The co-author, with Brian Solis, of the highly acclaimed “Putting the

Public Back in Public Relations“, Deirdre Breakenridge joins VMR’s Hugh Macken on Blog Talk Radio for an exclusive interview on how social media is re-inventing and renewing Public Relations. You may listen live here.

Also please anonymously suggest question you would like me to ask during the interview by submitting suggestions here: http://vmr.slinkset.com

The live listener call-in # is 347-884-8912.

Says Seth Godin, Author of Tribes,: “There will be two kinds of PR professionals in the future: those who read this book and get with the program, and the unemployed. Your choice.”

Ms. Breakenridge is President, Director of Communications at Mango! Marketing. A veteran in the PR industry, Breakenridge leads a creative team of PR and marketing executives. She counsels senior level executives at companies including RCN Metro Optical Networks, JVC, Michael C. Fina and Kraft.

Breakenridge is an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey and is the author of three Financial Times business books.

Breakenridge has spoken publicly on the topics of PR, online marketing and brand building for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), and other organizations.

Some may have missed an important event in the ongoing battle for social media monitoring and engagement platform leadership:  Late last month, Radian6 announced that Tien Tzuo, chief executive officer of Zuora, and former Chief Strategy Officer and CMO for salesforce.com had joined the Radian6 board of directors.

I’ve decided to comment on this news because I believe it signals a strategic adjustment in focus for Radian6 and a harbinger of increased market demand by sales executives for social media engagement technology that measures results from lead to close and interfaces seamlessly with CRM plaforms like salesforce.com.

Mr. Tzuo knows from experience that sales executives care about measurable sales results (that means dollars, pesos, Euros, Yen, etc…) more so than anyone else in an organization aside from the C-Suite. And they want a way to measure results in dollar terms. Now they want a way to see how social media engagement is increasing their sales from the time that first tweet is sent to the time their new customer signs on the dotted line.

If anyone has a good sense as to how to successfully attack that problem strategically, and within a SaaS framework, it would appear to be Mr. Tzuo.

A Stanford University and Cornell University alumnus, Tzuo joined Salesforce.com as employee 11 in 1999 and was one of the “original forces.” He held a variety of executive roles during his nine years there, eventually serving as its chief marketing officer and chief strategy officer. He personally oversaw the vision, direction and design of Salesforce’s award winning product line, helping to grow the firm into a multi-billion dollar company and one of the most successful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies to date.

Not surprisingly, Radian6 CEO Marcel LeBrun is on cloud nine (no pun intended):

Tien is a recognized innovator in the SaaS industry, and we’re thrilled to have him join our board.

Says Tzuo:

I’ve been impressed with the company’s momentum and growth rate, and am very excited about working with Marcel and the board to continue to extend Radian6’s innovation and leadership in this space.

Now, for those not familiar with salesforce.com: What rock have you been hiding under lately. :)

Seriously, though, think of the Iphone of the sales and customer service world and that’s what you have with salesforce.com. It is now the leading enterprise cloud-computing company in the world for customer relationship management (CRM). Companies like Dell, the Wall Street Journal, NBC Universal, SprintNextel and others have all jumped on the Salesforce bandwagon.

But check out this quote from Sprint Nextel which appears on Salesforce’s website:

“We’ve made salesforce.com our one-stop-shop for our sales teams [my emphasis] for business processes and customer intelligence, leveraging the flexibility of the Salesforce platform to customize it to our unique needs.”

I think that this signals an important evolution in the  social media monitoring and engagement platform space. At least at the Enterprise level, Marketing, PR, Customer Service and the C-Suite are all on board with the fact that they can’t ignore the conversations that are occurring online. They need to AT LEAST listen using a platform like ScoutLabs or Radian6.

But sales execs have been relatively slow to pick up on the value of social media for lead generation and closing deals largely because of the difficulty in tracking ROI and lead to close ratios. I suspect, perhaps incorrectly, that LeBrun and co. recognize this fact and are expecting increased demand from sales-minded organizations that are now (1) demanding currency denominated ROI metrics across the board and (2) really want to bring their sales teams into the mix as well.

Again, I could be totally off the mark in my assessment regarding increased demand from sales executives in particular in 2010. I’d love some of my readers to tell me if they agree or disagree and why.

I just believe that bringing Mr. Tzuo “on board” (again, no pun intended) increases the odds that Radian6 will deliver the goods that will be most in demand by CMOs and sales executives:  a Monitoring, ROI Measurement and Engagement platform that will integrate seamlessly with a company’s CRM platform and that will be palatable to sales teams. A platform not only suited for marketing and customer service but also for sales.

I think this marks the beginning of a new chapter for enterprise class sales team adoption of social technologies.

And you? What do you think? Are there monitoring solutions out there that already do a good job of measuring social media engagement ROI? Which platforms work best for sales executives? Am I overestimating the significance of this move by Radian6? Reading more into it than necessary? I’d love to hear your comments.

And as always, I will be listening!

Breakfast with Barack

Valerie Jarrett has her work cut out for her.

Early last week the Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement at The White House, did two things she should be applauded for doing:  She (1) started a discussion topic on Linkedin in the official White House Group (which is open to any of the 60+ million members of Linkedin) on behalf of President Obama and (2) promised to report back  by week’s end with a reply to all of the responses.

She will rightly receive some flack for not making good on the latter promise  if she does not do so by this evening. But I, for one, think we should give her a few days leeway, at least this time. After all, the number of responses – over 1,240 from a rapidly expanding White House group that numbers over 31,000 – is probably among the highest number of responses per hour for any post on linkedin.  Only one hour had passed from the time Ms. Garrett posted the topic to when I decided to contribute my two cents. But in that hour, I was stunned to see over 200 responses had already been offered.

Linkedin, under the steady leadership of Co-Founder Reid Hoffman and the behind-the-scenes legwork by Director of Communications Kay Luo, seems to have finally arrived on the US political scene. Pols will no longer be able to ignore its importance.  Indeed, the professional networking site will likely have a key place at the Gov 2.0 “table” first set by William (Bill) Eggers, made popular by Tim O’Reilly last year and now becoming increasingly popular elsewhere across the social web thanks to online business leaders like Luo and political figures like Garrett who have been hard at work behind the scenes.

So what exactly was the topic of discussion boldly begun by Ms. Garrett, you ask? Here it is, followed by a sampling of responses:

What steps do you think government should take to help American businesses spur job creation?

On Wednesday the President is giving a major speech to the Business Roundtable. As a senior advisor to the President, I wanted to spark a dialogue in advance of the speech about this important question. We’ll be following this thread and later in the week I’ll follow up with a post responding.

From the first post…

Put my business, as an independent financial consulting business, on an equal footing with JP Morgan and GS.

…to the last…

If you make a mistake, don’t hide it, get over it.

…from the short…

Promote buy American when possible.

…to the sacrastic…

Hey! I have an idea!! Let’s focus on “the trades” and “manufacturing”, and let’s call it Made In America! Wow!…

…Valerie Garrett and President Obama got an overwhelming number of responses as they ponder the vexing questions that are clearly not only top of mind for them, but also for professionals on linkedin who are now, finally, starting to get comfortable not just having a profile on linkedin, but really connecting with others for not only professional advancement but also the Common Good.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot wait to see how the White House responds to the deluge of responses.  Doing so requires a new kind of diplomacy that demands nothing less than authentic engagement with everyday people like you and me.

Is the White House really listening?

(Photo Credit:  Breakfast with Barack by jurvetson)

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Janine Popick is one of those people I love to root for. Why? Because she roots for so many others. The founder and CEO of email marketing powerhouse VerticalResponse, Popick, doesn’t just talk about supporting the small businesses her company serves; she does it.

Case it point: Popick has recently announced a New Deal contest for small businesses who can compete to win $10,000 worth of cash prizes. Not bad, if you ask me. I could use a few grand for my company. How about your small business? Could it use a little extra cash later this year?

Dumb question, I know. But it’s my lead in to tell you about an event I think you might just want to pencil in on your calendar.

Join Janine and me on Thursday, February 25 at 4pm EDT (that’s 1pm Pacific for those of you on the West Coast) as we learn more about the contest and (maybe, just maybe) Janine’s initial impressions of the submissions thus far.

You can listen live on Thursday by clicking here or you can listen in by phone at that time.  Just dial (347) 884.8912 and select the option to listen in.

If you do have any questions in particular that you’d like me to ask Janine, please post them here on our blog.

Thanks and good luck to all those who enter the competition!

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Deirdre Breakenridge

I am absolutely delighted to announce that social media expert,  marketing veteran, scholar and author Deirdre Breakenridge has graciously accepted my request to be interviewed on March 8th at 2pm EDT on Hugh Macken, Live! We will discuss one of her latest books, which she co-authored with the iconic Brian Solis, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR.

As anyone who has spoken with her for  more than like two seconds will attest, Deirdre is one of the nicest people you will ever meet.

Listen to Hugh Macken, Live! on BloBut she is also, in fact, one of the most highly regarded experts in the United States in the field of social media, marketing and public relations.

She counsels senior level executives at companies including RCN Metro Optical Networks, Quality Technology Services, JVC, Michael C. Fina and Kraft. She is also an adjunct professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey where she teaches courses on Public Relations and Interactive Marketing for the Global Business Management program. She is the author of three (count ‘em:) Financial Times business books: “PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences,” “The New PR Toolkit” and “Cyberbranding: Brand Building in the Digital Economy.”

She has spoken publicly on the topics of PR, online marketing and brand building for important organizations like the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), Strategic Research Institute (SRI), Women’s Presidents Organization (WPO), Tier1 Research and at a number of colleges and universities.

It’s just so cool to me that agreed to be interview on my little ‘ol Hugh Macken, Live! I figure the least I can do is tell as many people about the interview as I can to let the world know about a book that I honestly feel needs to be read by every marketing professional in the world.

But who cares what I think!!!

Check out these testamonials:

“There will be two kinds of PR professionals in the future: those who read this book and get with the program, and the unemployed. Your choice.”

Seth Godin, Author of Tribes

“I am thrilled that there is finally a book about the right way to approach PR in today’s world, where hyper-connected conversations trump the old school broadcast mentality. Everyone who wants to build a career in PR or marketing should read this book.”

Tony Hsieh, CEO, Zappos.com

“Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a passionate and persuasive case for rewriting the rules of public relations. Authors Solis and Breakenridge expertly combine third-party perspective with case studies and examples to paint a picture of a profession on the brink of reinvention.”

Paul Gillin, Author, The New Influencers and Secrets of Social Media Marketing

So now that I’ve shared the good news, would you mind sharing with me what we topics you think we should address? What would you like to know about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to public relations in the world of the read/write web?

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Last is amazing. Last.fm I mean. For those not familiar, Last is a service that recommends and plays music, videos and concerts based on what you listen to.  So you type in “Huey Lewis and the News” and it plays 80s music similar to Huey Lewis songs. In theory anyway.  You can also scrobble (whatever that means :), add private tags, add public tags, add and remove friends, create a public profile, message other users publicly, send shout-outs, view user-uploaded videos related to the songs your listening to,  etc. etc…

Pandora.com offers that same service minus all the bells and whistles. In fact the core service, playing songs related to the song or artist you’ve entered, is far more reliable than Last’s.  There have been many times when listening to last.fm that I wanted to listen to a specific song genre (80s pop, for instance) and the Last recommendations that played were not nearly as consistent as the recommendations that pandora played.

My point? In evaluating technology and IT services (whether it’s Radian6 vs. Sysomos or Salesforce.com vs. 37Signals Highrise CRM): Simpler is better. Bells and whistles oftentimes are good for making noise and not much else.

What’s your take? Do you find yourself keeping it simple when it comes to IT or do you prefer the most sophisticated option out there?  Do you struggle with having to forgo the capabilities that go along with more sophisticated technology?

Oh by the way, while pondering this, I highly recommend that you check out 37Signals’ book, Getting Real.

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Brown Bear having fun…

Originally uploaded by Beverly & Pack

Chris Brogan has written an interesting post today that I suggest you check out concerning google Wave which has really gotten me thinking:  Should I maybe give Wave a second look? And a second, more important question: Have Radian6, Sysomos, ScoutLabs, Jodange and other listening / monitoring platforms thought about how they will monitor the rapidly increasing number of public conversations taking place there?

I look forward to hearing how others, most especially the major Listening platforms are making sense of something I frankly have not figured out yet. Comment away!

And, yes, of course, feel free to wave me! I am hmackenjr -at- googlewave -dot- com.

By the way, if you have never seen Wave or don’t know much about it, there’s a good summary at Mark Smithers’ blog.

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When winning means everything

Originally uploaded by HikingArtist.com

Over the last several months I’ve spent a considerable amount of my time evaluating and testing various social media monitoring platforms for medium-sized and enterprise-class organizations. I’ve narrowed down my focus to three with an outstanding reputation in the industry. There are certainly others who have an excellent reputation as well but among paid platform providers these have stood out from the pack from the research I have done:

Radian6, ScoutLabs and Sysomos.

My conclusion: They are all winners in their own right. Numero uno truly is relative and depends on the context of your enterprise’s needs. But more on that in a sec.

So I’ve looked at lots of platforms but the three I am most impressed by and have looked at most closely thus far are Radian6 (which I’ve demo’d and tested), ScoutLabs (which I’ve also demo’d and tested) and Sysomos, which I’ve demo’d and plan to test early this coming week..

The question we at VMR and myself in particular have been asking continually is not so much which is the best platform, but which is the best platform (or combination of platforms) for us to service our clients and prospective clients and their specific needs.

When it comes to something as complex and sophisticated as social media monitoring / listening and engagement platforms, each of the three above have their strengths (more on that in a future post) but the bottom line is that the best option for your enterprise really depends on the context of your situation.

The answers to questions like the few (of many) that I have listed below, will hopefully help you engage in meaningful dialogue internally as well as externally with vendors and agency partners vis-à-vis your social media marketing, public relations, customer service, and sales efforts online:

1. Are you looking to compare your share of voice online versus that of your competitors and track that over time using easily comprehensible metrics that can be assigned a $ value?

2. Whose voice do you want to listen to? Key influeners? General consumer sentiment? Stakeholders? Traditional Media? Male? Female? In North America or worldwide?

3. Do you need a platform that can be used in focus group fashion to slice and dice general consumer sentiment, key influencer sentiment, and or journalist sentiment?

4. Do you need to know where the fish (your prospects and key influencers) are currently swimming (“conversing”) before you dive into or create an empty pond?

5. Would you like to track how well your PR campaigns have increased share of voice specifically among key influencers or among consumers at large?

6. What about your sales and customer services teams? Are they looking for the actionable
intelligence that a social media monitoring platform can provide? Will the monitoring platform you choose need to integrate well with a CRM like salesforce.com?

7. Which social media “venues” are you most interested in monitoring? Blogs? Traditional News Outlets? Forums? Linkedin? Facebook? Youtube? Blogtalkradio? Podcasts? (Check out the conversation prism below to get a better sense for what’s out there)

8. If influencing the influencers is important to you, do you need a platform that helps you identify key influencers by showing you inbound links, comment count, level of engagement?

9. Is yours a global brand where you need to monitor not only key influencer sentiment but also the so-called “Long Tail” of your marketing sales curve?

10. Is your CMO demanding specific and meaningful metrics that can demonstrate a clear ROI from your social media engagement efforts?

11. If you are monitoring global brands, will you need a platform that translates content and sentiment in multiple languages?

12. Do you have the resources, expertise and social media savvy currently to fully leverage the capabilities of whatever platform is best for you?

13. How much historical data will you need? Some platforms have absolutely enormous amounts of historical data. Is that going to be helpful to your PR and marketing teams? Or not worth paying extra for?

14. What about ease of use? Do you need a platform that multiple users in your organization will learn quickly and easily, thus increasing their level of online engagement?

There are many options and just as many needs-analysis questions out there for medium-sized and enterpise-class organizations when it comes to monitoring platforms and social media agencies.

While content may indeed be king (is it still?), when it comes to evaluating your options in the world of social media and understanding how to engage after listening carefully, context i is queen.

That’s how we are approaching our needs analysis at VMR for ourselves and for our prospective clients. I’d love to hear from the three leaders above, their competitors, their current clients and those that are taking a look at them. Now’s your chance to speak your mind and voice your choice.

Do you agree that there is no number 1?
What questions would you add to a needs analysis?
Which questions concerning social media and social media monitoring are most important for your organization to consider?
Which ones have you had the most difficulty answering?

Bring on the comments. I’ll be listening. :)

Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, co-authored by Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge is a must read for any social media professional. So it should come as no surprise that Solis along with Jesse Thomas (JESS3) have come out with one of the most artistic representations of the world of social media to date. That’s quite a feat, considering the immense scope and variety of social media outlets online. It’s definitely worth checking out if you need a high level view of what exactly comprises “Social Media”

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

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Well… News is important. We need good journalists with integrity to report the facts.

Sports… we love sports… but do you really need a J-School degree to provide great sports media content for your viewers.

What has the social media, web 2.0 movement taught us. If nothing else: people find themselves fascinating. Their own lives, their own friends, their own news. So why wouldn’t we expect the same from sports media?

The future of sports media is large, interactive, fan-based content sure to ultimately overwhelm the talking heads.

Vs.   Duke ,   

                                                                                                                                          2pm EST,  Alexander Memorial Coliseum, Atlanta, GA 

1 lucky Super GT Fan will be given broadcast control at tip-off!  Email BryanB1300@gmail.com for more details.