With the continuous rise in social media activity, and more and more brands learning the advantages of building real connections with their clients and prospects online, we can now say with certainty that social media marketing is here to stay.

However, with the sweet comes the sour and many companies and organizations are not preparing for – or even realizing that along with these great opportunities exists great risk. Risk that can destroy a brand in minimal time. Risk that, without the right social media crisis plan, leaves every company and organization highly vulnerable.

Whether you’re currently active on social media or not, and no matter the brand’s type, size or industry, social media crises are a reality that can strike any brand at any time – and the only thing we can usually anticipate is that one will strike when it’s least expected. Whether it be with the launch of a hopeful campaign, due to an employee’s mistake, technical errors… it need not matter. The only thing that matters when you find yourself in the midst of a social media crisis are two things:

• Your response time
• Your response strategy

Let me give you an example.

A couple months ago I received a call bright and early from a Real Estate Investment Trust (Reit) in a panic.

Note: For those of you who are unfamiliar with Reits, a Reit is a public company that invests in commercial and industrial real estate, selling units (their version of shares) to investors.

This particular Reit called me in a panic when they found themselves faced with a social media crisis that was quickly dominating the online space.

The crisis

A building adjacent to one of the Reit’s buildings, in the heart of downtown Montreal,  was under suspicion and risk of collapsing. Now, since this building was not actually touching my client’s building, neither their property nor their tenants were actually in any risk of being harmed. However, somehow, somewhere the media got it wrong and it was being announced across media channels, blogs, University bulletin boards and Twitter (the building at risk had a University as a tenant, who’s students were wildly tweeting their interpretation of the situation) and all news being reported and tweeted stated that it was my client’s building that was about to collapse.

Being a public company who depends on their unit price and investors, having a faulty building in their portfolio is not something that helps business or unit price.

Remember what I said about counting on a social media crisis to happen at the worst possible time? Well the President of this Reit happened to be in the car with a potential investor as the news was breaking on the radio. That’s when I got the call!

As their media relations representative was handling the crisis on traditional media outlets, I was called in to handle the social media and online side of the crisis.

My biggest challenge

Since the Reit was quick to react by calling me in, I knew that correcting the rumors wouldn’t be as hard as it potentially could have been. It would take quick and strategic work, but it was possible. The real challenge was the fact that my new client had not yet set themselves up with a social media presence. (Remember when I said a social media crisis can strike whether your company is active or present on social media or not?!)

Since much of the attacks were being made on Twitter, it was crucial that they be responded to on Twitter. Within half an hour’s time my team had the Reit set up with a Twitter account, had a hashtag campaign selected and had all tweets with this hashtag being streamed on the home page of the Reit’s corporate website, making sure that:

1)  All clients, stakeholders and the media looking to the company’s website for news and updates would immediately find it.

2)  All those looking to Twitter were finding answers and being properly informed.

With a number of other social media crisis management strategies put into place, and their staff briefed and quickly trained on their particular roles within the crisis, the rumors were put to rest and the whole crisis was resolved in record time.

So what were the end results of this chaotic social media crisis?

Due to the fact that this Reit had not yet established a social media presence OR a social media crisis plan, the best move they made was following their gut and calling me onto the scene as soon as they were made aware of the looming threats. Due to their fast response and the social media crisis management plan we immediately put into place, within an hour and a half from the time I got the initial call we had:

-  The media outlets (both traditional and online) picking up the truth about the situation and reporting it accordingly.

-  All tenants and stakeholders receiving up-to-date news and updates regarding the crisis as it broke in real-time via a Twitter stream, hashtag campaign and RSS subscription.

-  Interviews being held by the media where the Reit’s executives had the chance to personally alert tenants and stakeholders of the actions that were being taken, assuring them that no tenant or building was in harm’s way.

-  Not only did the Reit’s unit price not decrease, but within 24 hours it actually increased by $0.01!

“Once all the dust had settled we received letters of thanks from several tenants for how we handled the situation, our Chairmen personally thanked our president and several key executive members, and our other employees were impressed at the professional manner in which things were dealt with – to the point of giving our Operations staff an ovation at a company wrap up meeting.” – Dan Oana, V.P. of marketing at BTB Reit

Take-aways

So what can you take away from this social media crisis and implement into your own clients’ social media crisis plan?

-  A social media crisis can strike at any time, without warning – whether you’re active on social media or not.

-  The quicker you are to respond, the better. The longer you wait, the more the crisis builds a momentum and spirals out of control.

-  Build your social media presence before you find yourself faced with an attack.

-  Respond to the crisis on the same channel that it broke out on.

-  Keep your clients, stakeholders and the media updated in real-time. Even if there’s no new news to announce, keep them in the loop.

A social media crisis is a reality that should be taken very seriously. By taking the proper measures to prepare and protect your clients from a social media attack before they find themselves faced with one, you eliminate many of the threats and potential damage social media crises can have on a company’s reputation and bottom line.

Are you prepared to protect your clients with a social media crisis management plan, and if not, why not?

Melissa Agnes is a social media crisis manager, consultant and speaker. She helps brands and organizations prepare and protect themselves with the right social media crisis plan, and offers on-call emergency,  crisis management services,  daily social media crisis management blog for more insightful posts on all aspects of social media crises and protecting your company or organization against them.  You can also connect with Melissa on Facebook and Twitter.

There are new responsibilities for PR professionals who want to move from simple connections with audiences to meaningful, one-on-one engagement that leads to more valuable outcomes.  The Relationship Analyzer is PR Practice #6 in my new book, Social Media and Public Relations: Eight New Practices for the PR Professional, which discusses how you can take your relationships to a new level. To continue with my “edited” or what I’m calling the “cut chart series,” today’s post discusses the Relationships Analyzer’s Chart of Responsibilities. There are many new roles PR professionals undertake, as they move from creating connections to strategic relationships that benefit their brands.

As I mentioned in my book, “When you move from relationship building to relationship examining, a new practice for public relations surfaces … The Relationship Analyzer is a strategic practice that digs into the psychographics of people based on like-mindedness and common critical issues, and the study of behavioral actions of the people in your communities, as the key to higher-level interactions.” The wheel visual below depicts several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn. As a Relationship Analyzer you will continue to uncover information and learn about the people you want to meet in various web communities.

© PR 2.0 Strategies

A Relationship Analyzer’s responsibilities include a three-part process, which will guide your approach to connections and deepening relationships.  This three-part process includes developing detailed audience profiles, using technology to analyze direction and growth of your relationship and creating strategies based on a web community’s culture. Several technology tools will help you to actually see and make these connections in your social media outreach.

Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:

Develop an Audience Profile

An Audience Profile is a helpful resource to identify the needs of each audience segment, to pinpoint exactly where groups are congregating, to distinguish what issues/topics interest them, and to allow you to discover the best ways to communicate directly. By identifying specific needs and interests, you will be able to provide customized and meaningful information, all in an effort to build stronger, more mutually beneficial relationships.

Analyze Growth Relationships

The Relationship Analyzer’s job is a direct response to the depth of relationships and the participation required to keep close connections. You can use technology tools and resources to monitor the direction, growth and strength of the relationship, during all phases of your communications. Technology reveals the weak connections between you and a friend/follower, or between your brand and its stakeholders, so that you can continually apply new strategies to strengthen and/or build those bonds.

Define Position on Relationship Staircase

As you participate in social communities, you quickly learn your friendships appear to fall into different buckets. Remember, these buckets may change depending on the community. However, you can group friends/followers into classifications, from the Casual Friend all the way up the Relationship Staircase to The Trusted Confidant/Brand Champion.  Understanding the position of the relationship helps to you to create additional opportunities to advance and further your climb to the top of the staircase.

Use Technology to Visualize

You can capitalize on the great connections by using technology to visualize the nature of your relationship and its intensity at any given time. Technology tools in the various social platforms help you to see weak ties, as well as your strong connections to customers and to your influencers. These tools help you to figure out a better strategy to cultivating stronger relationships, not only quickly but also through like connections. Visualizing (through maps or graphing technology) where your connections are the greatest and where you need help with your engagement enables you to move from awareness and the Casual Friend to a Trusted Confidant/Brand Champion.

Devise Your Strategy to Grow

Once you identify where your audience, or your influencers congregate you can answer specific questions to devise your relationship growth strategy. These questions include: How do you think your friends/followers view you or your brand on the Relationship Stairway?  Have you taken the initiative to climb the steps a little higher, with some or most of your friends/followers? How do you figure out which friends/followers you want to move up the steps quickly, and have you analyzed these friends or their friendships lately?

Breakdown the Landscape

You must observe and identify the differences between communities and be able to apply cultural norms and group behavior to rally a community on your behalf.  You also have to investigate your own participation to know how to engage differently in networks. Your job is to uncover how culture and best practice engagement plays a part of a relationship’s growth. The culture in your Facebook groups may be very different than the what’s expected from those who participates with you on your brand’s main Twitter feed.  Knowing the landscape and the needs of different communities will help to cultivate the relationship.

Create Experiences for Channels

You will quickly learn that people don’t want to see and hear the same stories, and receive the same information or share identical content in all of your communities. You will come to find how social channels breakdown with different strategic purposes.  Facebook may be used more for crowdsourcing and contests, or customer service and consumer research.  Twitter may become a channel for update to the moment news and information, exciting events and activities as well as reputation management.  Google+ may be your opportunity to have video hangouts for closer interaction with stakeholders and idea generating sessions with your customers.

The Relationship Analyzer is a new and evolving role and one of the most important PR practices.  Relationship building is at the heart of public relations. Your ability to grow relationships and measure the outcomes through technology and visualization is an excellent way to expand the depth of your insight and to achieve your communications goals. Your new knowledge and skills will help you to connect, engage and find mutually beneficial relationships with people who will further your brand’s mission and become loyal advocates.

In the age of globalization and social media there is increased demand for a new type of communication practitioners capable of adapting to rapid organizational change and constantly emerging online communities. These specialists should not only be familiar with numerous social tools available, but also understand the importance of ethical choices when using these tools and applications. Clearly, organizational efficiency goes beyond acquiring instructional knowledge or simply demonstrating mechanistic skills. According to Pamela Shockley-Zalabak (2009), communication competency develops from an increased understanding of the communication process; ability to sense accurately the meanings and feelings of oneself and others in the organization; improved skills in communication, conflict management, and decision making; and finally, a well-defined sense of organizational and interpersonal ethics.

In their roles as counsel to the CEO or manager of company’s reputation, professional communicators are expected to define and instill company values; build and manage multi-stakeholder relationships; enable the enterprise with “new media” skills and tools; and finally, build and manage trust. The adoption of this framework is particularly intended for education and training providers responsible for successful professional development of the next generation of professional communicators. The role of educators, therefore, is to help students understand new roles and responsibilities of public relations practitioners and provide them with adequate training to cultivate fundamental communication competencies reflective of changes of the industry.

In many countries there is a steady need for competent public relations professionals to assure nation-building inter-ethnic campaigns locally and public diplomacy efforts internationally. Kazakhstan is one of the most successful Central Asian countries among those that emerged from the breakup of the former Soviet Union. Kazakhstan represents an interesting example of a complex, inter-ethnic society working rapidly to adjust to globalization in order to keep up with constantly emerging professional requirements. The rapid growth of the oil and gas industries has significantly contributed to economic growth and decline in poverty. It also increased government public diplomacy efforts for nation branding to promote the country among international businesses and the global political community.

Communication researchers Sergei Samoilenko, George Mason University and Dr. Deborah Ballard-Reisch from Wichita State joined their colleague from Kazakhstan Dr. Akhatova to assess of the quality of the public relations education recently offered in Kazakhstan universities to satisfy the government ambitions for international recognition and acceptance. Primarily, the researchers wanted to understand current expectations held by business employers in Kazakhstan regarding important communication competencies that university graduates with a degree in public relations should possess in order to be successful in their organizations. Their research was intended to provide practical guidelines for educators to develop new curricula in strategic communications that will help Kazakhstan universities better prepare future communication specialists and increase opportunities for their employment.

The research team utilized a multi method survey with qualitative and quantitative components, which was distributed to over hundred chief communication officers or those holding upper management positions in public relations. The survey dealt with professionals’ expectations regarding crucial communication competencies that university graduates with a degree in public relations should possess in order to be successful in their organizations.

The researchers designed a communication competency instrument based on the organizational communication competency framework developed by Shockley-Zalabak (2009). The Shockley-Zalabak (2009) model consists of four major components: knowledge (the ability to understand the organizational communication environment), communication skills (various abilities to accurately analyze organizational situations and to effectively initiate, develop, disseminate and receive organizational messages), sensitivity (the ability to accurately understand organizational meanings and appropriately analyze roles and relationships, and values (understanding how individual and organizational values/ethics can shape organizational climate).

According to research findings, the discussed four criteria showed moderate to strong correlations (as seen in the accompanying iconographic below), while 54% of the variance in skills was explained by the three predictors (knowledge, sensitivity and values).

The potential employers also identified college degree, professional standards, language skills, and psychology, as the most important knowledge criteria for young professionals; creativity, flexibility, adaptability, the ability to decrease stress, sociability, and diplomacy, as the most important sensitivity criteria competence; using new information technologies, relationship building, self-control, ability to initiate dialogue, persuasion, and negotiation as the most important skills criteria for young professionals; and being reliable, responsible, punctual, diligent, and versatile, as the most important values criteria for young professionals.

The grounded inductive analysis of qualitative data produced seven major themes:

1) Communication skills: oral/written communication skills, the ability to interact effectively in interpersonal through public speaking contexts as well as in business communication

2) Building quality relationships

3) Knowledge of and support for the advancement of the corporate image

4) Ethical business practices

5) Training: including formal education and continuing, on-going skill development

6) Technical competence

7) Personal characteristics

The following should be noted:

• Employers surveyed for this project recognized the importance of knowledge, skills, sensitivity and values in their practices. In their open-ended responses, participants elaborated on nature and characteristics of these constructs in culturally and contextually unique ways.

• There are several discrepancies between quantitative and qualitative results in this research. While in their open ended responses, employers discussed the importance of education and ongoing professional development to the quality and capacity of communications professionals, when asked direct questions about the importance of education and professional organizations, they rated them as having little or no importance. This indicates that while business professionals recognize the importance of the skills learned through education and professional organizations, they do not yet recognize the role of formal education and ongoing training in the development and refinement of desired skills.

• The lack of a developed communication discipline in Kazakhstan has led to a lack of understanding of the importance of the discipline to the business sector.

• That knowledge, sensitivity and values account for 54 percent of the variance in skills demonstrates the interrelated nature of these constructs and the importance of knowledge, sensitivity and values as the foundation for skill development.

• Uniqueness in the results of this study indicate the need for international consultants and collaborators to remain culturally sensitive as they attempt to assist Kazakhstan in the development of the academic discipline of public relations and work to identify the critical communication competencies of public relations and human resources professionals. Assessment measures must be evaluated and tailored appropriately to meet the needs of the culture in Kazakhstan.

The authors recommend that universities offering the major in public relations seek opportunities to collaborate with employers and communications professionals to assure that curriculum is developed and skills critical to the success of business and organizations are at the core of university and professional training in public relations and human resources. Reciprocally, professionals and employers of human resources and public relations workers should also seek opportunities for collaboration with universities to assure the overall quality of the entry-level public relations and human resources specialists.

Educators should seek ways to develop common norms and standards for, public relations education that would pertain to communication competency criteria. Since the range of required criteria pertaining to the development of necessary knowledge, skills, sensitivity and values is relatively broad, the introduction of communication education as an autonomous discipline at Kazakh universities is highly recommended. Active involvement in professional national and international communities, and on-going professional education will help improve the overall quality of public relations curriculum, textbooks and resources and class activities.

Following the preliminary results of this study, the Kazakhstan Communication Association (KazCA) was founded. The mission of the new organization was to bring together specialists representing various fields (mass communications, journalism, political science, sociology, linguistics, etc) who are interested in helping establish communication as a scholarly discipline in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

On June 27, 2011 KazCA held its first international conference. The conference discussed several initiatives pertaining to promoting the image of Kazakhstan in the global community, creating a communicative model for social development, and using communication research to address sociocultural, political and economic problems in the context of globalization.

Note: Sergei Samoilenko and Deirdre Breakenridge are working on a new version of Communication Competency instrument to replicate this study in the United State this summer.  If you are interested in participating in their research, please email Sergei at sergeisamoilenko@gmail.com or visit his new blog at http://sergeisamoilenko.wordpress.com/

The iconographic below was designed by SMM3, Communication Consulting Company http://smm3.org/ from Belarus specializing in Social Media Marketing, Monitoring and Analysis in Post-Soviet Countries and Eastern Europe.

In the spirit of graduation, we thought a terrific way to celebrate would be to bring back one of our past #PRStudChat graduates; he’s out in the work world now and ready to share his experience with our community.  Kion Sanders, who graduated from the University of North Carolina, is now working at MTV, as a social media coordinator. Kion will join us as a graduation speaker to offer his insight on different work initiatives and challenges on the job. At the same time, as a community, we can look back and reflect on the year filled with our favorite stories, projects, resources, obstacles and advice to help our graduates, as they transition into their new roles.

Here’s a little more about our graduation speaker:

Kion Sanders works at MTV Networks as a social media coordinator. His professional experience includes: political communications, grass roots marketing, consumer public relations, media relations and training, event planning, social media marketing and corporate communications.  Kion blogs at “They Call Me Social K,” which is a community for communicators, marketers, small business owners, students, social media addicts and the casual Internet browser to converse about marketing and branding.

We’re looking forward to celebrating the graduating class of 2012, reflecting on the year and wishing our students well, as they venture into new career opportunities.  We hope you will join us on the 16^th and be a part of the #PRStudChat commencement program.  “See” you at the party!

A Little More About PRStudChat:

It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals… A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more

You can see from the wheel visual below that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn, as the Pre-Crisis Doctor, in your own company.  The Pre-Crisis Doctor uses a different strategic process to prevent a negative situation from gaining momentum. Of course, the ideal scenario would be to stop the negative from ever starting, however, due to the nature of social media this is highly unlikely.

 © PR 2.0 Strategies

Therefore, as a Pre-Crisis Doctor, it’s your responsibility to catch the negative sentiment, at a point when you’re able to react swiftly. You should have several resources in place, which includes everything from your company’s social media crisis organizational chart and the shell of the message to your measurement tools and key influencers to help keep the public updated with the most recent information.

Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:

Create an Org Chart of Key Social Contacts

PR professionals are very familiar with the org chart, which provides the communications and reporting structure in a company.  However, building a social media crisis organizational (org) chart gives the framework for who is involved at every different level of crisis escalation. The most common social media crisis org charts start with a bottom layer of social media activity and who is involved (no pending crisis) and works all the way to the highest level of crisis (full blown crisis) at which point your CEO, Chief Reputation Officer, Board of Directors or Cabinet may be directly involved in the situation at hand.

Develop the Shell of the Message

When it comes to social media communications, it’s difficult to have every type of message planned because each crisis situation varies and will warrant a different approach, depending on the issue and the social media channel.  However, your company should know the shell of the message based on company policies, positions and ethics, which can be crafted to meet the requirements and culture of the communications channel. It’s always best to anticipate what could happen through each channel, and then go on the offense with your proactive messages.

Tech Test Tools for Crisis

You will need to identify the best tools, resources and platforms to help you track rapid communication during a crisis. Your tools will also allow you to determine whether or not the crisis communications strategy is working to move the negative sentiment to neutral or positive.  It’s imperative to research, demo, trial and test your technology long before a crisis begins.  When you’re in the height of crisis, that’s not the time to be deciding the best resources to put in place. In addition, the tools you select should be easy for your team to use (tested beforehand), and also allow them to create the charts and reports appropriate for executives who are watching the situation closely.

Build a Comment Response Chart

PR professionals are learning to listen closely to the dialogue of customers, media, bloggers, etc., whether it’s positive praise, product questions, service issues, organizational concerns or outright anger.  As Pre-Crisis Doctors, they analyze how to move through different scenarios, as these conversations are documented and placed into “conversations buckets.” Building these conversation buckets becomes the infrastructure of your Comment Response Chart, or a decision tree. The Comment Response Chart helps professionals to determine how to handle various situations through a series of yes/no questions, which is a monitor/evaluate/respond strategy.

Integrate Department Crisis Plans

Because social media moves across the company, PR pros have to integrate the social media crisis plan to work in harmony with other departments, during a crisis situation.  For example, customer service is an area that’s speaking directly to the customer, and there is a hierarchy of who in customer service will speak with a stakeholder, depending on the level of crisis escalation.  Today’s social media crisis plans must take into consideration how different departments in the company, and employees in all positions, must be aware of crisis measures and directing communication to the appropriate contacts.

Identify Key Media / Bloggers

In the past, crisis managers built their plans realizing the importance of identifying and prioritizing media contacts that they would alert at the onset of a crisis. These journalists would also help to keep the public informed with updated information. The focus used to be solely on the media. However, today we include bloggers as powerful influencers during a crisis situation.  One key reason to build strong relationships is when crisis strikes and negative sentiment runs rampant, you have an outlet to tell your company’s side of the story.

Review New Crisis Measurement

One of your crisis strategies will be to properly identify your approach to measurement and what benchmarks will be used to determine if your evaluation and response system is working.  Measuring aggregated conversations focusing on negative sentiment before, during and after the crisis helps to determine the crisis plan effectiveness.  We have the ability to find the negative sentiment, and understand who and what’s being said in the context of a discussion. There is no more 24-hour news cycle, but rather a minute-to-minute news cycle through social media and your citizen journalists.

Being a Pre-Crisis Doctor is a proactive approach to social media crisis, one that prepares the company for various types of negative conversations. The Pre-Crisis Doctor pinpoints the people, channels, messages and appropriate technology to use before the crisis occurs.

My video discusses a few of the many experts who contributed to my book including: Ariel Hyatt, Priya Ramesh, Jason Kintzler, Sarah Evans, Valerie Simon, Shonali Burke and Brian Solis.  You can watch the video to get a sneak peak at the content shared in their interviews.  I look forward to your thoughts and opinions, and the new practices you’ve put in place with respect to social media and public relations!

You can see from the wheel visual that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn as the COMMS Organizer in your own company.  It’s up to you to embrace a new process first, and then educate your peers on a more collaborative approach to creating communication and then sharing it as a unified team.  Most of all, the COMMS organizer knows there are changes in communication that must be addressed internally for better sharing and engagement with the public.

© PR 2.0 Strategies

As a COMMS Organizer, now, it’s your responsibility to make sure your stakeholders are pulling information from the organization. To accomplish this goal, internally you must create tools and channels to share, and collaborate and integrate with the efforts of your peers. Externally, you’re creating new types of stories and curating content through different channels.  Here’s how the responsibilities break down in your new practice:

Set up a Customer Intelligence System

Your social media program begins with Listening or keyword tracking to gain customer and market intelligence.  PR and marketing are responsible for monitoring the brand and market landscape and reporting back to the C-Suite.  Setting up a customer intelligence system requires information to reach various departments in the organization (beyond communications) that use social media for their own programs. It’s important to turn the listening intelligence on for all areas active in social media and then determine how your Listen/ Evaluate/Response strategy will lead to closing the gap between what you share and what the public needs.

Build a Two Prong Content Approach

You can “Listen” or track keywords to uncover conversation, which leads to the creation of compelling content or the use of existing content (tweaked for social media channels).  With either prong in the approach, information must be shared with meaning and reflect proper timing.  In PR, we time our news and develop story angles often tying into local, regional or national news.  Social media requires us to still listen to the news media, as well as quite a bit of daily community listening.  Community conversations will also offer great ideas on what, how and when to share your content.

Focus on Department Sharing

When your team is aligned and on the same page with respect to a communications effort, the result is better external sharing with public. A departmental content calendar let’s the your team or department know what’s going to be shared, where it’s supposed to be shared and the timing of the distribution.  These calendars are simple to construct.  You can frame when and what should be shared on a spreadsheet (use an editable document on your shared internal platform) to include the timeframe for your initiative, and then the breakdown your social media profiles. Teams often use separate line items to identify what will be shared each day of the week through their social media channels.

Focus on Universal Sharing

Universal sharing means moving away from communication in silos and setting goals based on a new process.  When different groups build social media channels, focus communication around their own initiatives, and don’t share or support overall brand communication, then social media is not working for the company as a collective whole.  In order to make social media work for the entire company, there has to be a coordinated effort from the development of the content to how the information is shared.  Universal calendars are shared across departments to support larger social media communications efforts (an example would be a product launch) with respect to key company events, themes, accepted imagery, link sharing and content, which is highly supportive in broader company efforts.

Develop a Social Media Playbook

The social media playbook is that game plan that keeps all of the team players on the same page and reaching the established goal(s). When different departments are involved in a broad communications initiative the playbook serves a very important purpose.  It identifies the goals, messages, audiences, communications (a blend of social media or traditional), acceptable content, shared links and expert resources.  The playbook is a strategy that allows groups to work together in harmony and to be able to achieve goals together, as an organization, as well as within their own respective areas.

Build a Gatekeeper System

The Universal Gatekeeper System will be the responsibility of the COMMS organizer in conjunction with other department including HR, legal and IT.  Working interdepartmentally to create a communications practice of gathering social media profile account information, or making profile information readily available, is a part of a social media management system. Having the information centrally located is a best practice for the larger organization with a tremendous amount of social media activity and many different profiles per department or for various brand products. Your Universal Gatekeeper System will collect social profile URLs, user names, passwords, and email addresses for the set up of social media accounts.  This responsibility becomes especially important as more champions in the company learn to build community and engage with constituents.

Educate with Training & Toolkits

People adapt to social media communications on many different levels. From the inactive or non-participants to the creators of content, training and education is necessary to offer resources and information for people to learn and grow with the organization’s social media program.  It’s also important to keep your employees up-to-date with the latest types of technology and resources available, especially as the social landscape changes and expands.  Social media education and the development of toolkits (documents created with helpful tools, links to information and learning resources) should be provided at the start of your program and made available company-wide.  A good communications program about training and toolkits will have employees learning and embracing new practices much more quickly than asking them research on their own.

The COMMS Organizer develops a more structured and productive approach to internal communications and collaboration in departments and between departments to create better brand communication with the public.

You can see from the wheel visual that there are several new roles and responsibilities for you to learn as a PR Tech Tester.  Learning, embracing and educating your peers on these responsibilities will make you a more valuable asset in your organization.  I’ll be doing a blog post in the next couple of weeks focusing on the results of a pilot study which reveals what employers look for in young professionals entering into the workforce, with respect to knowledge, skills, values and sensitivity. According to the study, information technology is among the most important skills and, today, is considered a core competence.

© PR 2.0 Strategies

The PR Tech Tester is a professional who quickly learns that a critical part of the communications strategic process is how you use technology in your planning for better monitoring and measurement, channel distribution, optimized content and stronger relationships via your brand communications. Remember, it all starts with the hybrid professional, whose knowledge often expands to other areas of marketing. Here are a few of your PR Tech Tester responsibilities:

Select a Database Contacts and News Monitoring Services

Technology offers you unlimited access an online searchable, contact database where you’re able to keep up with media and blog contacts, and their pitching preferences.  These services also offer you instantaneous access to your company’s media coverage, as well as intelligence on competitor mentions and trending industry topics in real-time.  Researching and testing the technology allows you to find the right solution and will help you to follow, engage and build better relationships with specific journalists and bloggers who would find your content to be relevant and newsworthy.

Create a Social Media Monitoring / Measurement Program

As a PR Tech Tester, you will immediately notice many of the social media monitoring platforms today allow you to track daily conversations across platforms, your share of voice (SOV) against competitors and your company’s brand sentiment. These platforms also offer information on key influencers, word cloud formations revealing relevant topics, and top domains where the most relevant conversations take place.  Selecting the right social media monitoring tools will help you to strategically put a system in place, offering a tremendous amount of intelligence; from trending topics to the critical issues of the people you want to reach.  

Determine Website Analytics

PR professionals are getting more and more familiar with the value of website tracking and analytics.  Where social media monitoring ends, website analytics begin. Typically, PR professionals have relied on the marketing and/or web team for website analytics.  But, with your social media programs and stories driving people to your company’s website and newsrooms, you can no longer rely on someone else providing you with the analytics you need.  The ability to track analytics in real time allows the PR Tech Tester to understand a great deal about the behavior of an audience, from how many of your active visitors have actually been to your site before and how long they stay to how many people go to certain pages of your site, revealing the most popular areas.

Test For Social Media Influence

When you discuss online influence or social media influence, from a technology standpoint, it’s an algorithm that helps you to capture the most powerful people in your network. However, there are different algorithms based on the tools you choose.  For example, one influence tool might calculate variables including reach, amplification probability and overall network influence. Another tool might measure different criteria, such as impact, engagement, clout, signal and the velocity, at which you share. It‘s important to familiarize yourself with these tools in your research process as they (1) help to identify people who may have greater impact on their own networks, and those who may be more likely to share your company’s content, as potential brand champions.

Identify the Right Social Channels for Audience Collaboration

The social media landscape is constantly changing and PR professionals must keep up to date on the new and different collaborative platforms, where their brands have an opportunity to engage with stakeholders.  As a PR Tech Tester it’s your job to know the platforms where your audiences congregate and the technology they prefer.  One of the best ways to keep updated on the latest platforms is to subscribe to blogs/bloggers that report on technology, social media and latest and most interesting collaborative platforms for businesses. Stepping outside of your regular circle / network of peers, and interacting and/or collaborating with professionals who have a stronger focus on business and technology will give you insight into many of the new evolving platforms.

Evaluate Email Marketing / Content Management Platforms

In the past, most PR professionals were not focused on platforms that managed content and sent out numerous emails at a time.  PR pros were used to crafting single, customized emails to media contacts. However, today, in order to accurately reach and track responses from numerous contacts, you need an email platform that enables you to customize and then monitor the open and response rates.  PR pros will benefit from sending out their news releases or pitch letters to a select group of contacts through a software management system to learn the number of emails sent out, the open rate and the bounce rate, the number of people who click as well as who forward your correspondence.

Review News Release Technology

Because the media landscape has changed, PR pros are faced with decisions regarding how to share business stories.  As a PR Tech Tester, you will realize how there are a few options.  One option is the use of a wire service that has ramped up distribution capabilities to include 2.0 functionality and reach.  They offer the ability to distribute your news release beyond traditional print, broadcast and online media outlets to reach bloggers and consumers. Then, on the other end of the release spectrum is the Social Media Release (SMR), which is a community tool for sharing news and customized stories.  The SMR is highly interactive and is housed on a blog platform. PR Tech Testers need to research and decide the best approach to sharing their stories with the public.

Being a PR Tech Tester and finding the right technology for your toolkit is trial and error.  Today, technology is no longer someone else’s job. You have to roll up you sleeves to experiment and make it an integral part of your programs for better engagement and communications impact.