Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Great New Portal Hits the Spot

Chip Griffin is a visionary. He keeps churning out start-ups that are simple in concept, yet elegant in execution. Custom Scoop was an idea whose time had come - a new media clipping service, catching the best in blog and podcast content; and Cork & Knife is a e-magazine for foodies. That appeals to my inner diner.

Yesterday, he launched his latest - Media Bullseye. Put briefly, Chip publishes it "to provide media, public relations, and marketing professionals with news and commentary about the modern communications landscape." But the cool part is that it combines video, audio, feature commentary and aggregated content, presenting it all in one slick interface. And naturally, it's completely RSS-able. It's definitely worth checking out.

And here's Chip himself to tell you about his vision.

I'm honored to be one of the early contributors to the site. Joining other social media greats like Chris Brogan and Chris Thilk is an honor (I'm lucky I got in, seeing as my given name isn't Chris). We'll see if I can turn this into a regular feature.

What do you think? Is this an idea whose time has come? Any suggestions for Chip?

Labels: Chip Griffin, Chris Brogan, Chris Thilk, Marketing, Media Bullseye, PR, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:56 PM

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Friday, November 09, 2007

How to Teach Marketers to Be Authentic

Did you ever take the time to step back and wonder about the various personas you meet online? They could be long-lost friends, bloggers that you admire, or people in your Facebook network whom you may have never met before. But what do you really know about them?

How many of these folks are truly themselves when they're online? I mean, how many are perhaps bolder in their assertions or less cautious with the language they use because of the less personal nature of the medium?

We spend a lot of time talking about authenticity as one of the tenets of social media - how businesses, brands and the people behind them need to be seen as real. There's no doubt that the masses will sniff out a fraud. But how do we guarantee them authenticity?

While you ponder that, take a look at Brad Paisley's take on it:

As recently as this week, someone in my LinkedIn network posed the following question: What disciplines should marketers be training within to ensure authenticity? My first thought, was, "You've got to be kidding, right? You want to teach authenticity?"

It reminded me of the old George Burns quote:

"Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

That one-liner often sums up all that is seen as wrong with and disliked about advertising, marketing and public relations - mouthing the words without actually believing what you're saying. Can you blame the public for distrusting advertisers or for thinking of public relations professionals as "spin doctors"?

Many of the other respondents to the LinkedIn question also noted that authenticity is more of a state of being rather than a skill - it's something that has to be imbued throughout one's life rather than taught as a course. Authenticity represents who we are, not what we do. And when we use marketing speak to address our audience, are we being truly authentic, or simply following a corporate protocol out of some antiquated tradition?

I say it's time to step out of those corporate roles and leave behind those traditional templates and speak to our customers as if we're real people talking to other real people. As David Ogilvy once famously said,

"The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife."

How do you learn how to be authentic with your wife? You don't learn it; you simply be yourself - that's why she picked you, right?

Ultimately, it's worth asking how do your customers or your community view you? I hope you're prepared for the answer, because we live in an age where they'll tell you and expect to be heard.

Labels: Advertising, Marketing, New Media, PR, social media, Video

Posted by Scott Monty at 6:34 AM

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Thursday, September 20, 2007

How PR Professionals Can Avoid Bad Blogger Outreach in 3 Easy Steps

Bad blogger pitches. We've all been on the receiving end. Or if you haven't, you will be. It's almost a mathematical certainty.

I recently wrote about a pitch that I received that generally was very good; the only problem was a gaffe the PR executive made when she called me by the wrong name. All in all, it was a minor error, but it was enough to put me off. But something remarkable happened in the wake of that post and I'd like to share it with you. It's resulted in what I call a recipe for success from a blogger's perspective.

First of all, the reason I say a bad pitch is inevitable is simple: blogger outreach is not immediately scalable, so mass emailing is commonplace. But every blogger is different and needs to be personally courted. I'm not talking about a deep and abiding romance, but rather a simple relationship that is forged between PR executive and blogger, through genuine engagement and conversation between the two. It's a matter of establishing a 1:1 relationship - of showing the blogger you understand his writing or that you care enough to respond to one of her posts.

And this is difficult to do when a PR professional - who, let's face it, is used to mass mail-merging press releases and pitches - is trying to contact maybe 100 different bloggers. To spend a couple of weeks of lead time following, reading and responding is a major commitment. But I think it's crucial.

So, here's what happened in the wake of my post They Almost Had Me and why I think it's so compelling to share with you.

Before I do that, I'd like to recommend a couple of resources that you might check out. The first is a well thought out Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics from Ogilvy's 360 Digital Influence. It's a great effort that will likely evolve over time, but in my mind is a cornerstone. The other is a thoughtful post from the always thoughtful Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications' PR Squared blog.

After I wrote my post, I received a comment and an email from Kristen, the PR executive who had originally contacted me. This demonstrated a couple of things to me: that she was monitoring the blogosphere for mentions of her client and that she wanted to make a personal connection regarding the error. It took courage to admit to her mistake, and I admire that kind of selfless conviction.

As part of her email, Kristen mentioned being new to social media and still having a lot to learn. I used that as an opportunity to write back and offered to speak with her specifically about the pitch and more generally about social media. So, we had a phone conversation.

During the call, I learned a little more about the client she was representing (and I'll review said company in another post) but I also had a chance to take a look at blogger outreach from the other side - something that I think we bloggers are sometimes too quick to dismiss. During the course of our call, I came up with a few interesting ideas that might be worth considering if you're a PR professional doing blogger or influencer outreach.

Kristen said that she much preferred the 1:1 interactions that build trust and establish engagement. Of course, this just isn't achievable in a mass outreach program. She mentioned that she's more of a phone person. Again, kind of difficult when you're dealing with writers who ply their trade online. And they're not likely to call a PR person back if given a phone number in an email pitch.

Quite the conundrum. What to do? Taking crayon's model of community, dialogue and partnership, I've developed a simple three-point plan that will allow any PR executive to have a better shot of engaging with the blogosphere.

Establish Your Credibility (Partnership)
One of the mising links in blogger outreach is a personal connection with the PR executive; while there's an opportunity for the PR person to understand and connect with the blogger after reading so much of his writing, the blogger ends up having to deal with a faceless person connected with a corporate or client interest. One way to avoid this is for the PR executive to set up a page about them. Tell us a bit about who YOU are, who you work for, how long you've been doing what you do.

Take it a step further to outline the goals of the outreach, tell us about your client, post some interesting links or existing press. In short, be transparent with us.

This page can take the form of a landing page, or, more to the point, it can be set up as a blog. It doesn't have to be extensive with lots of posts. A single entry about you and about your client, along with a sidebar containing additional information and/or links is all that it will take. The result will show the blogger that you've got some skin in the game and are willing to immerse yourself in the blogger's world.

Find Common Ground (Dialogue)
If a phone conversation is a key element to your communication style, then use the tools at your disposal to make it that much easier. I use a service called GrandCentral (now owned by Google) that gives you a single phone number that can ring through to all of your phones. But one of the features on their site is the ability to post a button on your blog or page that will automatically dial your number when someone clicks on it. How much easier could that be? You direct the blogger to your site, they read about you and simply click on a button to talk with you a little more.

"Great," I hear you say. "But what if I don't want to rely on bloggers to contact me?" Another way to approach this is for you to reach out to them. A service called Jangl allows you to fill in an email address for your contact, after which Jangl will give you a Jangl phone number to call them and leave a personal message. Jangl will then email your voicemail and provide them a local number to call you back on. Head over to their site to check out the full explanation of how it works.

But done right, with Grand Central or Jangl, this can change the way you're doing your blogger outreach. Creating a dialogue with your

Create a Sense of Community (Community)
In retrospect, this idea seems to obvious that I'm surprised I hadn't thought of it (or heard about it from others) before. With Facebook being one of the fastest growing social networks for 25 year-olds, it is the place to be. And if a PR professional (who typically has a strong network) isn't part of Facebook yet, shame of them.

It's fairly easy to establish a group for your client, linking to their web site, sharing posts that have been written by them or about them, posting videos or photos of their product or their customers, etc. The key is that once you've established the group, you need to invite your network to join it. Browbeat everyone at your firm, your client, their contacts and the bloggers you're reaching out to join your Facebook group. The idea is that if Facebook members see their friends joining a group, they're more likely to join too. Voila! Instant community. And again, use that personal page to place a button, badge or link to your group.

Another option is to have a Facebook application created for your client. This may not work for everyone - check out the applications (some 4,000+) in Facebook to get an idea of how apps can be viral. Indeed, Facebook is now starting a $10 million fund that will reward and support development of the most innovative applications.

While you can't create an application for a group, if you come up with something that's truly inspired (and tied to the brand), the app will spread across the entire Facebook network quickly and benefit your client.

So there you have it. Connecting with bloggers is all about the personal connections through conversation, offering a compelling reason to act, and making them feel like they're truly valued as part of a larger effort. If you try an end-run around it, your mass mailing mentality will be easily spotted and you stand less of a chance with bloggers.

Labels: blogs, crayon, innovation, outreach, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 3:21 AM

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Sunday, September 09, 2007

They Almost Had Me

I don't know what it is, but I find that I always begin to succumb to blogger outreach efforts. Maybe it's because I like the attention.

But when it goes wrong - and it doesn't take much - I get turned off pretty quickly. About a month or so ago, my colleague ~~Scott~~ Greg Verdino wrote about his experience with a less than buttoned-up blogger outreach effort.

Well, I recently received an invitation to check out Flektor, a site that allows you to host all of your photos, video, music and text and to essentially create multimedia scrapbooks to share with friends. An interesting site, one that I might be tempted to review. What made it even more attractive is that the pitch was actually one of the smoothest ones I've received. Here are some things they did well:

They were specific - they named the blog that linked to my site (and it happened to be one that I know and respect)
Did their homework - they noted that I write about social media and innovation
Clear goals & objectives - they were very upfront about being in the midst of a social media campaign and wanting to connect with influential bloggers
They were empathetic - they noted that unsolicited emails can be a turn-off, so this would be the only one I received
Offered a two-way dialog - more than just a one-way pitch, they wrote they'd be open to comments, feedback, interviews and specifically stated their methods were "purely one-on-one interaction with people who like" the service
A decidedly human approach - they requested that I let them know if I decide to write something about the service, noting "we monitor, but nobody's perfect"

Sounds like a lock, right? Well, I got to the end of the email and it said:

I look forward to hearing from you!
Many Thanks, David!

'Doh! Looks like I won't be participating. Maybe they'll have better luck with David.

In this day and age - especially with form letters (which it turns out this was), such an error is inexcusable. The technology should be able to merge databases with forms. And if it's a personalized approach, then it shouldn't be happening. With a little effort and attention to detail, these errors can be eradicated, saving clients a lot of money in wasted outreach efforts. And maybe it even makes sense to put together something like Ogilvy PR's Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics.

Bottom line, this is more than PR 101 - it's common courtesy in any social environment: pay attention to people you're talking to, make them feel like they're important to you, and for God's sake, get their names right.

Has this happened to you?

Labels: blogs, conversation, ethics, Greg Verdino, outreach, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:06 AM

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Monday, August 06, 2007

We Have Entered the Advertising Age

Welcome to readers who have reached this site via the AdAge Power 150 List. I'm proud to be part of the top 150 marketing blogs in the English-speaking world and will do my best to continue to give you the valued posts that have gotten ranked as high as I have.

For those of you who are new to all of this, I'm Scott Monty and I write about where marketing is headed (or in some cases should be headed) in this digital age, including blogs, podcasts, customer service, public relations, virutal worlds, consumer-generated content and other cutting edge developments that are constantly changing the face of marketing.

By day, I work for crayon, a conversational marketing company, where I hold the title of Consiglieri. It sounds daunting, but really, I'm just like you. Only I order hits on my enemies. Oh, and in case you haven't caught on yet, I also have a dry sense of humor.

Take a look around, try not to break anything, and enjoy yourself. And if you run into any trouble, let me know.

Labels: AdAge, Advertising, Marketing, news, PR, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:37 PM

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Monday, May 14, 2007

New Rules, New Acknowlegement Style

Last November, at the inaugural meeting of the Boston branch of the Social Media Club, I had the pleasure of meeting David Meerman Scott, whose blog I had been following for quite some time. I knew of him primarily because of his amazing results he achieved with his e-book The New Rules of PR, and had an occasion to introduce myself and tell him a little about my blogging efforts.

We exchanged links and I put him in touch with someone who I thought might help him with his new book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.

When I was checking my links to my blog last week, I was pleased to discover that I made the very impressive list of individuals who Scott acknowledges in his book. If you only buy the book, you'll have spent your time well; if you check out even a handful of the blogs below, you'll be rewarded.

Robert Scoble Scobleizer
Adele Revella Buyer Persona Blog
Joe Wikert Publishing 2020 blog
Steve Johnson
David McInnis
Mark Levy
David Hamm
Mike Levin
Colin Delaney epolitics
Steve Goldstein Alacrablog
Todd Van Hoosear
George L Smyth Eclectic Mix
Mark Effinger
Michelle Manafy EContent magazine
Kevin Rose Diggnation
Grub Street Writers
Dave Armon
Britton Manasco
Jordan Behan
Nettie Hartsock
John Havens
John Blossom ContentBlogger
Larry Schwartz Newstex
Steve Smith
Melanie Surplice
Nate Wilcox
Ian Wilker
Cody Baker
Dianna Huff
Brian Carroll
Ken Doctor
Jonathan Kranz
Barry Graubart
Steve O’Keefe
Ted Demopoulos
Debbie Weil
Paul Gillin
Matt Lohman
Seth Godin
Rob O’ Regan
Steve Rubel Micro Persuasion
Paul Gillin
Joan Stewart The Publicity Hound
Glenn Nicholas Small Business Inspiration
Mac MacIntosh The B2B Sales Lead Expert
Jill Konrath Selling to Big Companies
Guy Kawasaki How to Change the World
Court Bovée and John Thill Business Communication Headline News
Grant D. Griffiths Kansas Family Law Blog
Robin Crumby The Melcrum Blog
Jim Peake My Success Gateway
Eli Singer Refreshing the Daily Grind
Duane Brown Imagination+Innovation
Scott Monty The Social Media Marketing Blog
Ian Lamont
Blog Campaigning
Rich at Copywrite Ink
John Lustina SEO Speedwagon
Adam Tinworth OneMan+HisBlog
Scott Clark Finding the Sweet Spot
Amanda Chapel Strumpette
Jennifer Veitenheimer reinventjen
Morty Schiller Wordrider
Matthias Hoffmann the power of news
Erin Caldwell’s PRblog
Ferrell Kramer Talking Communications
Anita Campbell Selling to Small Businesses
Rugjeff
Karl Ribas’ Search Engine Marketing Blog
Tony D. Baker Advanced Marketing Techniques
Tom Pick The WebMarketCentral Blog
Tina Lang-Stuart
Bryan Eisenberg Jeffrey Eisenberg Robert Gorell and the rest of the team at Grok Dot Com
Michele Miller WonderBranding
Publicity Ship Blog
The Media Slut
Brad Shorr Word Sell
Sasha Where Business Meets the Web
Ellee Seymour ProActivePR
Chris Kenton The Marketers’ Consortium
Paul Young Product Beautiful
By Ron Miller
Michael Morton
James D. Brausch
Janet Meiners Newspapergrl
Andrew B. Smith The New View From Object Towers
Cristian Mezei SeoPedia
Jim Nail Cymfony’s influence 2.0
Denise Wakeman and Patsi Krakoff The Blog Squad
Forward Blog
Ben Argov
Zane Safrit Duct Tape Marketing—Business Life
Will McInnes Online Marketing Guide
Robbin Steif LunaMetrics
Mike Boss
Marc Gunn Music Promo Blog
Nancy E. Schwartz Getting Attention
Kami Watson Huyse Communications Overtones
Todd Defren PR Squared
Michael Stelzner Writing White Papers
Dee Rambeau Adventures in Business Communications
Glenn Fannick Read Between the Mines
Owen Lystrup Into PR
Morgan McLintic
Mark Batterson Evotional
Jay Coffelt
John Richardson
Robin Good MasterNewMedia
Shel Israel Naked Conversations
Robert J. Ricci Son-of-a-Pitch
Mike Sigers Simplenomics
Dan Greenfield Bernaisesource
Brian Clark copyblogger
Lee Odden TopRank Online Marketing Blog
David Weinberger
Carson McComas
The FutureLab blog
John Bradley Jackson Be First Best or Different
Wired PR Works by Barbara Rozgonyi
Mark Goren Transmission
John Wall Ronin Marketer
MarketingProfs Daily Fix Blog
John Koetsier bizhack
Steve Kayser Squareballs Entertainment
James Robertson’s Smalltalk Blog
Linas Simonis
Dale Wolf The Perfect Customer Experience
Eric Mattson Marketing Monger
Scott Sehlhorst Tyner Blain
Seeds of Growth blog
Hugo E. Martin
David Phillips leverwealth
Terry Affiliate Marketing Blog
Gavin Heaton Servant of Chaos
Mark White Better Business Blogging
Eric Eggertson Common Sense PR
Michelle Golden Golden Practices
Liz Strauss
Tony Valle Small Business Radio
Chris Heuer’s Idea Engine
David Evans The Progress Bar
Todd Andrlik The Power to Connect
The New PR Wiki
NewPR
Pelle Braendgaard Stake Ventures
Lisa Banks Search Engine Optimization Eblog
Chris Brown Branding & Marketing
Graeme Thickins Tech-Surf-Blog
Ardath Albee Marketing Interactions
Lauren Vargas Communicators Anonymous
Lori Smart Lemming
Dane Morgan
Jason Leister Computer Super Guy
Bill Trippe
Jason Eiseman Jason the Content Librarian
Reuben Steiger Millions of Us
Taran Rampersad Know Prose
John Richardson Success Begins Today
Valentin Pertsiya Brand Aid
Bill Belew Rising Sun of Nihon
Joe Beaulaurier An Ongoing Press Release
David Koopmans Business of Marketing and Branding
Chris Anderson The Long Tail
Roger C. Parker Design to Sell

Labels: books, Marketing, PR, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 4:02 PM

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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Have You Updated Your Pitch Lately?

When you look at the social media space and the way that agencies are choosing to get in the game (or not!), it's clear that PR is way ahead of their brethren in advertising. There's no surprise there: advertising is more of a design-based practice, while PR is more about content and communicating directly with those who can help tell your story. Social media and PR are made for each other.

But social media doesn't come naturally to everyone. Bloggers are (sometimes) being lumped in with journalists as simply another mouthpiece. Bloggers are a different breed and they need to be thought of differently. Bloggers can be influencers who have committed audiences - and this is the important part - who trust the bloggers and believe what they read on blogs. But in some cases, agencies don't understand the nuances between pitching a journalist and pitching a blogger.

Chip Griffin at CustomScoop has written a white paper called The 7 Deadly Sins of Pitching Bloggers (pdf). You should look at the file for the full scoop, but the main takeaways are:

Failing to be transparent - Wal-Mart learned this the hard way
Appearing to bribe - Microsoft and their laptops-for-bloggers campaign comes to mind here
Lacking your own blog - blogging is as blogging does. You need to connect with the people in their world
Making a bad pitch - personalize your pitch, understand the space, don't overpromote
Being scripted - be natural and conversational in your approach
Forgetting everything is "on the record"
Making claims that can be easily disproved - especially in this digital era, where every tidbit of information is available on the Web.

The bottom line is: it's all about common sense: be authentic, know your audience, engage them they way they prefer to be engaged.

Labels: blogs, PR, rules, tools

Posted by Scott Monty at 8:20 PM

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Thursday, February 01, 2007

Getting Personal with the SMNR

Over the last year, the blogosphere has been abuzz with the evolution of the Social Media News Release first introduced by SHIFT Communications. There have been improvements and suggestions along the way, and I've seen a number of clients express interest in moving to this model of press release.

I just found a great little widget, courtesy of eHub, that allows marketers to bump up the SMNR another notch. Along with the excellent multimedia links available in the SMNR - audio, video, graphics - for those of you who would prefer to engage in phone conversations rather than email exchanges with your audience, Gizmo Call is your solution.

You just download a quick piece of code and in 20 seconds, you're ready to rock. If you put your phone number into the code, you can plant some HTML in your press release so that with a single click, editors can be on the phone with you. Of course, they'll need a headset to do so from their computers.

Sounds pretty cool. I'll let you decide how it works - here's the link: Call Me for FREE

Of course, the site does have a legal disclaimer, including:

* Call length limited to up to 10 minutes per day to most landlines & select mobile phones around the world. Additional restrictions may apply.

Labels: 2.0, New Media, PR, social media, tools

Posted by Scott Monty at 3:16 PM

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Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Move Over, Sony - Microsoft Is Here

So, it looks like Sony has some company. Although I wouldn't necessarily categorize this misstep as blatantly egregious as the PSP flog.

Microsoft has given away Acer Ferrari laptops loaded with Windows Vista to a number of influential bloggers. Now, I see no inherent problem in giving samples to bloggers to review. It's done all the time, and when blogger clearly discloses that he or she has received goods or services in exchange for a review - good or bad - there's nothing to complain about.

The problem with the Microsoft situation is they didn't require complete transparency.

Complicit in the scheme are their advisors in this space - none other than (drum roll, please) Edelman. Yes, that's right. The same Edelman that was embroiled with the Wal-Mart flog. The same Edelman that reportedly helped craft WOMMA's ethical guidelines has a WOMMA page dedicated to Edelman Blog Disclosure - albeit from the Wal-Mart flap.

I think my friend Todd Defren had it right when he stated it simply: Don't lie.

Labels: ethics, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:00 AM

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Monday, October 23, 2006

Color Me Impressed

I recently blogged about giving Second Life a second chance. It seems that there's more to Second Life than I initially thought. Consider the following:

IBM recently broke ground in Second Life for hosting corporate meetings;
The Economist did a piece on living a Second Life;
InfoWorld remarks on the uniqueness of this "fundamentally social" outlet;
According to current statistics on the home page, there are currently 1,097,422 residents who have spent US$580,371 on the site in the last 24 hours

And, perhaps most significantly of all, Joseph Jaffe, C.C. Chapman, Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz are the first to found a company completely within Second Life called crayon. Neville notes that crayon is "both a real and a virtual company," which will be housed on Crayonville Island in Second Life, but will operate in the real world as "a true mash-up that combines the best in traditional and new thinking about marketing, advertising and PR."

Shel also covers it well on his blog, noting that crayon is "a startup that features a killer team of communicators and a laser-like focus on New Marketing."

crayon is something of a mashup...not an agency or a consulting firm...We’ll approach our assignments with fresh eyes that see the new environment in which traditional marketing and advertising is failing so dismally...Engagement, conversation, co-creation, involvement—these are the approaches that we are anxious to bring to our assignments. Not as an afterthought or add-on, mind you, but as the cornerstone of our work.

If you've never listened to C.C.'s shows or read his blog, his enthusiasm is incredible - you can really sense how excited he is to be part of this entity. I'd be just as excited if I were in his shoes. This is groundbreaking stuff.

The official launch of crayon in Second Life is scheduled for Thursday. Stay tuned to see how this A-list team leads new marketing to new heights.

Labels: 2.0, Advertising, Marketing, New Media, PR, social media

Posted by Scott Monty at 11:20 AM

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Friday, October 20, 2006

A New World Order

Congratulations to the crew at Jaffe, Holtz, Hobson and Chapman on the new entity they have created to bring new marketing/social media to the boardroom.

Personally, I think this is a watershed event in the marketing world. With these four powerhouses working together to shape the future of new marketing, I'm confident that the concepts of new marketing/new media will be brought into the forefront of business and that more BtoB and BtoC companies will embrace the techniques.

Talk about a dream job!

Labels: Advertising, Marketing, New Media, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:01 PM

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Thursday, September 07, 2006

I Can See You

PR Squared has a great post about transparency - why it's important in today's environment. Todd Defren cites Shel Holtz's post, which opined that SHIFT's expertise in social media and commitment to transparency was the key to winning the account.

Indeed, Novell has completely turned around when it comes to transparency. Not only is their technology based on open-source, but their very behavior is open-source: an entire page of Novell's Web site is dedicated to Novell company blogs.

In trying to quantify the value of social media, Defren writes: "I am absolutely convinced that "transparency" is the #1 most positive ideal to rise from the Social Media era." While this doesn't equate to 100% openness, it means that companies are more communicative about more issues, leading to conversations that can improve the brand experience. Defren cites fairness and the wisdom of crowds as the principles of transparency.

How much is too much? That is an answer that lies with each organization's tolerability for and culture around transparency. But the winners in our Web 2.0 world will certainly be part of the conversation with their customers.

(Disclaimer: Novell is a client of SHIFT Communications and of PJA Advertsing + Marketing)

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 10:12 AM

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Thursday, August 24, 2006

PR or Advertising?

Social media is necessarily amorphous - some of its principles fall under the subject of public relations, while others fit within advertising. As the ways in which companies communicate with customers continue to proliferate, social media is a key part of the conversation in both camps.

Blogs, podcasts, wikis, RSS feeds, del.icio.us, Technorati, Digg - whether used by PR or advertising professionals - are all social media tools. We define social media tools as anything that enables conversations to spread more easily and to be tracked. Customers are already talking about you. How do you make it easier for them to do so?

On the PR side of the house, our colleagues at SHIFT Communications have developed a Social Media Essentials Guide in PDF format. This is a great basic guide to social media, in addition to SHIFT's work on a social media press release and a purpose-built del.icio.us page specifically for the Novell Linux campaign.

[Disclaimer: Novell is a client of PJA]

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR

Posted by Scott Monty at 1:51 AM

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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The Me2 Revolution

Richard Edelman comments on some excerpts from his an excellent piece for the annual Edelman Trust Barometer brochure.

In it he notes the movement away from the pyramid approach of the highly scripted message starting with the CEO and moving to investors, then on to other mass audiences. The future is in adding peer spokespeople to that model:

Smart companies must reinvent their communications thinking, moving away from a sole reliance on top-down messages delivered through mass advertising. This is the Me2 Revolution.

Edelman tracks the sphere of influence in the recent past:

In the US, for example, the "person like yourself or your peer" was only trusted by 22% of respondents as recently as 2003, while in this year's study, 68% of respondents said they trusted a peer.

How to take advantage of this?

How can companies embrace this future of empowered stakeholders? Speak from the inside out, telling your employees and customers what is happening so they can spread the word for you. Be transparent, revealing what you know when you know it while committing to updating as you learn more. Be willing to yield control of the message in favor of a rich dialogue, in which you learn by listening. Recognize the importance of repetition of the story in multiple venues, because nobody believes something he or she hears or sees for the first time. Embrace new technologies, from employee blogs to podcasts, because audiences are becoming ever more segmented.

Labels: Advertising, New Media, PR, Risk, strategy

Posted by Scott Monty at 12:13 PM

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