Everyday PR

I just can’t take it anymore. Stick a fork in this relationship because I am done. Please don’t act surprised.  Surely you saw this coming; our relationship has been lopsided ever since we got engaged. It just seems like I’m making all the effort – I give and give and give, and you take and take and take.  You know so much more about me than I’ll ever know about you. Your never-ending desire to micromanage everything about me has run its course. 

I don’t know what happened. At first, our relationship was exciting. I was more than willing to share the details of my world with you. If you asked for more, I gave you more. If you suggested pictures, I went along with it. Pretty soon, I was open to entire electronic photo albums.  I haven’t updated my countless shoe boxes of pre-digital prints since Y2K, yet I took the time to create, crop, edit, write and tag several albums because you kept nagging me about it.

In the beginning, I was okay with all the games – Farmville, Cityville, Frontierville, and the list goes on. Even though I didn’t want to play, you threw it in my face every time any of our friends played. I almost lost it when you pushed the “send hearts/hugs/flowers/smiles/desserts” and other useless crap on me, but at least you let me decide about whether or not to participate.  

And then, you wanted to know where I was and who I was with. At first, the interest seemed flattering until I realized that your push to know my whereabouts and the company I kept was just another attempt at control and a huge time drain for me.

Speaking of company, I remember when you used to be fine with my choice of friends. Then you started “suggesting” friends for me as if I couldn’t make good choices.  Maybe your suggestions were because of that creepy ex-boyfriend and a few others I had to cut off, but I wrongly thought that meant you cared. 

Or maybe your actions were because you completely redefined the meaning of “friend”; your idea of a friend meant anyone from an acquaintance to the high school freak to the store cashier, pretty much anyone with a pulse. I don’t care how popular you are, nobody has thousands of what I call “friends”.  And then you wanted to decide which friends I should hear from?!  Don’t you think that’s just a little too controlling?  Maybe not, but I found your behavior to be quite the turn-off.

The final straw was this week’s attempt to determine what I would find interesting. Seriously? It’s like the Steven Covey organizational system, which is nothing but a flawed organizational process developed by men to help keep men organized while women have been multi-tasking for centuries without a three-ring binder or expensive seminars.  

Do you actually think you can read my mind?  Worse, do you think I’m incapable of making such determinations?  Either way, it’s insulting and yet another time drain for me.

So Facebook, I’m breaking up. It’s over.  Don’t contact me; I’ll contact you. And no, we can’t just be friends.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a humorous, but realistic, article by Bill Keller of The New York Times about his and his daughter’s experience with social media.  One had a great experience, and the other’s was pretty useless.  Feedback from the article was consistent – people agreed with the uselessness of some social media.As previously noted, my experience with social media was self taught and one of survival.  If I’m to properly counsel clients on the right messaging at the right time to the right audiences via the right medium, I needed to participate in social media as their tools can serve as the ideal complement to a public relations strategy. 

While I’ve found a lot of users apparently have too much time on their hands, I know firsthand the power of blogging.  In 2009, I wrote about my experience on a mission trip to Moldova to work at a government-run orphanage.  A year later, a soldier and his wife wanted to adopt an Eastern European child; in doing their research, they stumbled onto my blog posts, contacted me for details, and ultimately welcomed a little girl to their family. Social media responsibility.

Most recently, ChildFund International engaged in a Facebook “Like” campaign to unite sponsors with their child in person halfway across the globe. You don’t even have to be a sponsor to as you could win a four-day escorted trip to Asia, Africa and the Americas. Cool, huh?  There’s still time to participate as the campaign doesn’t end until Thursday, so definitely check it out here.

Mr. Keller’s article was based on his authentic experience written with a tongue-in-cheek tone.  ChildFund International’s social media participation also is real, and it’s a great example of social media responsibility.

Let me know if you have other examples of social media responsibility.

Too much social media isolates people. I couldn’t agree more as previously ranted.

The team from GOBA - Get Out. Be Active.

The above quote is from John Dayani, co-founder and CEO of Get Out Be Active (GOBA), a small company with an even smaller staff that’s focused on helping people do more of what they want to do and simultaneously grow relationships in person.  Sweet! Recently profiled, Dayani says his approach is ”interest centric, not friend-centric” when describing his mobile-based app for the iPhone and Google Android phones.

As opposed to the “more is more” approach typically advocated by Facebook, Twitter and others, GOBA believes less is more. Quality over quantity. It’s less of an online popularity contest and more of a tool to grow your relationships in person. Think readers, sports fanatics, movie buffs, clothes hounds, joggers, beekeepers, you name it. GOBA’s social networking tool encourages like-interested people to get the word out about a sale, an event or a spur-of-the-moment cocktail quickly and with purpose.

Say you have 30 close personal friends that you send an e-mail to about a weekend event. Then you think of 10 more friends, so you forward the e-mail to them as well. Per Davani, e-mail has a five to 10 percent response rate. Per the recent newspaper profile, GOBA’s tool results in about a 50 percent response rate on emails, and 80 percent or more response rate when the message is delivered to phones.  Sounds like you’ll have a much bigger crowd for your special event. Now think fundraisers, alumni meetings, kick-off events, retail sales, church picnics, etc.

 Cost? Free for the end user. A nominal fee for some businesses and organizations.

Extra benefit? More private.

Extra extra benefit? Increased contact with people and decreased contact with gadgets. Just look at the company’s boiler plate paragraph:  GOBA was founded with a passion to create technology that helps people build and maintain face-to-face relationships. Getting out, being active and building relationships are all key components to leading a happy and healthy lifestyle.

I love it – do you?

Warriors. Celebrators. Storytellers. These are words Southwest Airlines emerging media specialist Christi McNeill recently used to describe company employees.  Employees -  as in people.  Employees  -  as in human beings.  Employees - as in original thinkers and doers. Employees – as in the species with the most complex emotional systems on earth.

Christi is one of a total of 20-member communications team for the airline best known for its reliability, profitability and personality.  She is one of only five of that team who managed the company’s social media programs.  Some of the statistics she recently cited included:

*   The most popular Southwest YouTube video is a time-lapsed segment on the painting of Florida One, one of 13 specialty jets.

*   Southwest Airlines Facebook page has 1.3 million fans.  The page is managed by two people.

*   The company has 1 million followers on Twitter.  To put into perspective, Home Depot has 25,000, and Lady Gaga has the most with 5.7 million.

*   The company has 30 different bloggers from pilots to baggage handlers to flight attendants who contribute to the Nuts about Southwest blog.

When asked about her biggest responsibility, Christi replied that it was listening.  And only people can listen. Computers can’t listen. Social media tools can’t listen.  Software programs can’t listen.  Gadgets can’t listen.

As a 2006 social media adopter, Southwest Airlines has a strong online presence.  But to be successful, it takes people to listen, to write, to respond, to serve, to problem solve and to think. 

The point?  As a fan of Southwest and a public relations professional whose job entails all of those skills, I find it refreshing to know that even a mega, multi-million corporation understands those fundamentals as well.

How about you?

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The Valentine’s Day release of a new study called Love and Sex in Social Media should be renamed Personal Responsibility in Social Media.  Among the findings, along with my old-lady comments in italics, are:

The delete button can be your friend.

*   More than 25% of men and 14% of women have experienced strong feelings for somebody online, while 22% of men and 12% of women have said they’ve had romantic, sexual or erotic relationships online.  Online relationships – it’s an oxymoron. Why don’t these people just get a pen pal from a penitentiary?

*  More than half of Americans think the Internet has made it easier for people to cheat on their partners, and 31% know somebody whose relationship ended because of their actions online. Raise your hand if you don’t know anybody negatively impacted by their behavior on social media.  Sounds like the Internet is just an excuse for change, dreams of greener pastures or hormones at work.

*  A great majority of Americans disagree that “having a strongly sexual relationship online doesn’t count as cheating on your partner.”  Just to be sure of your belief, I suggest you asked your partner “Hey, honey, would love to talk to you about your day but I’m talking dirty to a guy I knew decades ago.” And Bill Clinton didn’t have sexual relations with Miss Lewinsky.  Yeah, right.

Cheating, lying, deceiving and everything associated with those behaviors have been going on since the beginning of time.  The fact that new ways of communicating doesn’t change that; they can provide more options to pursue your passions, but the tools in and of themselves are not the culprit.

The users are the culprit. They determine whether or not they want to participate in electronic affairs or pushing-the-envelop communications.  We’ve all defriended people because the person turned out to be too “something” like psychotic, needy or immature, or maybe the person couldn’t speak or spell properly (OK, maybe that’s just me).  So we should also take advantage of that removal option if things start to get weird.  You’re not just removing yourself from a situation, you’re taking personal responsibility. And that’s a good thing.

What are your thoughts about online relationships?

In 1970, the federal Witness Protection Program began as part of the newly implemented RICO statutes (think organized crime, informants, etc.).  In 2010, a colleague proposed a new type of witness protection program, this time for Facebook.

The comment came on the heels of Facebook announcing yet another new design featurefor member profiles, just when some of us baby boomers were getting used to the one we were using.  In fact, much of the group discussion focused on whether or not we’d post all this never-before-capsulated information on the world wide web if we could get a re-do.  One person had trashed all his previous e-mail addresses, account information, profile details and just started completely over on all things digital. Another was chastised by a friend saying his “Facebook had died”, and the guy’s response was along the lines of “I’ll revive it after I finish my 10-hour workday, run an errand on the way home, grab some dinner, pay attention to my wife and three kids, do a little paperwork and crash into bed.”  He was the one who suggested a ”Witness Protection Program” for Facebook that would return social media users to the more private life they vaguely, but longingly, recalled before words like Web 2.0 and social media became a part of our vocabulary.

I’m not sure if the issue is one of time, technology and/or return on investment.  Let’s face it:  After you’ve reconnected with your high school buddies and discussed your location, occupation and family, that pretty much wraps up that investigation.  If you were that close to them in school, you wouldn’t need Facebook to reconnect as you already were regularly getting together for tailgate parties. 

And what about the people who ask you to “friend them” so they can reach their goal of 1,000 friends?  Seriously? Makes me feel used. Then there’s the never-ending game players who apparently don’t have enough to do.  And let’s not forget those Facebookers who are habitual joiners and likers of every off-the-wall groups like “People who like to sleep with one foot off the bed”,  “Months with an ‘R’ in them”, or “I like to chew mainly on my right side”.  It’s just  TMI – no, TMWI – too much worthless information.

Admittedly, I’m on Facebook as I occasionally feel the need to spew my discontent, share something newsworthy or just send out a warm and fuzzy with others.  I do enjoy the engagement, the entertainment and the educational value it brings to me. Could I live the rest of my life without Facebook? Sure. Do I think Facebook and/or some type of derivative platform is here to stay? Absolutely. Do I want to be a part of a witness protection program and just start over or not at all? Sometimes.  I’ll get back to you around midnight, when I’m done for the day.

If you could do things differently with Facebook, would you?  Would you want to ever join a witness protection program?

Huffington’s recent blog on what NOT to post on Facebook offers some logical and sound advice, particularly regarding personal and professional security.  While such tips are certainly merited, I’d like to add to the list of what NOT to post on Facebook. 

Does this world record holder for body piercings look familiar?

In the “this just annoys the heck out of me” category, don’t: 

*   No Profile Photo:  Not having a photo could communicate anything from “I’m so out of shape that I’m in the Guinness Book of World Records” to “I’m afraid you might recognize me from America’s Most Wanted.”  For good or bad, people with no profile photo often sends a less-than-flattering message about themselves.

*   Ridiculous Photos:  Please refrain from using a photo of you sprawled out on the couch, holding up something you killed and/or wearing something stupid on your head. 

 *   Too literal:  Women are probably to blame for the perception that much of social media is useless because we answered the ”What’s on your mind?” question too literally.  Trust me, there’s really no need to keep everyone posted on your whereabouts, dinner decisions or state of exhaustion. 

*   Too offensive: For some, Facebook is just another platform to share politically incorrect jokes, videos of bodily noises and photos of scantily clad people.  It’s really not for that purpose. 

*  Too emotional:  To all men, since when did you become such sensitive cry babies when I remember you as a classmate or businessman who’d stab me in the back just for grins and giggles?  Or as colleague Robert Reed of Element-R Partners in Chicago put it, stop going all “Alan Alda” for the world to see.   

*  Too obvious: I do it. You do it.  All God’s children do it. We’re all guilty of shameless self promotion. We hock our latest products, services, fundraisers, special events, you name it.  On the other hand, if you can’t shake down your friends, who can you shake down?  Just try to be less obvious next time.

What other Facebook Don’ts do you recommend?

This is the last of the three-part series on social media.  Abbie S. Fink, vice president/general manager of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, talks about how her clients have benefited from using social media.  Abbie and I met years ago when I hired her in an agency capacity.  Thanks to social media, our relationship has evolved to one of great friendship and professional respect.

Q:  How have HMA and its clients  used social media?

A:  HMA’s staff embraced social media a couple years ago, starting with our blog. LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter  last year. We began introducing the idea of social media to our clients in early 2008. We started with LinkedIn and blogging, easy points of access. For those who wanted more, we added Facebook and Twitter to the mix.

Q:   How have HMA and clients been able to promote/generate name awareness, particularly for nonprofits?

A:  Our not-for-profit clients led the way in actively participating in in social media. They have found social media to be a low-cost way to connect with potential consumers, donors, media, etc. to promote their mission, events, etc.  Strategies are developed, and together, we deliver on those strategies. We’ve also seen an increase in our business-to-business clients as well.  By embracing social media to engage with their clients, they have added a new dimension of “conversation” to the client relationships

Q:   Have you been able to quantify the impact of social media on the agency and/or its clients?

A:  That’s a tough question — anecdotally we know that social media is impacting our business and our clients’ business. This is a relatively new service offering for our clients, something that they are interested in pursuing. The challenge is still the ROI in terms of actual measurement. Using search and other tools we are able to look at mentions, what people are saying, and other forms of information gathering. In the not-for-profit sector, we can show increases in donor participation. Other things like website hits or blog comments are other ways to view impact. We’ve also started talking about what actions are being taken as a result of the client’s social media engagement. 

Q:  What do you see as the future of social media for agencies like yours?

A:  Social media is here to stay. What may change is the form in takes — today it’s Twitter, next year it might be something else. For agencies like HMA to stay relevant in the space, we need to be embracing it, using it, learning about it and then sharing that expertise and knowledge with current and prospective clients.

Q:  If you could give one piece of advice to organizations using social media, what would that be?

A:  Engage, converse and have fun. Social media is an excellent way to develop and maintain relationships — like no other form of customer/client engagement, social media lets you engage with your brand’s users.

Thanks so much to all the social media professionals who participated in this Q&A series.  If you have questions or suggestions regarding this topic, please send e-mail to shart@hartpr.com or directly contact any of the experts in this series. And if you like what you’ve read, please consider subscribing to EveryDayPR by clicking the Subscribe button at the top of this page.

This is the second in a series on social media.  Gini Dietrich of Arment Dietrich in Chicago talks about how her agency and clients get started in social media.  Gini’s background in social media comes from positioning her agency as her top client, which quickly led to professional presentations and speaking engagements on social media.  Her blog, Spin Sucks, is on the PRWeek Required Reading list. Most recently, the blog was named One of the 30 Best Blog Posts on Social Media I’ve Read in 2010 by A New Market Commentary.  If she’s not working, she’s thinking about work during her daily cycling.

Q.    Once organizations decide to use social media, how can agencies like yours help them get started?
A.   Our philosophy about social media is that you’re now able to participate in conversations happening online about you, your company, your
employees, and your competition. We help our clients use social media to enhance the relationships they have with customers, employees, and
prospects. And we look at four main goals:

*    Brand awareness

*    Brand loyalty

*    Talent recruitment, and/or

*    Prospecting

When an organization decides it’s time to jump on the bandwagon, we help them set up listening tools, we help them monitor the conversations, and
we make recommendations for when and how to join the conversations.  A lot of the time we spend with companies is looking at benchmarks and
then setting goals that drive increased dollars from the social media efforts. We coach, we brainstorm, we generate new ideas, we watch what they’re doing, and we make recommendations for changes or shifts.  Getting started is the easy part…we make the rest of it more manageable so they maintain a presence and are consistent, even during their busiest times.

Q.   What are some good ways to monitor social media?
A.  I love a few free tools:
* Set up Google alerts, if you haven’t already. You can create alerts for the company, your name, your competition, and the industry. It
allows you to monitor what is being said online and decide when and how to join the conversations.
* Set up social mention alerts. Just like Google alerts, it monitors what people are saying about you online. But the difference is that social mention looks only at the social channels so you start to receive information, such as tweets and comments on blogs.
* TweetDeck, Hootsuite or another desktop application allows you to set up searches. Like Google and social mention alerts, you can search different terms, but here it populates a column anytime anyone says anything on Twitter. It’s an easy way to monitor in a very time efficient manner.

Q.  How have your clients used social media monitoring as part of their overall PR plans/strategies?
A.  We’re seeing a shift with each of our clients – they’re not using it just for overall PR plans. They’re using it across the business – PR, marketing, sales, advertising, HR, customer service, and in the C-suite.  If there is a customer complaint on one of the social networks, customer service can respond to it instantaneously and fix a problem that otherwise might turn into a crisis. HR is using it to recruit talent they wouldn’t otherwise have access to without an expensive head hunter.  Sales is using it to network with prospects without having to make a cold call or go to a trade show. They’re networking 24/7. The C-suite is using it to demonstrate thought leadership, provide value, and build brand loyalty. And PR is using it to develop better relationships with all influencers, including bloggers, reporters, customers, employees, candidates, shareholders, and prospects.  This shift now allows us to do our jobs via additional dollar line items – some of our budgets come from marketing, some from sales, some from HR, and some from PR.

Q.    What do you see as the future of social media for service providers?
A.   Unlike anything before, social media allows service providers a way to spread a message quickly, to put out fires, to start fires, to become industry leaders, and to reach audiences around the globe. This is less about the canned messages we’re accustomed to writing. It’s less about training our executives what to say and what not to say. It’s less about picking up the phone and pitching stories to reporters. It’s less about designing extraordinary and expensive events. Once PR firms realize this, they’ll be able to help their clients have better relationships; build communities to drive revenue; create tribes of people who care about their products or services and are willing to tell their friends; and interact in places you never thought possible.

Q.    If you could give one piece of advice to organizations starting to use social media, what would that be?
A.   If you do only one thing, listen. It’s the foundation to social media, but also to communication and interaction with other human beings. Set up Google and social mention alerts – they come directly to your e-mail as often (or as little) as you like. And download a desktop application (such as TweetDeck or HootSuite) and create searches in there. Then open your application once a day and quickly scroll through your search columns to see what people are saying.

Next week, Abbie Fink of HMA in Phoenix talks about how to benefit from social media.  And if you like what you’ve read today, share the content via social media, of course.

Back by popular demand and in light of recent questions regarding social media, EveryDayPR offers a three-part Q&A series on social media with three experts from across the country.  The first of our series begins with Mark W. McClennan, APR, vice president at Schwartz Communications and chair of the Northeast District of PRSA.  I first met Mark at the 2009 Counselors Academy in Palm Springs.  Mark is one of the few professionals I know who can effectively communicate about how technology can be a meaningful part of an organization’s business strategy.  He’s also a lot of fun to be around.

Q. Why should organizations consider social media, especially when today’s economy is calling for people to do more with less?

A. I think that is a very telling question. That is like saying, I am so busy that I don’t have time to go the dentist. It may save you money in the short term, but long term you are looking ad greater expense and two root canals. Social media impacts every business. From the local plumber who is getting praised or savaged on his town’s Wiki, to the largest consumer goods company that is using it to find out what consumer want and launch new products. If you care about talking with your customers (or potential customers) and what to know what people are saying about you, you need to be involved.

Q.  How do organizations know what to do first – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.?

 A. With all due respect, that is the wrong question to ask. The channels aren’t the key things. In fact, in 5-10 years, the channels we know today may all be gone. Remember AltaVista and Earthlink? One of the biggest mistakes people make is asking “What’s my Facebook strategy?” The questions you need to ask first are:

a) Who am I trying to reach?

b) Why am I doing it, and what do I want to accomplish?

c) How does this support my overall corporate strategy?

d) Which channels and tools will best support the strategy?

Josh Bernoff says it better than I ever could in his book Groundswell, but basically, if you start the discussion with which channel to do first, you have already lost. And just because your competitor is using a certain channel, doesn’t mean you need to be. If you copy off the kid in the class who gets a D, you will get a D as well. Start with the basics and build from there.

Let me give you an example. I work with a health care IT company that makes software for doctors. We had been monitoring social media for a time (think of Twitter and Google Blogsearch as free business/competitive intelligence). We integrated social media as part of our overall communications strategy. One channel we identified was Facebook. Why? Because the client’s primary research showed that 75% of medical students spent a good deal of time on Facebook, with a small minority spending more than 40 hours a month (scary). We also knew they were receptive to information via that channel and that medical students tended to stay loyal to technology they used in school. So we knew it made sense and supported our business strategy.

Q. How much should organizations expect to invest in social media in the initial phases?

 A. I always tell my clients to start small. You can always grow your campaign and engagement. But if you run out of steam or reduce your engagement, you look like a worn out strip mall where half the storefronts are vacant. Research and planning will tell you how much you will need to invest to reach your own goals. Keep in mind, the majority of the cost may not be direct capital outlays, but is likely to be the time invested by your staff or agency.

Q. Where do you see the future of social media?

 A. Five years ago I was a social media skeptic. I was a tech-early adopter and was active on message boards, blogs etc., but I didn’t see any communities or channels that would influence the purchase of a $20 million piece of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. Then I had an epiphany. Social media lets us do what good PR people have always wanted to do. Engage customers, conduct two-way symmetrical conversations and listen in on other conversations. A company seeking to build a concrete plant has always sought to do local grassroots engagement and has wanted to know what people are saying. Social media makes it cheaper, easier and quicker. 

Social media is as evolutionary to public relations as the Internet was in the early to mid 1990s. I remember when email pitches were a novelty and you had to conduct costly focus groups and polling. Now I speak with key reporters via IM and Twitter more than I email them, and I have better insight into many customer segments for less money.

Q. If you could give one piece of advice to organizations considering using social media, what would that be?

A. Start today. Listen. Even if you don’t join the conversations, you need to know what is being said about you, your market and your competitors. Social media engagement is essential to strategic communications.

Next week Gini Dietrich of Arment Dietrich in Chicago talks about how to get started using social media.