Working for Edelman Digital has opened my eyes to this new skill set and I am learning something new every day. There is a lot more to public relations than most people think. I used to be of the mindset that it was just about writing a press release or getting mentioned somewhere in the media.

I was wrong.

A few weeks ago, I attended an event at the Churchill Club, “What the Public Believes: New Trends in Corporate Reputation Management” featuring Richard Edelman, the President & Chief Executive Officer of Edelman.  Also on the panel was Paul Bergevin, VP, Global Communications @ Intel, Peter Diamandis, President, Chairman & CEO of X PRIZE Foundation and Frank Shaw, Corporate VP of Corporate Communications at Microsoft.

The panel was truly enlightening for a marketing guy like me. Rather than summarizing the commentary myself, here is a collection of tweets from the event that really captures the true vibe of the conversation:

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Britopian: Paul Bergevin from @intel says that sometimes it takes a crisis for management to take corporate reputation serious-agreed #churchhillclub

defcon_5: Are they still using ad agency to lead crisis response? Cld be why.. RT @JohnAByrne: Toyota got a D from PR guru at my #ChurchillClub panel.

prsasv: RT @JOHNABYRNE: Toyota got a D grade from a PR guru last night at my #ChurchillClub panel in Palo Alto. This latest story won’t help. http://nyti.ms/9kN6H0

LaurenEdwardsSV: RT @Xtel: Byrne asks @richardwedelman if reputation is more art than science. Answer: it’s about what companies do, not just say #churchillclub

LaurenEdwardsSV: RT @Xtel: #churchillclub @richardwedelman: Era of celeb CEO is over. Toyota should have sent head of engineering in addition to one visit by CEO

barrseitz: RT @mchui: R. Edelman: Only 13% believe in the messages they hear through ads. Start w/ employees, social meda, then ads #churchillclub

jenniferjones: RT @jowyang: Conversation around Toyota’s PR crises: Richard Edelman says companies need: good products, transparency and reason to trust #churchillclub

Xtel: Frank Shaw (MS) explained that reputation doesn’t mean much to execs until value impacts bottom line or stock price #churchillclub

CEOGlobal: RT @ChurchillClub: “The era of celebrity CEO is passé …” They shouldn’t be the only messenger … Quote: Richard Edelman #churchillclub

setlinger: In Silicon Valley we should invest less in engineering and more in reputation, says Intel’s Paul Bergevin #churchillclub /via @Xtel

Xtel: RT @ashleymayer: Peter Diamandis, X Prize: “Use social media to crowdsource genius” #churchillclub < more feasible than hiring them

KarenTucker: @richardwedelman @Edelman advice for managing corp reputation: “do and then tell.” #churchillclub

Xtel: #churchillclub @richardwedelman: 75% of people think that business will go back to business as usual after the recession is over.

mchui: Frank Shaw (VP of Corp Comm): You need to understand that personal opinions become professional opinions in social media #churchillclub

ashleymayer: Paul Bergevin, Intel re social media policy: “Companies need to democratize info flow” Frank Shaw, MSFT: 1 rule = “Be smart” #churchillclub

Xtel: @fxshaw: SM challenge: pro & personal identities. An exec may tweet about bad airline service not realizing it’s a client #churchillclub

Xtel: #churchillclub @richardwedelman: in a world with shrinkage of non-opiniated media, companies have to create their own media.

mchui: Richard Edelman: Crisis mgt: 1. Tell the truth 2. Personalize solution (a leader to own the problem) 3. Tell your employees #churchillclub

AMcCann2285: RT @jowyang: Conversation around Toyota’s PR crises: Richard Edelman says companies need: good products, transparency and reason to trust #churchillclub

map650: Biggest miss companies make is not talking to it’s employees. Edelman #churchillclub

KarenTucker: @intel Paul Bergevin says America has tremendous redemptive spirit. Straying golfers might even be forgiven. #churchillclub

Marblescia: Edelman: “Your brand and equity can’t stand to deal with that type of matter” (re: Tiger) #churchillclub

mchui: Richard Edelman: Previous important factors for corp reputation – strong leader, good financial numbers – now at bottom #churchillclub

DBBradway: @richarderdelman says stakeholder over shareholder is the key in Corp Reputation Mgt #churchillclub

Xtel: Frank Shaw (MS) explains that reputation doesn’t mean much to execs until its value impacts the bottom line or stick price #churchillclub

bfr3nch: Frank Shaw Own your own story – know & acknowledge where problems are #churchillclub

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An optimized content distribution network tightly integrates the hub and spokes so that users can connect with a brand in the communities they choose.  For example, if brand X’s hub is a blog, they should make it very easy for users/readers to connect with them in other communities.  This is usually achieved either through editorial content or simple links w/icons somewhere visible on the web page.

Social Search

The rise of social search is an important element to consider and what makes the network so important.  YouTube surpassed Yahoo as the world’s #2 search engine a few years ago and it’s safe to assume that Facebook, Twitter and Flickr yield substantial search queries as well. It’s imperative for brands to have optimized content within these communities so they can be found in the search results. Optimization of these spokes should also include links back to the “base of operations” in case users want more information or want to connect with a brand more personally.   Tight integration is the key to a successful content distribution network.

Real-time Search

Real-time search has brought social media to search engines. With Twitter and Facebook updates now appearing in the  Google search results, it’s important for brands to create content on a consistent basis in order to capture search engine real estate for relevant queries.  This means that brands must be more strategic when posting messages and work closely with SEO teams to understand what keywords people are searching for relevant to the brand.

Social Omnipresence

The end result of a well optimized content distribution network is social omnipresence; where brands have some level of presence in external communities.  Rohit Bhargava talked about this four years ago when he wrote about the “5 Rules of Social Media Optimization (SMO)“, specifically “helping your content travel”.  It’s still very relevant today.  When a brand either creates content in a “digital embassy” or makes it VERY easy for content on their hub to travel, the end result is the same – social omnipresence, which is the first step in creating community and advocacy.

This by no means is a plea for brands to spam the community.  The content created should be strategic, relevant and human (i.e. feeds are okay sometimes, but a real life human being — usually a community manager — should be the face and creating the content).

Graphic courtesy of Aaron Lewis

Twitter Demographics

As you can see from the chart above, more than 30% of Twitter’s visitors were under 25 up from about 20% of its visitors at the end of 2008; thank you in part to celebrity adoption and the mainstream media mentioning Twitter over 20,ooo times last year on television (can’t find the source). Twitter has also extended its global reach expanding in Indonesia, Japan, Mexico to name a few.

What this means for brands.

Brands now have the opportunity to reach more people in more places  on Twitter.  They need to open up the firewall and be ready to engage in multiple languages by empowering their employee base to serve as brand evangelists. The important thing to remember is that Twitter is just a tool and if the masses move to something else (ah em … Google Buzz), brands need to be ready and try to forecast consumer behavior in order to stay one step ahead of the game.

One model I use when creating strategic social media plans is to follow the Forrester POST Method (People, Objectives, Strategies, and Technologies or tools) in that order; and notice that technologies is considered last.

In the past, I have always reported into some sort of web marketing organization and due to the nature of my job, I have worked closely with internal PR teams on various projects. To be completely honest, I’ve always had this particular perception that PR metrics were soft. Although I never said anything out loud, I would consistently chuckle under my breath when I saw something like the following on a “what we are measuring” slide:

• Media Coverage
• Sentiment
• Impressions

And now a new chapter emerges in my career and I find myself working for a PR firm, Edelman Digital.  From a metrics perspective, I honestly thought that I would bring to the table significant metrics experience due to my “direct marketing” background. Boy was I wrong.  I am probably the dumbest person in the room when it comes to measuring social media.   I am surrounded by colleagues that not only understand metrics but are pristine in the way they can communicate those metrics to others and correlate them back to business value.  I guess the key takeaways for me are – assuming is bad (very bad), stereotyping is bad (very bad) and I work for a pretty kick a$$ team and learn something new every day (yay for me).

But the reality is that social media metrics in general are soft.

What I mean by soft is that most of it is based on assumptions.  Now this isn’t a bad thing at all; in fact, brand marketing and advertising is even softer, yet less scrutinized than social media.  I have been asked questions like “what’s the value/ROI of corporate blogging?” and my response is something like “well, what’s the value/ROI of billboard advertising?” And to take it one step further, I really don’t see the ROI of organizations that have 50+ people on a web team to support a corporate website that no one really goes to anymore, but that’s just me.

But the issue is that we now have 10, I mean 100 different ways to measure social media that the metrics become diluted and meaningless. I can’t walk into an executive’s office and show him/her X number of slides with a multitude of different ways to measure the effectiveness of a campaign. They want to know how much they are investing and how much they can expect to see in return. Number of comments, RSS subscribers, twitter followers, retweets and a sentiment analysis is meaningless.  Until we in the industry (and some smart entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley who can create the technology) can confidently attribute a valuable metric to some action or interaction on the social web; the metrics will always be soft.

The best case scenario would be data that can accurately attribute a monetary value to thinks like:

-          Tweets/Retweets/Lists/Followers

-          Comment/Likes on wall posts/fans

-          Comments on blogs/subscribers/RSS

-          Everything else..

Until then, we do the best we can and … assume most of it.

So what is a valuable metric?

For most it’s sales. Dell Outlet can confidently attribute a few million dollars to their twitter engagement which I am sure cannibalized a percentage of sales from Dell.com and the products they sell at full price. For others, it could very well be reach, sentiment of just growing a community. However, if this is the case, the metrics should then match the objectives.  Executives and marketing managers cannot expect an increase in sales if the business objective is to grow the community.  A more effective strategy would be to build a community, earn their trust and delicately ask for their permission to market your services; a wise proverb from Seth Godin.

Bottom line is this.

Social media is important. It gives brands a chance to be human and do the things that humans do; listen, converse, love, give and at times ignore.  Measuring these behaviors is difficult yet we all know that it makes a tremendous difference when brands actively engage in the social web.

Metrics are behind; we all know that and I am sure they will catch up. Until then, we have to do our best to identify the right KPIs for each engagement and limit those metrics to 4 or 5 data points.

If a brand engages on the web for the sole purpose of selling products, they are in the wrong place.

So now that this post is going all over the place, I will stop.

Without going overboard in its definition, I believe that social equity happens organically and is the net result of relevant content, in any form, that is produced and that the community finds valuable and shares.  The way to increase social equity is to do just that:  create relevant and valuable content. And, just like the value of a home, social equity can go up or go down.  The best example that is top of mind for me is my friend Chris Brogan. I think we can all agree that he is a very popular guy with a significant following.  But more importantly is his ability to create relevant and valuable content, consistently; which is why he is where he is today.

At Intel, we talked about this concept when referencing the social equity of Intel employees who participate on the social web.  In fact, I learned just the other day that Intel has over 1,000 employees who have completed the social media training and are now engaged online and all over the world.  It’s a huge milestone and other organizations should take note.  Yes, Intel the brand has significant social equity for this reason and they should be applauded.

What’s your definition of social equity?

Here is real time search can drive business results:

• Increased reach of your messages
• Growth in social equity
• Potential customer acquisition

.. and here are some challenges that brands will now have to come to terms with:

• Marketers need to be empowered and willing to participate on the social web
• Technology today is still not fast enough to monitor live conversations. Real-time search requires “real-time” monitoring which translates to “boots on the ground” brand participation. If a brand is highly engaged and savvy with Twitter, it will be ready to respond when issues arise on the fly
• Brands must be more strategic when posting updates on facebook and consider what keywords to use

The article is timely, since I wrote about how brands should be living in the conversational stream earlier this week.

I would think by now that the majority of marketers are beginning to understand the dynamics of social media.   With all the published case studies, surveys and data available, one would think that marketers would invest more in creating a framework that facilitates conversations between a real-person-of-a-brand and a consumer. In my mind, this is the true nature of social media.

A study back in 2008 showed that 55% of consumers want ongoing conversations with companies and brands. The study investigated how brands and consumers interact and how consumers want brands to engage with them. And the results were awesome. In addition to the 55% wanting an ongoing interaction, 89% of respondents said they would feel more loyal to a brand if they were invited to take part in a feedback group.

A more recent study in 2009 (you can download here) found that 85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe. What’s even more interesting is that those users actually want interaction with these brands. Here are some other data points you mind find useful:

Out of the 85% of people who want companies to be present in social media:

• 34% want companies to actively interact with them
• 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request
• 8% think companies should only be passively involved on social media
• 7% think companies should not be involved at all

This survey alone tells me that marketers should pay a little more attention to their customers and less on spitting out traditional one way messages.

Image from Nielsen Blog

Ahh, so what is this conversational stream you ask?  Well, given this growth in social networking, I wonder how often you check your Twitter stream and hit refresh? What about Facebook? Do you click back and forth between the “live feed” and “news feed” to see what your friends are talking about? I do quite often. Have you ever noticed people talking about a product, brand or maybe the outcome of an election? This is the conversational stream (some call it activity stream or just stream).  Brian Solis refers to this as the attention dashboard; whereby all of our attention is deep rooted in the thoughts, ideas, opinions, and perceptions of the communities that we belong and subscribe to.

As a consumer, living in the attention dashboard is natural.  I have a vested interest in what my community actually cares about. So when a friend posts a link to a review of product that he/she just bought and raves about its features; I am probably going to click on it to see what all the hype is about.

For a brand, this is a huge opportunity but it also presents a few challenges.  Steve Rubel, a friend and colleague at Edelman sums it up here:

To mitigate this ongoing trend of streams, communicators will need to: 1) be as ubiquitous as possible, 2) adopt multiple messages, stories and formats and 3) make sure you allow your employees to get out there – in other words, use the force, don’t fight it.

Here is how I see it. Brands need to be relevant. Skip the marketing messages that go through rounds and rounds of approvals from the brand and legal teams. No one reads it anyway. Equip and empower your marketing/PR/product groups to become brand evangelists so they can participate on the social web starting within their own micro-communities. What you will find is relevant messages appearing in others’ streams. Participation means that “relevant branded content” will be omnipresent on the social web; from the Google search results, Delicious & Stumbleupon bookmarks, to links being shared in Twitter and Facebook.

Of course, I have a tendency of oversimplifying everything. There are many issues to consider about real time community engagement but you catch my drift, hopefully.  If not, get with me on Twitter and I will clarify.

Take the recent Alterian Annual Survey 2009 (just released yesterday) as an example and it paints a very important picture. Here are some key insights of the study:

• 40% of respondents anticipated a shift of over a fifth of their budget, with 21% predicting more than a third of their budget will shift towards digital/social channels.
• 66% of all respondents plan to invest in Social Media Marketing in 2010.
• 57% of respondents reported a plan to invest in engaging individuals on their websites.
• 36% of respondents plan to invest in Social Media Monitoring tools.
• Over half of all respondents (51%) are expending a ‘fair’ or ‘significant’ amount of effort to ensure integration of their communication strategies.
• 54% of respondents said social media was ‘increasingly important’ to the overall marketing mix, with 14% believing it to be ‘critical for success’.
• Only 6% of respondents felt ‘extremely prepared’ to take advantage of the new techniques that digital and social media represent with 40% of respondents believing that their staff had either ‘none’ or ‘some – with a plan to invest further’ of the skills necessary to take advantage of new marketing or customer engagement strategies.

What this data tells me is that more organizations are taking social media consumers more serious by listening to what is being said about their brands online and making a strong financial commitment to engage with them.  The data also suggests that most organizations are not ready internally to take on this challenge and it’s quite possible that they may fail. Financial investment is imperative but that’s only half the battle.

Download the full report here (registration required).