Social Media for PR: Thought Leadership, Conversation and Connection

Kate Schackai, Social Media Director at Crawford PR and author of White Hat PR, just wrote a fantastic article about the difference between marketing and PR in social media. She gives great suggestions on using social media for effective public relations efforts online, but I got a lot of value from her perspective on the way social media is evolving the "sales approach" to more of a conversation and a social experience than just a pitch (whether in marketing or PR). I love watching this evolution happen.

We're seeing this transition occur much more specifically in the B2B space, where the sales and marketing style offline has historically been less about "buy this!" and more about the conversation and the relationship between buyer and seller (referrals, dinners, golf) compared to consumer marketing which is more traditionally about features, price, benefits, etc.

Whether we're talking about marketing or PR, the bottom line for me is that social media permits a brand to demonstrate its skills and build its reputation by shifting the focus from the product or service toward the deeper value the brand can deliver in its thought leadership; how connected the brand is to the industry or space; and how serviceable it is -- how social and supportive it is -- to its customers and to other thought leaders.

Here are my favorite clips from Kate's article:

Amplify’d from www.customerthink.com

Too many devotees are treating the terms “social media PR” and “social media marketing” as interchangeable–when they are anything but. And if you can’t tell which you’re engaged in, the odds are you’re not succeeding in either.

In the great era of one-way messaging, the distinction between marketing and PR was clear: if you were talking to consumers, it was marketing; if you were talking to the press, it was PR.

Marketing sells products. PR builds reputation. And while media matters, social media has opened up a new way to communicate directly, not just that someone should buy what you’re selling, but why.

a constant sales pitch in an area designed for conversation is somewhere beyond annoying; it’s completely tone deaf.

Your online content should comment on industry news, hot stories, trends related to your product/service. This requires that you and your team actually read the news and understand your relevance to it.

If someone replies to you, make sure they are answered and thanked. Quickly. And not just with a link to your product.

Speaking of links… Your PR force should be out there reading and commenting on other people’s content, and not just putting links to your site on theirs.

If you’re looking to position yourself as a thought leader in your industry, but your social media content makes you sound like a door-to-door salesman, the first step might be admitting that you have a problem. Read more at www.customerthink.com

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Three Goals of Corporate Social Media Strategy in 2011

1) Integrate, 2) Hire Correctly, and 3) Measure using the ROI Pyramid.
These are the three critical elements of approaching social media marketing in 2011 that are top of mind for me right now.

Today I read Forbes columnist and industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang's keynote presentation for LeWeb - the largest European Internet conference. His presentation outlines the results of a study conducted by Altimeter Group, his firm, and then presented Jeremiah's suggestions on what strategies will make a difference for social media marketers throughout the next year. He had many more points than just these three. In fact, he presents 6 ideas for how you should invest in 2011. But I find these three to be the most critical and compelling.

First, Integrate.
The ultimate goal for many organizations is now shifting from simply "having a social presence" (Facebook fan page, Twitter profiles, etc.) to integrating these fully with the existing online corporate presence (corporate website, for example). How can we bring the conversations happening about our brand closer to our brand? How can we attract interested influencers to our site and keep them there? Should that be the goal anyway? What do you think? Comment below.

 

Second, hire correctly and properly train.  

People I meet in marketing often ask me what it takes to make a great social media marketer. As agencies and client-side marketing managers look to hire specialists to dedicate to social media efforts, they should certainly take note of Jeremiah's tips, such as looking for "early technology adopters." Those whom I know who have been successful in social media marketing and truly have a passion for it are the same folks who had a Geocities personal site in college just to "play around with the technology" and share content and insights.They're the same people who tried out Google Wave and Apple Ping the day they were released. These are the folks who are going to have a larger understanding of all of the media channels and tools that exist, making them better equipped to select the right ones for your business. 

I also love the term "corporate entrepreneur." Many colleagues of mine have started their own businesses and become very successful at them, such as Erin Steinbruegge (@steinburglar) and Chris Reimer (@RizzoTees). Friends in this group have often asked me: "Why don't you just go into business for yourself as a consultant, or start a firm. You could do great work, attract lots of clients and really build something!" I ponder this opportunity, but I have always found myself coming back to feeling a real passion for working on the corporate side. Whatver that itch is, I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think that term "corporate entrepreneur" fits me well because it means that I am a leader within a corporate structure who is focused on creating value. See the end of this post for more on the concept. After reading the below definition of corporate entrepreneurship, you'll likely better understand why talented individuals who fit that description are likely to be most stellar at the social media marketing role, considering the fragmentation and rapid growth we are seeing in this space in particular.

The ROI pyramid

This slide was also one of my favorites because Owyang distills for us his understanding of calculating ROI and value added by social media, but separating that measurement and analysis by role, factoring in only the most relevant metrics and reporting for that level of the organization. I have provided "executive dashboards" for a long time, in which I choose to distill upward only those metrics that allow my executive leaders to best do their job, not weighing them down with the details. They need the big picture. From Jeremiah's recent blog post about the ROI Pyramid in corporate social strategy:

Often, our industry can appear complicated, and yearns for simplicity.  One such technique to glean simplicity is to develop frameworks which the corporate social strategist can then apply to achieve their business goals.

More on "Corporate Entrepreneurship":

I found this article on corporate entrepreneurship, Cultivating Corporate Entrepreneurship by Lanny Herron, and thought I'd share with you the definition he gives:

"Entrepreneurs" are often thought of as persons who start new business ventures, yet most who study the concept come to view this definition as overly restrictive. Economists in particular have defined entrepreneurship in such diverse and general ways as: forming new combinations (Schumpeter, 1934); dealing with disequilibria (Schultz, 1975, 1980); and exercising opportunity awareness (Kirzner, 1985). A thorough study of the subject suggests that the essence of entrepreneurship resides in the reallocation or recombination of resources with intent to create value. ... The creation of value, however, involves both the recognition of an opportunity and the attendant reconfiguration of the resources necessary to achieve that value.

This view of entrepreneurship makes it abundantly clear that those who start new businesses and those who alter existing ones have much in common. Indeed, they are virtually identical in the broad classes of actions they must carry out to achieve their ends. Both must gather information, recognize opportunities, acquire a requisite level of control over resources, and formulate and implement methods for reconfiguring these resources.

The Value of Conversations over Campaigns

I had lunch today with a colleague in marketing and communications. She is a social media maven and an esteemed professional in media communications and public relations. We had a great conversation about the value that an organization's media relations team can bring to the table when putting together a strategy for a social media marketing campaign. We both agreed that the reason this team adds value is that they are professional communicators who typically have an intimate understanding of how to effectively communicate your company's mission, values, practices and products.

As marketers, when we think about an idea in the framework of a "campaign", we may limit ourselves in thinking about it as a one time, event-specific occurrence. It may last a day or a month, but if we're thinking about it as having a start and and a finish, we may miss the opportunity to focus on the bigger picture - the idea that a solid marketing strategy it truly "integrated" across channels. It also takes advantage of the immediacy and the reach that technology has provided us with social media and email to communicate with our audience continuously and meaningfully, targeting our message by media type and inviting the recipients of that message to engage with us and respond.

I found Brian Carroll's post about Conversations over Campaigns. It has several great points about the "start and stop" nature of a campaign versus the more holistic view of the "conversation" in marketing.

Amplify’d from blog.startwithalead.com

Marketing is undergoing a remarkable evolution at this moment. The multitude of mediums we can use to speak to our marketplace is revolutionizing how we work. I believe the days of campaigns – where we start-stop-measure-tweak and start all over again – are over. Today, for marketing to effectively drive revenue, it must be a continuous, meaningful conversation.

The most successful marketers will know how to lead that conversation both internally and externally so they can communicate to their customer the right things in the right way at the right time. Read more at blog.startwithalead.com

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Ponder this: What does "productive work" really mean?

"'Productive work' does not mean the unfocused performance of the motions of some job. It means the consciously chosen pursuit of a productive career, in any line of rational endeavor, great or modest, on any level of ability. It is not the degree of a man’s ability nor the scale of his work that is ethically relevant here, but the fullest and most purposeful use of his mind."

- Ayn Rand, novelist, philosopher, playwright, screenwriter

Why social media makes big sense in business marketing

Social media marketing for Business-to-Business (B2B) organizations has a very large and growing impact on things like customer loyalty and advocacy. (Source) This is particularly true for my role running social media for a B2B enterprise technology firm because business technology buyers participate socially more than the average US adult. Forrester surveyed technical and line-of-business decision-makers who buy technology. Socially, this is an extremely active group compared to US adults or many other groups. (The Social Technographics® of Business Buyers, Forrester, Feb. 20, 2009)

My company has built out a significant social media presence designed to increase brand awareness, demonstrate internal thought leadership, and ultimately increase interest from prospective buyers.

Much like business development is fostered via a networking event at a local venue, social media sites like Twitter and LinkedIn facilitate introductions, provide profile information, and allow like-minded professionals to connect, converse, and engage with one another ongoing. On social media sites, you will meet individuals you may never have otherwise been introduced to, and their social activity online will allow you to get to know their interests and their needs. 

From a Personal Perspective

Social media marketing requires having a social personality and an interest in meeting new people, learning from them, sharing ideas and discussing concepts and trends. The more I participate on Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites with my personal profile, the better I understand the social dynamics and protocols for how these social networks operate. I can leverage what I learn from my personal profiles to build out awareness and connections for my company's official profiles across social networks. I learn what kind of content is interesting to people, how they prefer to be approached or introduced, and what kind of content is likely to be shared and spread across the network. In the same way that I enjoy a party with friends, a happy hour event with a local marketing group, or a 5K race in my neighborhood, I enjoy spending 5 minutes or 30 minutes on Twitter every couple of hours because I am meeting new people, getting to know their personalities, and learning from them. 

I get to take my personal interests in just "being social" and apply it to helping my company become more social online, and because our target market is also very technologically savvy, the number of people with whom I can connect and share ideas is growing rapidly.

Here are some of my favorite social media related quotes from real experts in the space. I believe these speak to my point about the industry and what it takes to participate and thrive within it:

• “What’s required is a kind of social media sherpa, who can find you the audience you seek, who can reach to them on the platforms where they are already congregating, and who can help promote in tasteful ways that fit the sensitivities of the networks where your audiences are found.” – Chris Brogan, author of “Trust Agents”
• “Engaging in an authentic, meaningful conversation with consumers will be the key to marketing success and growth, even if that means acknowledging negative feedback; transparency is paramount.” – Ron Blake, president and CEO of Rewards Network
• As a general principle, the more users share about themselves, the more others in the community will learn about them and identify with them.” – Matt Rhodes, writing in Social Media Today
• “Social Media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide for you.” – Matt Goulart    

Thanks to @MirnaBard for the quotes.

Mashable's love-fest with Starbucks, JetBlue and other big brands

Mashable continues to applaud the same big brands for their social media efforts. About once a month, Starbucks, JetBlue, Dunkin Donuts, The History Channel or Whole Foods are mentioned in one of their articles. That's not to say I disagree that these companies are doing a great job in social media marketing. Each of them, in fact, is doing something somewhat unique - whether it's on FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The challenge, I think, is that in their analysis of these brands, Mashable's "appreciation of engagement, innovation and longevity" relies on each brand having done something "unique" or just simply becoming heavily engaged on a social media site and responding to customers there.

What I'd like to see more of is discussion about results and quantifiable metrics so that the next time we applaud a big brand for their accomplishments, we're doing so because they drove the business forward in a tangible way rather than simply playing in the space in a public way.

For example, take their mention of Starbucks' accomplishments in social media. Is it more important to be the "most liked" brand on Facebook or to have driven X number of incremental coupon downloads and redemptions from your Facebook page? Or to notice that in areas where their Facebook fan-base is higher, they see higher foot traffic in the stores? How are you leveraging your fan-base to get people in the store or to drive sales?

That's what this article is missing.

Many companies may not be comfortable releasing internal numbers, but marketing leaders often share them at conferences, so it's not unheard of. As marketers who are interested in the world of "social media marketing", we ought to allow ourselves to be as critical as possible of our peers who are managing social media for other brands - and also to be as critical of ourselves and how we're gauging success in what we do. It is certainly honorable of them to be investing in social media, but you'll convince me and others that social media is worth that time and money if you show us that it's getting results. And the big brands, especially the ones mentioned here, are the ones in the spotlight - the ones with the biggest chance to help shift the conversation toward the numbers and the money and not just highlight the glitz and glam of "most followers" and "most fans."

Do you have a link to a case study about a "big brand" in social media that includes metrics and quantified results? Does your company talk in these terms internally whenever it discusses its social media strategy? Share your thoughts here in the comments.

Here are the highlights from Mashable's story, dated today:

Amplify’d from mashable.com

In appreciation of engagement, innovation and longevity, here are five of our top picks for must-follow brands that just know how to use social media.

1. Starbucks

Why Starbucks Rocked This Year: As the most-”Liked” brand on Facebook and one of the top 10 most followed brands on Twitter, Starbucks has proven it’s social media savvy. It has continued to launch new campaigns and engage followers along the way. And it continues to source ideas from its custom social network, My Starbucks Idea.

2. JetBlue

Taking a look at the JetBlue Twitter stream, you see a mass of responses from the airline to inquiring followers — that’s what social is all about. Even with the occasional flight attendant snafu, the company manages to handle the social space well.

We’ve read over and over that one of the top reasons why people follow brands via social media is that they want inside information on promotions and deals. We’re always tuned in to what JetBlue has to say, even if just for the limited offers on All-You-Can-Jet passes that pop up every now and then.

3. The History Channel

Typically, Foursquare tips are used to uncover insider information when you check in to a venue. The History Channel rethought the concept of the tip and began providing unexpected history lessons that were tied to locations.

4. Whole Foods

Whole Foods takes the cake for having one of the most expansive and inclusive social media strategies around, making it one of the top enterprises using social media.

The company encourages individual stores and regional areas to create their own Twitter handles for a more niche customer experience online

At our latest count, the company had nearly 300 niche Twitter accounts.

5. Dunkin’ Donuts

Dunkin’ Donuts focuses on showcasing passionate fans.

Dunkin’ Donuts is all about highlighting its customers via social media. It is always running social media contests, such as last year’s “Keep It Coolatta” sweepstakes, the recent “Create Dunkin’s Next Donut” contest and the current “Ultimate DD Coffee Fan” search.Read more at mashable.com

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Why B2B tech marketers have trouble assessing social media ROI

I recently received an email from Adobe (Omniture) promoting a Forrester research report entitled: "How to Assess the Value of Social Media in B2B Marketing Measuring the impact of blogs, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter." The report is written by Forrester's Laura Ramos (on Twitter at @lauraramos) who I admire. She writes frequently about social media ROI and also B2B marketing.

I find it fascinating that Forrester put out a report that directly describes my job function and the space in which I work. Not only do I focus on social media marketing -- using YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social media to promote my company's services -- but we also target IT decision makers, roles such as CIOs, Directors of IT, IT Manager, project managers, etc. and this is all under the umbrella of B2B marketing.

Also, good timing, considering just yesterday, my short presentation at the Integrated Marketing Summit here in Saint Louis focused almost exclusively on how exactly you can utilize social media in the B2B space to drive ROI - results.

I downloaded this free report and will share some highlights and my thoughts with you. These are four key ways that B2B marketers are looking at social media marketing and how they are assessing the value of it:

1. B2B marketers are unsure about how much time and money to invest in social media marketing internally or with agencies. This makes sense, since the ROI is very difficult to calculate. (More on that in a bit).The study quotes a Director of Marketing: "My marketing resources are finite, so every dollar or hour I put into social must come from somewhere else. How do I figure out where all of this fits in my marketing mix and campaign plans?"
   
2. Social marketing programs that don’t focus on a specific audience and objective get preoccupied with the tools and fail to connect with customers.Oooh, this is a really good one. It's so true. Too many companies "want to be in social media" or feel like they "have to be on Facebook" or "must try out this Twitter thing" and they end up creating profiles or blogs and turning them into online graveyards. Internal bloggers lose interest and get tied up with work. Most of our competitors, in fact, have blogs live that haven't been published to in months! My boss and I put together a strategy a year ago that included a plan to maintain frequent updates to each of these sites and our blogs, and ideas for putting out compelling content. We've kept to that plan, and when it gets difficult to find the resources to provide relevant, insightful content about enterprise IT, we find a way to get it done.
   
   
3. B2B firms — more than half in a recent Forrester survey — react by spinning up poorly planned ad hoc programs with little organizational structure, process, or governance for support. It's interesting to me that Forrester found so many companies struggling with organizing their social media efforts properly, streamlining accountability, and focusing their strategy. My company decided last year to hire a dedicated Social Media Marketing Manager. Maybe that is what it takes to keep things organized. As a result, I don't feel like we've run into this problem. There aren't too many people stepping on each others' toes here. We do have a lot of experts internally who want to contribute to our social media efforts: See this active portals blog or see these recently homemade videos from one of our architects. When they want to get involved, we embrace it and encourage it, and my job is to facilitate their ability to get it out to our social media channels.
   
4. Few marketers say that they can measure the impact of social activity on sales lead productivity or quality and Few gain new leads, or customer advocates, from social pursuits. This is a common concern I hear throughout social media marketing discussions. "...many B2B
   marketers treat social media like an outbound communications channel, and our research highlights the consequences of this choice." 

Social media marketers should be saying to themselves, "Okay, we've engaged in social media, we 'get' Twitter and Facebook, and we know who our audience on these sites is. We are ready to start driving sales and leads now. How are we going to do it?" I am already starting to see the conversation shifting, both internally at my company as we have been heavily engaged on social media sites for over a year now, and also within the space across blogs and Twitter.

Now that we all understand how these sites work and how our target audience is choosing to use it to engage with us as brands, we can shift the discussion internally toward how to leverage that audience's attention and turn it into driving more interest in buying products and services. More importantly, as we establish online relationships with our target market, how can we identify their "need" for our services at the right time and introduce our solution in a way that doesn't "push" or "over-sell"? We are beginning to shift our strategic goals for social media marketing from "drive brand awareness" toward "drive leads" and ultimately aim for a positive ROI in the time and energy being spent in this space.

Forrester then presents a basic model to help tech marketers assess social returns:

1. Think about business value when defining social objectives
2. Outline costs and expected benefits
3. Determine risks and possible gains
4. Decide how social may impact existing marketing methods
5. Measure activity and engagement

One other element of the report that stood out to me as a best practice is to "Rigorously develop metrics that correspond to each assessment element." We have invested time and effort in monitoring many metrics related to social media marketing - in fact, almost every metric available on each site or in third party tools that gauge quantity of followers, reach, impact, awareness and engagement. 

How "Anyone Know" search on Twitter turns search marketing on its head

Last week, I spoke at Integrated Marketing Summit in downtown Saint Louis. I was on a social media marketing panel. One of the key take-aways from my presentation was the "Anyone Know" search concept for Twitter.com, explored and explained by search marketing pro Danny Sullivan many months ago. I shared Danny's ideas from his original post on SearchMarketingLand about it back in May. Here are the key points related to how searching "Anyone Know" and then your product or service can help you prospect leads or potential customers on Twitter. These are highlight clips I have taken from his article:

Amplify’d from searchengineland.com

people effectively “search” on Twitter within their actual tweets when they ask for help from their friends and followers. Sometimes they get answers. Sometimes they don’t. But they definitely ask for help — a lot. You can see this by searching for anyone know on Twitter:

Just as people “broadcast” their desires by doing searches on Google, so they are broadcasting their need for help on Twitter, if you search for the right terms to locate questions. “Anyone know” is just one example of that type of question-related term (can anyone tell me is another example).

One person wants “legit” pizza — offer them a coupon! Another person wants good pizza places in LA — send them a link to your store locator. Another wants a discount for good grades from a rival chain. Come up with something similar to entice them.

This type of outreach has to be done right. No one wants reply spam.

To me, the ability to reach out to an individual via search and answer their question is a revolutionary addition to the usual search marketing.Read more at searchengineland.com

 

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The Holy Grail of PPC & the Conversion Trinity

A the Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago this week, Bryan Eisenberg, SES Advisory Board and NYTimes Bestselling Author, bryaneisenberg.com, gave some compelling ways of looking at conversion in Pay Per Click advertising. The session, by name, promised to unlock The Secret Formula to Boost Response:

Amplify’d from www.aimclearblog.com

The Holy Grail of PPC marketing is achieved when we as marketers align targeting with: The best ad copy A useful landing page And great CTR To reach the Holy Grail, we must be aware of the Conversion trinity: Be relevant Be valuable Make the next action obvious Read more at www.aimclearblog.com

 

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The new role of technology in the Marketing Department

There is a fantastic post today in AdAge Magazine. "The Case for a Chief Marketing Technologist: If Technology Is Now a Strategic Dimension of Marketing, Who Should Lead It?" by Scott Brinker.

I agree 100% with Brinker that technology is taking on an increasingly significant role within marketing, but of course, whether there is a "Chief Marketing Technologist" necessary at most organizations is really a case-by-case decision. Regardless of the structure or of titles, from my experience in the past few years as a technologically savvy marketer, I believe marketing leaders who embrace the use of technology in day-to-day analytics and execution of marketing strategy and foster a collaborative environment with the IT department are likely to be more efficient and effective in achieving their goals. Brinker makes many more solid points about the role of technology in marketing, and I've highlighted my favorites here:

Amplify’d from adage.com

Analytics software shapes your perception of your audience. Automation and optimization software influences the design of your marketing operations. A plethora of new advertising, social media and web technologies directly affect the experiences your customers have with you. These aren't mere implementation details -- increasingly, they're important strategic and brand-positioning choices. Who makes them, and how?

Simply put, marketing has become deeply entwined with technology. This didn't happen overnight; it's been sneaking up on us for a while. But because technology had been so tangential to marketing management for most of our history, the organizational structure of marketing has been slow to adjust to this new technology-centric reality.

marketing must officially take ownership of its technology platforms and strategies. And the first step of such ownership is to appoint someone to lead it.

Enter the chief marketing technologist. This is a senior management position, reporting to the CMO, with three key responsibilities. First: Choreograph all the disparate technologies under marketing's umbrella. Second: Nurture a growing technology subculture within marketing, raising the department's overall technical proficiency. And third: Collaborate with the CMO on strategy, translating the CMO's vision into technology with high fidelity -- while also inspiring the shape of that vision by advocating for what new technology can enable.

the most important skill they need is the ability to effortlessly map marketing ideas to technical requirements and, vice versa, map new technologies to marketing opportunities.

This is a marketer whose expertise is leveraging, scaling and governing technology.

In this Golden Age, not everyone in marketing needs to be a technologist, just as not everyone in marketing needs to be a "creative." But relevant technology expertise must become a native part of marketing's identity and, with a chief marketing technologist, a native part of its leadership.Read more at adage.com

 

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