Everyday PR

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?

Kudos to the American Red Cross of Greater Chicago for its creative use of social media to promote awareness of the devastation caused by house fires.  Called “Every 80 Seconds“, the video illustrates how fire can permanently destroy in minutes memories that were created over years.  Aptly timed during March as American Red Cross month, the campaign focuses on fundraising for victims of disasters, as well as points out Chicago’s impressive volunteer relief efforts in the aftermath of a fire.

The campaign has fueled interest from others outside the Windy City thanks to the video itself and fellow bloggers.  Those efforts certainly can’t hurt their awareness objectives, and in today’s world of viral communications, these are flames they’re probably glad they started.

Three virtual Cups of Joe to the creative team behind the Every 80 Seconds campaign.  Let’s hope it spreads far and wide. 

The virtual Cup of Joe Award from EveryDayPR spotlights our pick of the week for a public relations performance –  good, bad or ugly.  If you’d like to make a nomination, contact shart@hartpr.com or www.Twitter.com/susanhartpr.

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?

If you liked what you read today and aren’t a subscriber, please consider being one.  Just click on the Subscribe button in the top left corner.  Thanks!

If you halfway recognized the take-off of the headline, then you know that this 1969 hit by Zager and Evans basically talks about the demise of human beings to make way for more technical and mechanical lifeforms.  It’s not exactly a warm and fuzzy tune with lots of rainbows and puppies. However, it does give one reason to think about technology and its impact on people and relationships.

I’m the first to admit a reluctance to jump on the social media bandwagon. I scoffed for months at the notion of wasting my time and precious energy, a la Tracy Chapman.  But goal-setting, client service and hunger for knowledge won out, and I jumped on board, which brings me to the $64,000 question:  How effective can social media be in the future if communicators end up being the only ones communicating with each other? Let me answer the question by repeating the lessons I learned about various tools of social media like blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.:

1)  One of the first people to advise me in navigating the social media map is Walter Lim of Cool Insights in Singapore.  When asked how do people grow their blogs, he simply said reciprocity. 

2)  Get involved, network, and watch trends on Twitter, says Internet marketer Maria Gordon.

3)  Copyblogger’s Jonathon Morrow says the more interesting the blog content is, the better. 

4)  Retweets are all the rage, per John Moore of the Social Ecosystem Lab.

5)  Public relations practitioners lead the social media revolution in most organizations, according to the 2009 Digital Readiness Report.  

So at the end of the social media day, are we, as public relations experts, just trying to sell one another on the products and services of ourselves and our clients?  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a great advocate for social media.  I’ve seen how clients and friends have grown their businesses and relationships, and I’ve experienced such growth myself.  But I’m also a strategist. Hence, the $64,000 question: How effective can social media be in the future if communicators end up being the only ones communicating with each other?   

All thoughts, predictions and arguments welcome.

Coca-Cola, one of the most recognized and consistent brands in the worlds, is taking a remarkable and admirable risk with social media.  Instead of a high-control, top-down approach, the mega-giant is letting Twitter, Facebook and other tools do what they do best – be real from the consumer level.  Read more.

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.

Abbie S. Fink of HMA Public Relations

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 about 18 months ago. We started with LinkedIn and blogging, easy points of access. For those who want more, we’ve 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 really have been the ones to actively participate 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.

Q:   Have you been able to quantity 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 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.

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 our 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.  Most recently, her blog, F.A.D.S., was named One of the 30 Best Blog Posts on Social Media I’ve Read in 2009 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.

EveryDayPR kicks off a three-part Q&A series on social media with various 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.

In the words of TV’s lovable Norm from the hit series Cheers, “it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear.” Norm should be glad he didn’t work at a non-profit, where just about everybody’s donning Milk-Bone attire.

Utilizing social media may help charities competing for the same dollars.

So what can charities do in this economic downturn? Plenty.  At the risk of stating the obvious, start with a plan that includes traditional media tactics, donor communications and ongoing fund-raising efforts. Then ask yourself the following:
*     How much impact did that segment on a local TV show have?

*     How do you know if people are reading your newsletter?

*     Besides the amount of the check, what do you really know about your donors? 

Are you satisfied with your answers?  If not, consider going social to supplement your plan.  At this point, many people will stop reading.  That’s too bad because some of their competitors won’t – the ones vying for the same dollars you are.

Social media is just that – socializing. It’s about engaging people, building relationships, learning from others and listening to feedback, all of which can help you increase the results of your public relations efforts.  And most social media tools are, in the most loved words of a true non-profit executive, free.     

It’s a world of competition out there. What are you going to do about it?

There are some things in life – ants, tattoos and weird relatives, for instance – that will never go away no matter how hard you try to destroy them, remove them or ignore them.  Enter technology and its countless social media legs. 

Like tattoos, social media is here to stay.

As professional counselors, we are responsible for advising our clients and employers on how to best accomplish their business objectives.  Before we can credibly provide such guidance, we have to understand the many facets of social media – hard to do considering the frequent sprouting of some shiny, new leg.

A recent study found that more than half of the 500 top executives surveyed resist social media because they fear its affect on productivity.  Other barriers include security, apathy and fear.  Conversely, two-thirds of early technology adopters reported increased customer satisfaction, improved reputation in the marketplace, and two in five companies directly associated higher sales through using new forms of media.

At the 2009 Counselors Academy Spring Conference, a key theme was social media, but not about tools like Twitter or Facebook. For example, Mark McClennan of Schwartz Communications focused on objectives, audiences and strategy of a business and how technology can help reach organizational goals.   Another expert, Joe Thornley, echoed with “social media is about community, relationships and consistency. More and more companies are turning to targeted communities to market their products and services.” 

So like ants, tattoos and weird relatives, technology isn’t going away.  Or as one of this country’s founding fathers Thomas Paine said, “Lead, follow or get out of the way.”