I don’t know what I’m going to write here today; I just know that I need to write something – to get it out of my head – after the horror of yesterday.

Close to home

Explosion at the Boston Marathon

Like many people around the world, I stood glued to reports of the terrible bombings in Boston yesterday. I saw the early reports emerge on Twitter, and soon enough there was almost nothing else in my feeds. I went for a run after work, and kept thinking about the horrible scene in Massachusetts. I went home, and sat staring at the TV for hours, watching the reports come in. I spent half the night reading Reddit threads outlining the heroism of people on the scene.

Five years ago I ran the Boston Marathon. It was one of the happiest days of my life. The feeling of warmth, welcoming and acceptance from the start to the finish was something I haven’t witnessed anywhere else, and certainly not in any Toronto races. People lined the streets for the full 26.2 miles, handing out refreshments and encouragement to runners. My (now) wife met me at the top of Heartbreak Hill. It was a wonderful, wonderful day and the city and people of Boston will forever hold a place dear in my heart as a result.

Perhaps because of this, yesterday’s terror struck home a little too close for me. I was, and still am, surprised by how much it affected me. Perhaps it was because of the my experience in 2008; perhaps because so many people I know were on the course yesterday. It probably sounds silly, but it felt like an attack on a little piece of me.

Happily all of my friends were safe and unharmed. My heart goes out to the victims and families of those who were killed or injured.

Questioning

Beyond the worry for the people involved and the anger at those responsible, I worry about what this means for future events. Will the Boston Marathon bounce back? What does this mean for future sporting events? It’s pretty much impossible to secure a 26-mile stretch of road; what does that mean for other races?

I also began to feel conflicted. Three people died and over 130 were injured. That’s horrible… but why was I feeling so affected by this and less by the hundreds of people killed in other incidents around the world every day? The shooting at Sandy Hook killed 26 people. Again, I was mortified about that but given that 8 times as many people died there, should I care 8 times as much about that? What if I didn’t – what does that say about me? Am I right to feel more affected by this? I don’t know.

The best and the worst

Police officers reacting to the Boston Marathon bombs

Yesterday brought out the best in our society. The number of heroes who ran towards the blasts to help people was astonishing and heart-warming. There are images – too graphic to show here (here’s a link – be warned) – of a guy literally holding someone’s artery to stop them bleeding out as they wheeled him to… I’m not sure where. A medical tent or an ambulance, I guess. Apparently the guy made it – given the extent of his injuries, that’s wonderful. Moments like that really show the good in our world.

Sadly, yesterday brought out some scary parts of our society too. I was happy to see that news outlets held back from labeling it a certain way until the authorities began to do so. Yet before long, I started to see the assumptions being thrown around. I saw a CBC interview with an FBI agent who said it was too early to say who was responsible but it could be Muslim extremists, or Al Qaeda. While saying we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, he re-raised that possibility twice more in the interview.

I posted a message of tolerance on Facebook; one commenter responded that “it is always the same religion that perpetrates these atrocities” – something that just isn’t true (think Oklahoma, or Atlanta, or even Sandy Hook).

A Muslim friend of mine – who I won’t name – told me yesterday that he has been called a terrorist twice in his life. The first time was in 2001; the second time was yesterday. That horrifies me.

I don’t know who did this. Maybe it was a religious group. Either way, it won’t change how I feel towards other people of that religion — regardless of which one it is — because I know the vast majority of people, regardless of religion, are kind, gentle and well-meaning.

Hope

I don’t know the answers to the questions I posed earlier. Perhaps I’ll have thoughts in the days ahead. I do know, however:

1. I hope the people injured in yesterday’s attacks recover, and that no-one else loses their life.
2. I hope the authorities catch the person or people responsible for this and that they are brought to justice.
3. I hope that our society can refrain from allowing the people involved — Christian, Muslim, or any other religion; political or apolitical — to tar entire social groups or religions with the same brush. I hope we can recognize that the acts of a few don’t represent the beliefs of many.
4. I hope we don’t let this put a chill on large public events. If the people responsible succeed in striking terror into our hearts and in making us reconsider these most positive of ways of coming together then they’ve won.
5. I hope the Boston Marathon goes on. It’s a wonderful event that brings thousands of people together each year in a very, very positive way.

One of the things I enjoy most nowadays is having the opportunity to speak to the future leaders of the PR profession when they’re starting out. One of the questions I often get asked is “what tips would you offer to get ahead in this field?”

Now that spring has sprung (at least, it’s trying to) and students are turning their minds to life after school, I thought it might be timely to offer some of that advice up here.

Here are 15 top tips for success in a public relations career. Funnily enough, I’d give the same advice to someone 10 years into their career, like me, too:

Never stop learning.

1. Be a sponge

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it made the PR pro. Whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been in the business for years, it’s incumbent upon you to constantly learn in order to stay on top of our industry. Never stop being curious.

2. Stay on top of the news

Make time to stay on top of current events. Read a newspaper (online or offline). Set up news alerts for your company and/or your clients. Listen to the radio or to podcasts about industry news. Watch the news in the morning. Whatever approach you choose, it will make you more interesting and it will make you better at your job. Consider it an investment.

3. Focus on details

Nothing hurts the credibility of a pitch, a proposal or a program like sloppy mistakes. Meanwhile, people who become known for outrageous attention to detail become go-to people in a team. Be that person. Read and re-read your work. Be your own devil’s advocate in order to think things through and make sure you’ve covered all of the angles. Double-check your calculations. Question your assumptions.

4. Learn to juggle

This one applies especially to agency folks, but it goes across the board. Learn how to prioritize, how to focus when you need to and how to manage your time. Life in PR is a juggling act, and you need to know how to manage your workload and the expectations of your clients – however you define them.

5. Learn to write

Zombies have crappy grammar.

Take the time to learn how to write well. Practice. Learn from others. Take a course if you need to (I recommend the eight-step editing course by the Editors’ Association of Canada, but there are many others).

Critically for many new graduates, you may need to unlearn what your professors taught you in university. Short paragraphs, short sentences and clear language help you to convey your point much more easily than the reverse.

Oh, and if you could put “by zombies” at the end of a phrase, it’s passive. Make it active.

6. Embrace numbers

Measurement has been a weak point in the PR profession for a long time. Nowadays, companies demand more. This is especially the case for social and paid media programs. The days of output-focused measurement are numbered, and outcome-focused measurement is on the rise. You don’t need to be an expert in dissecting website traffic (especially if you have a measurement team supporting you), but you should know the basics and know how to coach clients and people within your organization on how to approach measurement effectively.

7. Measure through the lifecycle

Measure throughout the program lifecycle.

Measurement is so much more than reporting, and companies are demanding more from PR measurement nowadays. Know how to take full advantage of the potential that measurement holds throughout a program:

• Inform your objectives (setting realistic goals, fueled by insights from past programs)
• Fuel your planning (again, with insights from past work)
• Identify and help to address issues mid-flight
• Measure results and generate new insights to fuel future work

(more on this in my  recent presentation on Social Media at Scale that I gave at PodCamp Toronto)

8. Provide solutions

Tough challenges are a fact of life in the PR industry, where the role of communications is often to help to change behaviour or perception. That’s difficult. Few things will endear you to your boss more than this: become the person who comes forward with solutions alongside their problems. It doesn’t have to be the solution they choose (that helps, though), but the fact that you’re thinking it through and considering solutions demonstrates the kind of mindset that managers adore.

9. Learn to stay level-headed

PR pros have to deal with difficult situations come up all the time, many of which can’t be predicted. These are moments where you can distinguish yourself and improve your reputation, or the reverse. Be the person who doesn’t lose their head. Stay calm and focus on solutions (per the earlier point). Remember: frantic doesn’t mean effective.

10. Know what you don’t know

Self-awareness is a valuable trait, regardless of where you are in your career. Be humble enough to know when you’re out of your depth, and to learn from those who have experience in areas you don’t. Whatever you do, make sure that when when you find yourself in that situation you don’t sit, paralyzed, until it’s too late for anyone to help you.

Bonus points for thinking things through ahead of time and coming prepared with a suggestion: “I’m not sure of the best approach here… here’s what I’m thinking… what do you think?”

11. Learn the difference between objectives, strategy and tactics

Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing people confuse objectives, strategy and tactics with each other.

Simply put:

• Objectives are what you need to accomplish. They should relate to business goals.
• Strategies are how you plan to accomplish them. They should drive toward the objectives.
• Tactics are the actions you take. They should funnel up to the strategy.

Learn it. Preach it.

(Read more on how to set better objectives or download my ebook on communications planning for more pointers)

12. Become a trusted advisor

Whether you’re dealing with executives in your company, or with clients at other firms, strive to become a trusted advisor to them. Go beyond what you “have” to do and become a partner. Flag opportunities and threats. Offer strategic opinions. Learn to empathize with them. Have difficult conversations when you need to. Push them to take the right approach (but know when to accept their decision).

Don’t just take orders.

13. Learn from your mistakes

Accept that you’ll make mistakes. We all make them, and they’re a key piece of how we learn and improve.If you don’t make mistakes then you’re not trying hard enough or not trying enough things. The key is to make them at the right time, in the right setting, and to learn from them. Conversely, people who constantly shirk responsibility for mistakes, or make excuses, will never learn.

Some of my most valuable lessons, and most beneficial experiences, have come from making mistakes. They weren’t pleasant at the time, but I learned from them and I’m better for it. What’s important is owning them and figuring out what to do differently next time.

14. Think outside your bubble

It’s easy to get caught-up in your day-to-day routine. Instead, look around and proactively identify ways to expand your expertise. That could be by finding new ways to get better at tasks, or by getting involved in a project that stretches you, or by learning more about a relevant field.

15. Understand converged media

This point began life as “understand social media” but nowadays it’s broader than that. Start with understanding social media – monitor and participate in relevant conversations; think about how your programs might play out in social channels and so on. Social is just the beginning now, though. The key nowadays is understanding how earned, owned and paid media play together. You don’t need to be an expert in all of them, but you do need to understand how to leverage them.

There you have it – 15 tips for success in PR. What would you add to the list?

Chris Brogan‘s latest weekly newsletter was around the subject of choice. You can read it over on his site, too, if you like. In it, he talks about the importance of remembering that you have a choice, and that a negative impulse ‘in the moment’ can lead you away from the path you want to be on.

I wholeheartedly agree with Chris’ sentiment. I also think we can go a step further and apply this beyond a single moment. We can ask, “What choices did we make that led us here, now?” because the most powerful thing you can do when something goes wrong is to look back and ask yourself what choices you made that led things to go wrong.

“I was late because the bus was really slow today.” Well, did you leave enough time in case the bus was slow?

I remember, whenever I was a child and my mum took me to the train station for an important trip, we’d always leave about 40 mins before the train was due to arrive. I never liked it it was a 10 minute drive so this it meant I had to stop whatever I was doing earlier than I needed to. Still, we’d leave early every time. She explained to me that she was leaving enough time to walk there if our aging and somewhat unreliable car wouldn’t start. This is one of those silly little things that stuck with throughout the years. I apply that lesson all the time nowadays… and I’m rarely late.

Your project is behind schedule because approvals took a long time? OK, were we realistic about those timelines? Did we brief the client properly so they knew how long bit might take? Did we make sure we let them know how long they had? What could we choose to do differently next time?

So when someone points the finger at things out of their control, I think back to that lesson. “Did you do everything in your control to prevent that from happening?” I ask the question of myself and I ask it of my team at work, all the time. Not because we need to assign blame, but so we can get better an improve next time. Another important lesson: blame takes us backward; lessons take us forward.

Asking the question about our choices lets us learn those lessons.

(Side note: I receive a lot of emails — somewhere in the region of 200-300 on an average day. Chris’ newsletter is one that I find time to read – every week. You should too. It’s interesting, friendly, easy to read and it makes me think. Plus, Chris is a nice guy and I want to know what he’s up to.)

(Image: Flickr, via CrazyFast)

What if you had to re-examine your assumptions around social media? What if, instead of thinking about conversations in ones and twos, you had to think about them in thousands and tens of thousands? What if you had to manage dozens or hundreds of properties, and millions of fans? What would change?

Last weekend I presented a session at PodCamp Toronto entitled “From One to a Million: Managing Social Media at Scale.” The goal of the session was to prompt people to question some of the norms espoused by many ‘experts’, who have never had to manage social media programs at anything beyond a small scale. Norms such as the idea that you “need” to talk to every person who engages with you – something that is feasible at small scale, but infeasible when you get into the tens of thousands of replies weekly.

This is not to say that those norms are completely incorrect, but that there is a practical reality for brands operating at scale – structure changes, processes change and the norms have to change.

Key points from the presentation:

1. Structure: How do you structure to handle social media at scale?

Brands need to grapple with structural decisions at a global scale:

• How much do you centralize vs decentralize control?
• Do you house social within the corporate HQ or at the business unit level?
• Do you aim for consistency and economies of scale or responsiveness at a local market level?
• Do you impose social media on the enterprise or allow it to grow organically?

There’s no right or wrong answer; the decision depends on objectives, on your broader business structure, on the scale of your social media activities, on your business’ culture and on the resources you have to hand, among other things.

2. Community Management: How do you go from 1:1 to 1:1,000,000?

Community management at scale requires brands to reassess the norms they hear espoused daily. I offered seven pointers for scaling community management practices:

1. Moderate to deal with trolls (with an affectionate prod in the slide at Scott Stratten) – if you operate a social media program at scale without moderation, you’ll spend your life dealing with trolls and spammers
2. Embrace proactiveness – don’t wait for people to come to you; use analytics and insights to drive proactive content to answer questions ahead of time
3. Recognize you can’t talk to everyone – at some point you need to prioritize or you will drown
4. Respond publicly when possible (and when appropriate) – answering publicly lets other people (a) see you being responsive and (b) see your answers and possibly answer their own questions
5. Help customers to help customers – successful companies in the social support space leverage customer forums to help customers answer each others’ questions, and step in when questions go unanswered at first
6. Build an army of advocates – educate, empower and reward your biggest fans for engaging for you
7. Know your customer – know who they are, what they want and how they want it to serve information most appropriately for them

(Check out my related post on tips for scaling customer service)

3. Content Strategy: How do you stay engaging while driving business results at scale?

Content strategy is a shiny object right now (in a stroke of amazing timing, Edelman appointed Steve Rubel to the new post of Chief Content Strategist yesterday – congrats Steve). I offered three broad categories of ways to resist the myriad pressures that face social media teams within corporations, and to stay on strategy:

1. Know your objectives, and use them as a decision making framework.
2. Know your channels, your audiences and the difference between them.
3. Execute with rigor and optimize relentlessly.

4. Measurement: Turning a challenge to a competitive advantage

Measurement has historically been a pain point for many PR practitioners, but it’s a point of passion for me – I truly believe that effective measurement can be a differentiator for companies’ social media programs. When you begin to activate social at large scale, statistical analysis of content and program performance can yield invaluable insights.

I’ve in the past on ways companies can improve their social media measurement; this time around I offered another five tips:

1. Focus on the right things – measure the right things for the right audience to meet their objectives.
2. Connect your metrics with your objectives – don’t measure share of voice if you’re looking to improve the responsiveness of your customer support, for example.
3. Know what the numbers mean – do your research and don’t let companies lead you down the garden path with made-up numbers and meaningless multipliers.
4. Generate and drive insights throughout your program – look at your foundational always-on activities (your program is always-on, right?), at point-in-time campaigns and at the broader conversation ecosystem for insights.
5. Use full-program measurement – set measurable objectives, use insights from past programs to fuel program development, course-correct throughout and measure results to drive insights for future work.

This was the first time I had presented this deck. I would have loved to have another 15 minutes longer to incorporate more practical pointers, but this provides a solid high-level overview of how to leverage these four elements of a program both at scale and more broadly. I’d love to know what you think, though – let me know in the comments below.

Burger King’s Twitter account was hacked today, with the hacker turning the company’s Twitter page into an offensive mock-up of a McDonalds Twitter channel. An hour and fifteen minutes later, the account was suspended, but not before the news spread across the social media fishbowl at lightning speed.

As often happens, a huge amount of basement punditry has already begun. I’ve already had to call BS when I saw someone asserting that it took Burger King “too long” to address the situation.

Here’s what we do know:

• The Burger King account was hacked.
• The hacking occurred on a public holiday in the US and most of Canada.
• It took just over an hour to pull the account down.

Here’s what we do not know:

• If the hacker changed the password to prevent Burger King accessing the page.
• How robust Burger King’s security processes for their social media channels are.
• When Burger King’s team spotted the hack.
• Whether their community manager was anywhere near a computer when this happened - who knows if their community manager was out for a hike when this happened?
• Whether Burger King had a crisis plan for this kind of situation.
• How long it took for Burger King to take action on their end.
• If Burger King needed to go through Twitter to to pull the account down, how long it took them to respond.
• When this is all over, if this will have any impact on the brand whatsoever.

What I know from my experience in these kinds of situations with large brands:

• Situations like this are chaotic at the best of times. As Ed Truitt pointed out in a nice analogy, battle plans rarely survive the first encounter with the enemy.
• Holidays are prime time for hackers, as response times from companies tend to be longer. It can take time to reach people who aren’t officially working.
• The person manning one social channel may not be the same as the person manning another, meaning you may need to reach several people in order to respond.
• An hour is not a long timeframe in which to have a channel pulled down.

The only real gap I see at this point, as pointed out to me by Kami Huyse and Sara Patterson, is the lack of any public response so far. Social media crisis plans should include pre-approved boilerplate language for social media channels and other communications channels for situations like this. With that said, we’re talking a hacking of a relatively small account here – not a major crisis like a food safety recall or a company-caused fatality. Given the frequent separation of audiences between Facebook and Twitter, the company may have considered the option of posting elsewhere, and decided against it (again, we don’t know).

My point: Let’s hold off on the basement punditry. There’s a whole lot that we do not know, and very few things that we do know. Without someone with that knowledge filling in the blanks, all we can do is speculate.

(Image: Kami Huyse)

One of the most fundamental questions in running a social media program at scale is, “how do I organize it”?

There’s some good material out there on this. Jeremiah Owyang, in particular, wrote about this some time back from a functional perspective; this provides a good starting point but didn’t consider the geographic and cultural challenges of a global organization. More recently, he released a more focused look at the tensions facing companies who are looking at scaling their social media.

Owyang also identified six tensions that match nicely with some of the pros and cons I’ve identified below:

1. Corporate vs Business Unit
2. Global vs Local
3. Consistent messaging vs Varied content
4. Specialized software vs Large suites
5. Individual disruptors vs Established program managers
6. Enterprise Deployment vs Organic social growth

I was recently asked about whether I had a preferred model for resourcing social media teams. Here, minus a few confidential specifics, is my answer:

Country-by-country

A country-by-country model offers significant flexibility and local customization. Freed from the restrictions of a coordinated program, local markets can respond nimbly to local market conditions.

However, a completely decentralized approach can lead to coordination challenges in terms of things like messaging, global marketing campaigns and announcements, but also from a coordination perspective (for example, how do you hand-off community management assignments between teams if they are on different platforms).

In my view, this is a fairly immature approach to operationalizing a global program, and tends to spring from an organic growth of social within an organization (analogous to Owyang’s ‘organic’ model of social).

One core team

This model eschews local market teams in favour of one centrally-led team.

Pros here include control over global marketing campaigns, coordinated messaging, and efficiency in operation. You don’t have people ‘going rogue’ on announcement, and executing marketing campaigns is easy.

However, it is very, very easy for a central team to become insular and to forget or misunderstand local market concerns. The danger of this shouldn’t be underestimated – if your global footprint extends beyond markets with a similar culture to yours, then that local market context is key. This is especially true in technical fields with a lot of local market regulation.

Centralized teams can also lead to tension with markets. Remember that point about teams not ‘going rogue’? If you don’t consider localized needs, they may do just that.

Core/local hybrid (hub & spoke)

This approach involves coordination of global activities by a strong core team, but local implementation by geographically-focused teams.

The ‘hub and spoke’ model allows localization of programs and content, but permits global activations when needed. It also allows the development of common frameworks such as toolsets, measurement frameworks, common content calendar approaches (while allowing local content to vary), aligned approaches to issues management etc., which can be driven through the common structure and process. These can improve programs, reduce risk, and drive efficiencies through a large social organization.

At the same time, it can be challenging to coordinate across a large number of markets from a single team – the overhead involved centrally is high, and involves a significant head count to do so, but to an extent that’s the reality of running a global-scale always-on program.

Core/region/local hybrid (multiple hub & spoke)

This is the most complex structure, with a global lead, regional leads and local market teams. It is also probably the most difficult model to pull off due to the multiple levels of coordination.

Pros of this include lower overhead at a central level (as some coordination is handled by regions), localization at a market level yet still retaining the ability to activate globally. It also offers the same benefits when it comes to globally aligning tools, processes etc. as the core/local hybrid model. Bringing regional leads together as a core global leadership team is essential to ensure that regional interests are heard by the global lead, and to avoid ‘broken telephone’ games.

On the flip side, this model requires the additional investment of regional staffing, and adds an additional level of oversight and review which could be a pro or a con depending on culture and the legal environment.

Clarity and executive sponsorship of this model is critical for it to be effective (i.e. there is a risk of local markets ignoring global direction if strong executive sponsorship is not present).

Which to choose?

The decision between these various models isn’t a black/white one. It’s going to come down to a combination of resources (including budget), culture, the nature of the business and the scale of the social media operation. This is also by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully it’s a useful starting point.

If you’ve operated in a global social media team, what have you found in your experience?

Image: Shutterstock

As social media continues to establish itself as a bona fide communications function and as companies continue to increase the scale of their social media programs, they’re running into a new set of problems. These problems go beyond the 101 “which channel is right for us” decisions, and onto more advanced dilemmas.

• How do you translate a high-engagement approach to community management when you’re dealing with millions of fans?
• How do you ensure that a large social media team stays coordinated?
• How do you ensure your content stays interesting and engaging when you’re pulled in a dozen directions by a slew of internal stakeholders?

I know these challenges well – I’ve spent the last six months leading a team planning and executing a global social media program for a well-known global brand (and Edelman client). Before that, I spent two years leading North America-wide teams focused on audiences ranging from top-tier influencers through to consumer bases of millions.

Out of that comes a new series of posts, focused on how to manage social media at scale.

Together we’ll explore topics including:

• Organizing global social media teams
• The balance of global/local
• Content strategy in a multi-stakeholder mix
• Engagement at scale
• Advocates vs influencers, and why that difference matters
• Setting effective and appropriate objectives
• Measuring social throughout the campaign lifecycle

What else would you like to see in this series?

Wow, it’s been a long time since I posted here. In fact, I’ve only posted four times in the last seven months. I got to thinking it might be helpful to explain why.

Six months ago, I started to transition into a new role at Edelman.

For Edelman’s largest global clients, we have what we call the “Global Client Relationship Program” through which we appoint a senior leader – a “GCRM” – to head-up our global teams for those clients. As we say on the Edelman website, the GCRM, “is responsible for overseeing the global client relationship, setting the strategy and managing the core client team. GCRMs are dedicated to bringing the best of Edelman resources to our clients – wherever and whenever required.”

Supporting those people, we have Regional Client Relationship Managers (RCRMs). In July I began to transition into the RCRM role on one of our largest digital clients, with whom I had been working since 2010. In doing so, I moved from leading one key piece of our North American work for that client, to leading all of the work we do for them in North America.

Almost simultaneously, our team began planning for a major program for that client. I soon found myself leading that program globally within Edelman.

Suffice to say, my spare time became very limited. I’ve spent the last six months with a single-minded focus on working with our team, our clients and our other agency partners to do a kick-ass job for the client. That was a conscious choice and one I made willingly, but it brought with it sacrifices. One of those casualties was the time I spent writing here.

Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t change the last six months for the world. I’ve loved every second of it (those of you who know me well know that I’m happiest when I’m busy). I’ve been working with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met and doing the most interesting work I’ve ever done. I’ve learned more things than I can count and they’ll stand me in good stead for a long time.

With that said, I’m now looking ahead to when I begin to emerge from this project (we’re not done yet, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel). With that emergence will come change. First and foremost, I’m looking forward to spending more time with my long-suffering wife, Caralin, who agreed to let me take on this role in the first place. Secondly, I’m going to work to get back in shape (hopefully, a non pear-shaped variety). Thirdly, I’m going to start writing more here again.

The good news is, I’ll have plenty of things to write about given the last six months.

A few things I expect I’ll have words on in the near future:

• Organizing global social teams
• The balance of global/local
• Content strategy in a multi-stakeholder mix
• Engagement at scale
• Advocates vs influencers, and why that difference matters
• Setting effective and appropriate objectives
• Measuring social throughout the campaign lifecycle

I expect a common theme to emerge throughout – that of the practical realities of operationalizing social media at scale.

Now I just have to find time to write it all…

Michael O’Connor Clarke passed away this morning, sadly losing his battle with the esophagael cancer that he was diagnosed with this summer.

I knew Michael both as a friend and as a colleague. From memory, I believe we first met online in 2007, through social media channels that were a shared passion between us. It wasn’t until mid-2008 that we met in person when work brought us together, but when we first met I remember it being as though we’d known each other for years. (I remember the meeting clearly – we had lunch at the Rebel House in Toronto, and I remember he convinced me to order the lunch special)

Over the next 18 months or so as we worked together, Michael became both a friend and a mentor. I spent countless hours sitting (on a massive exercise ball) in his office, as he did in mine, talking strategies and tactics, the latest online tools and trends, or how to resolve a difficult client situation. We pitched new business together; we presented at events together; we laughed, sighed, argued and relaxed together. That time shaped how I approached my work, not just then but now too.

I fondly remember the bizarre situations we found ourselves dealing with.

I remember the phone calls I made to him from a remote campsite on an island in the middle of Georgian Bay, when a client issue erupted over a weekend and we found ourselves defending our client from a backlash on the Daily Kos.

I remember Michael convincing us all that it was a good idea to put two otherwise normal actors in red lycra suits, name them “Tee” and “Vee” and walk around Toronto – in the middle of winter - with a shoulder-mounted projector to promote a client’s new online TV service.

I remember Michael, trying to figure out how to get coverage for a client’s new ultra-thin TV, drafting an email pitch that was as thin as the TV and having it re-printed verbatim in outlets.

All of these and more. Throughout it all, Michael was thoughtful, calm, strategic, quick-witted and hilarious.

More than this, though, I remember the side of Michael that matters more – the one that shone through outside work.

We talk a lot about community in this industry, and that word is often horribly abused. In Michael’s case, though, he really was part of a community – both online and off. Michael could name-check some of the first wave of social media pioneers as friends, and was himself an early social PR pioneer. Offline, he also made a big impact – as one of the founders of HoHoTO, he helped to raise tens of thousands of dollars for the Daily Bread Food Bank, for example. The impact of his passing on his community can be seen with a simple Twitter search for his name, as tributes pour in from around the world.

Above all, Michael was a devoted family man. He spoke constantly – incessantly – about his beloved wife Leona and his three children. The look on his face whenever he spoke about them, and the way he followed through on that with his actions, left no room for doubt about his priorities. It kills me to think of them losing such a devoted husband, father and companion.

Michael passed away aged 48 – far too young for the world to lose such an incredible, inspirational man.

While this is a sad day without doubt, a Facebook post from his Eamonn made me smile:

Enjoy life.
Hug your loved ones tight.
Be happy that he lived.
and raise a glass to him tonight

Michael, rest well my friend. One of these days we’ll share another beer. Until then, I – and many, many others – will dearly miss you.

Edit: Here are a few other posts from some of Michael’s friends:

• Goodbye MOCC (Jay Goldman)
• Missing Michael (Doc Searls)
• Evergreen (David Weinberger)
• Remembering Michael O’Connor Clarke (Donna Papacosta)

Research recently released by Forrester entitled “The Purchase Path of Online Buyers in 2012” indicates that email and search dominate the online space in driving online sales. Social media, says the report, drives less than 1% of online sales.

As reported by Marketing Pilgrim:

1. Paid search matters most for new customers
2. Email matters most for repeat customers
3. Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers

I can hear the howling from the rooftops now. This is complete anathema to those who argue that traditional marketing in its various forms is “dead”.

Last year I was sceptical about Forrester’s 2011 report given that the data was taken from the clients of a single marketing agency – and frankly most of my concerns remain around methodology and report scope. At the same time, there’s food for thought here. Here’s my take:

1. Social is media, not a medium

We need to stop thinking about social media as a silver bullet, stand-alone silo and approach communications as an integrated discipline where paid, owned and earned media all work together to drive results.

Earlier this year I suggested that transmedia storytelling is critical, and that we need to stop thinking of social media as a goal unto itself. A few months later, in my presentation on six essential shifts in social strategy at BlogWorld New York earlier this year, I argued that we (as digital communicators) have reached a point where “shiny objects dominate discussion” and that we need to start thinking about it as an enabler and partner to other communications functions.

Yes, there are specialized skills and knowledge that people require to operate effectively, but that doesn’t mean we should put social on a pedestal – we need to think about integration, not isolation.

Communications functions need to work together. Nearly three years ago, I obsessed over another Forrester report on the social media marketing ecosystem, which the pros and cons of paid, owned and earned media. A key “pro” of paid: reach. Relatively few companies have achieved any kind of reach in social media at this stage; those who have, have mostly done so by paying for it. The whole point of thinking of this as an ecosystem: the pros and cons of each element balance each other out.

2. Sales isn’t always the objective

Thinking of sales – and in this case, just online sales – is narrow-minded. Essential when it comes to effective research, but not in consuming it for broad communications trends. However, I’ve long argued that social media’s strong point isn’t in final point-of-sale, low funnel conversion.

What about long-lead sales (as I said in response to last year’s version of this same report, last-click analysis is very flawed - and much social traffic via apps often displays in web analytics as direct traffic, for that matter)? What about cost avoidance? What about driving people to sign up to receive information over time? What about customer retention, loyalty and advocacy? More broadly, what about organizational reputation (where PR plays strongly too)?

There’s a lot more to communications than just driving sales, and ignoring that as a communicator is blinkered.

3. Of course email matters

I hate email spam as much as everyone else. You know what I don’t hate, though? Email that I’ve signed-up for. As Marketing Pilgrim noted, Forrester’s report shows that 30% of repeat sales involve email in the process. I’m not at all surprised to hear that email is highly effective for repeat customers – they’ve said they want to hear from you.

4. Social can underpin and enhance other functions

Thinking of Facebook and Twitter as the extent of social is narrow-minded – on-domain blogs and rich media content, for example, can both live on-domain and drive traffic to those domains (not saying that content marketing falls entirely within social, but there’s a significant overlap nowadays), and in doing so can affect search. Meanwhile. studies have shown that positive reviews significantly increase the likelihood of people purchasing products online – fueling the comparison shopping engines in the chart above. Social can help to drive that – whether through advocacy programs or through tools like Bazaarvoice.

So is this study going to put the cat among the pigeons? Sure. Are the snake oil salesmen going to come out swinging? Oh yes.

However, those of us who work in the space and driving results at scale know that:

• There’s merit to the picture Forrester paints here
• This is one piece of the much bigger communications puzzle, and there’s more than meets the eye.