“Engagement” – what everyone’s talking about but no one shows

What struck me during this year’s PRSA International Conference in Orlando was that almost none of the 100+ pr practitioners that I met, did what everyone was talking about. Almost none of the sponsors of the conference, who’s offering pr-tools, really offered what the speakers was talking about. Almost none of the speakers, I heard, recommended the pr-tools that the sponsor offered. Isn’t that a great paradox? Or/and just a shift?

So what was everyone talking about? “Engagement” of course. Engage with the people that matters. Find them, listen to them, understand their needs, serve them and treat them as humans, because they are humans, like everybody else. Not once in a while. But continuously – 24/7.

They were talking about engagement with influential people. Particularly about people with more influence than others. Some of them are (still) journalists. But these day, many of them are thought leaders, customers, industry spokesmen, blogers, and others, or a mix of these as well.

Words and phrases like “conversation”, “social media”, “share”, “followers”, “trust”, “transparency” and others, all of them intimately connected with the concept of “engagement”, were on everyone’s lips as well as on banners, magazines, give aways.

I think Pitchengine’s ad, in the program sheet, described the situation pretty well:

“I have listened to the same social media presentation over and over again. I have heard the word “engagement” 27 times today. What I need is the real thing.”

Unfortunately – I think Pitchengine stumbled at the finish line when the company claimed to deliver the entire solution as “the real thing”. Because they don’t. Maybe they  should have written: “What I need is to show engagement”, and also offer that kind of platform?

But Pitchengine offers a sharing platform for content. Maybe one of the hottest on the market right now. And invites their audience to “create your own media empire”. Great! But where’s the real engagement thing?

Marketwire, Businesswire, Cision, PRNewswire, Vocus, Meltwater Press, Mymediainfo – they’re all stucked in their solutions in terms of mediadatabases and distributionslists. Some of them, like Meltwater Press and Cision (Cision Influence), have added (or will add) value to the profiles of the targets, in form av their social preferences and previous works. And that’s great, as well! But – still – where’s the real engagement?

As a matter of fact, all of these companies (still) offer their clients “management tools” with which they can organize and manage their “target groups”. Most of them are offering monitoring services to let their clients get an idea of what’s going on out there. Some of them are brilliant, like Traackr, which let their customers to find their most powerful influencers.

But – then again – what happens with the real engagement, in terms of understand and serve this VIP’s, based on what they’re saying and eventually asking for?

As far as I can see and understand, the real engagement take place in communities and networks, not in or as a result of “management tools”?

Chris Brogan – one of the key speakers at the conference, and the author of “Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation and Earn Trust” recommend his audience to use Google Reader to build their “listening stations”. Exactly what Eric Schwartzman, co-author of “Social Marketing to the Business Customer”, did during his Social Media Boot Camp work shop.

Chris Brogan says in his book:

“Once you have determined where your community is on the web, or perhaps after you’ve built your own online presence as  a meeting place for a group that doesn’t yet have a place to belong, the next step is to engage a community.
This community may be a loosely joined group of people with individual minds and opinions who share some common interests or passions via their own unique perspective.

Here are five steps to help you reach into your community and learn:

1. Listen comes first. Pay attention to where people (that matters to you) interact.
2. Measure the conversations.
3. Take small steps. The first actions you make shouldn’t be intrusive. You just want the community to know you’re there and you’re friendly. Create opportunities for small, memorable exchanges. Build you profile as someone know by being around and monitoring conversations, recognizing who’s a regular and who makes decisions.
4. Lead a new initiative. When the time is right and you’re a bit better known, try making a move to bring your self more into the center of things.
5. Profit! Okay, we’re kidding. But seriously, small, daily action helps. And being inside the right community is a great way to build business, glean insider knowledge, and get an edge in your niche.”

So why do PR practioners insist to organize and manage their fellows rather than engage with them? I just don’t get it.

PRSA Facts:
Chartered in 1947, the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) is the world’s largest and foremost organization for public relations professionals. PRSA is responsible for representing, educating, setting standards of excellence, and upholding principles of ethics for its members and, in principle, the $4 billion U.S. public relations profession.

The PRSA International Conferences are one of the largest and most renowned in the U.S PR industry.

How Tumblr is changing the PR industry

Well the original title from the Read Write Web is “How Tumblr is changing journalism”. But it doesn’t really matters. I think content curation activites, and related tools for that, already has, or for sure will change, the way we share stories with each other, as information junkies, as journalists. as PR communicators, as people.

A few month ago I wrote a post about “Why Marketers Should Care About Content Curation”. As a matter of fact I didn’t write it. I just curated another post by Derek Edmond from Search Engine Land with a similar headline “Why B2B Search Marketers Should Care About Content Curation”. And he wrote it from a SEO perspective:

“B2B search engine marketers realize new content creation is a critical tactic in an effective SEO strategy. But it is also realized, as illustrated in the Marketingsherpa chart below, the level of effort required to successfully develop new content may be significant, in comparison to other tactics. Therefore, with limited resources and immediate lead generation goals, it is not surprising when we find that new content generation falls behind other SEO initiatives on the priority list. Enter content curation. While not a substitute for new development, content curation can help B2B organizations provide important information to their market.”

Since Google launched the Panda I don’t know If this matters anymore? Because as you might know, Google Panda is the “filter designed by Google to spot low-quality content”, as Catch Pope from the Australien “Curated Content Agency” put it.

If you’re not sure what “low-quality content” is, maybe Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, explanation on the official Google blog, make sense? He says:

“Below are some questions that one could use to assess the “quality” of a page or an article. These are the kinds of questions we ask ourselves as we write algorithms that attempt to assess site quality. Think of it as our take at encoding what we think our users want.

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?”

And as you might see, some of these bullets seems to criticize the curated content; or at least some of the curated content seems to be “low-quality content”. And Google might punish your site for that, seen from a SEO perspective? But… I still think marketers (and others) should care about content curation, because that’s a great way to share interesting stories etc with your stakeholders, the people you care about. And not to forget – it’s not just about sharing, it’s about contribution and reflections as well.

Therefore I was not surprised when Richard MacManus recently wrote the article “How Tumblr is changing journalism” for Read Write Web.

As you might know Tumblr is a super easy and smooth blogging tool, but also a sharing tool, or a content curation tool. Becuase that’s pretty much how people are using it. Tumblr themselves says the tool “lets you effortlessly share anything”.

And I don’t know if the curation trend is one of the reasons why Tumblr, with it’s 12 billion page views per month, just hit knockout on WordPress, which is not a curation tool?

So I think it was just a question of time before the journalists, who are already experts on rewrites, would start using the tool (or others) “to power” their news websites, as Richard MacManus put it.

He mention the Tumblr-powered news service, ShortFormBlog, as an example.

“The concept behind ShortFormBlog is very simple: to publish really short posts throughout the day. The site publishes over 200 posts per week, an average of about 30 per day.”

Pretty successful as far as I know.

So now we’re waiting for the trend to really take off in marketers and PR staff’s newsroom.

As a matter of fact, IBM were using Tumblr when they already in November, 2008, launched the Smarter Planet project to help people grasp IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. The site “uses frequently updated, “microblogging” entries to illustrate how the Smarter Planet vision is unfolding across IBM and across the world.”

Social Web continue to grow – the companies follows – without beeing social?

Check out the new stats and infographic from Search Enginge Journal. The web is getting more and more social. Rapidly. No wonder… after all we’re human beings who are pretty much social, right? Numbers of users and contributors are just booming. And companies are following.

But what’s their socializing status? Really? God knows.

71% of the companies (which?) are using Facebook, 59% are using Twitter, and 39% are using blogs in their “marketing”.

My experience though is that many of the companies are still using social media as another channel for their content. Take a look at their Facebook pages for an example. Some of the companies are just pushing their stories out, without listen, and then they’re counting the numbers of “likes” without answer the questions: Am I really committed to my audience? Am I engaged? Who is really engaged? If the likers never comment the companies updates or never contribute with anything to the wall. And vice versa… what’s left of the social part?

Let me refer to what Kevin Roberts, CEO World wide, Saatchi & Saatchi, says in his book “Lovemarks“:

“Forget the information Economy. Human attention has become our principal currency. Job number one for any marketer these days is competing for attention. Whoever you are. Wherever you are. But once you’ve captured that attention, you’ve got to show you deserve it.

The process really only has two steps – so why does everyone find it so hard? I think I’ts all because we obsess over the attention part and forget about why we need that attention in the first place…. We need the relationships.

Emotional connections with consumers have to be att the foundation of all our cool marketing moves and innovative tactics.So it’s time to stop racing after every new fad and focus on making consistent, emotional connections with customer and stakeholders. If you stand for nothing, you fall for everything.

The great journey from products to trademarks and from trademarks to brands is over. Trademarks are tablestakes. Brand are tablestakes. Both are useful in the quest for differentation and vital to survival, BUT they’re not winning game-breakers.

Today the stakes have reached a new high. The social fabric is spread more thinly than ever. People are looking for new, emotional connections. They’re looking for what they can love.”

The company’s social graph – and how to benefit from it

I had a inspiring session during the Sweden Social Web Camp (SSWC) at Tjärö a few weeks ago. We were ca 50 social media evangelists that did discuss what ever a company has a social graph or not? And if it does exist; how does it look like, and how can the company use it?

At least my conclusion was that I don’t think the company itself nor the brand itself has a social graph. Because a brand is not a human being. Anyone may be connected to, and even have relations with brands but not social relations. Because you got to be human to socialize. But your brand is a social object and your products as well. Because people are talking about them. Some are more engaged than others, and some more angry than others. But people are sharing their thoughts about your brand. And I guess the sum of these people, that have your company (and/or your brand) as a social object, are the same thing as the company’s social graph, or at least the sum of the parts of their social graphs that are related or relevant to the company and/or their brand. We’re talking about the company’s employees, customers, stakeholders, and others.

Further on – if that’s the case – I do think the company can use and cultivate that kind of a social graph – with an extreme outcome. I’ll tell you why and how further down in this post. But first – let’s take it from the beginning:

We’re all human beings, right? We’re people. And people are social. We group ourselves into social networks, and talking to each other about different kind of social objects, and engage ourselves in communities.

It doesn’t matter if we’re consumers, suppliers, communicators or journalists. We all got to understand how we socialize, which is “the process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies through conversations, behaviors, practices, rituals and education”…. that “provide the individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society”.

A network is just elements connected to each other. But social network is individuals connected to each other.

And the Social Object is “the node” in these social networks. The Social Object is the reason why two people are talking to each other, as opposed to talking to somebody else.

And a group of individuals that have these social objects in common and share these interests with each other – are members of a community. Everyone on this planet is a member of a community, I guess?

Then Mark Zuckerberg took a part of this social environment to the web, and more or less invented the term “Social Graph” which describes the relationships between individuals online. Frankly it’s the global mapping of everybody and how they’re related.

My experiences are that companies and their marketing staff intellectually do understand the situation, and are in some sort of consideration phase, but that they are truly stressed about this “social graph” and the relationship-humbo-jumbo talk.

But if we do agree that “the sum of the people, that have your company (and/or your brand) as a social object, are the same thing as the company’s social graph, or at least the sum of the parts of their social graphs that are related or relevant to the company and/or their brand”. Then it wouldn’t be to hard for the company to benefit from this social environment. Let me give you a few examples what you as a communicator can do:

1. Identify who’s connected to your brand.
2. Find out if your brand is a social object (with sub subjects), and if that might have resulted in different kind of communities.
3. Find out how these communities look like.
1. Who are members.
2. What exactly are they talking about.
4. Become a member by yourself and serve the other members in these communities.
5. Inspire those who are only connected to your brand but not talking about it, to become members and engage, the company’s employees in particular.
6. Help these communities to grow and flourish as a whole.

I think for an example these guys (and organizations) might be connected to your brand, among many others:

• Employees (and former employees)
• Members of the Board
• Owners
• Customers (and former customers)
• Supppliers
• Retailers
• Partners
• Industry spokesmen and thought leaders
• Industry colleagues
• Competitors
• Ambassadors
• Journalists

They know your company. And they are all connected. And they all are important to you. But that doesn’t mean they are talking to each other nor with you or your staff about your brand. They might only be connected. They might be connected to your brand and talking to each other about it, but not with you and your staff. They might be connected to your brand, yourself and your staff as well, but not talking about it with anyone. Or they might be both connected to your brand, yourself and your staff, and talking about it with everyone.

These ones who are talking about your brand, have for sure different kind of needs and wants. And they probably talking about that specific angle of your brand in different kind of forum, in different sub communities.

No matter what group they belong, they all can be a member of these communities that talking about your brand.

Can your company own a such communities? Probably not. You can’t own a social object. You can’t even own your brand as a social object. They all are parts of the social environment!

But you can help an existing community to grow and flourish. Especially the ones who are connected to your brand.

You can be a proud member of the existing ones. You can invite other peoples to the existing ones. You can also set up “your own” (another) forum for an existing community to help it grow. And you can call that “your community” if you like. Just because that’s the community you’re involved in, or created a new forum for (as the owner / administrator).

But a community is boundless. Some of the members can easily pop up somewhere else, and the rest of the members will follow.

If you’re interested in this topic, please read “Your company has a social graph” as well.

Excel doomed as media relations manager tool

Social networking seems to be the best way to find, get in touch, and communicate with your buddies, no doubt about that. 750 million active users on Facebook, and recently a huge investment from Google to win the network battle, says something about that. Millions of discussion forums of all kind. People are truly connected to each other of thousands of reasons. And communities make perfectly sense for millions of people in millions of contexts. Not least professional. PR in particular. Communicators flock to networks, craving for likes and followers. Journalists as well. To meet their audience.

But what’s happening in the business of media relations in this amazing era of communication? Not much! An excel sheet seems to be the main tool for communicators, and journalists refer to their overloaded inboxes.

I had a great meeting with a PR communicator a few weeks ago. We were discussing the best way for her to find and organize her contacts. And not least get in touch and exchange experiences with them.
My prejudices became incorporated. She was working with an excel sheet. And as far as I’ve understood it is more of a rule than an exception. A wild guess says that 8 out of 10 of PR communicators are doing so.

Not the best media relations manager tool in the world - but the most common?

 

I recently run into a post on “The DIY PR blog – handle your own PR” which began with the sentence: “When you are doing your own PR it’s very important to have a system in place to track all of your pitching outreach efforts.” One of these “systems” was:

“Excel spreadsheet – Start an Excel spreadsheet media list to track all of your outreach efforts. You can have different tabs for each type of outlet – one for magazines, one for websites, one of local/regional media, etc. You could even set one up for editorial calendar postings that you find. Be sure to include the outlet, name, email, phone and any other relevant notes. Every time you communicate with someone make note of it in the “notes” column. Then, once a week or once a month (depending on timing of the outlet and your follow-up needs), go through each tab to be sure you are staying on top of it all. ”

The communicator I met said to me that’s exactly how she was dealing with media relations.

She said to me that she knew the most important journalists, and what they’re covering and writing about. She’s finding her contacts out of basic research of media. She’s making notes about their needs and wants in her sheet, and based on that she’s sharing her stories by phone and e-mail.

She said:
“As a matter of fact media relations isn’t much different from your personal relations; you’re trying to find out who you’d like to play with, and then start contribute with your life experiences based on what you’ve learned they and you have in common; your social objects.”

I said:
“Yeah, I agree, but you don’t organize your personal contacts in an excel sheet, right?

She started to laugh and said:
“Oh no… Facebook is taking care of that.”

We both realize that Excel isn’t primarily a communication tool. Not even assisted with an e-mail client.

So what would be the best place for communicators to keep and organize their most influential contacts like journalists etc? And vice versa.

Newswires like Cision? It says to be “the world’s largest database of media contacts with all of the information you need to uncover the influencers that matter”. Sounds great but the journalists (so called “target group”) are not engaged. Cision is not an engagement platform. It might even be a spam tool if used indiscriminately.
Facebook? Well, communicators (on behalf of their companies) might have a page and/or a group to meet and discuss with their audience (end customers, etc), but when it comes to media relations, they sometimes would like an exclusive exchange with one or a few of their journalist contacts. LinkedIn? Oh yes, that’s a great professional network. But hard to share content, and still linked to you personally.
Salesforce? It’s not a network on both terms, right? Hard to get a proper community with mutual exchange.
Google+? Maybe – we don’t know yet. Easy to synchronize with your G-mail contacts and create different circles of important people. But the communication is still widely open, and not content driven as the communicator often wants it to be.

And so on…

None of these and others seems to completely fit the communicators and journalists needs and wants when int comes to media relations?

What would you say about a network for journalists and communicators to exchange info and experiences with each other on both terms? I’m talking about a service that allows communicators to find their most influential people on the web, add them to their contacts lists, invite them to a network where they can organize them and communicate with them exclusively. Not least – a tool that allows journalists to find, follow, and send requests to their sources? A network based on the community that has been existing for many years, but still have great potential to flourish with new web service technologies.

How do your media relations look like, when it comes to find, organize and communicate with your contacts?

Please – feel free to respond to some questions in this survey. It just take a minute of your time, and I will send you the summary later on.

When did you pitch a friend lately?

I really dislike the word “pitch” in the context of PR. To such a degree that I might soon escape from the the entire PR business. And I’ve got almost the same feeling for the phrase “target group”. But – still – this is precisely the phrases that are some of the most frequently used in this business. And I’m truly shocked about that.

According to Wikipedia – the pitch is a part of “selling technique”; it is “a line of talk that attempts to persuade someone or something, with a planned sales presentation strategy of a product or service designed to initiate and close a sale of the product or service.” In the PR business we’re seldom dealing with products and services but the more information.

Oh, yes, I do understand we all would like to tell boastful stories that’s important for us, to the people that are valuable for us as influential people. Therefore we’re trying to “pitch” our story to these people we use to call “target group”.

But – hey – PR’s is all about relations, because excellent relations will give us great outcome, right? And I thought we’ve learned that it’s quite impossible to establish good relations with your audience by persuading? I thought PR was all about listening, understanding and serving? Focus shouldn’t be what we would like to say, but what we think they would like to hear.

And, from my point of view, it doesn’t matter if your audience is your customers or journalists. They need more or less the same approach in this matter. Everybody does.

I had a small chat with a marketer recently. She asked me: “What would you do with these new people that recently started to follow us (our business, news stream) as followers?

I said: “I think you should treat them in the same way in the virtual space as you would do in the physical space: Get to know them better! Try to figure out their needs and wants. Imagine you have a breakfast seminar and a guy showed up as a registered participant. What would you say to this guy? I would say: “Welcome! I’m so glad you could come. You’re journalist, right? (Listen to his answer) Interesting… What can I do for you? (Listen to his answer)… And so on. When you come to know him better, treat him as a friend. Serve him. Because I don’t think you look at your friends as “target groups” and I don’t think you’re trying to pitch them either?”

It makes me think of when I use to ask communicators who did visit their newsrooms. Guess what? They don’t know! They don’t even know how many they are. Think about that for awhile. If your newsroom was your breakfast seminar, you might would have a great breakfast, excellent speakers, informative whitepapers, etc – but you wouldn’t know who’s been there, and how many they were. You was not even there yourself!

But – as mentioned – pitching and target groups talk, is still hot topic in many discussions in different kind of PR groups in various of social networks. Within a couple of PR professional groups on LinkedIn, there are questions like:

“E-MAIL PITCHING: Given journalists’ overcrowded inboxes, does e-mail pitching work anymore? What are your secrets to achieving success with e-mail pitches?” and “Age-old PR dilemma … contact media by phone first or by email first….”

These discussions is all about how to pitch, not if you should pitch at all.

As an answer on the second question above; most of the members did say they use to pitch journalist by phone, or at least follow up their email pitches by phone. Only one of the answers came from a journalist, who said: “Email please…And don’t call to see if the writer got the email. If every pr person called to followup on every news release we would never have time to write a story!”

A couple of days after I’ve been following these discussions, I read an article (in swedish) by a journalist and friend of mine, who said:

“I have come to hate the phone. Not its functions, but it’s ringing and disturbing features.”

Jerry Silfwer, a PR consultant, but also a blogger, just wrote a post: “How not to pitch”. He says:

“Don’t be afraid to pitch me. Please do, I don’t mind. But make sure you email me as an individual and make sure that you’re not blasting me as a part of some obscure list somewhere.”

He gives us some examples what a pitcher forgot regarding av really bad pitch he got earlier:

• What’s in it for me as a PR blogger? I need to be told that clearly.
• Browsing your case studies is not a reward for anyone but your company.
• Clarity. Why pitch me to participate (note: the pitch was regarding a survey) but not to blog about it?
• How did you get hold of my address? In what email list am I in right now?
• I have hundreds of other emails calling out for my attention. Why should I bother about this, when it isn’t even a personal email?
• Don’t be so sure that 5-10 minutes is short for me and don’t thank me for participating before I’ve participated (note: the pitch said: “It only takes about 5-10 minutes to complete…”)

Honestly – I don’t think Jerry would like pitches as he says; I think he would like to be understood, treated with respect and served with great ideas for stories, but not as one of the target group. And from my point of view – that’s not a pitch.

Before you plan to start a community – think twice.

Funny. Or tragic? It happens all the time. Still. People is asking me to explain for them how to build a community.
Guess what? I use to answer like Mark Zuckerberg did when Rupert Murdoch asked: “How can we build such a great community like Facebook?” And Mark said: “You can’t.”

Ever since I’ve been inspired of Marks remarkable statements (and of course his work in particular). And in this case – he’s spot on. Of course you can’t.

Yesterday I got following mail from a friend – a smart guy that I do respect a lot:

“Hello!
Hope you’re doing well. I wonder if you can point me “right direction”.
I’m looking for a white paper, or person who can explain “how to think” of Facebook as a community. It’s simply about an idea involving XXX (which has a fairly significant facebook presence) and a twist on the community that I intend to try to YYY.
Any thoughts / ideas?”

I did answer:

“Hmm … sounds a bit vague to me. And I’m not sure what you mean, but I do believe that a “community” has nothing to do with the platform. A community is people who share a common cause. Who’s interested in or otherwise engaged in a common subject. Facebook is only a platform that might get communities to germinate and grow. Certainly a damn good platform. Try to catch and understand the engagement first.”

And after I’ve sent the reply, I was reminded of the blog post “Who owns community?” by Nick Tadd, that I read a year ago. I found it, and where he wrote among others things:

“You see, what I have learned from founding the Property Tribes forum, is that you cannot build a community.  Why?  Because it’s already there – you can’t build anything that was not yours in the first place. What you can do, however, is provide a platform and facilitate people using the site to have an enjoyable and rewarding experience. You can help them feel connected, you can help them feel valued, you can help them learn, you can help them feel that they “belong”, you can provide a space where they feel comfortable and among friends. Then let them run with it.  Let them make the community what they want it to be, not what you want it to be.”

He concludes his post with an conclusion:

“You cannot buy community and you cannot sell community.  If you are creating all the content yourself, and asking people to subscribe to that content, then that is a completely different business model and will not create community.  It’s also very hard work and time-consuming.”

And give us a few tips how to help people to organize themselves:

1. Engage.
2. Contribute.
3. Pay attention.
4. Let the community know they are valued.
5. Connect people to each other.
6. It’s about them, not you.
7. Share.
8. Don’t try and compete with your members.
9. Be social.
10. Be a friend.  Care.
11. Don’t police or “moderate” the forum unless absolutely necessary.  The community will do that in their own way.
12. Facilitate trust within the community.
13. Understand that a community cannot be all things to all people.
14. Celebrate the heroes in the community.
15. Try and lead by example.
16. Show respect.
17. Believe in,  and encourage,  the wisdom of crowds.
18. Enjoy it.
19. Never stop trying to make it a better place for a community to organise itself – what ever your niche

So before you plan to start a community – think twice.

Journalists loves your homepage – but not your newsroom

Yes – Journalists do love your homepage – but not your newsroom. 9 out of 10 are using the homepage in their research. But they can’t find the newsroom. And when they do, it’s not up to date.

It’s pretty clear that the company homepage no longer is, or at least should be, the hub of their communication. We do know that people hanging around all over the web, the social web in particular, where they connect with and get inspired och informed by others. Therefore it’s extremely important for companies to meet, connect and socialize with their audience wherever they are aswell.
But – so far – the homepage still is one of the most natural and common way to get information from the company. This applies to journalists in particular.
According to PRWeek’s Media Survey 2010, 93% of the respondent journalists were using the company home page during the course of their research for a story. Only Google Search were more common, and a not-too-wild guess is that they used Google to find website, don’t you think?

PRWeeks Media Survey 2010

Bulldog Reporter – TEKGROUP International – 2010 Journalist Survey on Media Relations Practices, confirm these facts:

“The importance of corporate website and online newsroom as a preferred source of information for journalists continues over the past year, with nearly 97% of journalists indicating that they use such sites in their work. Nearly 45% of respondents report visits more frequently than once a week, and more than 84% report a visit at least once a month. Busi- ness journalists make greatest regular use of corporate websites and online newsrooms, with 59.2% report- ing visits more than once a week; and fully 87.4% of business technology journalists report such visits once a month or more. The most avid users of corporate websites are online journalists, almost 75% of whom visit corporate websites or online newsrooms once a week or more frequently.”

TEKGroup International Journalist Survey 2011

In previous studies by TekGroup International, they found out the Top 10 Reasons to have an Online Newsroom:
1. Journalists expect a company to have an online newsroom
2. Journalists believe that all companies will have an online newsroom
3. Journalists visit company online newsrooms often to very often
4. Journalists visit both large and small-to-medium sized company online newsrooms
5. Centralized location and 24-hour access of press materials
6. Control and delivery of corporate message
7. Measurement of communication efforts
8. Media request management
9. Social media interaction

This leads us to understand how important it is that the website has a full-blown press room. And just because we would understand what a full-blown press room is, they also examined that matter and came up with Top 20 Elements to have in an Online Newsroom:
1.    Searchable Archives
2.    PR Contacts
3.    News Releases
4.    Background Information
5.    Product Info/Press Kits
6.    Photographs
7.    Help/FAQ
8.    Crisis Communications
9.    Events Calendar
10.    Executive Biographies
11.    Media Credentials Registration
12.    Financial Information
13.    Info/Interview Request Form
14.    News Coverage
15.    Video
16.    Social Media Page
17.    RSS Feeds
18.    Audio
19.    Blog
20.    Twitter Feed

Unfortunately “more than 57% of journalists generally agree that it’s difficult to find press materials that address their interests. What’s more, almost 42% of respondents generally agree that it’s difficult even to find organizations’ online newsrooms.”, says TEKGroup.

TEKGroup International Journalist Survey 2011

And we do know that small to medium sized companies, in particular, are often lacked of resources to create newsroom of these kind. But…

Not anymore. Mynewsdesk has created – and now launched –  a hosted newsroom solution which let you create one of these “full-blown press rooms” both on Mynewsdesk as your homepage, without any developers. Yes – with no technical skills – you can easily set up them by yourself. And – yes – it does include most of the elements mentioned above.

Our marketing department has written a few words about this on their blog. Check it. And try it.

Please note that the studies above are biased. After all TEKgroup International is an “Internet software and services company, develops Online Newsroom and E-business software solutions for the public relations industry”. But, my experiences make me to believe that these reflects the realitiy.

Communication a huge and confusing melting pot

Everybody in communication business talks about it everywhere! The new and ever-changing communication landscape has turned the media industry on its head. The confusion is now complete. Much of what we have learned and become accustomed to is no longer valid. This applies particularly to media, journalism, public relations, marketing, and sales. The professionals within each of these fields are either desperately holding on to their old identities, or are groping around for new ones.

The role of journalists is questioned. Previously clear concepts such as “journalist” and “journalism” have become blurred. The same goes for “media”. What is a media today? And “PR” … what is PR? It’s obviously something else today than it was yesterday. And what about “marketing”…

“Markets (and marketing) are conversations” as the Cluetrain Manifesto puts it. Conversations are based on relationships. Just like PR. Because PR’s is all about relationships, right? It’s all about relationships with both the market and those who influence it, including journalists. However, since all consumers now have access to almost exactly the same “tools” and methods as traditional journalists, it seems like the market has in some way also become the journalists. The market represents a long tail of new journalism and new media that perhaps has the greatest influence on a company’s market and might perhaps be their key opinion leaders. “Put the public back to public relations!” as Brian Solis put it long ago.

People have started to talk to each other in social media at the expense of, or sometimes in tune with, traditional media. They’re no longer writing letters to editors. They would rather publish their news ideas directly on the Web. Media consumption, and production, publishing, packaging and distribution in particular, have rapidly moved in to the social web. And both the PR and Marketing communicators are following, or are at least gradually beginning to do so.

As the market moved to the web, and the web has become social, marketing communication has become “social” too. Companies have started to talk directly with their market. And I mean “talk”, not pushing out information. Campaigns with no social component become fewer and fewer. “Monologue” ad banners, with decreasing CTR and increasing CPC, are becoming less acceptable. Google revolutionized with Adwords, Adsense and PPC. Press releases written by former journalists synchronized with Adwords and presented as text ads, turned things upside down.

Aftonbladet has been very successful with advertorials where only a small ad-mark distinguishes the ad from an article produced by journalists. This method is about as successful – and deceptive – as “product placement” in TV and film. That method has gone from small product elements in parts of a program to a complete sellout of the entire series or film. (In Sweden, think Channel 5’s Room Service and TV4’s Sick Sack.) But what can the television business do when the consumer just fast-forwards past the commercials, or worse still, prefers looking at user-generated TV like YouTube?

What will newspapers do when consumers ignore their banners? They will convert advertising into editorials. Or vice versa: they will charge for editorial features and charge companies to publish content on their platform, without involving any “investigative” journalism.

IDG calls their version of this “Vendor’s Voice”, a medium where companies publish their “editorial material” (it used to be called press information) directly on IDG.se and its related websites. The service is conceived and hosted by Mynewsdesk. It works pretty much like the Apple App Store; it is possible for any media to set up their “channel” (the media) on Mynewsdesk, promote it, and put a price on its use.

Essentially, when companies publish their information in their own newsrooms via Mynewsdesk, they can also easily select any relevant channels for the information in question. The service still has the internal working title “Sponsored Stories”, which today may seem a little funny when that is the exact same name Facebook uses for its new advertising program, where a company pays for people in its network to share information about that company with their own friends.

Isn’t that pretty much what PR communicators strive for? It’s in the form of an ad, but this type of advertising is simply bought communication – just like some PR seems to be – with the purpose to “create attention around ideas, goods and services, as well as affect and change people’s opinions, values or actions…”

But the press release… That’s information for the press, right? Or is it information that is now a commodity, often published in the media, directly and unabridged, much like the “sponsored stories”? Maybe it is information that can reach anyone that might find this information relevant. They might not be the press, but they are at least some kind of journalist, in the sense that they publish their own stories, often in same media as “real” journalists, in platforms created for user-generated content.

Everything goes round and round: side by side are readers, companies and journalists. All collaborate and compete for space and reach.

The causal relationship is as simple as it is complicated. People are social. People are using the Web. The Web has become social. People meet online. The exchange is rich and extensive. The crowd has forced the creation of great services for production, packaging, processing and distribution. These are exactly the same building blocks that have always been the foundation for traditional journalists and the media’s right to exist. Strong competition has emerged, but there is also some  interaction and collaboration.

People have opted in to social media at the expense of the traditional media. They rely on their own networks more and more, which has forced advertisers to find a place in social media too. Traditional ads are replaced by social and editorial versions that are designed to engage or become “friends” with your audience, talking to them as you would talk to friends.

The media are in the same boat and are becoming more social and advertorial. Users are invited to become part of both the ads and the editorials. UGC (user-generated content) is melded with CGC (company-generated content) and even JGC (journalist-generated content). Journalism goes from being a product to being a process characterized by “crowd-sourcing”, before ringing up the curtain on a particular report or story. As the newspaper Accent writes on their site:

“This is a collection of automated news monitoring that we use as editors. The idea is that even you, the reader, will see and have access to the unsorted stream of news that passes us on the editorial board. Please let us know if you find something important or interesting that you think we should pick up in our reporting. ”

This is similar to how companies today present their increasingly transparent and authentic communication in their own social media newsrooms, where the audience is invited to contribute their own experiences and opinions, and partly acts as a source of story ideas for journalists.

All in all, it’s a wonderful, fruitful, but oh-so-confusing melting pot.

Flera marknader = flera konton?

Idag skriver Fritjof Andersson, från “Social Business”, ett inlägg om “Varför ditt företag ska ha flera, nischade konton på Twitter”. Fritjof menar att “om du har ett nischat konto som ger intressenten just den information hen vill ha, rätt paketerad och vid intervall som intressenten gillar – då lyssnar hen. Om du har många oilka produkter eller verksamhetsområden och kommunicerar alla dem via samma konto till flera olika målgrupper så måste kunden själv filtrera informationen, vilket gör den till mindre intressant brus“.
Fritjof skriver att “om du till exempel följs på Twitter av en person som följer 2000 andra konton, men inte är med på den personens twitterlistor, då finns du inte för den personen. Om du däremot har ett nischat konto som ger personen exakt det hen vill ha så kanske, kanske du kvalar in till listan av konton som personen faktiskt lägger tid på att läsa“.

Mina erfarenhter är att ju mer du anpassar dina budskap efter din målgrupp desto mer jobb, men samtidigt desto större chans att målgruppen får den information de önskar. Var gränsen går kan bara du avgöra.

Det mesta bygger förstås på att du känner och förstår din målgrupp. När det gäller Twitter så kan du ju inte välja dina följeslagare. Men du kan ju med fördel välja ut din målgrupp bland såväl dina följeslagare och som alla twitteranvändare i stort. Du kan med fördel välja ut de följeslagare du finner intressanta, följa dem och lära känna dem, genom att engagera dig i det dem har att säga. Och du kan självklart också följa dem du finner intressanta trots att de inte följer dig, kanske i någon förhoppning om att de en dag också väljer att följa dig.

Däremot vill jag inte på rak arm säga att det alltid är “bättre” med fler konton än färre. Jag brukar säga att man får det man förtjänar. Väljer du att skriva om ett nischat ämne, på ett nischat språk, så kommer du med största sannolikhet attrahera en nischad målgrupp. Postar du få och ointressanta tweets, så kommer få att följa dig. Släpper du många ointressanta tweets så kommer ingen annan än din mamma att följa dig. Släpper du några intressanta tweets så kommer du få några följeslagare. Släpper du många intressanta tweets så blir de fler. Börjar du engagera dig i dina följeslagare och ge riktigt bra feedback, så kommer de snart börja älska dig, och du kommer få fler och fler följeslagare.

Är ditt företag verksam inom fler mer eller mindre nischade områden, på fler mer eller mindre nischade marknader, så kan företaget göra klokt i att “borra sig ner” i varje enskild marknad. Genom att tillsätta dedikerade twittrare som sakkunnigt och engagerat kommunicerar om exakt det ämne marknade är interesserad av på dess eget språk, både innehållsmässigt och språkligt. Kanske via flera olika konton. Det kommer förmodligen att ge massor, men också kosta massor.

På MyNewsdesk brottas vi lite med dessa frågor också. Till skillnad från Twitter så skiljer vi på konto och marknad. Vi har skapat förutsättningar för företag att administrera ett eller flera pressrum med ett och samma konto. Exempelvis så har Norwegian, med ett och samma konto, förlagt pressrum till fem olika länder (geografiska marknader) där de är verksamma. De har valt att jobba med för varje enskild marknad dedikerade presskontakter och anpassad information på marknaden språk. Exempelvis finsk information på finska från finsk presskontakt, dessutom taggad i finska geografiska regioner och ämnen. OSV.

Norwegian har skapat pressrum för fem olika marknader/länder.

Norwegians finska pressrum

Ett annat exempel är KGK, som valt att bryta ner sin kommunikation på varumärkesnivå, där man med ett och samma konto skapat pressrum för varje enskilt varumärke, men ändå visat att de ligger under moderbolaget KGK Holding. För varje varumärke har man en dedikerad presskontakt, bilder, pressmeddelanden, nyheter, osv.

KGK har skapat pressrum för varje enskilt varumärke - och knutit dessa till moderbolaget KGK Holdings eget pressrum.

Ett av KGK's varumärken - Hella - har fått ett eget pressrum med för målgruppen dedikerad information och presskontakt.

Båda dessa företag har ansträngt sig till det yttersta för att tillgodose sina målgruppers intressen vad det gäller skräddarsydd information och kommunikation. Vilket har kostat i tid och engagemang, men också givit mycket tillbaka.

Men vi har även många exempel på föreag som finns på många olika marknader, men ändå valt att jobba med ett “one size fits all”-koncept. Samma pressrum, pressmeddelanden, presskontakter, nyheter, bilder, osv, på samma språk för alla. Kostar inte så mycket men kanske heller inte ger så jättemycket tillbaka.

Exakt vilken strategi ditt företag ska jobba utifrån, kan bara ni själva avgöra.