doing things has been working fine.

Let me share some practical reasons you may want to give social media a try.

Blog monitoring – You need to know what people are saying about your company or client. By monitoring conversations on blogs, you can get a jumpstart on issues that could otherwise blow up. Dell reports that they get a three-week heads-up about issues before they hit the mainstream media. This is something you can do for free. And it’s a minimum. Later, you can learn to participate in the conversations to build the brand, enhance reputation and dialogue with influencers. A key audience to be monitoring is the reporters you are likely to work with. Many are bloggers themselves.

Social networks – Let’s focus on Facebook. Why on earth would you want to set up a Facebook page? Because reporters are there. They are communicating with their audiences and their sources there. I’ve even heard of one who will only pay attention to pitches he gets via Facebook, not e-mail or phone. Again, it’s a minimum. You don’t have to reveal your family secrets on your page. And you certainly should keep it professional. Later, you can use Facebook and other networks to connect with your company’s or client’s key constituencies who are there. Again, it’s free.

Social bookmarking – Services like Delicious are highly useful tools to support your media relations or community relations work. I’ve posted some how to’s on this subject before. See the last post for links. And yes, it’s free.

Twitter – Using Twitter can be powerful for public relations. The thing is, you will not understand its value until you sign up and start using it. I’m sorry, but it’s true. Twitter is not the only service of its kind, but it’s the most popular. It’s where many journalists are. It’s where portions of your audiences likely are. People will tell you it’s addictive. But that means they aren’t using it well for their business. You can. But it’s all theory until you set up your account. And guess what. It’s free.

If you try any of these tools, the worst that can happen is you won’t find them useful and you’ll stop using them.

Our chapter is holding a full-day professional development session specifically on this topic to demonstrate ways to get started or expand participation. I’m sure there will be more posts about it in the coming days.

So here’s the bottom line. Social media is not merely an additional vehicle for distributing or even exchanging information. It is not a trend. It is a manifestation of social change that we are in the midst of.

Should Twitter be Used in Church?

Two news stories came to my attention this week, both involving the micro-blogging tool, Twitter. New technologies always stretch our boundaries, and these two stories are no exception to that observation. And, they point out a traditional struggle for public relations practitioners, the ballance between an individual's right to privacy and the public's right to know.

Case #1
The Rocky Mountain News recently decided to assign a reporter to cover the funeral of a three year old on Twitter. The child died after being hit by a car driven by an illegal immigrant with an arrest record. After the initial horror of thinking --what if that were my child?--I thought about the stress of having to relive the event electronically. But that's not the central issue here. The central issue is whether the public's right to know about the funeral was justified by the live streaming of events during the funeral OR if the family's right to privacy was more important. INterestingly enough, the coverage was given a thumbs down by media watchers as being bland and uninteresting.

You can read about the coverage and follow links to other parts of the story here:
http://poprl.com/1JX

Case #2
On Friday, the San Antonio Express News ran a story on Imagine Fellowship, a local church which uses Twitter during its services, allowing the participants to Twitter about the sermon, with the comments appearing on a giant screen behind the pastor. Imagining I was in the pastor's place, I thought how harsh the criticism could be and how distracting while trying to speak. Again, though, the broader issue seems to be the line between individual privacy and public information.

As these new technologies can enhance our productivity and broaden our reach, we must insure that they don't also interfere with individual rights.

P.S. I would link to the story, but the Express-News Web site is horrendously hard to navigate if you try to find a story more than 24 hours after it appears.

Update
A nice person from the church sent me this link to share: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/religion/Blest_be_the_tweets_that_bind.html

Learn about Social Media with the Help of the Common Craft Show

I’ve been leading a series of sessions for our staff to introduce them to the world of social media and to specific online social tools they can be using right away. I’ve led a two-hour overview session a couple of times that introduced them to a world most had no idea existed. I’ve walked them through using Jott and setting up an iGoogle page and finding RSS newsfeeds to populate it with. (One senior staff member was practically doing cartwheels when he started using Jott, I kid you not.) I’ve also begun to introduce them to Twitter, which is really hard for anyone to grasp until they dive in. Soon, I’ll be leading sessions on using Delicious, which I think they’ll love.

There is one web site that I’ve found really helpful: the Common Craft Show. Headed by Sachi and Lee LeFever, this web site provides short (two- to three-minute) videos that clearly describe certain social media elements. They are simple and highly creative. But most importantly, they are instructive. They help folks get the big picture.

Here is a list of topics from the site:

Social Media in Plain English
Blogs in Plain English

Podcasting in Plain English
Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Twitter in Plain English
Online Photo Sharing in Plain English
RSS in Plain English
Wikis in Plain English

The only change I would make is that I wish the video that focuses on Twitter would give a little more attention to how organizations are using it. But frankly, since they came out with this video so quickly after Twitter use took off, people may not have been using it yet professionally.

The LeFever deserve lots of praise for taking this on. They’ve developed something really innovative in order to help others. It really reflects the generous spirit of Web 2.0

Here’s why PR folk aren’t up to speed about social media

I think I’ve figured it out. PR folk have not jumped on the social media train as quickly as we could have because learning about social media for PR purposes takes time, a lot of time. It takes resources. It takes learning about how to apply certain tactics to certain strategies. It takes learning about the ethical implications of using social media. It takes money and other resources. It takes learning how to use the technology.

I know, I know. We’re not supposed to focus on the technology. But you have to know something about it. You have to know how to use certain tools yourself. For example, it’s easy to set up a Twitter account (I just did last week, yeah!). But how do you use it for a larger communications effort? In another example, it’s easy to create a Delicious account. But how do you create a separate ones for particular PR efforts. I’ve attended several workshops, but none were hands-on.

Then there are the biggies: How do you know which blog platform to start with? How do you edit audio for a podcast? How do you set up a new RSS feed on your company web site?

There are places you can go to take a class on how to use word processing and graphics software. There are designers you can hire to create a web site for you. And there are generous bloggers like Todd Defren and Bryan Person, who provide detailed steps on certain topics.

But for some things, we need more direct instruction. When I started my first job in D.C., my boss paid for a designer to spend three hours teaching me to use PageMaker. That was all I needed to get going. Of course I learned more as time went on. But that initial, focused instruction changed the learning curve dramatically.

So that’s my first point: Technical how-to (here’s a business opportunity for anyone who’s looking).

My second is about the time. I coordinate a podcast for my organization. Here’s what I had to do to get it running (based on my own estimates).

• Take two multiweek webinars = 16 hours
• Buy and read or scan three books = 6 hours
• Listen to podcasts about podcasting = 20 hours
• Write a plan, build a staff team, hold meetings about goals, get approval = 30 hours
• Work with internal IT folk about technical needs and processes = 10 hours
• Figure out web site features, designs, SEO, etc. = 20 hours
• Research outside consultants = 15 hours
Total = 117 hours

In the end, we hired a consultant to help us with other technical details like setting us up in iTunes and registering us with directories (in addition to editing the podcasts, working with music, and recording intros and outros). If we hadn’t done that, we would have had to figure out those details too.

My organization was willing and able to spend resources and staff time for this learning process. But if I worked for an agency, how would that be done? Much of this legwork would have to happen prior to connecting it to any particular client project. How would that be billed?

As much as we like to say social media has a low barrier to entry, this just isn’t true in using it for public relations. Time is money. And if you don’t take the time to do your homework, you can screw up royally -- on your client’s dime.

So, we either have to all become like the early adopters and spend much of our free time and our work time on trial and error, or we can be deliberate about providing hands-on training for our PR employees. That will require seeking it out when it’s not knocking at your door.

When something is important to your business, you do what it takes to make it happen