In this case it was the people of Iran who were heard around the world as events unfolded in that secretive country. Profiles like change4iran on Twitter and the ability to see the Iranian protest and election issue tracked online gave this medium credibility and power. The medium gave a voice to those in the streets, and to those that had their voices silenced. The image of Neda instantly became an icon of the brutality visited on protesters.

There is a human desire to be heard, especially when the intrinsic values of right and wrong which are universally understood are violated. The social technology in place today helps facilitate that desire. So beyond monetizing a blog and wondering how Twitter will make money, I’ll use today, Independence weekend in the United States, to share a video I did last year with Robert Scoble and Ning CEO Gina Bianchini.  After interviewing them, it struck me that many of their comments were about freedom, basic human freedoms wrapped in the context of social media. So I put this Little Diddy together set to John Mellencamp’s Crumblin Down.

Freedom is Social from Albert Maruggi on Vimeo.

Ning is a wonderful platform with hundreds of thousands of social networks from around the world. In the spirit of uncovering oppression, one of my favorite networks on Ning is the Frontline Club and the Frontline Club website

Let freedom ring.

Book Giveaway Drawing – Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan

The book a lot of people are talking about will be available in late August, called Trust Agents by Chris Brogan, with Julien Smith. We will hold a drawing and pre-order the book for one Marketing Edge listener/reader. Email me at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with the word TRUST in the subject line. We will name a winner at the beginning of August.

We enjoy your comments here or on the comment line 206-600-6887.

Time 30:49

There are only a few ways humans show they value something… give their time or give their money.  Another, for argument’s sake, is to lend their name, but that isn’t a good example for this post so I’ll leave it as a side note.

This podcast with Bryan Person of Live World is about building communities, and the elements necessary to make them successful.  It’s focused on how companies should evaluate whether they have what it takes in both culture and potential to establish a community.  Live World is both a technology platform and provider of social media services.

In the last podcast with Steve Rubel, we talked about communities really being an ecosystem, not necessarily a destination.  In this segment, we are focused on communities as a destination.  One of my favorites is Campbell’s Kitchen   - an address on the web and a place to get and give information about food.  Hey, as a father of five and the maker of a few meals in my lifetime, soup is more than just opening a can, heat and eat.  Enchiladas, anyone?

Community Manager Essentials

1. 1) Write, talk, communicate and understand all formats (please don’t say duh, this may well be a new title in the profession of journalism.)
2. 2) Personality, and the sense to understand how the individual’s personality aligns with the brand he or she is representing online (that’s not easy either!)
3. 3) No egos allowed. This is about the community and its members, remember?(managers need to facilitate and fade into background. Here’s where I love talking about personal brands. It is an outright clash with a company’s objective of building community. Please do comment because I’d love to take this issue on. :>) )
4. 4) Domain expertise in the area of the company or organization you are facilitating  (you can’t talk the talk if you have a limp in your walk.)

Do communities sell more soup?  Well, successful communities at their core get people engaged in each other and their topics.  Without their interest, there is nothing.  Companies that build two-way channels to listen as well as share are able to capture ideas.  Acting on these ideas allows them to be more responsive, gain more credibility and the circle goes on. 

Can companies with successful communities draw a straight line to sales? Probably, but more importantly they can connect the other value currency, time spent with your company.  Time is a zero sum value currency, the time I’m able to capture from you is time not spent with something else. That’s the value successful companies treasure.

Bryan the Person

Bryan and I also get into his social baby, the Social Media Breakfast.  Talk about community managing and stepping back… Person started the Social Media Breakfast a couple of years ago.  He encouraged and gave wings to many others in cities across the country. 

We recorded this conversation in late May when Bryan was in Minnesota to speak at the Social Media Breakfast of Minneapolis/St. Paul – It is regularly a very well attended monthly event sometimes dealing with advanced concepts or at other times highlighting the basics.    Bryan’s vision to create the offline event for an online audience includes some of the elements of successful community building: sharing, personal connections, the dynamic created by some regular gathering that requires an investment of time and effort. Let’s face it, writing 140 characters is easy. Getting in your car, fighting traffic and meeting new people is hard. 

Check the list of cities that have a Social Media Breakfast. If there isn’t one in your community, maybe you can be the spark to draw people together, and then step back and watch it grow. That’s what the organizer of the Minnesota chapter of the SMB, Rick Mahn,(pictured) did and now the online SMB Minnesota community has reached 830 members and the social media breakfast held on Friday, June 26 had more than 150 attendees, that’s a lot of bacon!

]]>Time 30:49 There are only a few ways humans show they value something… give their time or give their money.  Another, for argument’s sake, is to lend their name, but that isn’t a good example for this post so I’ll leave it as a side note. This podcast with Bryan Person of Live World is about [...]http://www.providentpartners.net/blog/index.php/2009/06/30/is-there-money-in-communities-interest-success/feed/noTime 30:49 There are only a few ways humans show they value something… give their time or give their money.  Another, for argument’s sake, is to lend their name, but that isn’t a good example for this post so I’ll leave it as a side note. This podcast witAlbert MaruggiTime 30:49 There are only a few ways humans show they value something… give their time or give their money.  Another, for argument’s sake, is to lend their name, but that isn’t a good example for this post so I’ll leave it as a side note. This podcast with Bryan Person of Live World is about [...]marketing,public,relations,business,podcasting,media,social,media,video,audiohttp://www.providentpartners.net/blog/index.php/2009/06/30/is-there-money-in-communities-interest-success/http://www.providentpartners.net/html/podcast/20090630_person.mp3http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/marketingedge/~3/e_C_9HUK9sY/marketingsocial mediasocial ecosystemsteve rubelamaruggi@providentpartners.net (Albert Maruggi)Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:23:09 PDThttp://www.providentpartners.net/blog/?p=728

Time 13:19

We all have them on line, those places and groups we like to exchange ideas with. Whether you call them tweets, updates, photostreams or posterouses, (I made that last one up as a new user of Posterous thanks to a suggestion from Marketing Edge guest Steve Rubel.) the social web is state of being, not a destination. It’s a state of information and comments that is fluid.

I met up with Steve Rubel, author of the Micropersuasion blog and columnist for Ad Age at the 140 Conference in New York. We talk in this Marketing Edge podcast about Twitter vs. eco systems as the next big thing. Rubel believes that social ecosystems will have staying power as the lifecycle of different platforms serve a function within those ecosystems. In fact, just as I was about to post this, I noticed that Steve is “Forking” his content from Micropersuasion, a next step in the evolution of social eco systems.

Twitter and this conference show how we have become accustomed, for some obsessed for others, with the concept of the State of Now information, as Jeff Pulver would say. The real-time and regular exchange of information across the social web is an entity that can be measured, and in many cases, has value for individuals and organizations. I look at Twitter for example as being similar to radio, and in the case of trying to dip into that information stream, perhaps it can be monetized.

For example, it might be interesting to note who among your Twitter followers are online when you are. You can do this in Facebook if you use the chat function or Skype has this capability as well. Take this to the next level in building patterns of usage over time among an individual’s followers. Viewed this way, Twitter becomes like buying radio, some subset of people are listening (twittering or viewing tweets) at that time.

The easier play is sponsoring # topics or Tweetchats as the world looks to figure out how to pay for the state of now information. If not pay for it, then justify the investment of time. Surely there are ways to measure Twitter now, formulas like, click throughs, RTs, number of followers, etc, are a decent snapshot. I suggest the more detailed the information available about the behavior of these ecosystems and its platforms, the richer the experience all will have interacting with individuals, organizations, and the information they exchange.

Book Giveaway Drawing – Trust Agents, by Chris Brogan

The book a lot of people are talking about will be available in late August, called Trust Agents by Chris Brogan, with Julien Smith. We will hold a drawing and pre-order the book for one Marketing Edge listener/reader. Email me at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with the word TRUST in the subject line. We will name a winner at the beginning of August.

We enjoy your comments here or on the comment line 206-600-6887.

Business

Jeffery Hayzlett the chief marketing officer at Kodak believes Twitter is something to be embraced by corporate America. His premise is that it is always a good thing to be in a place where your customers are. Whether it is getting new ideas for products or services, engaging customers to drive sales, or refuting mischievous competitors trying to game the system (the latter of these individuals are called Twangers), Twitter is a dynamic place to work in real time. He was excited to bring back some new product ideas that audience members shared with him.

Personal Brands
Chris Brogan is a leader among personal brands online. His demeanor and giving spirit are perfect for a medium that rewards candor and creativity. In the panel on the making of Twitter Celebrity – clearly different than celebrities on Twitter – the ability to for those who are committed to providing value can attract a loyal following. Is this a career? Can you pay the mortgage? So far, I believe the model and ratio is about the same as the non-twitter world. You can with hard work, good timing, and the right niche. The similarities I draw here is that just like other mediums TV or radio, are more people join Twitter there will be greater segments of channels, in this case personal brands, with smaller followings relative to other media, but within the context of social media varying degrees of audiences.

Those individuals that have created terrific and engaging personalities on Twitter that we featured on this panel were

adventuregirl (@adventuregirl) aka Stefanie Michaels
Julia Roy (@juliaroy) –
Justine (@ijustine)

TwitterTainment?

An engaging presentation by Carri Bugbee and Helen Klein Ross who tweet in the characters of Peggy Olson and Betty Draper respectively. In what may have seemed like a character/brand hijack, has turned into a creative, award winning way to use Twitter in character. It’s even spawned a new genre called Twittertainment (work with me here). The beauty of this presentation is the raw ingredients that can be thrown into the Twitter pot, it is a medium where you can make of it what the audience wants to receive, and that is exciting.

News and Analysis

Robert Scoble led a dynamic conversation about whether the news media missed covering the Iranian demonstrations last weekend and are they playing catch-up to the news being disseminated over social networks.

This panel was at time divisive, Ann Curry of NBC referenced the tension in the room, but the bottom line is how mainstream media will coexist with social media initiated information. Will there be the time to fact check and provide analysis to the fast moving images and tweets of a breaking news event. I believe this analysis is a critical aspect because it allows for a counter balance to the emotion of the mob and the similarly emotional reaction that such video elicits.

No doubt social media is plugged into mainstream media. I saw this while researching a project with the Society for New Communications Research about the differences in topics covered by the social web and mainstream media during the presidential campaign of 2008. My colleague Emily Metzger, assistant professor at the University of Indiana School of Journalism and I examined this premise and concluded that mainstream media was essentially monitoring or reporting on the major topics being discussed in social media.

Will events occur where social media uncovers or is giving more conversation to an issue? Surely, and mainstream media will likely be aware of this issue as well. I understand why social media advocates would get up in arms about it, however, the Iranian election street demonstrations show how valuable social media can be as a medium on its own, regardless of whether mainstream news decision makers agree or not.

Upcoming Topics

This conference is loaded with seeds of ideas and examples of further discussions I’ll have on this blog. We’ll also have podcasts with conference speakers, including Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak and Steve Rubel of Edelman.

I attended a panel discussion at the Media Relations Summit in May (strongly recommend attending other Bulldog Reporter event )with Hannah Clark, of Inc., Robert Lenzner, of Forbes, Stephanie Mehta, of Fortune, and Gregory Morcroft, of MarketWatch

This panel of editors and journalists was wonderfully candid about the state of journalism and the role PR has in contributing to the content and quality of press in this country. Their lament about the status quo of PR and journalism is the echo we all hear: too little time to read every email pitch.. stop sending pitches that have nothing to do with my areas of interest. The members of this panel felt social media had modest to little use as a resource.

So far, no new news here for me, until the candid Bob Lenzner painfully offered that journalists missed some of the biggest financial stories regarding AIG, the global economic crisis, and the bailout details. He acknowledged in retrospect that the media should have been more diligent, for example, in reading the “footnotes” of AIG’s financial statements. He wished those in PR would have highlighted these issues with greater vigor.

It struck me at that moment – 1) journalists or their researchers are the ones that should be digging into footnotes; however, budget cuts over the years have diminished that capability, and 2) the hurdles to get the attention of journalists and those journalists that are predisposed to trust a small circle of PR sources contributed to this failure of journalism to have seen this complex and long brewing financial crisis coming.

The toxic formula includes: a narrow circle of trusted business PR professionals, a dwindling number of resources to report the news, a faster news cycle, a shorter news story lifecycle, and an increasingly competitive news environment.

Can Twitter be an Antidote?

I have seen a wide range of uses of social media by journalists. Twitter is the most visible, with Business Week and CNN being among the leaders in using the platform for information gathering, sourcing, and distribution of news. The 140 Conference is coming up in New York this week. As one of the moderators on Tuesday, June 16, I’ll ask whether social media is a way to counter the side effects caused by reduced resources and increasing time demands on journalists, or is Twitter another potent ingredient that distracts from the business of reporting on serious and complex issues.

Will Twitter specifically and other forms of social media give journalists other trusted sources, will there be the time, tools, or other resources necessary for to take better advantage of the individuals who have a different voice, a new perspective, or a critical counter to the “conventional wisdom” of the select few?

Some of the journalists and news media representatives speaking on Tuesday include John Byrne. Editor of BusinessWeek.com @JohnAByrne – Rick Sanchez, Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn)  and Ryan Osborn (@todayshow) - Producer, NBC Today Show among many others.

Stay tuned this week for tweets, posts, and podcasts from the conference.

Time 29:33

An Open Letter to President Obama,

Mr. President, allow me to introduce you to Mr. Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Given your comments about health care reform in your weekly radio address yesterday, I thought you would enjoy Mr. Levy’s perspective on building a culture of improvement in health care, articulated in this Marketing Edge podcast. As one Twitter user to another, you both understand the dynamic created when leadership, ideas, and communication come together.

Mr. President, you clearly understand social media from a challenger’s perspective. Mr. Levy has had considerable practice with it in a leadership position. He’s been blogging since 2006 and has faced medical, labor and financial crises in transparent and thoughtful ways. Mr. Levy has built a culture of improvement in large part because of the shared desire among the health care professionals at BIDMC to provide quality care, to always improve their performance. They have done this by being transparent and committed to the ultimate goal of providing excellent health care. Mr. Levy believes, as I believe you do, that the status quo in health care needs to be more open to the concept of improving through a discussion of failures, the uncovering of vested interests that prevent attaining a shared goal, and a clear focus on long-term solutions that are in tune with the changes in our world.

Social media can be used as a partisan echo chamber which will produce little if any positive change. For those who want the status quo, this will be a good thing. Used in this manner, social media will die a quick death as soon as the next Shiny New Object comes along. However, in the hands of individuals in a society committed to being better, lustful for learning, and accepting of the synergy of ideas exchanged around the world in real-time by any individual, not just the ruling classes, then social media holds potential far beyond its role in health care reform.

The conversation in this edition of the Marketing Edge podcast will benefit every CEO regardless of the industry, even the CEO of the United States.

Time 17:01

Jeff Pulver is a visionary and social web broker of ideas and people. Pulver saw the potential of VOIP as a game changer for telephony. He regularly addresses thought provoking topics where technology is impacting various forms of society. Now Pulver is actually bringing more than 140 thoughtful people together who are pushing the envelope of Twitter at a two day conference June 16-17 called the 140 Conference.

Pulver believes, and I agree, that Twitter has created an expectation of being in the Now of information exchange. Have a question - ask it now, saw a blog post you want to share - link to it now, near a plane landing in the Hudson - snap that picture now.

This conference is a great chance to hear and share with Twitter users from advertising, entertainment, news, and technology. Just a few of the names participating are: Rick Sanchez @ricksanchezcnn of CNN, John Byrne of Business Week, @JohnAByrne, Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak @JeffreyHayzlett, Robert Scoble, @Scobleizer, Stacey Monk of Epic Change @StaceyMonk (oh by the way if you like the way Epic Change has used Twitter to raise funds for schools in Tanzania, then give Stacey your vote and plenty of other Twitterites

This conference is for just about any category of person participating and interested in Twitter because Twitter is what you make it. It’s easy to jump into the blog with the headline like 5 Simple Ways to Use Twitter. Instead, focus on the broader concept of being in the Now with information from around the world. Discussing how people from all walks of life have benefited in their profession and their personal life.

Marketing Edge listeners and reader, register for the 140 Conference using the promo code MarketingEdge for a $100 credit toward your registration to the 140 Conference. I look forward to spending two days at the conference moderating a panel at this dynamic conference.

Time 15:00

Bruce Zanca, SVP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of Bankrate INC, has spent his career reconciling the agendas of journalist with clients, (e.g. employer). In his current position, he has connected the dots between PR and revenue. Bankrate is a media content platform that raises revenue through advertising. The number of eyeballs on the site are increased the more valuable information about personal finance is on the site other when other media carry information originated by Bankrate Inc which further drives Bankrate.com traffic.

Brankrate.com is in the top ten personal finance websites with information from mortgage rates and car loans to Certificates of Deposit and credit card rates. It is also a resource for other financial and consumer media and bloggers.

In this “Soundbites From the Road” podcast, Zanca and I discuss the highlights of using experts to provide greater depth of information and analysis. This is a good follow-up to the Marketing Edge podcasts with author Paul Schempp of the book, 5 Steps to Expert. We did a two part series with Dr. Schempp, part 1, 5 Steps to Expert podcast posted on May 16 and part 2 featuring how experts continue to learn was posted on May 26 about developing experts within an organization for PR objectives.

Zanca combined the use of a unique checking study Bankrate conducted, a financial industry analyst to provide commentary and depth of the study, and advanced top tier media interest (USA Today) that helped drive significant coverage of the topic. We put the pieces together in this Marketing Edge podcast. Last week, Bankrate won a Bulldog Reporter Gold Award for this program.

Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit 2009
Best Website - Business/Consumer
Gold Winner
Bruce Zanca, Kayleen Keneally, Chris Spagnuolo
Bankrate, Inc for
Bankrate, Inc “Bankrate.com’s 2008 Checking Study”

The current PR dynamic is comprised of the following characteristics:
1) less reporters (layoffs and all) to do more work, and
2) the potential for greater exposure of company produced information via search engine rankings, whether it’s a news release, blog post or podcast.

This environment necessitates having a bull pen of experts to produce content in order to have a successful sustained PR program.

Time 26:11

I have featured this book 5 Steps to Expert on the Marketing Edge podcast because I believe developing experts within a company is essential to producing quality PR, media, and marketing information that can have a multiplier effect in social media.

In this concluding podcast in the series Dr. Paul Schempp talks about the practicing proficiency and excelling to excellence, as the fourth and fifth steps to being an expert. We talk about how to identify experts, they may be the ones who don’t have all the answers in the group, but are always willing to consider other perspectives.

EXPERTS AND NEW MEDIA

As PR practitioners we need experts more than ever to fulfill our role to the organization. The reason is that just about all communications can now reach the public, not just the journalist and then the public, but directly to the public via search engines and RSS reader pick up.

I just returned from speaking on a panel at the Media Relations Summit sponsored by Bulldog Reporter. Two topics were repeated across panels of editors and reporters, 1) too little time to receive pitches, especially those that are off topic of the recipient’s interest, and 2) Online assets are helpful in discovering resources and/or supplementing the multiple channels now required by media outlets. The channels editors and writers were referring to include blogs, podcasts, or videos that are a growing part of a media outlet’s online formats.

Highlighting experts in an organization helps in the following ways:

1. Identify issues that are not getting attention
2. Establishing a perspective, perhaps a unique perspective that makes your organization different
3. Gives greater details about the topic that may not be available from other sources
4. Possibly provides a unique format for that information (I include formats like video, slideshare, audio, even widgets as a type of format to showcase the expert)

You may be unsure when and how to showcase the experts in your organization. The standard thinking is either doing a news release, speech or pitching a feature story. Yes, it’s fine to keep those in the PR toolkit, but given the public will find the information they are looking for when they want it, (that public includes journalists) then it is advantageous to routinely seek out opportunities to showcase expertise.

How and when to showcase the expert:

1. Podcast/Vidcast series – excellent medium for a topic with enough depth to create an ongoing series of information, say 24 episodes of 5 minute segments, (weekly for 6 months)
2. Piggybacking – speaking out on an item in the news with your own perspective. For example, many media outlets will follow items that are in USA Today, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal. It is also common practice for people quoted in those stories to be sought out by other media to comment. Putting out a statement, media advisory, blog post, or “expert” video/audio that references those individuals (agreeing or disagreeing) may attract attention from the media, or at the very least get your page in the search rankings for the duration of that news cycle.
3. Reaction Page – This is a page on your website, Facebook profile, Twitter landing page, that contains your organization’s commentary on items in the news whether they are major media big headline stories or something from regularly read blog. Some may say a blog serves this purpose, I’d agree. If there is enough going on in your universe, (see concept of embedded journalist for a definition of universe) then a separate page is a good idea to get people in the habit of knowing you have an expert opinion in those topic areas.

I’m big on soundbites, they are easy to obtain with a phone call and edit. They showcase the expert and their personality in a quick and easy fashion (use a flash player on the page instead of forcing the listener to download or wait for a new window to open for the file.) You may not like the title “Reaction Page”, reacting seems like you are not leading, I understand, then change the title to something like “Our Take”

I’ll have other examples in subsequent posts, but this should give you some ideas on how identifying and developing experts inside a company can have a major impact on the way you do PR inside the company or criteria on selecting an outside firm as a partner.

@ThePlacetoBe - 140Conference

I will be moderating a panel at the Jeff Pulver 140 Conference on Twitter June 16-17 in New York. The event is a fast-paced discussion of Twitter, it’s impact on society, business, advertising, and politics. The guest list is entertaining, thoughtful, and insightful.

Time 8:38

Embarq, a Fortune 500 telecommunications company, had a strategic mission to establish its own identity after it broke away from Sprint and a tactical objective to convert dial-up internet customers to subscribe to high-speed. They used a creative YouTube approach combined with other integrated marketing for the high-speed conversion, and embarked on a company-wide adoption of social media to contribute to its strategic goals.

This was not a pilot project, nor isolated to a single department. Embarq, and its social media early adopter team, understood any move into social media with these objectives would touch every aspect of the company. Once the team accepted the mission, it became clear this would be a long effort that included, education, adoption by senior management, acceptance of new tasks by individuals responsible for executing participation on social media, and agreement on new metrics incorporated with standard measurements that would allow the company’s culture to become more social.

In some ways, when social media is taken on by the marketing team, it can be viewed as a tactic limited to marketing. This narrow view may work for a company to test the social media waters, however, it may also be a pigeon hole from which social media and its practitioners may never emerge further in the company.

To implement social media the way Embarq as done is to accept that social media is horizontal across a company impacting customer service, sales, product development, legal, investor relations, among other functions within a company as large as Embarq.

In my series “Soundbites from the Road” we talk to Zena Weist, Interactive Brand Strategist at Embarq and on of the social media team members. They presented a session at NewComm Forum, a conference produced by the Society for New Communications Research, about the two year experience implementing social media at Embarq. Zena and I discussed the need to get buy-in from all departments that may be impacted in a horizontal social media program to increase its chances for success.

Embaq Social Media Team Leaders and their Twitter profiles.

Linda O’Neill, Customer Service General Manager, @lindaoneill
Joey Harper, Customer Service Online Outreach Lead, @EMBARQ_Joey
Kevin Cobb, Interactive Brand Marketing Manager, @kevinjcobb
Zena Weist, Interactive Brand Strategy Manager, @zenaweist

Time 21;27

As more of the practice of PR becomes exposed to all of the public, and not just the segmented silos of the past, it is important for corporate PR and marketing practitioners to change their perspective as well. A company that views how it makes news, not just by what it does, but by the contributions it can make to their industry and community, will have ample opportunities to get attention. In this perspective, the main challenge is to identify the experts in their company matching the right expertise, personality, and talent with the medium and venue.

This perspective led me to writing about the concept of the embedded corporate journalist where the company considers public commentary it can make about external events. Not just the standard new product or customer release, but commentary about issues affecting the larger world in which that company lives.

While developing this concept I came across the book 5 Steps to Expert by Paul Schempp. In it, he outlines ways to become an expert and the qualities you will find in people who are at the top of their field. I turned his concept clockwise about 90 degrees and applied it to corporate PR as a helpful aide in finding experts in their companies. Using the characteristics in Schempp’s book, it may stimulate thinking in finding venues to showcase experts to contribute to issues in the news. It is also quite valuable in developing a dynamic to personal and professional growth.

I found it to be an exceptional read with plenty of interactive worksheets that make the book a one-on-one experience.

Schempp is an interesting expert himself. He coaches golfers on the PGA and European tours, is a scientific consultant to Golf Digest, a professor at the University of Georgia, and president of Performance Matters, Inc. He speaks and counsels companies frequently which made him a wonderful guest for the Marketing Edge podcast. This is the first of two parts, the second part will run next week

The Marketing Edge comment line is 206-600-6887 and Provident Partners will donate a food item for every comment we get on the blog below or to the comment line.

Time 10:57

This podcast is part of my conference circuit of “Soundbites From The Road.” It was a conversation I had with Shel Holtz about crisis communications while we attended the Society for New Communications Research New Comm Forum in April. In the age of real-time news cycles, and where anyone has access to global information distribution, it can feel like the tail wagging the dog. A crisis, or what seems like a crisis, can pop up at any time. The key is determining what a crisis is and what’s not.

My definition of a PR crisis is when something happens, either external or self-inflicted, that can damage your brand which requires your immediate attention. Plenty of other more formal crisis communications definitions exist.
Sure there are minor dust ups, the Motrin Moms I’d classify as minor compared to say the Tylenol tampering case in 1982, that was a full blown crisis.

Maruggi’s 5 rules in a PR crisis

1. Quick to acknowledge
2. Timely to act accurately
3. Talk straight
4. Remember long term brand value is worth more than the cost of situation
5. Help is more important than blame

I believe it was Don Shula who said to a player who celebrated his touchdown with an exuberant end zone dance “Act like you been there before.”

In similar fashion, by having crisis PR drills once or twice a year with senior executives, if or when a true crisis occurs, you will reduce the “freeze” factor by having confronted a crisis situation in the past.

To set you in the right mood, I suggest you set your drill dates to coincide with one of the anniversaries of PR disasters below. You can also drill against the case studies of these historical events implementing or comparing your actions to the lessons learn from them.

Top 9 PR Crisis Commuincations Situations

1. Bophal disaster Union Carbide - December 3,1984, 

2. Enron - December 2, 2001 - This is the day Enron filed for bankruptcy after misleading investors and the public for years. (this is not a crisis in the true sense because there was really no brand to preserve, however, I do find this story fascinating for those left to handle the onslaught of media)

3. Tylenol - September 29, 1982 - I use this date because it was the date of the first death of cyanide laced Tylenol, however, if you wish you can use October 4 as the date, which is what is reported as the first big meeting of what to do about the deaths all from Chicago, or October 6 which is the date of the nation-wide recall. Take your pick. This is an interesting scenario because this is lauded as a classic case of crisis PR, but in my review there are some interesting facts to this case.

4. Exxon Valdez – March 24, 1989 – This one is a doozy, it has everything, Big Oil, a drinking sailor, faulty government policy, and questionable corporate reaction

5. United Airlines Flight 232 - July 19, 1989 - I use this because it was both a tragic and a heroic story.

6. Dan Rather’s Memogate - September 8, 2001 - airdate of forged memo story on 60 Minutes. This was submitted by Chip Griffin on Twitter @chipgriffin

7. The United States of America - September 11, 2001 – In so many dimensions this was a crisis of few equals. Here is the most comprehensive 9/11 timeline of that tragic day.

8. Dell – for the Dell Hell Crisis – June 21, 2005 – This is the best my review can come up with unless Jeff Javis wants to add some more detail here. This was submitted by John Cass on Twitter @johncass

9. Jet Blue – Valentine’s Day Crisis February 14, 2007 – While Jet Blue was praised for it’s response by then CEO David Neeleman I was not as impressed. I believe video has a lot of non-verbal communication going on. In this video I didn’t get a sense of confidence as a guy in control. More on this on a post about the Jet Blue reaction to Valentine’s Day crisis, I did around the time of the issue.

I’ve posted only 9 so you can fill in the remaining one, I mean every list needs 10 right?

To listen to the program click the play arrow on the player above. I also thank all those that tweeted comments from the hashtag #hcmktg. The conversation focused on three elements, 1) patients blogging, 2) health rating sites, and 3) disease community sites and their impact on healthcare.

On the issue of patients blogging about their doctors, the Medical Justice position is that single negative comments can be ruinous to the reputation of a physician when viewed in either isolation, the blogger is anonymous, or the full story is not disclosed. They essentially are not looking to curtail speech but recognize in many situations half a story can be misleading. As Dr. Segal mentioned on the show, he’d rather have physicians work in conjunction with patients to encourage more of them to blog so that the reader can form an opinion based on more instances rather than less.

Even Tenderich, a dedicated blogger advocate in healthcare, believes patients who blog about their healthcare experiences should do so with some rules, a Patient Blogger Code of Ethics, starting with never blogging anonymously. Her blog Diabetes Mine has turned into a resource for innovation and support for patients and caregivers of diabetes. One example is the Diabetes Mine Design Challenge an online competition of products to improve living with diabetes. A winner for this year will be announced later this month.

I invite healthcare marketers and PR practitioners to listen to this edition of Social Media Throwdown. I found the discussion provided insights into how patients can become part of the information pool about healthcare delivery promotion and delivery improvement. Getting beyond the lightening rod issues of stifling or at the very least structuring patient commentary, the idea advocated by Dr. Segal of a shared risk among patient and physician may well be the future of healthcare. In the show he cites an example of a woman with breast cancer who also wants to have a child, seeking a physician with whom she can work with to achieve her goals. As more information is available online, physician ratings becoming more comprehensive, perhaps even standardized, the concept of taking an active part in physician selection as opposed to being directed to see specific physician, will be commonly accepted by younger generations.

This concept is right in line with the generational trend to be in greater control, whether it’s online music, travel arrangements, banking, or healthcare, the trend is for a more engaged, informed consumer who also has the ability to share their experience, good, bad, or indifferent.

_________________________________________________

Speaking Appearances:

Media Relations Summit – New York City -May 18 – 19 - Highlighting the ways companies can use multimedia to secure media relations.

Jeff Pulver’s #140 Conf – New York City - June 16 – 17 – Ways Twitter is impacting, business, advertising, media, and democracy

Midwest Society of Association Executives – Minneapolis – June 2 – Twitter Smart Medium or Time Waster?

American Hospital Association – Orlando, FL – September 30 – Using Social Media in Healthcare

Join the conversation Should Patients Blog About Doctors live, Friday, May 8 at 1:00PM Central Time on Blog Talk Radio. You can call in (646) 716-4882, ask questions or send in questions on the @AlbertMaruggi Twitter tag. This show is brought to you by Social Media Throwdown.

Time 5:17

The next three posts are conversations I had while attending the NewComm Forum of the Society for New Communications Research and the In-Bound Marketing Summit last week in San Francisco.

Return on Investment is a topic that gets tons of coverage,
plenty of players (Radian6, Techrigy, Buzzlogic) and plenty of others and an endless amount of ROI eye candy, (10 ROI Charts in a pinch, just for the fun of it. )

Everyone can use a little ROI just to compare effective tactics at the very least according to globally recognized analyst Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group. In this podcast we chat about the value of ROI and the value of not being handcuffed by the most common three letters in business.

I’m not opposed to ROI, I am, however, suggesting that sometimes it can hamper innovation. It can focus an entire organization on trees while missing the forest. An interesting comment that I use to support this point is a recent comment during a TED talk in this video below by Evan Williams, founder of Twitter. He talks about Twitter being started as a side project when he was building a different company Odeo. No ROI, no particular strategic end game, just a side project on SMS and text messaging. Nine million users, plus Oprah, later, people are stilling coming up with ways to use Twitter.

Time 23:45

Golf is like social media, when you play with good players your game gets better. In reading and conversing with colleagues like David Meerman Scott, (World Wide Rave) Geoff Livingston, (Now is Gone) and Brian Solis (Putting the Public Back in Public Relations) you are bound to come up with a few good ideas. Brian Solis and I discuss a few of them in this podcast about the changes in PR and revising your organization to address those changes.

I come to this idea of an embedded corporate journalist as the result of accepting two premises 1) The public appreciates candid companies, and 2) companies can afford and have access to all communications formats (video, audio, and print) at essentially zero cost for information distribution.

In this environment companies can be successful at public relations if they engage in public relations. That is if they view their company as part of a universe, not the center of the universe. I refer to universe here as being the larger category of which that company is a part, it could be industry, job discipline, scientific community, that kind of universe.

With this company newsroom perspective on the universe, there are considerably more opportunities to comment on news going on in the universe. Things like government regulations and economic or trade reports are fair game for you to make a newsworthy contribution. Scientific advancements, industry trends, and other events in the news are all likely examples of places to make a thoughtful contribution. This brings me to the embedded journalist.

A journalist mentality looks at the big picture and focuses in on detailed elements of the picture. It is a mentality of describing how things relate to each other, not just how things relate to buying my widget. To have this perspective inside a company in today’s environment is an asset. Over the years I have believed one of my biggest faults as a PR person was that I was a former journalist. Today I’ve reversed that belief and embrace my journalistic roots.

This perspective inside a company combined with a senior management team who embraces the two premises above, will achieve the following:

1. Greater candor and with it credibility
2. More opportunities to be heard
3. Greater exposure to audiences that are involved in your universe

A company can deploy an embed journalist in many ways, someone on staff or on contract, that’s a budget issue. The more important point here is not the journalist person per se, but the way the company looks at information in its universe. For example, during a typical staff meeting are people looking outward for opportunities to participate, not just whether you have software version 7.1 coming out or whether XYZ company just became a new client. See what is going on in the universe and match it to expertise, information, thoughtful opinions among those in the company to make a contribution. Those contributions can take many forms, blogs, comments on blogs, presentations, news releases, videos, podcasts, and many others.

And to answer the question up front, Does this mean we report negative news? Yes, objectively, fairly and without the sensational headlines to boot. See there is an upside to an embedded journalist reporting negative news, you don’t need “sky is falling” headlines to sell papers, to fight the paparazzi, or compete with alien abductions at the checkout line. Another bonus, you can tell the whole story, you just need to tell it straight.

An interesting way to do this is with Pitch Engine. It is a platform to build social media news releases and get you thinking differently about news and the other audiences that will consume that information. This is not a replacement for wire service distribution, it’s a way to build in a process to form your message in a socially-friendly way.

Sometimes I think consultants (guilty) make a big deal about little things. I appreciate the social media news release for what it is, a neat package of information that advances a point with plenty of footnotes (links, videos, images, etc) to deeper associated content that is handy if you want more information, and a way to share this information with others (social distribution e.g. Stumble Upon, Facebook, Twitter etc). It’s kind of like your thesis paper in college with footnotes, references and a bibliography. You get that paper back and you got an A. Then you share that paper with others who borrow ideas, (what! Tell me you didn’t do that in college.) add their own perspective, and now we are back to the beginning of our story - being social will improve your game.

See you at NewComm Forum

Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFFOS to get $200 off the listed price. The conference is being held April 27-29 in San Francisco.

OR

Business Smart Tools

This half day session is in Stamford, CT, I have two tickets to give away to Marketing Edge readers, be the first to email me and we’ll get you there. Send the email to MarketingEdge AT ProvidentPartners DOT net with Business Smart Tools in the subject line. This event is being held May 5.

Time 15:21

Social media is at a defining moment, a point where there are ample technologies to effectively participate in the medium, but also significant issues being debated within organizations about using the medium. The Business Smart Tools conference on May 5 in Stamford, CT will feature discussions about both the use of the technologies and the debates within organizations.

I will join Scott Monty of Ford Motor Company, John C. Havens of Blog Talk Radio, among others at this one day conference sponsored by Creative Concepts. Valorie Luther, CEO of Creative Concepts and I highlight some of these issues in this Marketing Edge podcast. It some cases, midsize companies have captured the essence of social media to gain significant exposure while larger more regulated, or bureaucratic companies have struggled with being social.

The Business Smart tools conference will have workshops on using Twitter for business, and the ROI of social media. There is also a discount for Marketing Edge listeners, register for Business Smart Tools conference and in the promo code field use the word Blog for a 20 percent discount

5 Steps to Expert Contest

Marketing Edge book contest is 5 Steps to Expert by Paul Schempp – email me at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with the word Expert in the subject line. The comment line is 206-600-6887 leave a comment, topic to discuss, or question, we love the conversation.

So I watch the Twitter Traffic Machine video. In the video, Bill Crobsy, the founder of the Twitter Traffic Machine system, is thrilled about two qualities of his system, 1) it gets 16,000 targeted people to follow you in 90 days and 2) at any time it can get two percent of them to click on a link to content that is automatically generated. The outcome of all these numbers is companies will pay you to drive traffic to their content. The sample of Crosby tweets shows its a feed of captions and links.

Since I’ve spent 25 years in marketing, I’m hearing this and thinking - Twitter is green direct mail. Yeah, that’s got something going for it right?

At first, maybe second glance to some, this is a hijacking of Twitter relationship paradigm. Perhaps it’s the “Infomercial-esque” style of marketing that generates a visceral reaction. However, if Twitter is a relationship machine isn’t it then what each party in the relationship wants it to be. When there is agreement that’s a good relationship - when not, it ceases to be a relationship.

In 2007, I raised the issue of Twitter being a 100% opt-in ad network using Dell Outlet as an example. When I am in the computer market I follow Dell Outlet because the profile sets the expectations about what I’m getting. It’s a classic case of good relationship management, set clear expectations by communicating.

However, when you take the human factor out by automating the discovery and communication, can that be called a relationship? Do I introduce you to my imaginary Twitter friend Write4cash at the local tweet up? Dharmesh Shah raises the Twitter Spam Bot question last week in Mashable.

The extremely fast product lifecycles as we move through the early adopter phase of social web tools is creating interesting questions about the proper use of the new medium. What was created for a certain purpose at the start is viewed as something very different as more people evaluate its use. The issue being grappled with here is age-old. Twitter, which is a versatile communications platform, is being use for quantity by some, and quality for others. Where they clash there will be a bit of friction.

Time 30:08

The world is full of good Samaritans who give of themselves for others. Let’s focus on two, Ed Bennett of the Maryland University Medical Center and David Ekrem, Manager, Web Development at the Mass General Hospital for Children. They compiled a list of hospitals using social media, specifically at least one of four types of social media blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

Ed and I chat in this podcast about why and how hospitals are gradually dipping their toes into the social media pool. Bennett weaves ways to use social media in with new media tools like, webcasts, podcasts, and video of surgeries, long before it became fashionable to Tweet about it. In the podcast, Bennett, a web manager, makes a good case for marketers and PR folks to work with IT in this life and death environment.

There are hundreds of ways to use these tools, enough to give anyone a headache. Allow me to outline one use for each medium.

Blogs – A blog is a place for an on going dialogue, detail, and to build a body of work that helps brand a facility or an individual. Dr. John Butler is a physician at the
Arden Hills Clinic in Minnesota. He recently caught my attention with a post about the iPhone as an essential medical instrument. His blog helps ease the anxiety about medicine in general and informs about specific issues about which he is familiar. It warms us up to Dr. Butler.

Facebook – St. Jude’s Childrens Research Hospital there are so many things this Facebook page does well but I share it not because other hospitals should take on the same thing, but to show how versatile this platform can be. It can be used by patients to share their stories on your wall. When you visit this site to see those stories, bring a tissue. It uses widgets in conjunction with the page to raise donations. It uses multimedia to inform. And yes, it shares a personal side asking NCAA bracketology questions and other aspects of being part of a social community.

Twitter - Carilion Clinic in Roanoke, VA and Emory Healthcare in Atlanta, GA are good examples of hospitals that use Twitter as a newsfeed. Little nuggets of news from the hospital, events like parenting classes or links to information about faster radiation treatments are a good diet of information for hospitals.

IDEA

I have not seen this application for twitter yet, so I’ll share the idea. If you’ve seen it from a healthcare provider let me know. If not, and you like the idea, take it and tell me. I think a facility that has a specialty in hearts or bariatric surgery can do a specific feed related to diet and exercise. It would contain information about calorie count, fast food healthy choices, reminders to do 2 flights of stairs, and all coordinated to an appropriate time of day. This feed is best send as a text message to your phone since it will be a good reminder to push away from that lunch table in time to take the long way back to the office.

Comment line 206-600-6887 – or leave a comment below and we’ll donate a food item to a St. Paul food shelf.

Come Hang and Learn in San Francisco

Discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners

Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFFOS to get $200 off the listed price if you plan on attending both conferences.

The wacky experiment/stunt has other connotations that swirl around in parents’ heads, like; “today you’re puffing Smarties, tomorrow it’s a Michael Phelps bong and before you know you’ll be like Crackhead Bob.” Yes it’s not a logical progression I admit, but sometimes parents (including me) get illogical when they see kids huddled around the computer watching YouTube videos suggested to them by someone on Penguin Club about smoking Smarties. And the way some of those videos are portrayed it’s not as if the connection to smoking other items is so far fetched. Reminder: I didn’t say this was logical, I do say it’s a PR reality which is difficult to deny.

So what should the company that produces Smarties do? This issue has gone beyond “YouTube” and into mainstream media with all the hysteria that brings. In this Fox News piece, Smarties has a response statement, but on the Smarties website NOTHING. The days of the one channel, one media outlet statement are over in PR. You can’t make a story go away by believing that only the viewers of that particular program have seen the piece. It takes a lot longer and lot more luck to “Duck” a news cycle if the issue is on social media.

My recommendation is address this issue on their home page at the very least. If they want to be bolder and use the same channels being used to promote the smoking of Smarties that would be even better. The tone of their message need not rise to the level of severity as the Fox News piece. They could approach it with some humor so kids will pay attention, and a serious side so that parents will appreciate that the company is aware of situation.

Come on Smarties, get on YouTube with something creative not just some suit, talking head reading a statement written by legal.

The other tactic is do nothing, hey this has been around for a while, the more popular Smoking Smarties YouTube video was posted in December 2007. It will go away from mainstream media for sure, but you can bet the long tail of the web will have next year’s crop of fifth graders jonesin for their hit of Smarties.

Time 25:45

With the last couple of blog posts about South by Southwest I’m getting anxious for conference season. You know it falls in line for the most part with the baseball season.

I thought I’d highlight a few events that I’m participating in and the major questions that may be answered by attending.

Social Media Breakfast Twin Cities – March 18 – What is the role of community manager? Connie Bensen will lead a discussion about this new role being created in larger companies, still vague enough to shape its direction. I believe it is better to call it community nurturer but that doesn’t fit last century’s HR boxes.

Minnesota Interaction Marketing Association – March 18 – The New Deal: Recession-Era Marketing And The Rise Of Social Media – Recession? What recession? Yeah well you get a couple of down quarters and companies are becoming social media advocates. Perhaps it is because they all want to speak with a human voice, have tactical transparency, and not market to you. Oh and the fact that everyone is telling the CEO that it is low cost compared to what we are doing now, that has no bearing right? Right. So is social media low cost?

Allied Public Relations Executives – March 19 & 20 – Is social media right for healthcare? – that is a definite maybe in my opinion, but surely new media is essential for providers in this industry and social media may well be the answer to the monumental question of rising costs.

NewComm Forum & the Inbound Marketing Summit – April 27 – 29 – This is a comprehensive conference that will cover the why and how of social media in every aspect of a company. From marketing to PR, from customer service to product development, this setting is ideal for hearing presentations and meeting with practitioners in a one-on-one setting for specific ideas to business challenges. This podcast highlights one of the sponsors of the conference the Society for New Communications Research of which I’m a senior fellow and what to expect at the conference.

In this podcast we also highlight how to restructure your PR effort to capitalize on social media. It dovetails with the March book contest, in which we will have a drawing for the book 5 Steps to Expert by Paul Schempp. If you want to enter the drawing email me at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net and put Expert in the subject line.

Discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners
Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFFOS to get $200 off the listed price.

Time 17:22

This podcast with the Social Media Explorer Jason Falls who is at South by Southwest highlights whether there is a new next big thing or not. Since SXSW is a place to unveil new technologies is there the next Twitter that will capture the fascination of early adopters. For Jason, his takeaways were inside the box and out in the cloud of computers sharing power around the world. He reports on exciting ways the chip manufacturer AMD is enhancing video and computer performance with new product sets.

The impact for marketers is to think visually. It’s similar to the change from dial-up to broadband. As the ability to distribute more information is available both to the desktop and the mobile device your ability to tell a more powerful story and create interactivity is enhanced.

This is an interview I found interesting with Charlie Rose and Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO Nvidia that paints, and I use that word almost literally if you can do such a thing, a future for the way society will share knowledge. It is one where the visual sense dominates and computer graphics that enhances the user experience and share greater knowledge is pushed to greater usage.

As a teenager when someone would say future, I interpreted that as a long time from the present. Today, when someone says future, especially when it involves technology, I think it’s couple of years and I’m going to have to deal with it. Now the ability to go from idea to usage is so fast that the things we are talking about in this podcast, are likely to be issues the typical marketer will need to address in the next two years.

Hope to See You at the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit

A terrific conference is scheduled for April 27-29 in San Francisco. It is a combination of the Society for New Communications Research of which I’m a senior fellow and the marketing conference produced by Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Paul Gillin and David Meerman Scott. Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFCOMBO2 to get $200 off the listed price.

Time 12:32

South by Southwest is the meeting of music, film, and interactive technologies. This makes it the perfect venue for Phil Wilson of Local Tone Radio in Minneapolis. The concept of Local Tone Radio is to feature local bands, allow website listeners to vote on the ones they like and essentially give greater exposure to bands who otherwise would have to work their way through the gatekeepers of radio stations. This concept of bypassing gatekeepers is something social media does very well. From using LinkedIn to by pass the regular screening of resumes to raising money without an ounce of ink or a single phone call, SXSW has an interactive track that discusses these disruptions.

We chat with Phil Wilson who can be followed on Twitter or on Minnov8 about how he is navigating the conference. Social media is causing many industries to take notice, and the music industry was among the first to feel the pressure from social sharing and the wisdom of crowds. Now bands sell their songs on MYSpace, and DJs, like my Twitter friend DJIRIE are business entities spinning unique mixes and branching off into merchandise and apparel.

The overriding issue that makes SXSW a “go to at least once” event is the integration of ideas, cultures, and innovation. From suits to shorts at the conference, new products and services are emerging from the synergies created in Austin, TX this week. But the irony here is that most of that knowledge is being shared online. Yeah, crazy I know, but much of the ideas in Austin on are online in discussions from Twitter, to Ustream, to blogs. Even more will fill the web in the coming weeks so stay tuned and connected to South by Southwest. Or follow the up to the Tweet action on this Twitter page using the SXSW keyword.

How about the Insider’s Guide to SXSW on Twitter. Or better yet, if you are thinking about going to SXSW next year, join the SXSW community on Ning with more than 1500 members to get a feel for what’s in store when you go.

It’s the kind of event that represents more of what the future will be, collaboration and cross-pollination. Yes, the larger the show the more unwieldy it becomes, but the benefit of mixing the disciplines is a dynamic learning environment. I suggest it represents more of how our government, corporations, and schools are going to restructure for a society that wants less silos of information and more of web (and I don’t mean web-based) approach in the physical world as well.

There is no replacement for being in Austin, TX right now, but there are ways to feel like you are there. Following the events and chatter is simple.

There are RSS feeds from the SXSW conference

Then there is the Twitter Feed for #SXSW

Don’t think SXSW is on the bleeding edge, it’s mainstream enough that National Public Radio has live SXSW coverage of the music venue

There is plenty to see and hear from SXSW at Ustream TV and Blog Talk Radio just search SXSW to see those who are broadcasting live from the event.

If you are attending SXSW what are your turn ons or offs about the festival. Use this widget from Beyond Polls to select from the menu or add to it in your own words. Here is a link to the poll http://qcwidget.com/widgets/5410a1ee2859

I also believe that social media is more a movement than a marketplace. Not just a tool for someone to exploit, but an opportunity to engage in more of our shared humanity. Today, the actions of one courageous healthcare leader solidified that belief.

Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has been a prolific blog writer since October 2006. Levy’s blog is called Running a Hospital.

On it he has had an open discussion about his hospital, its work, and his own performance. This openness about successes and failures has received acclaim in the press, praise from many and murmurs of dubious wonder from others. I know from speaking with many in healthcare during presentations and meetings there are some who wonder how Levy can get away with being so transparent.

It’s simple, he is about improving, every day, throughout his hospital, profession and life. He is also, it seems, sincere about caring for people, both those in the care of BIDMC and those employees who are on the frontlines of healthcare delivery. This has infected the other cultures around him so that they too are committed to a cause of caring in an environment that rewards improvement.

Paul Levy, President and CEO Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

credit Globestaff/Pat Greenhouse

This however, is not a rose colored glasses story about how social media is improving medicine, while it maybe true, this story is about how social media is making better people of us. It is a story about the human desire to be a part of something larger, to be acknowledged as of value and connecting to each other.

Levy doesn’t use corporate speak; his writing is about real situations, from surgery procedures to improving the use of protective equipment, from the joys of a moonlit backyard to numerous stories of hospital employees.

It is with this foundation of candor, this unprecedented transparency that Paul Levy stood at the front of an auditorium full of employees who came to hear his decision about laying off workers during difficult economic times.

Instead of an announcement, he asked for their opinion of a potential solution that may avoid layoffs. Levy travels his hospital corridors plenty, enough to know how many people it takes to deliver quality care. To keep the level of personnel that he believes necessary to deliver quality care, he asked the following as reported by Kevin Cullen of the Boston Globe.

“I’d like to do what we can to protect the lower-wage earners - the transporters, the housekeepers, the food service people. A lot of these people work really hard, and I don’t want to put an additional burden on them. “Now, if we protect these workers, it means the rest of us will have to make a bigger sacrifice,” he continued. “It means that others will have to give up more of their salary or benefits.”

The reaction according to Cullen was “Thunderous, heartfelt, sustained applause. “

The seeds of this applause were sown in the many places and people that Levy has touched. A fertile field for all to see is his blog with hundreds of posts. I believe this body of work, the hundreds of comments, and the dialogue he has participated in with patients, employees, supporters and critics are a measure of the man.

Which brings me to the cultures that need to change, for transparency to work in an organization, there needs to be a mutual respect and a commitment to improve. In reading the comments submitted to the blog from the Boston Globe story, listening is a major quality of Paul Levy. It’s not a coincidence that listening is also an important quality to have in a successful relationship and I believe social media is merely a channel for relationships.

Much of America has a very long way to go to eliminate the culture of “gotcha,” of confrontation, a culture of “keep the info, keep the power.” All these insecurities and tactics of greed will hinder the benefits of what social media can bring to an organization and our society. With each blog post, each honest answer to a criticism, each good idea raised and implemented, the organization becomes stronger.

This defining moment is an example of how powerful social media can be in the hands of people who are committed to make things better. Thank you Paul Levy and the wonderful people of BIDMC.

Time 25:48

When people ask me what is the ROI on a social media relationship I often think of my wife. Let’s see we are married 22 years, have 5 kids that have yet to complete college, braces, went through 2 Suburbans vehicles for the last 10 years, I mean there are not many cars that can hold a family of 7. I figure financially this relationship might not be the jackpot most CFOs would appreciate.

I raise this point first because as the web becomes more social, the quantification that corporate America has come to rely on for every action seems a bit callous when it comes to time spent online. Long before the social web, plenty of sales managers said this to a less than stellar sales rep, “you seem to be playing a lot of golf with John, when is he going to sign a contract?” Perhaps the same phrase can apply when it comes to the time spent on twitter or in social communities, blogger sites, and Twitter, however, I suggest online relationships have a more complex nature than golfing with a “targeted prospect.”

In this episode of the Marketing Edge podcast, we discuss what to measure in a PR relationship with KD Paine, author of Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success It is not just about the number of press clips. Today’s measurement equation, if you have the patience for it, goes deeper in both the measured topic, and with whom to cultivate relationships around your business objectives.

Some of the tools KD uses are:

1. Buzz Logic
2. Twinfluence
3. Xinureturns

A Twitter Tip

Twitter is most noted for being a great tool to promote your cause and otherwise build relationships that are primarily focused on externalizing a message. There are other ways Twitter can be used to learn more about the market and competitive information. One of them is creating key words in www.search.twitter.com or using hashtags to attempt to collect the tweets around a topic, conference or other category you select.

Let me share a non-business example. When you are driving, do you ever go just a little bit faster when a certain song comes on? Yeah you know what I mean, so for the fun of it while on Twitter one night, I created a # (hashtag) called #Gofast which started a running dialogue about songs that make people Go Fast. I suspect a couple of insurance companies are monitoring this string right now and will update their applications to include this very question.

In this podcast, I highlight another Twitter tactic that flies under the radar which may give greater insight into what competitors are doing.

More Shout Outs

I get just a tad over the top in responding to listener comments. Apologies in advance to any friends with Boston accents, but you gotta admit, the running battle between who speaks better Bostonians or New Yorkers is pretty funny. Thanks to Kevin Newnan for the sound files used in the podcast of Boston phrases, his website The Wicked Pissah is hilarious. It hasn’t been updated in 10 years, but it still ranks high in searches for Boston Accent sound files.

Also a hat tip to the Guy’s Guide to Marketing to Women by Stephanie Holland a.k.a. Sheconomy on Twitter - I suspect this has both business and personal application (Mother’s Day is coming up and all).

Hope to See You at the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit

A terrific conference is scheduled for April 27-29 in San Francisco. It is a combination of the Society for New Communications Research of which I’m a senior fellow and the marketing conference produced by Chris Brogan, Paul Gillin and David Meerman Scott. Here is a $100 discount code for Marketing Edge readers and listeners, SNCRFRIEND if you only want to attend the New CommForum (see agenda) or if you want to attend the New CommForum and the InBound Marketing Summit use this code NCFCOMBO2 to get $200 off the listed price.

A recent article I wrote for Upsize Magazine, a business publication in Minnesota, received some traction yesterday on Twitter thanks to a few re-tweets, thank you for that Twitter readers. It was called “For better PR create a newsroom culture in your company.”  So I thought I’d highlight it in a blog post.

The executive summary of the article is this, with the dots I mentioned above, there is an opportunity for corporate PR to have more of a news mentality than a promotional one which will be more beneficial to the company’s communications goals. Dots 1 and 4 mean if you are less of a corporate shill and contribute to an objective conversation of issues impacting your universe, others in the online world, journalists, bloggers, customers et. al. will respond favorably.

Instead of only looking inward to pick off the low hanging PR fruit such as new product release, new hire (or recent round of layoffs), earnings (or lack thereof) report, and new client win (Oh please God), instead of that, let’s dig deeper and examine how the company appeals to a segment of the market, how it is participating in new technology standards, what is its reaction to the Obama stimulus package, or where it envisions job skills changing in their industry.

Have a heart and make it easy on everyone, build a story for multiple platforms, Dot 2. Journalists are writing blogs, hosting podcasts, and in general breaking their butts to accommodate new media. Package your content in those formats, meaning, produce a series of soundbites that can be used in a podcast, create a video (preferably not talking heads) that enhances the storyline, post a powerpoint on Slideshare with pretty charts and graphs, better yet, also have those single images available on a newspage or blog post for easy linking. Yes, this is more work, but it costs much less to do today than just a couple of years ago.

Which brings me to Dot 3, all formats are affordable, video, audio, even news distribution services (depending on which one you choose). I said affordable, not free. Sure, tools like Help a Reporter Out and Pitch Engine , and on Twitter MicroPR among others can be used at no cost, but someone needs to put this stuff together. Time is money and people still need to eat. However, shooting quality video and multi-purposing that content is a fraction of what it was. I bet for around $5000 (either time or cash) you can get a comprehensive story told in video, audio, images, and text that can be used across many platforms such as YouTube, Blip.tv (an example of a B2B video channel for enterprise software), iTunes, Flickr (just see how many people take pictures of coca cola),Utterli (a great platform for producing audio and other content) blogs, and other appropriate platforms.

Throughout the year pick off several issues and you’ll look back to see the following:

1. Better position in the market as a thought leader/player
2. More news media mentions and coverage in social media
3. More conversations about your company
4. More and better information that sales teams can use
5. Higher quality employment candidates

Put the dots together and you’ve got your self a fully functional, multimedia newsroom, ready to capitalize on issues in your universe, whether they are generated internally or externally, framed in a style that is more valuable to your audience and distributed in a channel that is likely to share your story with others. What’s your take?

Two for the Price of One Conference

An invite to attend the NewComm Forum and InBound Marketing Summit in San Francisco April 27-29. It’s a combined conference with strategic and tactical workshops on using online marketing, PR and social media. There is a line up of terrific speakers and ample opportunities to focus in on your specific questions. The NewComm Forum, sponsored by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) is colocating the forum with the sponsors of the InBound Marketing Summit making for a comprehensive event.

Marketing Edge listeners and readers, email me for a discount code at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with NewComm in the subject line.

Time 16:48

Public relations is changing before your eyes, don’t believe me, visit Help a Reporter Out a website where reporters post their inquiries for experts, guests, and story angles. Then, the site’s founder Peter Shankman emails those inquiries out morning, noon, and night. No, I’m not kidding, three times a day. In fact, I use his emails as a reminder to feed my dog. She gets a cup of food at each email and is pretty happy about it (see smiling photo). Shankman is also a pet lover who, on the HARO website, supports several animal non-profits including Best Friends Animal Society and the Search Dog Foundation, helping train dogs to locate disaster victims.

Back to public relations, you may think HARO this is similar to ProfNet or other services, and you are right, but the world of social media is changing business models and Shankman is adding value at less cost.

The way PR is changing requires change on the part of companies buying PR services and delivering those services. Practicing PR for 25 years, I’ve found the equation of PR firm and client interesting. A firm is paid by a client to advise and implement services the success of which is on a third party, reporter or blogger. In that equation I’ve always considered the journalist very similar to a client in their own unique way. They, at times had a specific need for information or at other times just a general curiosity of information I might have. Finding the match of client information and journalist need is the Golden Ticket.

Here are some points for both buyer and provider of public relations services during these changing times.

For buyers of PR services

1. Think about PR before you have a problem
2. Be a resource before you want to pitch
3. Technology speeds distribution not necessarily learning about reporters
4. Don’t just measure clips, measure the real-time way people respond to company

For PR professionals

1. No substitute for learning about reporters by studying their work (this includes bloggers!)
2. Don’t rely on any one list, (purchased or otherwise), search for journalists using social media
3. Your value is not just in pitching, nor some ancient relationship, it’s the knowledge of what will interest said reporter/blogger.
4. Don’t be afraid to advise your client to expose their talents/expertise directly to reporters via social media.

Thanks to Peter Shankman for your time, Provident Partners just donated to Best Friends – see social media does work.

HR

The Marketing Edge book contest for February is The Perfection of Marketing by James Connor, to enter the contest email me at marketingedge AT provident partners dot net and in the subject line put the word perfection.

You can get on the podcast with your questions or comments by calling 206-600-6887, we’d like to hear from you. That will make us smile.

Isn’t that kid on what looks to be a ledge? My reaction was dumb parent, dumber ad. As you can see I wrote that on the ad. OK OK let’s just say it’s all photoshop right? Why use it when there must be others with the same captivating beauty of nature? Perhaps it is the shock value they were going for, and I’m the dumb one that is too protective.

As a little million to one shot, I was sitting in 26F on flight 557, an MD-80 from MSP to ORD when I wrote my missive in the magazine. It’s my physical way of sharing social media. If you find it, let me know.

Meanwhile what do you think -dumb ad or overly protective dad that’s afraid of heights?

I was inspired by the many times twitterites exchanged quick tweets about topics from personal branding to a Joe the Plumber reference, however, I wanted something more spontaneous. I am not one to have a favorite medium, but instead one that appreciates the unique benefits of each medium, old and new, that is available. Perhaps this comes from my experience in both radio and television.

I also like the Blog Talk Radio platform, and thank my friend John C Havens, co-author of tactical transparency for turning me on to it a long time ago.

In this first episode we have a leading personal branding strategist and author Hajj Flemings trading points of view with Geoff Livingston, social media and branding leader, who takes a much different perspective on branding of an individual.

We’ll cast this live on Blog Talk Radio Friday, February 6 at 1 PM CST - The listener call in line is: (646) 716-4882 and we will try to get as many questions as possible, hope to chat with you Friday, Feb 6 at 1PM Central.

Time 22:32

True story, I get a pitch about a marketer who is getting ready to leave the hustle of the rat race to go on a Buddhist retreat next year. I’ve got to tell you that I was a bit skeptical, I think the two disciplines, marketing and Buddhism are about a contrary as you can get.

The marketer, James Connor is the author of the book the Perfection of Marketing. It’s a quick read and told though the eyes of Connor as he weaves a story around a typical discussion with a CEO about marketing. It certainly is a different narrative than most business books, and I recommend it to every marketer as a gift to a skeptical CEO.

So I write back that I’d like to interview James not just about the book but what I see as the contradictions in the idea of being a marketer and a Buddhist. This is part two of my conversation with James Connor. We focus on the spiritual aspect of his journey in life and business. Did he completely convince me that marketing and Buddhism are made for each other? No, but Connor opened my eyes to a different perspective, and for that I’m very grateful.

As a participant of social media, Connor’s spirituality is insightful and shows the beauty and peace of giving. These insights give him a unique perspective on human nature and that perspective is an asset as a marketer. A premise of Buddhism is the concept of giving, and taking care of others. The best way to succeed is to help others, and I believe that is a principle of social media. Those that understand this principle and live by it will get back more than than give.

Comment & Give to Others

Leave a comment below or better yet, call the comment line 206-600-6887. Enter the contest to win the book The Perfection of Marketing by email marketingedge AT providentpartners.net put the word perfection in the subject line.

Time 21:52

I’ve always found it interesting that many company CEOs view marketing as an after thought. Their concept of brand begins with a logo rather than a culture. Some may believe that brand is only for large companies that have time and money for a brand strategy and its execution.

I take a different view. Brand is rooted in a company’s belief system and value proposition, so while you are thinking about why a company should exist, it is also thinking about its brand. So when you think of service in the hospitality industry Ritz Carlton comes to mind, and when it comes to automobile safety it’s no accident that you think of Volvo.

When a company views a brand as part of its core, part of its reason to exist and the major quality that motivates people to purchase their product or service, then it is much easier to execute the messages that will flow from their brand position.

Just as Stephen Covey refers to True North as the ethical and moral direction for personal growth, I think True North for a company is its core brand value.

James Connor, author of The Perfection of Marketing believes you can drive sales in three steps to brand building. We get into the details in this podcast the first of a two part conversation. Tomorrow we chat about Connor being a Buddhist and a marketer, a seeming contradiction for me.

Enter the contest to giveaway Connor’s book by emailing me at marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net and in the subject line put the word Perfection.

Every entry, every comment on the blog or on the Marketing Edge comment line 206-600-6887, Provident Partners will give a food item to a St. Paul, Minnesota food shelter. The Marketing Edge podcast is celebrating its fourth anniversary this month, gives us a call and we’ll get you on the next show.

Also check out a new show I am hosting Social Media Throwdown First show is a discussion about the merits of personal branding with Hajj Flemings and Geoff Livingston

As a business owner, I’m reading the article in yesterday’s paper half wondering how they are going to get out of this predicament and half hoping it doesn’t happen to me, Double Yipes.

This post doesn’t have the answers to JW Hulme’s financial situation, at least not all of the answers, but my heart and my head have given this issue some time and I’d like to share what they have come up with.

1) The article is a great read, many other reporters will want to retell it, fine. Now, however, is the time, today, to put a blog on your website you basically have had 1 news release a year for the last couple of years. Not enough communication.

Now that you have exposed your story and acknowledged the initial response with a public letter to your customers that appears on your site, keep talking.

You have revealed the human side of JW Hulme through the eyes of co-owners Chuck Bidwell and Jennifer Guarino, there is plenty more we all can learn from you. Better yet, there are plenty more customers, colleagues, business peers and prospects who may want to share their thoughts with you. Let them do it by you fully participating in the social web.

2) Judging by the article, Bidwell and Guarino are of a mind to give back to the community. In a previous position, Bidwell was a proponent of Hero Cards to build local currency in volunteer programs.

Guarino was General Manager of Minnesota Parent a popular magazine with a natural community of engaging people. That magazine has been active in community service. Now it’s once again time to give back, perhaps there are ways to use some JW Hulme inventory to benefit a cause, or because the inventory is relatively high, according to the Journal article, use the manufacturing capacity to make something for an organization. I realize this is not conventional wisdom, doing work that isn’t about generating revenue at a time when revenue is essential, but we don’t live in conventional times nor has conventional wisdom done much for any institution in America right now. It’s a good time to tell conventional wisdom to “take a hike”

3) With all of the mentions in the WSJ article about how JW Hulme uses catalogs and not one mention of online efforts, I thought that might be a problem. After a quick review of JW Hulme’s web presence it has the basics, but there is plenty more to do that doesn’t involve up front payments to printers. No offense, I’m not against the printed, colorful page, but the market seems to be in transition on that one.

4) Lastly, this is an opportunity. WSJ reporter Julie Jargon, did a wonderful piece capturing the left and right brain elements of Bidwell’s and Guarino’s plight. It’s real life without the “reality-TV” spin. It represents the essence of what being social is in today’s market. Will it sell more leather and canvas luggage at a few hundred bucks a pop? I have no idea, but the opportunity I speak of is not that narrow minded (I understand some banker will call narrow mindedness focus). The opportunity I speak of is to open your story up and let the rest of the world engage. You and I have no idea what will result of that opportunity, but you already made the decision to be public on the story. I can tell you my experience from being a part of the social web as a business owner, you have already done the hard part, now you just need to create a way to create a dialogue. Good luck, if you want to have a cup of coffee I’m just up the road from you.

Time 20:53

As more consumers use the web to research their medical needs and choices, the greater the demand for some type of performance metrics in healthcare delivery. This dynamic taking place in healthcare is causing greater competition among providers, and more healthcare marketers to look for ways to tell their story.

Healthgrades dot com is one of several sites that provide detailed reporting on physician performance, legal issues, and hospital outcomes. Within the last year, surveys of hospital outcomes mandated by Medicare are now available to the public. These points of data are piling up to create a mountain of information for patients to sort through as they make a decision on healthcare. To be sure, reliance on a general physician and friends and family are important, but checking that information against a report card gives a bit more substance behind a decision. Other physician rating sites include Find a Doc, Vitals, and RateMDs

In this podcast with Christopher Boyer of Healthgrades.com , we explore some of the reasons why millions of people are using these sites. We get into what tactics hospital marketers should be evaluating to tap into the stream of information patients and their families are accessing.

The most important indicator to examine social media and understand the impact of rating sites is the powerful element of “intended search” in healthcare. Those searching for healthcare information are usually doing so because of a need. It is more than likely it is an urgent need. Healthcare is different in this regard that many other industries. People can causally shop around a vacation destination or a car without a making a purchase, it’s unlikely that people are casually browsing hiatal hernia or slip disk remedies.

Another good resource is Boyer’s social network for healthcare marketers hosted on Ning. I’ve posted Marketing Edge podcast interviews on healthcare on a dedicated healthcare and social media page. www.providentpartners.net/healthcare

Call us with your comments or questions that we can chat about on the show, 206-600-6887. Provident Partners donates a food item for every comment we received.

Time 27:53

The problem with many companies trying to get PR and media coverage is they think like a company. They need to think like a news organization about themselves, their industry, and the communities in which they play. In the first Marketing Edge episode for 2009 we talk with Kevin Dugan, co-author of the Bad Pitch Blog. The Bad Pitch Blog is a must read for any PR or corporate communications professional, and more importantly, clients of PR organizations. Why clients? Because you don’t want to put your organization or your firm in a situation where the pitch becomes the news. We get into how not to craft a bad pitch and approaching PR with a different perspective in part because social media has changed the landscape of public relations

Meanwhile here’s an old PR versus new PR list for 2009, Kind of like a PR fashionista list.

Old PR Thinking

New PR Thinking

That’s just a few, we can always talk more, start with a comment either below or at 206-600-6887. Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter for every comment we receive. Happy New Year!

Time 28:49




What’s in a word? Plenty. Not just a word, but the right word at the right time in the right places can catapult your company to the top of the Google heap. As a former journalist, I’m always thinking about the news angle, whether it’s for clients, this podcast, or the pure enjoyment of staying on top of the issue.

The beauty of this is, search engines think like news people as well. The major search engines pick up trends across the net, reward in-bound links to your page, and give recognition to first movers.

Having a focus and priorities for your marketing and SEO objectives can level the playing field against larger competitors. For example a small, and excellent company VigiLanz, develops infection control software that helps clinical pharmacies comply with a specific Federal mandate called National Patient Safety Goal 3E. With the goal of being focused on this very important aspect of their product, the objective was to produce a high Goggle ranking. The strategy of copy changes to their website and clear editorial intent in news release topics garnered a top rank in Goggle on the search of NSPG 3e software This success, however, can be short lived if there is not a dedicated effort to continue producing content that supports and I contend advances the conversation of your focused topic. (VigiLanz is a client)

Another tactic is to piggyback on the news cycles of topics in your objective. For example, say your area is financial risk management in commodities, when the government announces a new policy, the markets move a certain way, or the monthly trade report references movement in commodity, there should be blog posts, news releases, and copy changes on specific areas of your website to capitalize on the coverage of the topic. To the extent you can get a jump on the topic momentum by using social media trending tools like Radian 6 or Trackur to mention two options at either end of the sophistication spectrum.

In this podcast, I chat with Lee Odden, a nationally recognized SEO consultant. Lee and I share ideas on SEO, PR, and affiliate marketing tactics. Odden also writes the Top Rank Blog, one of the better blogs on the web. Odden will be speaking on a panel at the Affiliate Summit Jan 11-13 along with Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim.

YOU COMMENT WE GIVE FOOD

For every comment we get at 206-600-6887 or on this blog, Provident Partners will buy a food item for a local food shelter. So give someone a hot meal by giving us your opinion. Happy New Year.

Time 16:43

About 15 years ago at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium, I saw a guy wearing a T-shirt with the following slogan – It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You – Right there and then I thought “That’s it, that’s marketing.”

All the other words on this blog help address that single slogan. Chuck Hester, communications director of iContact, a large email solutions provider, and nationally recognized Linkedin expert is the guest on this Marketing Edge podcast Hester is as good as it gets about living the slogan It’s Not Who You Know, It’s Who Knows You. He has more than 6000 contacts on LinkedIn, and they all know him.

Hester lives and breathes the principles of social networking, among them:

1. Giving to the community
2. Introducing people
3. Proactively listening to others (Chuck will never eat alone at any of the hundreds of conferences and meetings he attends)
4. Always willing to help

This simple philosophy, the Pay it Forward philosophy, helps him in all aspects of his life. Yes that includes business relationships, leads and contacts. Is there a quantifiable return on this investment? Sure there is, and those that are really good with numbers can fascinate themselves with all kinds of formulas and algorithms to achieve their desired result. Hester prefers to focus on the relationships, when you do that, everything falls into place.

It’s a wonderful story not just appropriate during Christmas. In this episode of the Marketing Edge podcast on social media, Hester highlights the Pay It Forward approach in social media and in the physical world. His LinkedIn profile is his window to others and visa versa, He created a physical world networking format called LinkedIn Live which celebrated its first anniversary in 2008. We recorded this conversation this summer.

Hester is working on a book due out in the first quarter of 2009,about his philosophy for using LinkedIn. Keep an eye out for the Pay it Forward Chronicles (working Title) We’ll have Hester back when the book is out.

What Are Your Thoughts? Send us your thoughts on how you use LinkedIn or how you get others to Know You. Every comment on the blog or voice mails left on our comment line 206-600-6887 will provide a food item to a local St. Paul, MN food shelf.

On Monday, December 29 drop by the office of Provident Partners to celebrate my 50th birthday, from 12:30pm - 2:30pm at 790 Cleveland Avenue South, Suite 221 St. Paul, MN - hope to see our twin cities listeners if you have time.

1. Provides helpful information for the community (key to all of social media)
2. Taps the interests and mention of his post by the people he writes about (you know you want people talking about what your are writing)
3. Drives traffic from several networks by adding a voting component (Ain’t that the idea?)

Giving is at the core of social media, in my mind, and this is a list not just of the popular, but of what the popular hosts listen to. You know it’s like who does your doctor go to type of thing.

By writing about those on the list it generates at least a little conversation among those on the list. “Gee, what’s Odden up to now, let’s go take a look.” Whether that is a list of social media junkies, or the top doctors, or the most desired gifts for Xmas, lists work because they create a foundation for buzz. Add to that the aspect of voting (which Odden does in allowing voting for your favorite podcast) and you have a winning post. The issue is not which podcasts get the most votes, it’s about learning of new podcasts, recognizing the work of those that Odden’s readers support, and appreciating the abundance of talent available through and enhanced by social media.

Odden will be in the Marketing Edge studio on December 29 (that’s my 50th birthday really) and our conversation will be posted soon thereafter. We’ll be talking plenty about SEO, social media, and give a look into how search drives topics and copy.

Thanks Lee for including the Marketing Edge

Time 30:05

What would a newsroom look like if you built it from scratch today? That was the question answered by a project sponsored by the Knight Foundation and conducted at the Chronicle, the student newspaper of Duke University. It was led by Chris O’Brien, who in addition to being project manager for the Next Generation Newsroom, is a business columnist for the San Jose Mercury News. The beauty of this project is that it’s not just research and concept; the blueprint of the next newsroom is now a proposal being considered by Duke University.

In this interview with Chris, we discuss the five principles their research identified for what a newsroom will look like. As I reviewed the principles for this interview, it struck me that they reflect the characteristics that make social media so powerful. Below are the Next Newsroom principles and, in italics after each one, I’ve outlined how PR professionals can adapt their role to be a valued resource for these next newsrooms. These would be either PR managers and specialists inside corporate departments or PR associates in a firms representing clients.

Give us your thoughts at 206-600-6887 or in the comment section below. For every comment you provide, Provident Partners will provide a food item to a St. Paul, MN, food shelter.

Five principles for the ideal newsroom

So rather than start by trying to create a single “ideal,” we decided to identify the big themes. This led to the establishment of five principles we think any newsroom of the future should embrace:

*Community: The community should be at the center of a newsroom. That can mean physical spaces for training, spaces for public events, and social spaces. But it also means making the community an integral part of the news and information gathering, discussions and production.

For the PR professional, Community means: Identify all of the communities your staff participates in. For example, an employee that is active in professional associations, local government. These people can be resources for news.

*Multi-platform: The ideal newsroom should embrace all platforms — online, print, broadcast, mobile — on an equal footing. Any newsroom that organizes around a single platform, and considers the others to be secondary, risks becoming stagnant as those platforms change and new ones emerge.

For the PR professional, Multi-platform means: I’m a big proponent of the right medium for the story. Some stories are most powerful when told by video, while others may be more appropriate for audio. Pitching stories to television because they are good video stories is now limiting. Every media is multi-media, and your video story should be pitched to the outlets most appropriate for that content. Just because a network doesn’t like your pitch for X story, you should look at the same video story for The New York Times because they have a fully integrated multi-media newsroom. Consider ways your information might appeal to a mobile audience and devise ways to deliver information there.

*Innovation: We’re entering an era of increasingly rapid change. The ideal newsroom today won’t be the ideal newsroom of 2012. So any newsroom needs to make innovation a priority and find ways to create the capacity for constant experimentation.

For the PR professional, Innovation means: Stay on top of the changes in the media that cover your company and topics of interest. They may be looking for ways to cover issues at less cost, accept bylined articles (I’m not talking about product shilling here; I’m talking thoughtful discussion of issues. If a person in your organization can do that, then be on the look-out for opportunities as newsrooms evolve.) New marketing and PR will be about testing and adapting, not doing what worked for 100 other companies. By that time, you’ve lost the creative edge and audiences will have moved on to something else. There is no longer safety in numbers. Safety is a figment of your imagination; innovation is critical to sustained growth.

*Collaboration: Because any newsroom will be one among many in its community, it’s critical that it figure out how to work with others in the news and information ecosystem, whether that’s linking, teaming up on strategic stories, or finding other ways to cooperate when its strategic.

For the PR professional, Collaboration means: Companies need to think and act like newsrooms. When issues of concern take center stage, your company needs to react as if you were covering breaking news. What is your company’s opinion of a trade embargo, the price of oil, the health care proposal, or [insert relevant issue here]. You need to either have an opinion or be a conduit for discussion. You can’t just sit around and wait for your new product improvement to issue a “news” release. Why? Because it likely isn’t news. When you realize that most companies don’t make news, they are part of the news, then you’ll start to be included in the real news.

*Transparency: The explosion of information and news creates an enormous challenge for people to figure out which sources they can trust. The best way for a news organization to approach this problem is to become as transparent as possible. In the case of some new newsrooms we examined, that meant a transparent structure that allowed the public to see inside and invited them in. But in terms of content, that also means being as open as possible about your processes, sources, decisions and content.

For the PR professional, Transparency means: This is my favorite. I’d love to see companies conduct editorial meetings every month and treat their organization as a news source. Please stop. Do not submit the following, “Well, we have a company newsletter…” No, that’s a marketing brochure in a layout that looks like a newspaper.

Let’s start by identifying conflict as a part of the issues you cover about the topics in your company’s interest. There must be conflict because conflict makes for interesting stories. So in health care, is there conflict between access and cost? In the finance industry, is there conflict between regulation and growth? In manufacturing, is there conflict between using certain types of raw materials? Of course, and you have plenty of thoughtful ways to discuss issues that are debated in your industry everyday. That is what transparency is all about. It’s not about revealing your secret, patented manufacturing process, or your boss’ stash of Johnny Walker Black in her desk. It’s about being a forum for discussion in most cases about issues in your industry and less about the greatness of your latest widget.

In this podcast, I mention one of my favorite sites, The Frontline Club, an independent journalist organization in London. It is brilliant, raw journalism at its best.

Provident Partners donates a food item to a St. Paul, MN food shelter for every comment we receive on this blog or on the comment line 206-600-6887.

The issue of personal brands clashing with corporate brands is something I’ve commented in the past. BusinessWeek reporter Stephen Baker, @stevebaker on Twitter, asked, “How will social media impact business and change our careers?,” to which I responded:

“Hell, everyone is their own profit and loss center. How will companies deal with personal brands that outstrip the company, that’s an issue, who actually owns the information gathered when working for a company will be a battle ground in the coming years. If a person is able to develop a personal brand while also being paid by a company and decides to cash in on the brand, should the company have an equity stake in that personal brand? Ouch, that’s a tough one.”

Steve apparently found this comment interesting.

There are a couple of factors involving personal brands: First, the global economy and multinational companies focus more on the numbers, not on the people. This is not a criticism, although some people would say it is a short-sightedness on the part of companies, but that’s not a dog in this commentary. The point is the 30-year career at one company is extinct. No more gold watches.

Second, institutional failures: Today’s auto bailout is one failure in a long list of institutions that were perceived at one point to be invincible. One could argue that the perception was wrong, that every institution is vulnerable, Senate seats were always for sale in Illinois and elsewhere, that companies always fudge numbers, only Enron, et al, got caught, but again that is a different argument.

The point is today, the consensus among individuals is that they hold the key to their job security, not the entity that happens to pay them for their work that week. In this “I’m responsible for my job security and my skill set” world, attention is given to personal skills and promotion. Some do it better than others.

The Founding Fathers of Blogging

The key people to thank for the explosion personal brands are, Mr. Rogers and Thomas Jefferson with an assist to James Madison.

Jefferson was a strong advocate for free speech and persuaded Madison to include it in the Bill of Rights. Mr. Rogers told generations that each one of us is special and unique.

Enter Web 2.0, and we all have access to express our freedom and uniqueness.

The Social Media Dilemma

Social media claims to be able to put a human face on an entity, a business. If it is done through one individual employee and this face gets too popular then, some say, it can overshadow the business. This is nothing new. In the past it was usually the CEO.

Take Lee Iacocca. For millions he will be forever associated with Chrysler, even though he was president of Ford at one point in his career. The same is true for Jack Welch with GE, a hell of a personal brand that took root and flourished at GE. Welch turned that brand into the Welch Way.

Today many, many more personalities throughout a company have the ability to gain notoriety to a much wider audience than in the past. Thirty years ago the headhunters knew who the top players were in an industry. Today one can forge a brand while working for a company, however, the question is to what end: individual gain, greater value to the company or, the more likely scenario, both.

A case playing out before us is Scott Monty and Ford. Monty had a strong brand while at the agency Crayon. Ford realized the value of social media and the rest is the present. And in this present moment, Monty and Ford are making great strides together. It is an example of how personal brands can relate.

The Clock Watchers and Good Management

A danger of personal brands is how do you judge time spent on developing a personal brand in conjunction with company goals. Can it be measured in time and type of information disclosed? Consider an employee who discusses faults about the company that may be detrimental to the company but can enhance the employee’s “personal brand.” (Please don’t tell me that every fault, every wart, every mistake needs to lay bare on the Web for the company to be transparent. If you believe that, a.k.a. Bob, then let’s start with you. Sorry that may be a bit harsh, but done for affect I think it works, no?)

More about my experience with personal brands and employees in this article about the Bob case at Media Bullseye.

Discretion, whether offline (“Honey, do I look fat in this dress?”) or online (“Sorry about the nimrods in customer service. If it were up to me I would have given you back your $576.87”), is a valuable quality to possess.

Trust is the critical characteristic in a world that has this ease of access to information and others. Trust is a two-way street. Why? Because it’s about relationships, whether an online relationship or someone you manage and evaluate as their “boss” (I dislike that word).

Owyang has written about four ways companies are addressing the issue of personal brands and social media. Jeremiah, I hope you don’t mind me quoting you directly here to keep the flow going, thanks. Owyang writes:

“How companies respond
Brands respond to these risks in a number of ways, I’ve categorized them based on level of sophistication.

First Reaction: Keep marketing faceless: Lean on traditional marketing, avoid human voices to come through.

Second Reaction: Approach with team or hybrid approach:Rather than encourage personal brands, you may instead see corporate team blogs that have an equal weighting to employees. Another example is with Dell and Oracle employees who fuse their name with their employer –it’s both personal and professional.

Third Reaction: Let the customers be the product face: Perhaps the most sophisticated way to market a product isn’t to put your employees on the product blog, but instead, your customers. I don’t see too many examples of this currently, but you can expect this to be an approach in the future.

Fourth Reaction: Allow personal brands to proliferate: Some companies allow for employees to create their own blogs, generate revenue on their blogs, and be who and what they want.”

Regardless of a company’s blogging policy, people are free to blog. (You are not the boss of me.) If they are blogging about work-related topics, then their work life provides them information useful to their blogging and perhaps their personal brand. Even if they don’t mention a thing about their company, by working they simply gain knowledge about the industry, trends, other companies, etc. It’s just part of work.

There will be situations where either side, company or employee, will need to enforce their policy or their liberty by terminating the employment. Those circumstances, I trust, will become more rare as the corporate culture accepts the reality of Rogers and Jefferson and the blogging culture who wish to blog about their work accept the responsibility of their role in achieving business objectives.

The foundation for each party is trust, the prerequisite for each party is communication with each other, the reward for each party is the knowledge gained from the social community.

Time 28:43

Health care is going through some growing pains when it comes to social media. Word of mouth, especially from friends and family, is the leading resource for consumers selecting a primary care physician, according to a study from the Center for Studying Health System Change.(CSHSC) The concept that consumers would aggressively seek out performance information and cost comparisons from sites like HealthGrades and Carol is not taking place as many predicted.

In Minnesota company that bet on their advertising concept in a phrase - if men and women shopped for a ties and purses they would shop for medical care. After a huge PR splash, consumers weren’t buying the concept proving that PR without audience effective buy-in tactics doesn’t drive the bottom line.

The Edelman Health Engagement Barometer echoes the findings of the CSHCS study in that physicians and, friends, family, and peers are the leading trusted sources of information about healthcare. When it comes to consumers selecting a provider.

Where does this put social media in healthcare? Squarely in the middle. Here’s how.

Consumers do not feel confident enough to select a complex purchase without some guidance according to the CSHSC study. This guidance, I believe, comes in two forms, 1) peer to peer, including friends and family as well as patients who share their real-life experience. There are several sites picking up traction that provide anecdotal real-life insights Healthcare scoop and CareSeek are among them. You can even learn about Maruggi’s kidney stone surgery at St. Joe’s Hospital with Dr. Portis. This “someone like you” information gives patients comfort. In the study more than 50% of consumers use information from friends and family in their decision to select a physician. I would aggregate patient experience blogs in a similar category.

2) Professional information from a physician is also a highly valued component in this study. Nearly 40% of healthcare consumers consulted with a physician about from whom they should seek care. I believe this expert-to-patient exchange provides confidence in the selection. It is essentially a check and balance on the consumers leanings based on peer-to-peer information.

We interviewed one of the leading healthcare bloggers, author of Health Populi Jane Sarasohn-Kahn. She highlights how social media is working its way into one of the last holdouts of web 2.0 implementations, the healthcare industry. While it is slow going, Sarasohn-Kahn says there are many aspects of social media in healthcare, only one of which is the “shopping” aspect. For example, healthcare improvement through greater transparency as demonstrated by Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and Nick Jacobs, President of Windber Medical Center is an area of social media that is noticed at the highest levels of the profession and media.

Among the community of physicians Sermo is a fast growing social network with more than 70,000 licensed physicians. The web 2.0 community in healthcare is huge, its leading conference produced by Matthew Holt was overflowing this Fall, no economic crisis was keeping members of this community away from the conversation.

Sarasohn-Kahn talks in this podcast about the relationship consumers have with social media in their healthcare decisions. She also touches on how the once antagonist political entities of universal healthcare may well be ready to reach a constructive solution just in time for the Obama Administration. Her advice, read Critical by Tom Daschle

What does this mean for marketers and PR professionals in healthcare? While comparing Doctor Smith and Doctor Jones along with the cost of an MRI may be a way off in the distance, tapping in to communities and conversation are here today. Whether it is driving health plan members to use online services or a hospital using video to highlight their latest surgery procedures, consumers are willing participants in the learning phase of healthcare decision making.

In the area of public relations, podcasts are used to increasing effectiveness as a source for news reporting, and consumer information tools, Johns Hopkins Medicine podcasts are a classic example. Baby steps in social media is just fine for healthcare for now, 2009 we expect to see further growth as patients, physicians and healthcare journalists are plugging into the budding movement of healthcare transparency.

Jane spoke to the Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement in Minnesota in late November, highlighting how social media is slowing being implemented in healthcare.

Reminder all comments to the Marketing Edge podcast comment line 206-600-6887 or Marketing Edge blog will result in a food item being donated to a Twin Cities food shelter. Your opinion is worth a meal to someone in need, so tell us what you think.

December Drawing:
Use Giftag, www.giftag.com the website for all your gift ideas and whish lists, and tag your gifts that are up to $25 with Marketing Edge. On December 20 we will pick one gift and purchase it for that Giftag user.

Time 43:24

Oh, God, now don’t be getting all upset about me saying Santa uses Giftag. Can you prove Santa doesn’t use Giftag? Exactly. So there.

Giftag is the new gift-registry builder and community platform from Best Buy’s social media team. The best part about it is — get this — it is based on the fundamental principle that the social web is, well, social. That’s why it allows users to build lists from anywhere on the web – not just Best Buy. In my Xmas 2008 list I have warm and toasty long johns (I live in Minnesota, give me a break) from REI, and at Best Buy, an excellent Samsung 46” 1080p flat panel HDTV for an unbelievable price.

This is a major step for any corporation, and Best Buy deserves a ton of credit for implementing a true brand experience that puts the customer first and that accepts the reality that Best Buy customers also need underwear, hats, blankets and plenty of stuff sold all over the place. Isn’t it better to make life easier for those purchases? Yes, and users are thankful for it.

Gary Koelling, senior manager for social technology at Best Buy, was in the Marketing Edge studio and we had a wide ranging conversation, from the concepts of being social to how exactly you can build a list for your Santa’s to check twice, and even check off. That’s my favorite part.

To show Marketing Edge listeners that we too believe it is better to give than to receive, we will fulfill an item on a Giftag wish list. We will purchase a gift for one user of Giftag, like a movie or something that is up to $25. To get in this drawing, here is what you do:

1. Use your IE or Firefox browser and go to www.giftag.com
2. Add the Giftag plug-in
3. Create a profile and a list
4. Add gifts by visiting any sites that have gifts you want
5. In the tag field, include the tag Marketing Edge

On December 20, I’ll review the lists and purchase a gift. See this Santa uses Giftag.

More Winners

A shout out to Traci Long, the winner of the book Twitter Means Business by Julio Ojeda-Zapata. Traci listens to the Marketing Edge in The Woodlands, Texas, along with her colleagues at Proact Safety Happy Holidays and thanks for listening.

It’s a twist and from my perspective a combination professional volunteer effort, executive MBA, and marketing version of The Apprentice (of Donald Trump fame) program. So here’s the deal. Six months working with Seth Godin and his team on a new project. Is this something where you will get to do what you want? Well kind of, 3 hours a day you get to work on your stuff. Most of the time you’ll work on Seth’s stuff, but that’s the point, there’s your value.

I admire Godin’s work and accomplishments. He is one of those guys who is able to shape simple ideas into a belief and lifestyle system. He is to marketing and innovation what Stephen Covey is to personal growth and Dr. Wayne Dyer is to spiritual enrichment.

You can interpret Godin’s rules for applying and the type of person he is looking for yourself. I think the perfect person for this program, and for any innovation organization may be described in the following way. Stylistically, I borrow from Wear Sunscreen, you remember this classic.

It’s a person that has been around long enough to know the difference between excellent work from above average, wounded enough to know the obstacles of change, passionate enough to traverse them, frustrated enough by the hypocrisy of the status quo, smart enough to diplomatically unveil it, seasoned enough to appreciate how the world is very different today than 20 years ago, empathic enough to realize that change is difficult, convinced that many institutions are outdated, daring enough to try something unconventional, talented enough to add exceptional value to an already exceptional organization, humble enough to return the value back to the community.

I recommend this program to anyone that meets those criteria. Me? I’d love to do it, however, I’d need to figure out a few details to be a candidate, including, 1) getting funding to replace my current revenue, (wife would insist on that) 2) put a bunch (five exactly) of kids through college and school, 3) current projects 4) living away from family (even though I can crash at a bunch of relatives’ places in New York. God I hope they return my calls after reading this).

Would it be worth it? Absolutely. Good luck to all the candidates.

Time 23:42

It’s nutty, plenty of companies are running around trying to figure out social media. The answer and examples are right under your nose. It dawned on me while watching Jeff Pulver go through his networking techniques at a recent social media breakfast in Minneapolis.

This conversation shows companies how to approach social media from a perspective that many sales people have practiced in their professional communities for decades, one relationship at a time. I use sales only to get the attention here of many marketers, sales people and decision makers because these days there is a premium on getting sales, but as my colleagues know, social media goes well beyond a sale.

Pulver, employs interesting networking techniques during his sessions that would do any Rotary member proud. I use the Rotary example because this is an organization tied to both a business networking group that also has a history of giving back to its local community, a critical concept of social media.

Using social media tools like Facebook, Twitter and others to promote his events, and tapping that group to invite others who are not using social media. Pulver creates a meeting of the digital and physical worlds.


Jeff Pulver @ SMBMSP from Albert Maruggi on Vimeo.

Years ago Pulver wrote “the more digital we become the more need for face-to-face meetings.” His perspective is grounded in good old fashion interpersonal communications and you may say borrow from the work of sociologist Henri Tajfel who is noted for his work in social identity and minimal groups experiments.

It is the kind activity that is at the heart of every good salesperson, every productive chamber of commerce, and every professional association worth their salt to their members. It is about people and their willingness to participate with each other.

People who are neck deep in social media tend to get a little over the top about technology, and new applications, mashups etc, etc, etc, and can loose the essence of what all these tools are supposed to do, make it easier to meet other people, period. It is a foundation to share stories, pass on interesting information that will help people do something, like find the right product, get better healthcare, enjoy a new restaurant, improve their job performance, and the list is endless.

Pulver’s sessions are a must for both social media geek and the person that still carries around a Day Runner paper planner. Both have more in common than you might think.

I admire McConnell for his position and longevity at Procter & Gamble, one of the most successful companies in the world. So I hope he doesn’t mind if I take his quote and place it in a slightly different medium just for the irony of it. P & G made an entire category of deriving money from real estate dedicated to men and women breaking up, the soap opera. GL baby, Guiding Light and its super couple Reva and Josh, known in web circles as Jeva If there is a way to monetize the continuing saga of emotional discovery, P&G can find it.

More Movement Than Market

Here I go again with this movement idea, but McConnell’s perspective supports this concept, social networks are more a movement of communities, than a marketplace for your stuff. A movement to connect, a movement to share, a movement to change – albeit in many of these movements there may be occasion to purchase something, and surely everyone in these movements is a consumer of something. I contend, and perhaps if I’m interpreting his words correctly that McConnell may agree, that social networks are a unique breed of communication. He is quoted in Ad Age “I think when we call it ‘consumer-generated media,’ we’re being predatory,” he said. “Who said this is media? Media is something you can buy and sell. Media contains inventory. Media contains blank spaces. Consumers weren’t trying to generate media. They were trying to talk to somebody. So it just seems a bit arrogant. … We hijack their own conversations, their own thoughts and feelings, and try to monetize it.”

His words underscore what many in social media (ok networks) have said, for a company to be in the social space it requires a cultural change at the corporate level. To benefit from social networks is to be a part of it, not an intrusion in it. The prerequisite of admission is to be truthful, candor helps, to give in the spirit of community growth not corporate gain, and to recognize that being social is a two-way communication. So be prepared to change a few things based on what you hear. P&G’s main rival, Unilever produced one of the text book examples of social media at its finest, Dove Evolution

Given his perspective then, it makes sense that when Comcastcares on Twitter aka Frank Eliason, responds to a customer, it is from an empathic user who may have suffered the same frustrations.

Is Business Week reporter Steven Baker active on social media (podcasting, blogging, & twitter) because he doesn’t have enough press releases to read? No, it’s because he is curious what he may be missing, excited about the new answers he’ll get on his blog that, had it not been for these relationship creating channels, he would have never known, and I would have probably not been quoted in Business Week.

Is Guy Kawasaki blown away by Twitter just to sell books? No, and while people do learn of his books on social channels like Twitter, they come to know him through by interacting with him. That’s what blows him away about Twitter. I know this from listening to him on a teleseminar yesterday, that I learned about from social media. Imagine that.

Coincidently, a few weeks ago, I was involved in a Twitter conversation with Kawasaki and a couple of other folks. It was about the economy, plus I had a surgery that week so it was an anxious time which must have been evident in my posts. Kawasaki sent a direct message to cheer me up (thanks Guy). There is a person that need not reach out at all. His physical world circle of friends must have been large enough to keep him busy, entertained, and enlightened. You see, but there is always more, more ideas, more debate, more risks, failures, and successes. That is the joy that is social whatever the noun you give it, technology makes being social that much easier. Is there money in that? Well, I did buy Kawasaki’s book Reality Check.

It’s not like this is a new trend — baby slings have been around for a long time. The latest fashion, combined with the ability to comment on it, is what is giving Motrin a migraine. What are your thoughts about baby slings and social media-savvy moms giving Motrin a piece of their mind?

Use this nifty opinion tool to view the ad by clicking on the image, then share your thoughts by using words expressed by others in the list and rating them, or add a new sentiment to rate. You can also provide more details than a word in the text box. At least those moms using slings can get something off their chest without dumping the kid.

I have five children, personally I used the on the shoulders technique. Not with all five, mind you — if I did, we’d be in the circus.

Disclosure: we help Quick Comments with some strategy consulting. It just happens to be perfect for this blog post. If you want to use the widget for this Motrin ad question here is the code:
<iframe width="225" height="602" frameborder="0" src="http://qcwidget.com/widgets/3ee5981b3bd3" ></iframe>


Time 12:48

A misnomer of social media is how some interpret the definition of transparency of information. It doesn’t mean opening your kimono for all to see your company’s warts. (For some this can be an unpleasant experience both on the opening end and on the viewing end) Transparency does mean to give insight, context, and comment on company strategy, industry trends, global events, internal personalities, and other topics of interest to your stakeholders and audiences.

Shel Holtz and John C. Havens thoroughly explore this topic in their new book Tactical Transparency: how leaders can leverage social media to maximize value and build their brand. Social media allows for deeper discussions about a wide range of topics. I liken transparency to a sports color commentator.

Let’s take football for example. Forty years ago when I watched football with my dad, it was a Sunday afternoon event. I grew up in New York so it started around noon. Today football has become a daily stream of information, from game day strategy, nickel packages, and counter treys to injury reports, weather impact, and nutrition regimes. Teams are not giving away their plays, signals, or secret weapons, but they are providing or allowing insights to the game that has made it more engaging for the fan.

Bottom line, transparency gives more for your stakeholders, customers, and other potentially interested parties to engage your company. You become a more interesting party with which to have a relationship, and business is all about the relationship.

Note: If you are interested in buying the book, Havens has created a super deal for Tactical Transparency. www.ttoffer.com – read this first, then make your purchase.

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Marketing Edge readers and listeners, you are invited to jump in the Provident Partners Social Sandbox. It is a social network where you can test new tools like Ning, see how audio, video, and blogging can be used in a variety of business applications. Plus it’s a place to participate in even greater detail in social media. Just send us an email to Marketingedge AT providentpartners DOT net with the word Sandbox in the subject line.

All comments here or to our comment line 206-600-6887 will result in a donation of a food item to a Twin Cities food shelter by Provident Partners. Thanks for stocking a shelf and filling a stomach.

Time 17:44

Who knew that all we needed was a urine cup and syringe mascots with Facebook pages to get people to use the online services of HealthPartners? In this podcast with Larissa Rodriguez, director of care delivery marketing for HealthPartners, we’ll uncover the story behind Petey and Pokey.

First major criteria for healthcare marketing – Accepting that doing what everyone else is doing will not get you noticed.

HealthPartners has a business objective of driving greater usage of its online self-service options. From scheduling appointments to getting test results, and more HealthPartners made a significant technology investment to improve patient services. However, the benefits of that investment are dependent upon patients using the technology. Creating two characters, a urine sample cup named Petey and a syringe named Pokey, allowed HealthPartners a wide range of creative messaging tactics. For starters, a Petey and Pokey websiteand since each character has their own identity Facebook pages for Petey and Pokey you’ve got to see his favorite songs, he’s a Clapton fan, how can you not like him?

Second major criteria for healthcare marketing – In general the more you push the creative envelope, the more receptive the social media community will be. In this case, HealthPartners has a wonderful alignment of business goal (increase online use) and promotion/relationship tactic with Facebook pages (social media users need little education to take advantage of online self-service).

The healthcare profession covers every age group and degree of message. Some messages are serious matters of life and death. In others, the message needs to be crafted so that it breaks through the bias or cynicism of the audience. In the HealthPartners case, they are able to capture attention long enough to deliver the message about its online services. The creativity in their profile pages of the characters allows a reader to spend more time with the message. Extending the characters’ presence with in-person events and billboards captures audience in a specific geography, while attempting to drive to a future online connection.

Third criteria for healthcare marketing – Identify and reward those senior leaders that provide cover for creativity. In my reporting on social media, I’ve found that many successful social media programs are the result of senior level managers giving cover for their teams to innovate. Whether it’s with an in-house skunk works team or an outside group, there is a senior manager willing to test concepts, even pilot programs. This allows an organization to use social media as the ultimate low-cost market research tool, without trying to engineer perfection. The world moves too quickly for yesterday’s creative process.

Fourth criteria for healthcare marketing - The audience is less interested in being marketed to, and more receptive to being engaged. Healthcare is a quality of life issue and as such is about emotion and emotions are engaging. The standard hospital brochure is giving way to human stories, in a variety of formats, audio and video, whether those stories are from a new generation of health related websites like Real Savvy Moms

Hospital sites that feature their physicians talking about a procedure, or websites like www.healthcarescoop.com that provide a patient’s perspective of their own treatment – I was a big baby during my kidney stone surgery at St. Joseph’s Hospital, but they were terrific – thanks for the green tea and warm blankets.

I view it this way, peer group stories give patients comfort, physician stories give patients confidence, you need both.

There is plenty more examples of social media in healthcare that we will cover on future episodes of the Marketing Edge podcast. I’ll also be speaking at the Mississippi Hospital Association Society for Health Care Marketing and Public Relations this week in Jackson, Mississippi.

Time 14:22

Slowly retailers are understanding that in a world of Free Speech and Equal Access (via the Internet), consumers and employees are talking about them. Many retailers are reluctant to jump into the social media world for an assortment of fears, some real, most perceived.

Adam Cohen, author of the Thousand Cuts blog, a regular read of mine, led a study of retailers using Facebook pages. Cohen’s firm, Rosetta, monitored uses of Fan pages by major retailers overtime from May to September of 2008. A highlight from the piece;

“A September 2008 study by Rosetta (formerly Brulant) that focused on the top 100 online retailers in the US found that 59 had a fan page on Facebook, up from 30 in May 2008. Among the 29 who added Facebook pages since that time were Best Buy, Toys “R” Us, Kohl’s and Wal-Mart.” The report is available for a limited time on eMarketer.

Adam and I discuss in this Marketing Edge podcast how, in some cases, employees or customers may have already created a Fan page on Facebook without the permission of HQ or the Brand Manager. You’ll have to blame James Madison and Thomas Jefferson for their wacky free speech idea in part for this behavior. However, as you have seen with Barack Obama’s campaign the ultimate in retail, when consumers are energetic about your brand, it’s best to watch the energy and not shut the lights off.

For a little background on my perspective on retailers and how they can assemble a comprehensive online strategy, dial back into the archives of the Marketing Edge blog to January 3, 2008 and the potential social media play for REI.

The Classic Question?

Is it best to dip your toe in the social media pool with a more conservative approach with a bit more corporate style like Target (nice grouping of more than 100,000 Fans)

Or a bit less structure like this page produced by fans of Jeep Wrangler

What are your criteria for how retailers can participate in social media?
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All real comments on this blog will result in Provident Partners donating a food item to a Twin Cities charity. It’s getting cold in these parts and a bowl of soup is a good thing.

Or you can call the comment line 206-600-6887 and leave a comment we can play back on the show. If you don’t want us to play it back, just say so, we’re fine with that, we are just glad to hear from you.

Colony contends that technology will be down but not out in part because technology is more prevalent in our daily lives than in the past. Let me highlight his fourth reason by citing it directly here because it involves social media, Colony writes,

“4) Customers live on tech. The consumer landscape is very different than it was in 2001. Forrester’s consumer surveys show that each succeeding generation takes more tech into their day-to-day life. The delta between the Y generation (18-27) and the X generation (28-41) is extraordinary — Y spends twice the amount of time on cell phones and half the amount of time reading newspapers. For more on this, check out our report, The Gen Y Design Guide. In a recession, the use of Facebook, Linked In, eCommerce, blogs will increase, not decrease, as people look for jobs, companies stay closer to their customers, and easier-to-ROI Internet advertising accelerates. Companies will have to stay focused on their web sites, social strategies, and eCommerce this time around — or risk losing their next generation of customers.”

Colony accurately believes social media is a general platform upon which millions of people live and work. I however, believe business and sociey can maximize the benefits from these technology platform by expanding social media’s greatest contributions (freedom of expression, connecting ideas, allowing for deeper thought) to reach other corporate culture silos. What is missing from this observation, perhaps assumed by Colony, (I’m not one to doubt GC) are corporate culture shifts that are required to maximize the benefits experienced by society from this rich, broad space called social media. Here are three areas that need a different paradigm for companies to benefit from social media.

1) Hierarchical View - (Advertising & Marketing) The corporate view that the social space is more or less like a mass market with “A” listers, and media properties and through aggregation services to net the small fish, it can become something with which they familiar. This is an old and tired perspective. Allow social media to breadth within and around your brand so the company and its people can absorb the influential ideas surrounding it.

2) Short-Sighted View – (Finance) The 30 day and quarterly “make the numbers” rat wheel that was prevalent in the 90s, and led to all kinds of PR an accounting schemes to make the numbers work, (Enron seems so long ago doesn’t it) are an imposed deadline. ’

Tell me really, are innovators really driven by a deadline? Do cancer researchers really need another goal that involves a stock price for their reward or do they get up every morning to beat a disease that claimed their parent or child, or stimulates their intellect to the point of obsession? Patience is a human virtue that seems to have little relevance in an economic world. That perspective needs to change.

3) Human Capital View – (Human Resources and just general office politics) Let me preface this one by saying, it could be a naïve pipedream. The last 20-30 years has seen and escalation of divisive communications. It’s not limited to politics or election year cycles, these topics and times just call more attention to it. The divide and conquer mentality is a function of economics, in vogue trends, work environments, two generations of 24-hour news cycles, the entertainmentization (new word) of news, and plenty more. What it has created are cultures that hinder innovation and foster a “gotcha” environment under the guise of accountability.

In numerous companies bureaucracy is stifling innovation. In some cases their customers and employees circumnavigate the obstacles using social media, gain some wins to run up the flag, and pray those that see it will have enough backbone to be their champion. A skunk works mode of innovation to be sure, and not one that has been accepted by the corporate culture allowing it to multiply.

Transparency Continued

Admission of a mistake openly serves the greater good, e.g. Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital’s wrong side survey as blogged by their CEO Paul Levy. His leadership should be recognized as it was by US News and World healthcare editor and writer Avery Comarow he wrote, “Levy has been agitating for more transparency for some time… Others should emulate this. I doubt that many will.”

This transparency should also be held as an example across all of corporate America. Hhmm we can we begin, oh yes I did quick search in the social media monitoring tool Radian6 using a rather limited word combination of transparency + bailout, it was mentioned more than 20,000 times in the last 30 days. Yes more transparency may have prevented the Wall Street Meltdown, nice catch to all those concerned.

So if we are to be transparent we need to be what, less vengeful, less harsh, less quick in assuming that transparency = accountability that leads to punish by detractors waiting in the wings. That kind of environment defeats the purpose of transparency which is improvement and discussion. I’m not decoupling responsibility from accountability, I’m reinforcing that transparency is a function of improving, of shared learning, that makes something greater than the individual better.

Sometimes our divisiveness wants to conclude the case before hearing all the facts, understanding the intent, learning from the mistake. Sometimes human nature instinctually pounces on prey that is bleeding instead of supporting its healing.

Maybe I am a bit naïve about the transformation social media can help bring about in corporate America and society. Perhaps George Colony is wrong when he asserts that people will spend more time connecting online with Facebook, LinkedIn and the like, that the youth generation intensify their friend relationships by being constantly connected with their phones. And perhaps Forrester was wrong in 2007 when they said that Facebook marketing means communicating not advertising, as does all social spaces I contend. Perhaps T Boone Pickens is just a rich old man with nothing to do. (He is leading a huge social network of passionate followers of new energy)

If we are wrong, then all this social stuff is just another channel. Direct Mail, 1-1 marketing, email marketing, it’s just another one of those Meatball Sundaes to use Seth Godin’s term. Then have at it spammers of the world, congratulations because nothing will change, innovation will stay about at the same pace as always, unless of course the rest of the world catches up to us and then it won’t stay the same here now will it? It’s what my generation of wiseguys would call SSDD.

I, however, think differently. And you?