So today marks my 5th year blogging here. And yeah, I know, “whoopty friggn do.” But maybe it’s a chance tho to clear up one fallacy and that’s this weird belief that your success attracting clients and business is directly proportional to the frequency of posts you publish. Man, I *really* wish that was true. It’s not. Yes, there was a time, early on, where having a blog, like this one, was unique or at very least showed people I wasn’t completely a mouth breather — but all it’s ever been (at best) is one factor in a series of factors that informed a decision. And trust me, knowing this, there have been many times in the past 5 years where the ah-f*-its have taken over and tempted me to abandoned this, but I’m glad I’ve stuck with it, and my sincere thanks to those of you here who have done the same. Onward.
Updates from April, 2009
-
Here’s to 5 Years
mike manuel
-
Corporate Social Media Must Keep SEC in Mind
mike manuel
The WSJ just posted a piece on clients Intel and eBay, but with a focus on eBay and the story behind its use of Twitter for corporate news. This was actually something I pointed to here a few weeks ago that kicked-up quite a bit of discussion (check out “How to Tweet Material News”). I’ve known Richard Brewer-Hay for years now, he works hard and has the support of some very smart people inside eBay. It’s good to see he and the team leading the way on things and getting a little bit of recognition in the process. It’s well deserved. RBH will be sharing his story inside eBay at two upcoming events, including the NewComm Forum and TWTRCON.
-
Middle Blogging
mike manuel
Alright, so I’m beginning a bit of an experiment here, my thoughts being this: short-form publishing, be it status updates, tweets or otherwise, are, at best, partial thoughts, opinions and insights, but too often, they’re stripped of context and meaning for brevity’s sake — and what you’re left with is, well, an empty candy shell without the yummy chocolaty filling. And on the flip side, long-form publishing, like this here blog, just requires a level of attention and time — mine and yours — so, net-net, a double-tax for both of us. So, this experiment asks: is there a yet to be used middle between the macro and the micro publishing models? I really have no idea, let’s find out…
-
How to Tweet Material News
mike manuel
So here’s the deal: if you work for a public company and are interested in extending the application and use of Twitter for corporate news — this post is for you.
So late last week, our (Voce’s) client at eBay, Richard Brewer-Hay, decided to share the backstory on something eBay’s PR and legal teams have been chewing on for a few months now — and that’s the development of guidelines and a set of SEC disclosure best practices that outline how eBay (well, any public company, really) can successfully (err, legally) use Twitter to share material news.
If you read Richard’s post, you’ll see these guidelines were born out of his desire (and his history) of using eBay’s corporate Twitter account to “live tweet” the company’s quarterly earnings calls — something that’s been increasingly catching the attention of industry influencers, media, enthusiasts, etc, who wouldn’t otherwise have participated or tuned in to the actual earnings calls. And yes, as Richard indicates, this activity also, for better or worse, caught the attention of eBay’s corporate IR, PR and legal teams.
It turns out, this was for the better…
The easy, protectionist response would have been to just stop doing this, shut down the account and move on. But thankfully it didn’t, instead, the IR/PR/Legal groups within eBay all came together to figure out a way that concerns regarding disclosure and cautionary statements — especially pertaining to quarterly earnings calls — could all be addressed with the development of this simple legal page (which is now a permanant extension of eBay’s corporate blog, eBay Ink), and maybe more interesting, I think, are the ‘twitter sized’ (140-character) disclosure statements they co-developed. You can read them here.
While we all wait for the SEC to further bake its guidance for disclosure on the web, something it introduced at a surface-level last July, I believe what eBay’s done here might help shape and inform the SEC’s thinking in the interim, as well as provide other public companies with a good working model for material disclosure via emerging practices, like microblogging, livestreaming and the like…
Update: Domnic Jones of IR Web has some sound counter points regarding the archival of earnings information, be it in a company’s Twitter stream or otherwise. Shel Holtz also captures both eBay’s and IR Web’s perspectives on this news in episode #429 of For Immediate Release (show notes here).
Update 2: PRWeek just posted this short piece on the news.
Update 3: Man, this one’s evolving quickly. Yesterday, eBay put its new Twitter disclosure guidelines to work as part of its Analyst Day. IR Web has a great recap of that effort. As does PRWeek (again).
Update 4: The WSJ makes mention of eBay’s use of the web and Twitter.
-
Why Blogging Has Become Harder
mike manuel
So I spent some time over the holidays looking back over my blog, my tweets, my status updates and the like, basically, reviewing all the places I’m active online and, well, it turns out I’m really not that active at all. Or at least I’m less active than I used to be.
Am I surprised? Nah, not really.
The truth is, last year was an amazingly good, but challenging year for me at Voce. We won several big accounts. We grew our team. We formalized partnerships (and forged new ones). We innovated. And where we could, we shared what was working. And amidst all of this, I must admit, I felt an increasing need (really, a responsibility) to focus whatever extra attention, energy and know-how I had on my projects, my clients and my teams.
As a result, I went dark online.
But here’s the other truth: My insularity was also influenced by my frustration with the signal to noise ratio, especially around social media consulting. When everybody’s talking and acting like they’re the experts, the last thing I wanted to do — really, the last thing I could do — was to try and show my expertise by shouting the loudest or talking the longest. That doesn’t help anyone, plus, you know, I don’t want to be that guy. Also, it bears mentioning, after reading stuff like this, it just begs the question:
Who’s *really* benefiting from what I share here?
That answer used to be “me,” it was a place where I could kick around my own actions and ideas and either through reflection or dialogue, I could learn something. Maybe share something too. And while I haven’t exactly given up on that, nowadays, I look at my site metrics, and the comments and the links and I see an awful lot of my competitors here. Fortunately, I see a lot of my colleagues, my partners, my clients, my business prospects and my recruiting candidates here too, which is motivating.
So, am I giving up on this blog?
Nah. This year marks my 5th year blogging and there’s much I’m still admittedly learning, and much still I’d like to explore further here — be it with my colleagues, clients, competitors or otherwise. I think the reality of the economy we’re in and the responsibilities I have will just dictate the frequency of things. I’m gonn’a try, however, to get a couple of posts up per month and be a little better about up leveling the discourse and debate in this industry — including calling bullshit when I see it…
In between, I’ll be right here, oh and here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, so, you know, easy enough to find.
So with that I’ll just say…more to come. Happy new year, folks.
-
The Push-Pull of Social Media Programs
mike manuel
Alright, so despite efforts by some to paint and position social media work as radically new and different, if you take a minute to strip things down, there are still traditional marketing mechanics underlying most social media programs — much of which can be distilled down to simple push-pull tactics.
Push tactics are all about, well, pushing a story out to the marketplace.
Push tactics tend to generate a lot of attention and discussion, unfortunately it’s not always the right kind. These are your A-typical proactive pitch tactics. Placement tactics. Sometimes response tactics too.
I think it’s the comfort of something that seems familiar (i.e., media relations) that attracts and compels PR folks to think about social media activities in this mode first and label them such (e.g., “blogger relations,” “influencer outreach,” etc) — be that, you know, for better or worse. And in all fairness, push tactics, when well executed, can be very effective. The problem is that push tactics require a tremendous amount of time, energy and resources and alone can only move the needle so much.
Pull tactics, on the other hand, focus on all the ways we use content and the web to pull attention and discussion in.
Publishing content, be that via a blog, microblog, video, audio, or otherwise, is a popular pull tactic. The quality, value and placement of the content basically encourages people to discover and engage with it (and with you, the company) on their own terms. It also enables you to tell your company’s story directly, on your terms, free of media interpretation, filtering and bias — and that’s a very powerful thing.
And the truth is, you need both push and pull tactics to round out any social media program, but in much the same way push tactics shaped and defined traditional PR media work the last, oh, century or so, I think pull tactics — especially publishing — will be increasingly what shapes and defines industry work on the web moving forward. It’s definitely where my head’s at these days; definitely where more news will come from me and others later this year….
[Cross-posted on Voce Nation]
-
PlayStation’s This Week’s PRWeek Cover Story
mike manuel
Aarti Shah with PRWeek pens this week’s cover story (PDF) on client Sony PlayStation. The piece is a bit of a case study that recounts some of the company’s fairly well-known missteps over the years, but more importantly, it digs into PlayStation’s rebound and recovery efforts the last 18 months — and how their social media strategy is leading the way.
“After a huge misstep in the blogosphere, Sony PlayStation has come back with a plan to engage consumers and win back trust.”
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know I’m a big believer that our industry *desperately* needs more case studies. I started to talk about this program for the first time earlier this year at the NewComm Forum. This cover story peels back another layer, and we’ll continue to share more leading into the fall at a handful of industry speaking gigs including the PRSA International Conference in October.
And yes, before you ask, that’s exactly how I sit in all my client meetings. Enjoy.
Related Links:
Submit Now! 2008 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards[Photo credit: PRWeek - Cross Posted to Voce Nation]
-
PlayStation Shares “Lessons Learned” Blogging
mike manuel
The case study chat with the new media team behind Sony PlayStation’s blog went well yesterday afternoon at the NewComm Forum, we actually covered a lot of ground - everything from content development and technical design to community management tactics and measurement. By the end of our session, the PlayStation guys had shared 15 “lessons learned” over the last year. I won’t re-hash all those here, I think some of them were fairly obvious and well documented, but there were a few lesser known/lesser discussed tips that shook out that are worth mentioning, here are three:
Sorry, Your Clever Blog Name Doesn’t Matter
Well, it matters less than you think, especially for big brands, big companies like PlayStation. Fact of the matter is that most people are typing “playstation blog” or a simple variation thereof in the search engines to find the blog. A lot of referral sites are also attributing/linking to the blog with the same simple terms, so, you know, if you’re working on a blog right now, don’t kill yourself over-thinking the name. There’s a good chance people won’t remember it or use it anyway…
(More …) -
A Little Link Love Can Hurt
mike manuel
So, I guess if there was one thing we could all conceptually agree on, it would be that the link, in all its iterations and forms, has become the accepted currency of the social web — especially in the context of blogging.
I tend to think most people grok the importance and practice of linking via blogs, but the norms and nuances that come with linking aren’t always self evident, plus they’re evolving and because of that, there’s all sorts of potential for weirdness, particularly for corporate bloggers.Case in point, and this is a true story, a company with a fairly well-respected group blog was linking to certain media stories to color and add perspective to its posts, like many blogs tend to do. The authors were doing so with purpose and intent, appealing I suppose to those reporters they were linking to, but in the process also subtly and unknowingly alienating a sub-set of industry media by *not* linking to their stuff. It got to the point where a few reporters were starting to feel a bit snubbed and said as much.
I know, it sounds a bit junior high-ish to say the least and frankly, I don’t way to imply that it was that big of a deal - it really wasn’t - but I use it as a point here because as both companies and the media struggle with the new economics of attention, new models for news making, and new vehicles for communication, the power and potential of a simple link is something you can’t overlook. It’s the most valuable and dangerous commodity you have on the web….
-
Breaking the ‘Conversation’ Model
mike manuel
Alright, so I learned a lesson recently: Conversation-making online is really, really effective and to an extent, enjoyable too, as long as the volume of discussion maintains some sort of natural ebb and flow and remains, well, manageable. This is especially true with blog comments.
While it’s fairly easy for most blog authors to maintain a qualitative back-and-forth with several people at once, the “conversation” paradigm just absolutely breaks down when, for example, several comments quickly become several hundred. Think slashdot effect, but in the comments thread.
In this scenario, whatever dreams, ambitions or hopes you had of meaningful dialogue just get crushed by the sheer volume and force of several hundred voices each talking to you and each other all at once.
It’s not to say this stops you from adding value or making meaningful connections, but man, you really have to work A LOT harder to do so, and the return on your efforts can still feel a little futile. In this case, you also start to wonder: is a blog really the best tool, the best platform for this particular conversation?
Technorati Tags: attention, blogging, conversation
-
PR 2.0, Look Past The Label
mike manuel
If you haven’t already, take some time to catch up on the latest stuff that Brian Solis is blogging about, particularly on the topic of “PR 2.0.” I know, I know, we’re all trying to avoid propagating the silly versionitas that’s infecting tech marketing language these days, but the *concept* behind PR 2.0 is an important one — one I believe in and one that even today, remains largely under developed and poorly articulated.
Be it through inspiration or sheer perseverance, I think Brian’s defining a trend and capturing what a lot of PR folks feel, think and to an extent, say, but only now are beginning to actually do….
Technorati Tags: brian solis, pr2.0
-
Three Years Later & Still Doing This…
mike manuel
