Everyone's Blog Posts - PitchEngine

I Know I'm Write

2009-07-08T14:23:28.047Z

Reading is fundamental. Writing is as well. But not all writing is created equal, particularly when it comes to writing for news.

Maybe you’ve been there before. You need to write a press release but don’t have the slightest idea of where to start. You’re unsure about the content, the news factor of your story or what it’s worth. But you were always good in English, so you’ll figure it out.

Or maybe you’ve been here: you have an important message to get out to the media and want give them all the details. You’re uncertain of how to send your press release or if it will even get noticed. But you’re a fairly intelligent communicator, so you’ll make it happen.

By journalistic standards, a story without an angle is a “non-story.” What you may think is news may not exactly be what journalists consider a topic of interest for their readers. In a TV newsroom, a story without a visual element to capture for viewers lacks appeal and may be conveyed as a waste of time. Thus, your beloved press release that you’ve sweated and slaved over adorned with all its’ elaborate details and superlative-like adjectives ends up in File 13.

On the surface, writing for news isn’t much different from what you’ve been taught. However, there is one exception: style.

Enter the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook. Considered the “Bible of the Newspaper Industry,” it is the gold standard of writing for news. AP recently released their 2009 Stylebook packed with rules on grammar, spelling, punctuation and usage, capitalization, abbreviation, word and number usage. It is the one reference with fundamental guidelines for news reporting that all writers, editors, students and PR pros will follow.

When it comes to writing, none of us wants to be told that we’re wrong. Writing for news requires a certain clarity and professionalism that writing for everyday purposes may not hold up. Weak, cloudy writing can be the worst because it reflects our intellect, skill and thought or lack thereof.

Your writing for news should be closely matched with the standards that professional writers go by. While writing in AP style won’t guarantee you any coverage, it tells journalists who receive your press release that you care about good writing and value their craft enough to learn their precise language.

Guard yourself when writing for news by proofing, tailoring and checking your press release. Oh yes, and go get an AP Stylebook.

An Advertising Revolution?

2009-07-03T10:43:34.146Z

Everyone wants to sell something to someone if not everyone. Selling is a relational process. Advertising is a marketing process. The disconnect between advertising and selling is relational. Relations begin with communications. Communications are driven by conversations between people, one to one to millions.

When I see ads on web sites I, like 99% of the market, see no relationship to the sites conversational content, if there is such content. And marketers wonder why they have such a low click through rate? How's that working for you?

Yet brands continue to spend billions of dollars a year (close to $400 billion this year) trying to catch peoples attention with ads that have no context to our conversations. The marketing industry, while shifting to the internet, has not shifted their thinking rather they are applying old methods to new technology. It simply won't and isn't working!

How Can Advertisers Create Relations?

Marketers think slick ads and unique technology creates relations. They're wrong. Relations are formed by an affinity to "content", the context of conversations. The problem is that marketers simply do not know how to create "relational content" that has context to their audience. So you ask "what is relational content?". Good question.

Relational content is communications which creates value for the receivers. That is why we call it "conversational currency". OK, so how can marketers create conversational currency that "pulls their market to them" and enables a transaction?

A Revolutionary "Mesh"?

Joe Marchese writes in an article titled “Why Advertise At All? The form advertising takes to maintain relevance in media’s latest evolution, has yet to be totally unlocked. And it may be that advertising makes up a smaller share of the media mix or (shockingly) a larger share, given that advertising’s new role will be to create conversations, which can drive product insights, which can lead to maintaining a leadership position in product innovation.

It may be that the lines separating advertising, research and other marketing functions will simply blur, and elements of each be present in all brand communications

It is not a blur rather it is a revolutionary convergence or methods and means. The advertising industry needs a revolution not an evolution. As economic pressures continue advertisers need to create innovative ways to create relations that enhance transactions. To get something you never had you have to do something you never did. So what have you never done?

What if you simply aligned your message with specific audiences that have an affinity to your offering. Once aligned why not simply create a conversation of "giving". How? In stead of spending billions on ads that don't work, "give" the ad money to the audience and tell them you've stopped wasting money on advertising. If you transferred the ad money to the audience using a new medium do you think they would spend it? Who doesn't spend found, or free, money?

The money your now spending on ads is wasteful and ultimately your customers pays for the waste. Do you think your market would waste money you gave them? Do you think your market would tell their market that you gave them money? Think again.

I repeat "To get something you never had you have to do something you never did". So you don't think it will work? You'll never know until you do it. By the way, there is a medium which can enable you to do it. Stay tuned and we'll tell you.

What say you?

How Social Is Your Media?

2009-06-29T10:42:52.775Z

The term "social media" has many individuals and businesses confused. Whenever I do a presentation I ask the audience how would they define "social media". The answers reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of both the term and its related implications to the audiences and business.

When communicating to an audience, who is not familiar with your topic, it is always vitally important to put your topic into context so as to insure comprehension of your communications.

Always Start With The Basics

For those of us whom use social media regularly we sometimes forget that the majority of people's familiarity with the term "social media" is in context with simply having a profile on Linkedin, Facebook or Twitter. While having these profiles in most cases the audience does not know how to engage in social activities creating their own media. Thus I always start by spending time defining the terms so the audience can understand what they can do besides simply having a profile.

The adjective "social" implies that the verb or noun to which it is applied is somehow more communicative, cooperative, and moderated by contact with human beings. In the absence of agreement about its meaning, the term "social" is used in many different senses, referring among other things to attitudes, orientations or behaviors which take the interests, intentions or needs of other people into account.

The word media may refer to tools used to store and deliver information or data. Today's social technologies enables people and businesses to create their own media as a means of getting their own audiences attention, attraction and affinity.

Every business needs an audience as do we as individuals. Our audience sustains us, whether it be your family or your customers, we all need an audience to support our development through the exchange of media, information (conversations) which precedes our progress to useful knowledge. Knowledge is the foundation of improving value, whether it is between two or more individuals or business to business. We share knowledge with our children hoping they will use it to improve their lives. We share knowledge with our customers hoping it can be used to improve their lives or their business. We share knowledge using multiple forms of media, a conversation.

Media, whether text, audio, images or video are merely elements of a "conversation". The most valuable conversations take the interests, intentions or needs of other people into account. The least valuable conversations are pushed by selfish interests, intentions or the initiators needs in the forefront. Do you see the difference?

Most people see the difference but lack the will power and knowledge to make the necessary changes. Common sense isn't that common anymore if it were the change would be easy. Social media is a shift aimed at the interest of others. The fact that most people and business don't get it is because the mentality starts with the wrong premise: what's in it for me?. The answer is what do you have to say that is in the interest of others. If you focus your media on the interest of others and create value for them results will come naturally.

If your web site, your profile or your conversations are static then your not adding any conversational value. That is why it is called "social media". Do you expect people and business to come to you? You have to create enough interest, activity, for them to want to come to you. It is called a conversation. Get it? No, then go back and study the definition of "social" and "media" again.

Still don't get it? Try having a self centered conversation with your spouse or your customer or try ignoring or not responding to their interest then maybe you'll get it.

What say you?

PitchEngine: Fresh Out of Beta and Revving

2009-06-25T04:47:19.736Z

In a recent interview with Comet Branding Radio hosts Al Krueger and Sara Meaney, I was asked to reflect on what we've accomplished since our Alpha launch some months back. It's the first time I've really stopped and looked back since the engine turned over it's first Social Media Release and comes at a time when we're experiencing rocket paced growth both from a users count perspective and as a startup.

Thanks to incredible amounts of feedback from a legion of supporters, we've been bending and shaping our tools to accommodate the needs of a new type of PR, what Brian Solis coined, PR 2.0. Our users have begun to reach beyond the traditional PR mindset to engage in public relations the old fashioned way - with your brand's influencers (consumers, bloggers and journalists).

PitchEngine Diagnostics:

8,000 Brands (Here are just a few)
300,000 Visitors in May
33,000 SMR Views Record by STA Travel
4 Cool Case Studies
Lots of User Testimonials

I'm encourage by our rapid growth, and even more excited at what's in store. In the coming weeks, we'll be rolling out unprecedented tools and functionality designed to empower brands, PR pros and media alike. We've recently rolled out the first social news hub that enables brand's to integrate their social feeds from Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and PitchEngine into one place making it easy for consumers, journalists and bloggers to find them through the social web. Here's an example of the Hardee's Social Media Newsroom in action. These tools are just the beginning. We're intent on changing the routine, and stepping up your game to PR 2.0.

Thanks for your continued support. Know that we're listening to each and every one of you and can't wait to share with you what we've been working on!

Jason Kintzler, Founder
@pitchengine

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Do You Produce Fake Results?

2009-06-24T10:49:45.272Z

Business managers focus on things they can measure. Income, expenses, worker productivity and process variation consume peoples attention. Everyone seems to be consumed with numbers. Many people fail to consider some of the most important issues that truly drive a business besides the numbers.

Now the "numbers" are attracting attention to social media. Subsequently everyone wants BIG numbers. Followers, tweets, retweets, blog post, rankings, Google juice, traffic and the obsession for numbers continues. While numbers are important they do not always reveal the true value being created or destroyed. All the major industries have seen their numbers go down consistently for years. Did the numbers lead them to change their course? No, it only reflected to the effect of a cause they failed to recognize.

W. Edwards Deming used to say “The most important things in business are those things you can’t measure, you can see but such things can make or break your business.” When asked “What are such things which you cannot measure? His response was “How do you measure the value of relationships, conversations and the intangible benefit such things produce? It is the intangible things that create success but management wants to focus on results at the cost of the intangible things. Doing so destroys relationships, manipulates conversations and encourages the production of false results because that is what management wants, results even when they are false“

What we learn from conversations, relationships and the intangible value we all gain from being connected with people is the perplexing paradox that many business leaders simply don’t get. The related activities of a networked world are driven by communications and influenced by information. The “result” is what we the people do with the information to benefit ourselves our businesses and our relations.

So What Really Matters?

Our new networked world has everyone chasing results, numbers. Everyone appears to be rushing to engage their markets using social technology. Advertising dollars are moving from print to digital. Attention is rapidly moving to the intangibles and engagement is free but the cost of trying to force results can be very high. Consider what results and the subsequent cost are to these actions.

You can use automated technology to gain followers on Twitter. What results do you get? The need to spend more time "vetting through the useless chatter".
You can push the wrong message out to large audiences. What results do you get? A rejection by the audience.
You can "play" with conversations and try and trick the market. What results do you get? Your brand equity destroyed
You can push out a lot of messages. What results do you get? Labeled as a spammer.
You push out fake message. What results to you get? Fake relations.
You chase BIG numbers. What do you get? A lack of understanding the root cause of what will improve the numbers

Business leaders, marketers and advertisers, must learn how to enhance the relationship with their markets rather than trying to produce results through numbers. The goal is a conversation which begets a relationship that can produce results. However, focusing on the results does not produce relationships. Numbers do matter but what causes the numbers to produce the right results matters most. Don't be misled by fake results. Get it?

What say you?

Guess What? It's Not The Economy

2009-06-17T11:11:33.075Z

Since January of this year we've seen entire markets collapse with much of the blame being put on the economy. Automobile manufactures going into bankruptcy. Banks and Wall Street needing to be bailed out. Newspapers dying, Television viewing in the decline and major publishing and media entities are struggle to survive.

John Fine writes in Business Week: Time Inc.'s ad revenues shrank 30% in this year's first quarter, compared with the year previous, after falling 20% in the last three months of '08. Time Warner's finance chief, John Martin saying at an investor conference that "today we have no intention and no current thinking of doing anything with the publishing business.... It's really hard to make a macro call on the state of that business in the midst of this cyclical downturn" for magazines.

Henry Blodget writes in AdAge: The traditional TV industry -- cable companies, networks and broadcasters -- is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago: in denial.

Specifically, the TV industry's attitude is the same as the newspaper industry's attitude was circa 2002 to 2003: Stop calling us dinosaurs. We get digital; we're growing our digital businesses; we're investing in digital platforms; people still recall ads even when they fast-forward through them on DVRs; there's no substitute for TV ads. And traditional TV isn't going away: Just look at our revenue and profits!

After saying all this same stuff for years, the newspaper industry figured out the hard way that, eventually, reality intrudes. You can't stuff the genie back in the bottle. And in the next five to 10 years, the TV industry will figure this out, too.

There are hundreds of other examples of old industry models collapsing and yet the common response by industry leaders is to blame the economy or the internet which are one in the same.

If It's Not The Economy Then What?

What we are now witnessing are the "results" of revolutionary shifts in market factors that are now manifesting themselves in economic terms. The "shifts" didn't just happen rather they have been increasing in momentum every year for the last 20 years. 2009 simply became the tipping point of changes created by technology. While the marketplace has been seeking and creating perpetual innovation the suppliers have been a sleep at the wheel. The "result" of industry leaders being a sleep at the wheel now equals $1 million of debt per family in the United States. How do you like those kind of results?

Heads In or Out of The "Cloud"?

Blaming the economy for your bad results is like telling your Board we're bankrupt because the customer was wrong. You can blame little old me for not buying but little old me has left your market and joined a different market. I am part of a crowd that communicates in a cloud. The cloud is a collaborative space of massive communications seeking and sharing innovation. While our "cloud" is bright and exciting your cloud is "dark and frightful". The traditional media paints perpetual gloom and doom in your "cloud" and you use it as an excuse not to "shift" to our "cloud". Simply put industry leaders have their head in the wrong "cloud". Subsequently Big Brother had to bail them out to avoid a total economic collaspe.

An economy is the result of market forces. The cause and effect of market forces is innovation. Innovation is spawned by the application of knowledge. Knowledge applied is the result of communications. Communications is the economy. Today's economic results will be improved by perpetual innovation that comes from the crowds communicating in a productive and prosperous cloud. Get it?

What say you?

Is It The Zombie Economy?

2009-06-12T10:54:12.857Z

The rippling effects of the failure of automobile manufactures, banks, insurance companies and wall street is indicative of a systemic failure in ideals, ideas and innovation.

The old economic models of business has not only shifted by done so at speeds that are disrupting everything at the click of a mouse.

When simultaneous disruption happens across multiple industries the fabric of past economic models collapse. Old economic models have been based on beliefs formed by past market experiences and conditions that were predictable. Today markets are changing rapidly and the emergence of mass communications is fueling new ideals, ideas and a new economy. The only thing that is predictable is that things will change faster than you've ever previously experienced.

Time to Shift Our Thinking?

Umair Haque writes in Harvard Business: Saul Hansell asks: are telcos next to go bankrupt?

They're definitely on the list. As I've pointed out for some time, the problem isn't within industries: it's across them.

It's time to connect the dots. It is no coincidence that so many industries are in trouble simultaneously and so fast. The growth of the Zombieconomy is a Jupiter-sized wake-up call to today's leaders.

Here's the real problem.

Capitalism 1.0 is built on an obsolete set of ideals. What the 21st century needs are better ideals, to build a better kind of business on. Fundamentally, we need organizations that can behave very differently.

That's a tough set of lessons to internalize. Recently, I gave a talk on Constructive Capitalism to a bunch of senior guys at a major international organization. They debated with me for close to an hour whether a better kind of capitalism was really necessary.

Frankly, I thought it was a bit funny that the debate was necessary at all. Hey, look — it's the simultaneous collapse of significant portions of the manufacturing and service sectors. Convinced yet?

Thinking Like a Zombie?

Sometimes discussing the emergence and value of all this "social stuff" with business leaders is like talking to Zombies. A zombie is a mythical creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. The word mindelss means marked by a lack of mind or consciousnes (1): marked by or displaying no use of the powers of the intellect (2): requiring little attention or thought. Sound like a harsh assessment of business leaders? How long to the leaders of industries collapsing take to recognize the entire market has changed? Lets see, the automobile industries has been losing billions for years thus "we the people" had to bail them out.

Don't be a zombie. Wake up to the market changes and subsequent opportunities before you. However, in order to wake up you have to recognize that simply resting on your old ideals, old models and past success may mean that you'll be dreaming about yesterday while today displaces you. Get it?

What say you?

What Is Conversational Currency?

2009-06-09T14:09:18.467Z

Social Media and all the related tools are creating a new currency whose worth increases over time. We call this Conversational Currency and it is created by the propagation of your conversation and its relevance to your audience.

Conversational currency is created by people who share their enthusiasm for a topic, a conversation, with their peers. Because conversations are peer-mediated, they has more authority—this much we know already. However, what Conversational Currency reveals to us is the value conversations create which is reflected by endorsement, or propagation of a conversation by the community of peers.

A conversation turns to currency when people discover something meaningful in a "conversational" experience, they are prepared to spread the conversation as if it were their own. Conversations about brand experiences, topical perspectives and innovative ideas have become a new currency

Today value added conversations are increasingly creating a draw to people whom have an affinity to a brand, an experience or a topic of interest. What we consume and how we consume it are important parts of developing "conversational currency. Conversational currency is created by the propagation of a conversation by others that incorporate your conversation into their own narratives. The more valuable your conversation is the more likely they are to be propagated by others.

The conversational process is a form of powerful currency that transforms the relationship between individuals, brands and media perspectives. In this new type of transaction, individuals and brands can provide people valuable conversational currency by successfully delivering outstanding and meaningful information, knowledge and innovative ideas and perspectives. In return, the conversation propagates and, by extension, increases the value of the discussion by drawing attention, attraction, affinity and subsequently an increase in the audience. The audience then adds its perspective, insights and value to the original conversation thus creating a "new currency" of exchange and value creation.

What Determines The Value of Your Currency?

Conversations propagate based on the rate of interest. Bankers don’t care about money; they care about the rate of change of money. People don’t care about your tweets, they care about the rate of change of your tweets. People don’t care about your message; they care about the rate of change of your message relative to their position. Rate of interest in your conversation is reflected by the rate of change. The more your conversation "changes" from one to one to a million the higher the interest rate becomes.

The last mile of conversational currency is the conversion of interest rates to a return. A return from your conversation is represented by the application of the relative information, knowledge and innovation which is applied to a transaction. A transaction is the exchange of value for economic return. The economic return is not only represented by the currency of money but by other forms of currency that eventually lead to revenue. Get it?

What say you?

Which Old Media Gets Social Media?

2009-06-04T10:22:50.257Z

In Kevin Kelly’s book, “The New Rules of The New Economy” he states “The new economy is about communication, deep and wide. Communication is the foundation of society, of our culture, of our humanity, of our own individual identity, and of all economic systems. Communication is so close to culture and society itself that the effects of technologizing it are beyond the scale of a mere industrial-sector cycle. Communication, and its ally computers, is a special case in economic history. Not because it happens to be the fashionable leading business sector of our day, but because its cultural, technological, and conceptual impacts reverberate at the root of our lives.”

Kevin's perspectives lead us back to the issues of what methods create the best results. With any transformational changes in society and businesses a trail of issues can be tracked which drove the emergence of the new order of things. In the world of networks the trail is hits which represent activities, communications—- traffic.

Traffic represents attraction which creates engagement of people and things, a transaction. Google’s whole economic value is driven by the hits economy, traffic. While most of the major media has "gone social", one wonders which branded media is doing it right. After all, the news is the news and you can get it anywhere for free.

Using traffic as one medium of measure we can see, statistically speaking, the major brands like Business Week, Wall Street Journal and Fox News have created a stable "system" of traffic. However, a stable system is not necessarily a good thing in the world of attention and attraction. While the brands illustrated draw millions of viewers to their sites statistically speaking the traffic patterns suggest the attention and attraction methods have not increased the traffic or their draw hasn't increased attention and attraction. A systemic shift is simply not indicated by the data.

Comparing Old Media vs. New Media

Traditional media use the web to facilitate the distribution of news, not relationships. Which creates increased traffic patterns?

In the opening of this post one of the major media brands illustrated is Business Week. As with the others their traffic patterns are stable. Now examine Business Weeks initiative called Business Exchange, a portal of blogs added to a taxonomy of subjects. Now look at the charts illustrating the grown of Business Exchange. Do you see the obvious?

Statistically speaking the growth rate exceeds the rate of change for the old media sites of Business Week, WSJ and Fox News combined. Rate of change is the factor of conversational currency. Overall traffic, if not changing statistically, is an indication of "static interest". A bank makes money based in the rate of change in interest using other peoples money. Conversational currency drives a rate of change in interest. Traffic precedes relationships and transactions follow relationships.

When you examine the traffic of Business Exchange against the old media sites which site create the greatest rate of change? The answer is obvious. The reason for the change is that "interest in media" has changed from the old model to the new model driven by the consumer. Business Exchange has grown exponentially because it is driven by the media created by the people rather than by the traditional model of media. However the journalist from Business Week and elsewhere are learning from the Business Exchange model. Learning is an attraction.

John Byrne's, Editor in Chief of Business Week, engineered Business Exchange as well as a strategic relationship with Linkedin. If you wanted to place bets on which old media wins the new media game who would you bet on? What would happen to Business Exchange if they adopted the new model of journalism?

Follow John and his team and you may witness a disruptive force of talent on the horizon. One other thing. If your not involved in the community of Business Exchange your missing traffic. Get it?

What say you?

Will The Next Leap Be Social Media Vetting?

2009-06-01T22:46:25.785Z

There is simply way too much information populating the social web minute by minute. As businesses and individuals try to capture the currency of all these conversations the next leap will be the "vetting of social media".

Vetting social media will become the transformational cycle that advances knowledge and innovation. Transformation of social media means getting the right content into the right minds and creating relevant actions from the audience. However the audience continues to get smarter and "vets" information as they look for relevancy.

You might think Google search is a vetting process and it is but a weak one at that. When we search of topics what comes up in terms of relevancy are key words tagged to content, the relative traffic from said content and the page ranking of the site carrying the content. These "vetting processes" do not necessarily reveal the relevancy of content and its value rather the game of media popularity, not unlike most new books, is the vetting of today's content.

Why Is Vetting Important?

Vetting is a natural force of markets. Now the markets are relative to conversations driven by all this "social stuff". Today there are ranking systems for Twitter, Friendfeed and the host of social sites trying to enhance the conversational threads. However in the capital markets we can see vetting has changed numerous industries, business practices and consumer behavior. Consider:

People will pay to have products vetted (ex; Consumer Reports, Angies list, yelp)
Employers will pay to have people vetted (ex; MSN certification, PMP certification, LEED, College Degree, Etc)
Government will pay to have services vetted (PE, CPA, FAA, Voter Registration, checks and balances)
Companies and consumers capitalize on social vetting (Ebay, Craigslist, Amazon)
Venture Capitalist vet through hundreds of business ideas before investing in one idea
The Educational System "vets" students acquisition and application of knowledge through a grading system
American Idol vets through potential stars based on the audience feedback
Business Week vets through news stories based on "most read"
Industries without 3rd party vetting ultimately fail: GM/UAW, Bear Sterns (banking), Newspapers, Zillow, etc.

Vetting is and has been an important function of the market. Now the game of vetting just got raised several notches because the worlds seeks knowledge and innovation needed to apply to old problems and new opportunities.

When will Social Media Vetting Create New Markets of Economic Gain?

New markets will be created when the "vetting of social media" enables ideation to be applied to solving old problems or creating new markets of innovative products and services. Ideation vetting will eventually be facilitated when someone taps the "crowds" and "vets" the conversations into categories of innovation that can be applied to produce improved results. Consider the above examples of how different industries have used vetting to create improved value for consumers, businesses and society at large. Think ahead a little. Consider the wisdom and collaborate opportunities afforded by social media.

All that needs to be done is to "connect the dots", enhance the technology and let the free market create incentives that engage the "crowds". After all, if the people are the end consumers of innovation then let the people have a say in what innovation is needed. The entire process can be done on a local and national basis. The ultimate "link" to creating the next leap with a value oriented vetting process is Leadership. Will it come from media leaders, technology leaders, and academia or from someone like you or I. Stay tuned and the answer will reveal itself when someone stands up and "vets it". Get it?

What say you?

What Produces Social Media Results?

2009-05-31T11:42:59.423Z

Businesses and individuals are all seeking innovative ways to leverage social media for currency, whether actual revenue or goodwill. They see social media as a robust way to add reach and richness to their marketing efforts; however, what is less obvious is how to do it?

How to effectively apply social technology to reach specific markets of conversations and subsequently create the exchange has become the Holy Grail of social media as a process.

For companies to arrive at a more competitive, more advantageous position the route begins by acquiring essential knowledge leading to innovative practices that result in conversational currency. To arrive at your destination you first need to construct a map: A series of initiatives and actions aimed at accelerating your progress towards achieving our ultimate goal. Essential knowledge must first be acquired and translated into a strategic plan that will allow you to set the proper course for your journey.

Most businesses are more focused on the cost and results than gaining an understanding of the process of social media. But in order to effectively leverage social media to produce the intended results it is vitally important to "learn" the art and science of conversations in order to effectively apply the methods of creating conversational currency. Think of this investment in education as a "knowledge transfer process" that may initially require time and money to accomplish but the value it creates far exceeds the cost. The results of effectively enabling individuals and businesses to gain from this transfer of knowledge ultimately will be reflected in the future through significant savings in time and effort. In other words, an investment in essential knowledge leads directly to an increase in overall productivity. Finding the Holy Grail of conversational currency requires safe passage through the hallowed grounds of essential knowledge. No matter what your learning to leverage and give by actively participating in conversations with your markets, it is knowledge that fuels the result.

Each day more businesses are awakening to the power of the social web and there is one thing separating the successful from the unsuccessful: Knowledge. Without knowledge a business can quickly get lost in the “sea of social technology” losing precious time doing unproductive activities without achieving a desired result. Money is a derivative of knowledge. The lack of knowledge is a derivative of cost.

Social Media Funnels Knowledge

The landscape of social media is changing daily. The speed of change creates new dynamics, new knowledge and disruption for those that don't "know". Keeping track of these changes requires an investment in time and the application of knowledge. Time cost money. Without gaining the required knowledge you lose time and productivity. Gaining and internalizing "knowledge" is the means for gaining time and improving productivity. Leveraging time and productivity is what produces results.

An individual or business can save time and money by using "knowledge resources". A knowledge resource is someone or an organization that can either transfer the knowledge of "how to create results from social media" to your internal resources. The other alternative is to partner with knowledge resources that can facilitate your pursuit of social currency on your behalf. However allowing an outside knowledge resource to facilitate the required actions for you means you never internalize or own the knowledge. So, which is better then to outsource or to own?

Ownership enables you to become self sufficent. Outsourcing makes you co-dependent. Co-dependency is problematic: It results in a dysfunctional enterprise. In order to run a functional business you must learn to gain, leverage, create and own knowledge. Using social media to achieve results is a paradigm shift for all of us. Understanding that social media functions as a vast reservoir of information about your markets, your customers, your employees is important. Understanding how to funnel and filter that information into essential knowledge is the key to your success. Monitoring the transitions yet to come is crucial to meeting the challenges these sea changes threaten to have upon your business.

The good news is that you can learn how to ride the wave rather than drown. By valuing the process of learning you can discover innovative ways to generate conversational currency. An old proverb teaches that people perish due to a lack of knowledge. Your company can either prosper or perish. What produces results? Knowledge. Got it? No, then get it! The choice is yours.

What say you?

Steve Case makes his case on the Time Warner/AOL split

2009-05-28T21:27:26.196Z

By Henry Fawell

Time Warner announced this morning that it would part ways with AOL, officially ending a marriage that was hailed in 2000 as a merger for the ages between giants of "old" and "new" media.

Of note is how Steve Case, former AOL chairman and architect of the merger, chose to make his views known about the break-up. Case didn't call a friendly reporter (as far as I can tell) or pen an op-ed. Instead, he used Twitter to articulate why he believes the merger failed.

Here are some highlights from Case, who wrote in 8 short bursts between 8:28 a.m. and 9:28 a.m:

"My perspective on AOL & Time Warner: has been a long, tortuous journey - and after a difficult decade, its time to open new chapter."

"Merger could've been transformative: driven convergence of TV/Internet/phone, ushered in digital music & video, etc.

"But synergy didn't happen. Didn't integrate businesses to drive innovation. Lots of missed opportunities."

"AOL not what it was a decade ago, to be sure. Uphill battle to return to greatness. But doable. Wish the team at AOL the very best!"

"Thomas Edison: 'Vision without execution is hallucination' - pretty much sums up AOL/TW - failure of leadership (myself included)."

The fact that Case chose a micro-blogging site signals the continuing migration of business leaders to sites that allow them to communicate directly with the public, free of interference or potential misinterpretation from reporters.

Case did more than simply reach the 12,500 people who follow him on Twitter. He reached millions more when his Twitter followers posted his comments for their own networks to read and when the Associated Press included his tweets in a wire story, meaning that Case's comments are bound for publication in newspapers across the country.

Twitter also allowed him to articulate a message exactly as he wanted without the possibility of slipping up or being misquoted.

Case isn't the only business leader or personality to use Twitter to influence public opinion. Venture capitalists, airlines, computer companies, and financial advisers are just a few of the other industries integrating online communities in to their broader communications strategy. Readers of this blog would be wise to consider whether their company should do the same.

Are You in the PR Dark Ages?

2009-05-28T04:07:05.446Z

On any given day, I have the opportunity to chat with PR pros from around the globe. Sometimes these practitioners are technologically savvy, but most times they're not. Truth is, the majority of them have been pumped full of webinar statistics that mean absolutely nothing to their company or client's bottom line. They've learned to choose numbers on a spreadsheet over genuine engagement and actual sales or attendance.

I've come to the conclusion that as a result of "new PR technologies" like keyword optimization and mass distribution, our industry as a whole has suffered. Who is to blame? Well, everyone really.
If you find yourself saying, "I sent my press release at 90,000 journalists today," and believe that's good PR - you might want to read on.

While the top-down news distribution model has been blown to pieces, the top-down PR distribution model has managed to hang on a little longer. The fact is, traditional PR distribution relies on your audience going to traditional news outlets to find your content. But what happens when the audience stops going to the news outlets? What happens to the top-down distribution model then?

It's time to change your focus and tighten your client's PR budget line item. These days, it's about going after the engaged few - a smaller, more targeted group of friends, fans and followers who offer your brand organic exposure. These people, in addition to bloggers and journalists, help your content become far more viral than the traditional press release ever could.

How could this work? Check out this example of how Jackson Kayak used PitchEngine (from the San Francisco Chronicle).

You might be headed for the PR Dark Ages if:

1) You spend more time on lists than content
2) You look for the "easy button"
3) Your headline is a string of optimized keywords that don't make a sentence
4) You "dry fire" a press release without any context or actual media contacts
5) You email (or fax) your attached press release to more than 30 journalists at once
6) You broadcast your PR
7) You're not reaching influencers who care about your client's brand, organization or event
8) Your client has no friends, fans or followers
9) You think hashtags are the three things that signify the end of a press release
10) You think 90,000 journalists actually read your content
11) You think a Social Media Release is a Press Release with sharing icons on it
12) You publish a release, "because you have to"
13) You use social media as a "channel" for your press release
14) You don't follow @briansolis @chrisbrogan @skydiver or @PRSarahEvans on twitter
15) You're not taking market share away from ad agencies by introducing social media to your clients
16) You've never used PitchEngine to create content designed for the social web

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What Is The NPV Of Social Media?

2009-05-26T21:37:02.980Z

Businesses measure a lot of things in order to determine if their actions justify the cost.

In the world of accounting there has been a series of methodologies developed to measure numerous attributes of business activities. There is IRR (The internal rate of return). There is NPV (Net Present Value) vs. Future Value. There is CLTV (Customer Lifetime Value) and the acronyms propagate as new knowledge reveals new measures. Each of these methodologies attempts to put effective decisions trees around measurement of the cost and return from business activities.

So What Is The IRR, NPV and CLTV of Social Media Activities?

Phil Baumann writes: "As the Web stretches and as Moore’s Law continues to creep out of microprocessors and into our daily lives, predicting the future is getting harder every day."

"If you’re planning on investing in social media based on what’s happening now, there’s a chance that your investment could face reduced returns as the game changes. We are now moving toward a Cloudy future and we’re just trying to figure that out. Investing too heavily in current technologies without taking into account the future value of those technologies could weigh an organization down."

"So when enterprises invest their efforts in social media strategies, they will not only have to look at current measures of ROI (however that’s defined), they will have to understand the present value of future opportunity costs. This is more a matter of mind than matter: conducting business in the 21st Century demands a cunning appreciation for the nonlinear course of technological advancement."

Can We Make This Simple?

Without applying the complex formula's of IRR, NPV and CLTV lets try and use simple math to define the value of social media activities to a business enterprise. Here is my simple example:

You are a fairly savvy social net worker and have acquired some impressive statistics. You have connected with 500 “friends” on Facebook, 500 associates on LinkedIn, 500 posts on your own blog and have 1,000 followers on Twitter. Let’s say you spend 10 hours a week (two hours a day five days a week) managing your social media activities and elevating your Web presence. That equates to 40 Hours a month or 520 hours a year.

Let’s also say your time – or the time of someone you hire – cost $50 an hour, which would mean, you invested $26,000 a year in social media related activities. In this example you would have to make a sale worth at least $26,000 (IRR) within the year to break even, that is using simple math. So out of roughly 1,000 or more connections you’d have to attract, connect and convert some of them in order to make a sale. Do you think your conversations are valuable enough to attract relations that may represent a sale?

The other alternative is to spend $26,000 a year on marketing materials, print advertisements, web promotions and direct mail campaigns. $26,000 won't get you much reach using those methods and your marketing activities would be considered anti-social.

Consider this: By leveraging social media correctly you’ll reach even more people and create a deeper connection. And with a carefully thought out “conversational currency” strategy then your practically guaranteed that your social media activities will generate an attraction. A “conversational currency” strategy that takes into account where your current and potential customers are and is designed to reach them in such a way as to build an affinity adds value. And it’s easier than you think – much easier than calculating sophisticated accounting formulas.

By simply doing the right things and doing them right will soon translate even the smallest (or largest) circle of friends into a healthy audience, an audience that can be grown beyond what you can imagine. Having a thriving audience is crucial to your success. Some in your audience will immediately identify with your offering and buy today (NPV), others will hopefully buy tomorrow (Future Value). But some are going to buy again and again and again (CLTV).

The potential value added by using social media right is significant for both today and tomorrow. It all depends on how you measure the IRR, NPV and CLTV of relationships. Do you want a wider reach, a deeper connection and a greater return? Create better relationships and do the math. Get it?

What say you?

The time is right for communications that stress our commonalities

2009-05-21T15:22:00.872Z

Supposedly, F. Scott Fitzgerald once told Ernest Hemingway that, “The rich are different from you and me” and Hemingway famously responded by saying, “Yeah, they have more money.” This exchange has come to my mind several times in recent years as I provided communications support to philanthropic organizations and public programs that address issues related to poverty. I’ve come to recognize that the greatest communications challenge in generating widespread and sustained public support for the effort to alleviate poverty is changing the public perception that the poor are different from the rest of society.

Until the majority of the middle and upper income American public rejects the kind of mystique surrounding the poor that Fitzgerald applied to the rich, there’s little chance of significantly reducing poverty in our country. To re-phrase Hemingway, the poor are different simply because they have less money. And they have less money because they have fewer opportunities to acquire it through proper education and supportive social systems. The many worthy poverty-fighting programs, practices and policies of our leading philanthropies and government entities are not going to bring about the degree of change that is needed without a huge wave of public identification with the plight of the poor.

With our current deep recession, I believe that we are at a point in time that presents an opportunity unprecedented since the Great Depression to tell the stories of the poor in ways that reinforce our common humanity and that generate the public and political will to meaningfully address the many issues surrounding poverty in our country. Maybe in the 1980s we could snicker when Michael Douglas’s character in the movie Wall Street says “Greed is good.” In 2009, we see all too clearly the ill effects of greed on our lives and on the lives of our families, friends and neighbors as well as on our entire financial system. Our retirement investments are taking nose dives while people we know and care about are losing their jobs, their homes and facing realities that the poor have always faced - - fear and insecurity.

From a communications perspective, the current economic conditions make the time right for a national dialogue about both the rich and the poor in America - - and about what can realistically be done to close the gap between these groups that has grown so dangerously large in recent years. The public is listening more attentively than ever. Our institutions need to seize the moment and communicate messages that accentuate the connections between the lives of the haves and the have-nots with the goal of trying to reverse the national mindset of the past several years where the rich were unduly venerated and the poor were unjustifiably ignored.

Britain's expense scandal highlights the need for "Daily Mail Tests"

2009-05-20T13:12:11.448Z

When was the last time you applied the "Daily Mail Test" to your company?

The scandal currently rocking British politics suggests you may want to give the Daily Mail Test fresh consideration, because failing it could cause a public relations nightmare with career-ending consequences.

What is the Daily Mail Test? The test requires that you consider not just whether a particular company practice is legal or permissible under company rules, but rather how that policy would be received if it were splashed across the front page of newspapers in mailboxes across the country. The term is attributed to David Cameron (pictured), leader of Great Britain's conservative party and a former public relations executive.

British members of Parliament are learning the hard way what happens when you fail the Daily Mail Test. British press has disclosed in recent weeks that MPs have been claiming public reimbursements for questionable personal expenses, ranging from the cost of manure to manicure an MP's garden to reimbursements for repairs to a tennis court. The scandal hits just after Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised taxes on upper-income taxpayers to help close a record budget shortfall.

To say that the revelations caused an uproar would be an understatement. The scandal has already forced the Speaker of the House of Commons to resign, the first time a British speaker has done so in more than 300 years, and has consumed political commentary across the country. Another MP apologized and stepped down for expensing the costs of clearing his private moat.

The scandal brings to mind recent examples of U.S. companies failing the Daily Mail Test over policies that were legal or seemed routine in the eyes of management. One example is AIG's distribution of employee bonuses after receiving $170 billion in taxpayer funds; Another is U.S. automaker executives flying corporate jets to Washington to ask for taxpayer funds.

So, if your company took the Daily Mail Test today, would you pass or would you fail? What "routine" company policies would spark uproar among your customers, investors, or board members if they became public? Now is the time for communications pros and their bosses to sit down, think hard about their organization's version of questionable expense accounts and corporate jets, and figure out how to pass the Daily Mail Test.

Social Media Transformation Cycle

2009-05-19T21:51:13.994Z

My brain isn't always the sharpest and it takes time for me to grasp information and its relative meaning. Words carry lots of meaning and unless we really "read and listen to comprehend" we can miss the true value of someone's work. If you've ever listen to or read something from someone smarter than you then you know what I mean.

Three years ago I read Doc Searls work and in particular The Cluetrain Manifesto. The theme of the Cluetrain is "Markets are Conversations" and the book discussed how the internet was propagating conversations at rates never before experienced and subsequently creating and influencing markets.

Recently I read The Cluetrain Manifesto yet again for the fourth time. This time I think my brain cells finally connected and I saw exactly how the acceleration of conversations create cycles of transformation that lead to expansion of existing or creation of brand new markets. All generated from conversations.

Cycles of Transformation

Conversations are filled with information which is shared with others. The internet, in its current stage, enables the propagation of conversations from one to one to millions at the click of a mouse. The acceleration of conversations at rates beyond past experiences facilitates the transformation of information into knowledge. Subsequently a few people discern the knowledge gained and move to the creation of innovation in product, service and delivery (marketing, service and reach).

From the creation of innovative approaches in product, service and delivery market leaders create currency. Currency comes in many different forms. Time, productivity and monetization of both create new capital. Subsequently the introduction of new innovation gets disseminated as information contained in conversations which now becomes known to the masses thanks to the internet.

At each and every point in the dissemination process, content can be vetted by the community of peers, colleagues, and other participants. This is extremely important because content that survived extreme vetting becomes a factual addition to the marketplace of knowledge. This is the highest order and the most valuable outcome of the social media exchange. Every notice how valuable conversations are those that facilitate the creation of new value and subsequently are passed on to ultimately create innovation that attracts the masses? Microsoft, IBM, Google, Facebook, Linkedin all the Fortune 500 and every business born on the landscape of commerce was born out of a conversation. Those that survive are those that continue the conversation aiming at increasing value through innovative developments that the market wants or consumes.

The value of social media is relative to the cycle of social media transformation that is vetted through the marketplace of peers. Past industries were started, enabled and created by conversations that led to innovation. Consider a few examples:

Manufacturing innovations that fueled production of products that consumers wanted. (examine any product currently manufactured)
Service innovations that helped organizations and consumers improve productivty. (examine any service you use and consider its value)
Technological innovation that fuels productivity, communications and creativity. (examine Google, IBM, Microsoft, Wireless, Internet, Broadcasting etc etc.)

In each case billions of new capital and currency was created.

Now we are witnessing conversations from the marketplace that confirm that the cycles illustrated are indeed the process of transformation aimed at creation of new value. The difference between today and yesterday is the rate of change created by and through the conversations propagated through social media.

Consider recent stories about KFC and Oprah, Target & Non Profits and the how Twitter is helping local businesses improve sales. You don't have to look too far to see other examples and you can bet we'll see a lot more who understand this cycle, whether consciously or not, and apply the thinking to create new markets or serving existing ones better. Those that serve or create markets best win. Did I Get it? Do you?

What say you?

Bravo for Bravo's Social Media Execution

2009-05-18T21:03:54.906Z

I haven’t been watching Bravo’s “Housewives of…” franchise but I sure have heard all the buzz. Last week Mashable covered Bravo’s excellent use of social media tools and successful virtual viewing party. Jennifer Van Grove wrote:

With these numbers, Bravo’s foray into interactive live streaming of traditional TV-only content isn’t likely to be their last.

-Read More-

Too Many Tweets?

2009-05-18T21:02:48.479Z

I can’t stop thinking about Venetian composer Antonio Salieri.

If you’re not a student of classical music you may know him as Mozart’s nemesis in Peter Shaffer’s film “Amadeus.” “Too many notes,” was his review of a new piece by Mozart. “Too many notes.”

If you’re like me, and I suspect there must be a silent majority out there, you must be wondering how any one person finds enough material to power dozens of tweets each and every day. While some of those updates are absolutely valuable, amusing, or interesting I find myself ignoring the balance due to “too many tweets.” Like Salieri, I want to follow along and listen – I really, really do.

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Agent Provocateur Using Social Media

2009-05-18T21:01:29.324Z

I’ve spent a lot of time working with game changing, female driven businesses – several of which have walked a very fragile line between erotic and mainstream. At our core Americans are still very skittish about the ways in which we permit brands to talk with us about our basic human sexuality. For example, European condom ads are far more honest (and usually pretty damned funny) about their sole function than you will ever see here in the U.S. And it’s not just about FCC standards. It ’s really about our cultural perspective on all things sexual. If you need a little laugh today, be sure to watch the European comedy example at the bottom of this post – it was banned here in the U.S. but became a viral smash!

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Paste Magazine's Love Fest

2009-05-18T21:00:16.275Z

Paste Magazine maintains the momentum of their UGC Obamicon success with the Valentine themed “Luvicon” campaign. And yes, I love it for all the reasons I talked about in my inaugural post. Paste has this down to a science now. This is the subscriber email that was sent during the Valentine’s rush. I’m hoping Paste will share some of their data regarding Zazzle conversions or cost per new customer acquisition. We sit, wait, and admire our own handiwork in our own Luvicon gallery.

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Never Too Old For Facebook

2009-05-18T20:58:58.565Z

OK. True confession time. Around 2003 I asked a friend, “How old is too old to be on MySpace?” He looked nervous, as though I was accusing him of something, but I really wanted to hear whether I was dabbling in something completely juvenile and should rethink the whole thing.

The newsroom I worked in at the time was populated with high school interns intent on converting the grownups – by creating pages on their behalf – that they would then have to maintain! It was also around that same time that MySpace was suddenly getting massive media attention for not filtering out illegitimate (read: stalkers, etc.) from its rolls. Was this really something I wanted to “waste my time with?”

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Your Authentic Voice

2009-05-18T20:57:51.309Z

I’ve had several conversations in the past week about finding one’s authentic online voice, particularly in relation to blogging. To me this simply means taking your brand’s messaging out of the board room and imagining the same information as shared over coffee with friends. You can also think of it as writing a friendly letter to that same group of pals. What you have or want to say doesn’t need to be funneled through another department. That only dilutes the sincerity of your message.

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Nine West - Photo booth

2009-05-18T20:56:42.121Z

If you read my previous post then you know I’m a big fan of a well executed UGC campaign. At the risk of being redundant and becoming a one note thinker, I have to say that I’m loving Nine West’s new UGC PHOTOBOOTH effort designed to promote their new NWBI range. I actually clicked through from an email the minute I got it. They may have another “elf yourself” or “obamicon” sized opportunity for their audience. Why?
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FLAIR’S INAUGURAL POST – OBAMICON PHENOMENON

2009-05-18T20:55:12.044Z

Greetings Engaged Community,

I suppose an inaugural post should focus on the who, what, and why behind FLAIR MEDIA but on this most auspicious and historic day I’m a wee bit more focused on matters of national celebration and community. Who isn’t, really?

So in the spirit of all things election and community oriented, I vote for OBAMICON.ME as one of the greatest social media campaigns out there. I hesitate to say ever but it’s sheer simplicity, ease of use, and ability to tap into the cultural zeitgeist with such fluidity is remarkable.

-Read More-

Will This Conversation Propagate?

2009-05-16T12:27:42.679Z

The phenomenon of social media is producing results. People are empowered with options related to how they accept, deny, share, and pursue information.

It is no longer sufficient to speak at people solely through traditional means; they must be engaged in conversation and attracted into a relationship. There is no institution which can avoid these new conditions and to deny the influence is to deny people’s need and right to communicate.

The rate of conversations relative to the impact and implications of social media are accelerating. Consider the trends illustrated in the Google trends graph in this post. In less than three years there has been over a 300% increase in Google searches for the term social media. Can you find another subject matter on Google that has sustained this rate of acceleration? Even if you could there is no denying that the “pull” of social media is in hyper speed with accelerated rates fueling the interest and curiosity in 2009.

What Does A Search Imply?

Searches imply an awareness, an interest and desire to learn and understand something. When we search we’re looking for something or somebody. The frequency of a term on Google implies interest, influence and when the rate of searches for a certain term increases in implies relevance to people’s interest and desire to learn about something or someone. The rate at which things change is more important than the change itself. A Bank does not care about money – A bank only cares about the rate of change in money – it’s called “interest”. Is the term “interest” the same for money as it is for human search behavior? “Is the presence of the concept of “interest” therefore the basis of a currency?”

Interest on money is supposed to compensate the lender for “risk”. When money devalues, there is a negative “interest” but can there ever be a negative risk? Of course not. The reason we need to print more money is because negative risk cannot exist. Therefore, such currency is inadequate. Social currency on the other hand can manage negative interest rates with ease and therefore may act as a superior currency

Based on the data illustrated in the above graph one may conclude that the relevance, interest and desire to learn more about social media is accelerating. The acceleration also aligns itself with the growth rate of social networks and use of social media. So again the phenomenon of social media is “pulling” attention to the medium and means. One may conclude that a new paradigm is shaping if not creating the new means for human interaction.

Statistically speaking the implications illustrated in the graph above indicated a “systemic change”. A systemic change happens when data suggest a process has or is out of “control” and no longer stable. Predictions become difficult because the “process data” shows significant changes. Changes to a process are reflected in the inputs: people, methods, machines and influences. When inputs change a process changes and subsequently the results change as well.

What Results Will Change?

Personal and professional results vary based on an aim. If the aim is to learn something then the data suggest social media is fueling learning. If the aim is money then in order to gain more money one must be where their market, their audience is conversing.

People are suppliers and consumers of currency. When conversations propagate the currency of the conversation accelerates. Propagation can refer to reproduction, and other forms of multiplication or increase. Conversations, and the propagation of conversations, are the fuel which creates value for others if the conversations adds value. Every kind of result is influenced by the currency of a conversation, whether factual or not.

If you want to improve a result then you must engage in the conversations that impact said results. Changing a result starts with a conversation that perpetuates the needed changes. Let’s see how well the currency of this conversation, if it adds value, gets propagated. The measures are reflected in the references to this post through tweets, retweets and diggs otherwise referred to as passing along ( a process) the social currency (the value) contained in this conversation.

If the value of this conversation is high enough then it will be passed one to one to millions. Let’s see what happens to this one.

What say you?

RIP Press Reports.

2009-05-14T16:03:03.862Z

For decades, PR professionals have demonstrated their performance and value by providing clients with regular press reports accompanied by press clips – quantifying every media mention of the client, and proving that time spent on press releases, news distribution, pitches and interviews was worthwhile.

Enter social media.
With the rising popularity of social media, PR pros monitoring every mention of their client (and oftentimes, client’s industry, competitor’s, etc.) are inundated. TweetBeep and Google Alerts alerts flood our inboxes with Internet chatter. Fellow PR people have asked me, “How do you report on all of this?”

My answer?
There is no place for social media in the traditional press report.

That’s right. I said it. PR people need to cut the chord from the coveted press report and take a step back and take a look at what we’re actually trying to achieve.

ROI vs. ROE - Investment vs. Engagement.

Before, we measured Return On Investment.

Traditionally, if a client was announcing a product launch, for instance, the PR pro would draft a press release, distribute it, pitch the appropriate editors/reporters, follow-up as necessary, and ideally, it would result in print coverage on the client and their new product.

This is earned placement, old-school style. That diligent PR pro would then summarize each of these mentions in a press report, along with quantitative information (often things like circulation, ad equivalency) to provide the client with a monetary ROI.
Now, we can measure Return On Engagement.

And, return on engagement can’t be quantified.

In today’s socially networked world, a PR pro may announce a client’s product launch with an SMR (social media release) and share via social networks.* By nature, these mechanisms are designed for sharing – the information spreads naturally between people and across networks.

This coverage does not belong in a traditional press report.

Why?
It’s not an accurate measurement of the conversation.

Conversations about your clients take place in countless places - dinner parties, parks and in phone conversations. Do these get included in press reports? Of course not. It’s just as ridiculous to think that social media coverage can be reported in this way.

Because we have the ability to monitor social media, however, (it’s much more difficult to monitor all those dinner party conversations), it is our job as PR professionals to listen, report and respond in a meaningful way.

We could try to attach a “hits viewed” or a Nielsen NetRating or Alexa rank to these online mentions, or make an attempt to arbitrarily calculate some sort of advertising equivalency for what the space would have cost had we purchased an ad on Facebook and on Google, but why? What would that tell us about the conversation, those who shared it and those who received the message?
A message spread through social networks is PR, but this engagement not a direct result of PR.

Take for instance, Kane Consulting's efforts to promote our recent workshops. I created an SMR (using Pitch Engine, of course) and shared it with our networks, which include media and bloggers. Suddenly, we had “coverage” in places we didn’t know existed. My favorite example – a long-time friend of Jen’s got wind of the event via our Facebook Group. He shared the information on his blog. A friend of his then shared the event with her Google group. Within the Google group, another friend of Kane Consulting sparked a conversation on the speakers and the relevance of social media.

In this strain, there were at least four mentions of Kane Consulting and our event. And not a single one of them was earned as a direct result of our PR effort. Rather, because of the equity we have in a network that we nurture, ambassadors told the story for us. Reporting them as separate mentions wouldn't do justice to the value behind the conversation and how it spread.

The success lies in the return on engagement. In this instance, we learned that:

1) We’ve got some excellent, fertile soil in our online networks

2) We’re planting our seeds in the right places

3) These seeds will sprout and grow, on their own, into beautiful flowers

4) We need to nurture the garden so flowers continue to grow

(What can I say…we like metaphors).

The fourth point, above, is where, as a PR person, I find my place. What’s the next story we tell? With whom do we share it? With which of these “flowers” can I cultivate a more personal relationship?

Brand equity is built over time. In the same way, the extent of social media “results” will continue to surface over time. Because results are ongoing and dynamic, it’s nearly impossible to accurately measure them at any given time.

The most immediate, quantitative results from ROE might be increased sales (our in our case, registrations). The more valuable results, however, are qualitative, and occur long term. It’s not possible to quantify the value of a brand ambassador, who is essentially doing your PR for you. One exchange could plant the seed that eventually grows into a lead, a new client, or a partner.

*Please, don’t get your panties in a bunch – online efforts aren’t always a replacement to traditional media relations campaigns. They can, and often should, co-exist.

Swine flu highlights perils and promise of social media

2009-05-14T15:37:34.751Z

By Henry Fawell

This column was originally published in The Daily Record on Friday, May 8, 2009

The H1N1 virus – also known as “swine flu” – isn’t going away just yet, but there a few early lessons we can glean from this case about how to communicate effectively in a public crisis.

For me, the H1N1 outbreak illuminates both the perils and promise of social media and how it can shape public perception.

First, the perils. As the H1N1 flu picked up momentum in late April, popular social media sites lit up with commentary from the public. Many users of the social media site Twitter warned the broader public to avoid eating pork products so as not become “infected” with the flu.

There is one problem with this advice: it’s wrong. The H1N1 flu is not transmitted via food, but the presence of such inaccurate information in the public dialogue posed a threat to the bottom line of pork producers across the world.

Yet U.S. pork producers had just 300 followers on Twitter – a miniscule audience considering the global scrutiny and volume of chatter about their product. As a result, a critical opportunity to contain damaging speculation was missed.

Twitter is no echo chamber. The micro-blogging site has 5 million members globally, each of whom is capable of delivering information to wide audiences. With some Twitter members boasting networks of one million followers, misinformation about pork products can spread like, well, a virus.

Sure enough, prices of hog futures contracts dropped sharply as the flu’s reach spread. I won’t attribute the price drop solely to the misinformation on sites like Twitter, but it is hard to ignore the impact on the pork industry’s product as false information spread to wider audiences.

The lesson is that organizations cannot ignore social media communities in a crisis. Any citizen with a Twitter account or a video camera can spread any content about your industry or product that he or she desires, whether it’s pork or Pepsi. And whether your organization considers that citizen credible is irrelevant; what matters is whether that citizen’s network of followers considers them to be credible. To put it in public health terms, organizations fighting through a crisis must quarantine bad information and kill it. Then, replace it with the facts.

So, what is the upside of social media in a crisis? The Centers for Disease Control has demonstrated during H1N1 outbreak that organizations under the gun can use social media to their advantage. The CDC added roughly 10,000 new followers on Twitter every day during the crisis, bringing its total followers to more than 105,000 at the time of this writing. It has distributed hundreds of messages online about the flu, its origins, and what precautions the public should take. Cable news outlets such as CNN monitored the CDC’s online efforts and repeated the agency’s message to their massive viewing audience. The CDC also posted informational videos on Youtube, some of which garnered more than 140,000 views per week.

Beyond social media, the CDC’s strategy shows three hallmarks of a good crisis communications strategy.

Over-communication. One would have to be living under a rock to have not seen or heard from the CDC over the past two weeks. The agency utilized virtually every communications tool at its disposal – both old and new - to inform the public. The CDC hasn’t fallen prey to the dangerous assumption that your audience “gets it” in a crisis after you’ve issued a couple press releases and updated your website. To the contrary, they spare no opportunity to reassure the public, often on a minute-to-minute basis.

Message discipline. Acting CDC Director Richard Besser has positioned himself as a calm and articulate spokesman for the government. More importantly, he has repeated his message of prudence and informed decision-making relentlessly.

Crisis planning. The CDC has prepared for years to communicate effectively in the event of an outbreak. Granted, it’s the CDC’s job to do so, but too few companies today can say they have developed a plan to communicate with their stakeholders in the event of a crisis.

The closing chapters of the H1N1 crisis have yet to be written, but one lesson for Maryland organizations is clear: public conversations are migrating to online communities that hold great promise and great peril. The real question is whether your organization will follow.

Who Is Leading Whom & What?

2009-05-13T11:10:00.664Z

People follow people who have more contacts, followers, blog post and overall activity on the web. The web provides numerous data points to indicate a persons attractiveness to potential followers.

From Tweet analyzer, Adage Power 150, Twitter Score, Google rank, Page Rank, Technocrati and the list of different metrics goes on and one. One must ask themselves whether the current scoreboards are any indication of true leadership or just an indication of activity.

The word follow implies : to go, proceed, or come after pursue, to walk or proceed along, to accept as authority, to pursue in an effort to overtake and to seek to attain. The pull of social media is currently designed around "following" people, brands and products that get our attention. Looking at the rate of change we can surmise how different external events may affect social media data and the betting markets of conversations that create influence.

The rate of change is nano seconds. The current metrics are constantly changing because most of the measures are centric to people and events that cause massive attention, gains in terms of followers and the media's fascination with whomever is at the top of the heap at any given moment.

Do The Numbers Reflect Real leadership?

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Alan Keith of Genentech says "Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.

KFC and Oprah made something extraordinary happen, they caused a rush on KFC stores like never before and the media became fascinated with the event. Ashton Kutcher made something extraordinary happen by getting the most followers on twitter in a short period of time and the media became fascinated with the event.

The extraordinary piece of each of these events and others is reflected by the "attention and attraction"of people and the media. The relative issues that gained the attention and attraction reflect the fascination with the power of social media to enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. Even if the task is as simple as gaining peoples attention for no specific purpose or value added accomplishment, people will follow.

Social media participants (individuals and brands) have a vested interest in quickly understanding the nuances of newsworthy events that develop into mainstream news stories. However, some events still appear to impact the public very quickly – in the past month or so the newsworthiness of social media events has gained considerable traction within main stream media. As more and more people and businesses learn how to convert social media attention into currency, that is reflected by either monetary gain or value added results, then the power of conversations and connections will reveal the extraordinary results everyone is chasing.

Today the extraordinary events are relative to what people are learning about the power of social media. Tomorrow the extraordinary events will be driven by leaders who learn to convert the knowledge gained into innovation that fuels the exchange of social currency, an exchange of value that creates the unimaginable. Those whom learn the fastest will lead the market and set the bar as to what can be accomplished beyond gaining followers and getting the attention of the day.

You can either be blinded by the buzz and follow the crowd nowhere or you can step back and see what is the real opportunity and lead. Get it?

What say you?

What Is The Progression of Social Media?

2009-05-11T11:17:51.399Z

The word progression is a noun meaning moving from one thing to another. As we witness conversations we can see them moving from one thing to another as people engage, share their perspectives and the conversations, those worthy of following, progress.

As conversations, the content and context of the social web, move from one thing to another one can see a progression that follows a logical progress.

When I share information with someone it becomes knowledge in the intellect of the recipient to own. It is from this sharing that the knowledge gained becomes a learning exchange. Exchange of knowledge also means a “Change of Knowledge” – this is how learning works…it is a change in knowledge. Someone's knowledge learned by others can create innovative perspectives, approaches and applications to problems or solutions never before thought of or applied. Innovation happens only where knowledge is changing, learning is happening, and new ideas are forming.

The entire process is an exchange of currency that progresses in value as the "currency exchange" expands from one to one to millions. The entire process accelerates through the engagement of people from anywhere, everywhere and all having unique perspectives as to whether the original information shared deserves to go through the progressive cycle of exchanges which creates the currency through each of the phases.

Cashing In On the Currency

When a business implements a new idea or a new product they usually do so under the premise that the idea or product will either directly or indirectly create value that equates to improved revenue. The idea or product originates from conversational exchanges that run through the cycle of exchanges illustrated in the image on this post. People within a business take information, create new knowledge or recycle old knowledge and learn how to apply innovation to an idea or a product or process. If the exchanges validate a premise then the business launches the new idea or product. The internal exchanges created the currency required to take the initiative to an external audience. When the audience embraces the idea or product real currency is exchanged and revenue or value follows. That is the progressive sequence to cashing in on the cycle of exchanges that lead to numerous currencies.

Currency is a noun which means money or other item used to facilitate transactions. Notice the definition includes "other item used to facilitate transactions". The other item includes the exchanges discussed in this post, information, knowledge, learning and innovation all represent a progression of exchanges that create conversational transactions. The term transaction is a noun meaning an exchange or trade, as of ideas, money, goods, etc.

Social media facilitates the conversational transactions and they naturally flow through the illustrated cycles. The difference is those that understand the cycles work at facilitation aimed at increasing the value of the currency exchange in each cycle.

Notice the next to last exchange is innovation before there is an exchange of trade for money (currency). So back to the old argument and quest for an ROI from social media. Social media is only a new means to run through the five exchanges that facilitate the creation of the currency. The ROI is only reflective by the rate (speed) in which your business properly and effectively applies each exchange. Get it? If not read this again.

What say you?