Where Do You Stand?

Chris Heuer presenting:

 Josh Hallett introduced Chris and talks about a post he wrote defining social media and Chris said it was one of the best things he ever wrote (I’ll look for this later and update with a link).

Three stories:

• About Scott Becker, his best friend.
• About his wife, Kristie.
• And about his friend and wedding photographer, Kris Krug.

Chris met Kris Krug online and they became friends. Then, Chris hired Kris to photograph his wedding.

Business is personal again.

In the beginning — the baker sold directly to the customer. Then we started to organize companies. Companies then sold directly to customers. As the market evolved, “middlemen” optimized trade. Then industrialization grew with broadcast media. The company broadcast messages through the media.

The Dot Com era brought “disintermediation.”

The Web introduced the idea of bypassing the media. With social media, there are simply more editors.

Social Media does something more important — it is tearing down the walls that kept us apart. It is changing the rules that have kept us from being human inside our companies.

It’s about people, having conversations. We can connect to each other directly.

Just as it was in the beginning.

Chris said, “It’s messy!” We don’t have control over it. Are we going to stand up or bid out?

Some rules for human organizations (rather than companies):

• Start with presumption of trust
• Make clear your intentions
• Give people a chance
• Provide power for  people’s passions
• “Live the life, love the life” (Jake said this, too)
• Participate in your market’s conversations
• Personal pronouns are OK!
• Social media creates opportunities to be found and to connect
• Trust the conversation

Being transparent means trusting, and being trustworthy.

There’s more opportunity to do what we love in this life; get out there and find it so you can be passionate about what you do.

We have to find a place to come together. It is the conversation where we meet and connect.

From the crowd: what rocks about social media is finding people. Pursue what you’re passionate about and it’ll happen.

To trust the conversation, we need to trust the people. Being part of a community over time is how these relationships are developed.

Linking tools such as Digg and Reddit are great for looping the conversation; helping you be found and helping you find others interested in the same topic.

Blogging is not for everyone. Twitter’s not for everyone. They are tools you can use.

Chris gives an example of a client producing newsletters, at $25,000 a month. Chris suggested they convert to a blog as a replacement activity, cutting costs down to $2,000 — a much more affordable option that is now searchable and findable. It can also exist as a future entry point for people to connect with the organization — a much stronger option than a printed newsletter.

Josh said that e-mail is an interuption technology. E-mail newsletters don’t have the option for response/comment technology. The conversation is one-sided. Another deterrent to e-mail newsletters can be found looking at open rates. Statistics on e-mail newsletters are readily available to those who publish them, as with a blog.

How we learn and build understanding:

First person — the experience
Second person — intention matters, trust, transparency, authenticity
Third person — create media to connect with your market

Apple’s product “open rule” — within 30 seconds of opening their product, they want you to be in love with it.

Changing the Marketing Perspective:

• Help people buy, don’t sell
• Stop spending marketing dollars only to the point of sale; invest in getting to the point of satisfaction
• Customer service is the new marketing — Thor Muller
• The brands with the best story tellers win
• Participate in the community; give without expectations of getting
• 50 percent of all advertising doesn’t work; more often than not; the other 50 percent doesn’t either (don’t interrupt people; it just annoys them)
• Help people save time, make money, get more done, be happy, find meaning, connect with others, and find greater satisfaction

How do we help people tell our story for us? Provide them with information by making it available for them to find.

There are, of course, people for whom social media will never be part of their lives. The New York Times is the extent of their media interaction. That’s fine for them. That’s fine for us.

One final thought: take time out to ponder and reflect. Individuals responded — one had two near death experiences and another lost three close friends and was a workaholic. It took significant events to force both of them to make time to ponder and reflect. Another person said that pondering causes her to look for the good that’s happened, even at the worst times.

Someone said, “Try having a six-year-old ask you why you do everything.”

Chris said, “I encourage everyone to find a few minutes to think about what’s happening, reflect on it, and write about it.” Look for meaning, note results and learn from mistakes.

Tag: BlogOrlando

–Great examples of participatory product development and marketing in the tech world - Palm and Apple. Steve Jobs’ open letter regarding the iPhone’s price cut made big news, as well as Palm’s ditching of a new project after lots of blog activity about the anticipated failure of the project.

–PR and marketing are natural fits for social media - as communicators, we should embrace the idea of community. Shel says social media is all about communication, and we need to shift our thinking from pushing all communication out to encouraging dialogue. If we do that, new products and services will almost sell themselves.

–We also should think about using social media to break down internal company “silos” and encourage conversation that will make companies more efficient and ultimately give clients what they need and want.

–Companies that create opportunities for feedback through blogs, etc. must have a process in place to address ideas, comments and concerns submitted through blog comments.

Presenter: Geoff Livingston

Geoff kicked off the session asking if anyone still believes messages can be controlled.

A mom shared about her high functioning Autistic son who uses Twitter to communicate with his mom. He can’t manage social interaction but Twitter gives him a tool that allows him to communicate with his mother and others from his cell phone. What a powerful example of the use of social media in a real-life scenario!

Geoff opened up the discussion to how companies react to negative comments. He provided the example of Southwest Airlines changing a policy based on negative feedback from bloggers.

“The meaning of public relations means having a relationship with the public,” said Shel Israel. It’s time for PR people to start listening to the public and bringing that back to companies for reaction, feedback and when appropriate, change.

Read. Listen. Participate. Comment a little bit — all before you start a campaign. Become a part of the community so you know what they care about and understand their issues.

How do you teach people about social media who don’t know anything about it? Set up a RSS reader with blogs for them to read. After reading several blogs they will find they have something to say.

You can’t buy social media; it’s an experience.

From a blogger: How do I demonstrate value to my boss (as a blogger)?

Shel said, “Does your boss have a problem with people within your company talking to your customers? Then what’s the problem?”

A thrift chain used an anonymous blog to change the perception of thrift buys to fashion using a blogging avatar called Fashonista. They were very successful and drove thousands of visitors to the site, and to the stores.

Jay Rosen, New York University School of Journalism wrote that the audience is no longer an audience any more. They’re talking back. It’s no longer a situation of the messages being delivered from above, either podium or platform.

It’s hard for organizations to realize they are part of something larger. Force yourself to not use the words customer, consumer, target audience or audience. It’s about relationships (interacting, conversations, exchanges) with people.

Target is a military term.  That’s not very friendly.

We have all been trained to use the word “audience” Geoff said — we all need to retrain ourselves.

Question from the audience: How do we deal with traditional PR executives resisting change and social media engagement?

Geoff said to lead by example. Results speak more than anything. Geoff encouraged us to get out there, do it, and share what’s happening.

Question from the audience: Should we interact with customers in their own space? Yes. But be transparent about it and identify yourself as a PR person (if that’s who you are).

To customers: blog, or be blogged.

“Blogs are the best personal branding tool ever invented,” David Parmet.

Geoff said, if you are part of a community, think about what your community cares about. Try to provide something of value to them.  If perceptions need correcting, find out where they are coming from before you try to “fix the branding.”

Tag: BlogOrlando

Presenter: David Parmet, Marketing Begins At Home

–If you’re in PR/marketing and not blogging/engaging with bloggers, you’re probably still working on a manual typewriter.

–David says when PR agencies start blogging, internal change happens - instead of paying lip service to social media, they really start to understand it - this changes their perspective in helping clients go blogging and beyond. We’re no longer (or should no longer be) explaining to clients what blogs, podcasts, etc. are and/or deciding to blog - we’re looking at what’s next that can best help our clients.

–Who should blog within an agency? Anyone who has the time and the initiative to do it! A cultural shift happens when agencies start blogging - they begin to understand that nothing bad happened when the agency started a blog - nothing said anything offensive, etc. If you’re doing it the right way, you’re doing something that will engage others and be positive. PR agency staff should be encouraged to blog and use the blog as another tool to do their jobs.

–There’s a suggestion from the audience that with PR agency blogs is that there should be a draft folder where all the posts go to get “soft edits” for grammar, etc., since written communication is a reflection on the agency. (Editorial note here: Everyone in your agency should at the very least be competent writers - they are, after all, probably communicating by email with your clients quite frequently - so if you’re an agency leader and you’re worried about this, you have a larger problem that needs to be addressed!)

–Another audience question involves tone - what tone should the agency blog take? David says talk to your audience - use the tone that you’d normally use with client communications.

–A question about ghost blogging - David says if blogs don’t sound right to readers, they’ll die. Readers are smart - they’ll know when they’re being conned - stay away from ghost blogging!

–David also advises not putting press releases on a blog - blogs are not sales channels but conversation channels. People don’t go to your blog to read news releases. At some point, people aren’t going to want to deal with companies that aren’t transparent and honest - if you’re blog is hijacked by sales pushes, people will resent the effort.

–What about nonprofit blogging? Can blogging help you work with boards that are often technologically challenged? David recently worked with Pound Ridge Democratic Committee (not exactly nonprofit, but very little money) and developed a blog for them. It’s a great, inexpensive tool to help get the word out and generate Google juice. It also may help draw fresh blood into your volunteer and/or board ranks who are more technologically savvy. Again, social media efforts should not replace traditional efforts, but supplement them, if you have a technologically varied audience. Especially with medical/health issue nonprofits, people turn to the web for information - use blogging, Flickr, Facebook, etc. as a prime opportunity to reach people and further your mission. Nonprofits should also look to community newspapers - many are now creating online community groups/sites that allow you to get your information/message out for free. But again, it’s not just a place to post press releases - do your homework and understand what information is relevant for these group members.

–Twitter, Blip, Flickr, etc. are all part of social media today, but who knows what will be next new thing? David says whatever will continue to encourage conversations. It’s easy now to add audio, video, Flickr, etc. to even small corporate blogs that will add to your blog mix and continue engaging your audiences.

–A question - what about Facebook? It’s important for agencies and companies to at least have a presence there - David is amazed by how many companies and agencies block Facebook, MySpace, IM, etc. - we need to be figuring out how best to leverage all these for clients, encouraging employees to be there and most definitely not blocking access.

Presenter: Jake McKee

Jake used to work for a little company called LEGO. He addresses the customer relationship:

“What we’re talking about at the end of the day are relationships. Long term connections.

The hope is that the idea that starts as a conversation ends up as a long term relationship.

It’s about human connections on an emotional level.”

The mantras (what he’s repeated to audiences for years) for customer relationships:

• Open and honest relationship
• Live the life, love the life
• The team is the family
• What’s your kink?
• Learn to take a good beating
• Success by 1,000 paper cuts 

(Jake passes around a pumpkin full of chocolate to the audience; proof he cares about us.)

At LEGO, it was surprising how many people didn’t build with the bricks; ever. People building the strategy of the company need to be using the products they’re promoting. “At Apple, people use Macs. At GM, they drive GM cars.”

An audience member says he is a member of the media and is shocked how many of his colleagues do not read the paper or even look at the Web site — these are people writing for the paper or trying to sell advertising and are not even paying attention to the product.

Jake said the rabid audience is comprised of people who WANT to have a connection with you. The walls between inside and outside companies are starting to dissipate.

It’s a matter of credibility. Jake advised LEGO leadership to build before they attended fan events. Why? Because the fans’ first question would be, what have you built lately? The answer cannot be nothing.

Treat customers as well as you treat your own family.

People inside the company learned about an adult who spends $20,000 on LEGO bricks. Who is this person? “My best customer,” came the answer from the audience. Jake talked about how it was difficult to get internal people past thinking “what’s wrong with this guy who’s spending that much on LEGOs?”

A big part of working with audiences is getting people inside the company as excited about the product as people outside the company.

About learning to take a beating? Jake said he had to learn to take criticism from customers with a smile on his face. He said the first reaction should be to say, “Tell me what’s going on.” Talk about the issues and problems with customers. Don’t be afraid to find out what they want; why they’re complaining. Don’t just walk away without listening.

Admit when your product is bad; find out how to make it better.

If a customer is telling you they hate your product, they’re demonstrating their interest by taking the time to contact you in the first place. Respect that.

Success by 1,000 papercuts — putting many small pieces in place can be ultimately more successful than a huge effort.

“Everybody goes home happy” — another mantra, perhaps Jake’s most frequent. Provide good product, create good relationships with customers, listen and everybody goes home happy.

Question from the audience: How accessible did you make yourself at LEGO?

“I gave out my e-mail address to anyone who wanted it. As better relationships built up, I gave out my IM address. The relationships became so strong, the group started doing my blog monitoring for me, paying attention to LEGO and letting me know via IM or e-mail before I could even look. I had a whole army letting me know what was going on.”

Give the audience the understanding that you’re not just there to sell to them.

What kind of bad things happened?

In 2003, the LEGO testing department decided they were going to change some of the colors. One of the characteristics of LEGOs is that the bricks from 1960 should fit and look the same as bricks from 2060. Adult enthusiasts were not notified and were very upset. They demanded to know why they had not been consulted. The company just didn’t understand or realize how important a color change would be to their best customers.

Tag: BlogOrlando

I accomplished my first mission of the day: obtaining Shel Israel’s autograph on my beloved copy of Naked Conversations. The bonus to the exchange was a thoughtful conversation with Israel in which he imparted some sage advice.

I told him about the struggle of dragging people (clients, others in our industry) into the blogosphere. I asked, “How do you get people engaged?”

He looked me in the eye and said, “Don’t drag. Seduce.” He went on to explain that I should find something that will excite these individuals. A topic, blogger or post that will light his or her fire. From there, it all just happens naturally. He also said, “Recruit the young.” While this may seem ageist, it has validity. I’m 36, I told him. He said I’m right in the demographic, but those younger than I will gravitate more easily and naturally to the blogosphere.

Makes sense. Expect seduction in your future.

Tag: BlogOrlando

Laurie Mayers, MS&L - works with General Motors on crisis communications

• GM has several blogs - FastLane is most well known 
• GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz is most popular blogger
• Have five-person blog team - meet weekly
• Recently started doing video blogging
• GM blogging under GM’s Communications team
• GM Marketing is much bigger with a significantly bigger budget
• GM executive team knows blogging is long-term, brand-building initiative
• Forrester analyzed ROI of FastLane blog in 2006 - calculated 99 percent ROI in first year - methodology was a little interesting, but it’s a great testament to blog power!

–First “crisis” - New York Times opinion piece by Thomas Friedman on GM’s fuel price protection program, calling GM dangerous to America’s future

• Steve Harris, VP of Global Communications for GM, wrote response on FastLane blog
• Before blogs, would have written letter to editor and/or called reporter - and GM did both, but NYT said letter to editor was too long and that they couldn’t use word “rubbish” in letter - GM said forget it and blogged about the exchange with the NYT
• FastLane blog gets pickup on Drudge Report and many other media outlets
• NYT responds with another, longer Thomas Friedman column
• FastLane responds, acknowledging points of agreement with Friedman/NYT
• Very interesting exchange - shows how dialogue with the media has changed and taken the “backroom negotiations” out of working with media

–Second “crisis” - UAW contract negotiations/strike

• Very delicate situation - decided not to comment on blog while negotiations were ongoing other than this “Labor Situation” post that was closed to comments - only time in history of GM’s blog that a post was closed - didn’t want to invite blog debate during sensitive time - wanted to let GM negotiations team do its job and not get in the way

–Blog comment monitoring

• GM monitors all blog comments - comments policy of no profanity, slander, etc. - publish 90 percent of comments - complaints from customers about specific vehicles sent to customer service for follow-up
• Legal team at GM hasn’t gotten involved with blogs at all - courts just beginning to get into subject of blogs and comments
• On a few occasions, if blog posts are about especially sensitive topics, they’ll be reviewed “up the ladder”  - recent environmental position posts were reviewed

Today, Mistie and I will be liveblogging, covering the BlogOrlando unconference sessions as much as possible. We hope you’ll follow along with our quickly written, lightly edited posts as we’re trying to capture the moment, to share what we’re hearing as it happens.

Tag: BlogOrlando

Tom Biro led the Nikon D80 blogger outreach program and addressed the topic of blogger relations  for BlogOrlando.

Thought starters:

• Journalists — how to approach them.
• Press releases — should we send them to bloggers?
• Where do I get a list (of bloggers)? Worst. Question. Ever.
• PR people: “Write back to me after you post something with a link to the post” — Nope. How about you read my blog?

Bloggers are smart and have access to stats — therefore, PR people can’t lie successfully, telling a blogger they’ve been reading a blogger’s posts over time when they’ve really just stumbled upon the blog during a search.

Creating and maintaining a relationship with bloggers is the only way (READ THE BLOGS) to sucessfully suggest a topic or idea.

Don’t pitch bloggers — no one can say this enough.

Tag: BlogOrlando

The “Where Do You Stand?” team is very interested in hearing from readers regarding reputation management issues you may be experiencing with your business. That’s why I was delighted today when a reader contacted me with a PR scenario. “Elizabeth” operates a (non-PR) professional services firm, and had a question regarding appropriateness.

She wrote, “A law firm hired a freelance PR person to help them get more PR around an important court victory.  The PR person pitched an article that he helped the firm develop, with one of the firm’s partners, to an online publication. The publication picked up the article. Great, huh?”

Elizabeth continued her e-mail, writing that when the article appeared, the byline was the PR guy’s name, with a blurb about his PR firm below the article. She questioned the practice, and worse, the authenticity of such an article.

My reaction to this scenario is that the PR guy’s actions were highly inappropriate. The PR person has been hired by the law firm, therefore, the byline should have been the partner’s, and the blurb most definitely should have been that of the law firm. It seems the PR practitioner used the media opportunity to promote his own practice, and not his client’s. It is common practice in public relations to assist in developing articles with clients, working behind the scenes to keep the focus on the client’s success and achievements. It is NOT acceptable to use a client’s media opportunity to showcase your own business.

My advice to the law firm is to settle this one out of court, and rethink the strategy behind working with a PR person who puts himself first.