Often it’s the small twists and tweaks to ‘established practices’ that can really take things in a new direction — case in point, I was recently reading your run-of-the-mill-mega-company-internal announcement, however, this one was followed by several supporting points pre-packaged in 140 character tweets with all the shortened links and hashtags served right on top. It was one of those moments where your natural reaction is to just gag on the silver spoon working its way down your throat, but after a closer look at things, it really wasn’t over-the-top-type-stuff that this company had pre-defined, it was actually all fairly basic. It was the type of stuff I might, if I was an employee, just retweet for lack of a stronger opinion on the matter. My takeway was this: framing the company news in snack size chunks was helpful for A) holding attention; B) summarizing the news; and C) enabling people to actually do something with it — quickly, at the point of comprehension. I can’t see this working well for every company, but it’s interesting nonetheless…
Updates from April, 2009
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Soundbite 2.0
mike manuel
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Machine-Based Sentiment Analysis is Flawed
mike manuel
So, it’s sad, but kind’a comical too to see how quickly the everyday use of the web for communication is eroding everyone’s grammar and syntax (cough, Twitter). What’s truly tragic, however, is the frigg’n pandemic spread of companies promising machine based linguistic and sentiment analysis services, all of them knowing oh too well that the web has damn-near its own dialect now, be it acronyms (FTW!), abbreviations (RT) or any number of adhoc classifications (#[hashtag]), and maybe more importantly, a growing appetite for unspoken gestures of expression and opinion (be it thumbs, stars, likes, or otherwise), yet, for whatever reason, these companies continue to over-promise mountains of insight and perspective into “how your customers think and feel,” based only on what a bot and an algorithm spits back!? I don’t know, it’s just, uh, flawed. Update: check out Microsyntax.org, this entire organization is diving into the ‘new’ unconventions of communication on the web.
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Corporate Social Media Teams Are Growing
mike manuel
So not that it’s terribly surprising, but the headcount for in-house (corporate) social media teams seems to be growing — very quickly — despite the economy. Two years ago, even in the biggest companies, you had, at best, a collection of quarter-timers, loosely coming together around launches and campaigns. Thereafter, part-time social media/community/online strategists started to take foot, now, shit, most companies have *at least* one dedicated person, with many, many companies having far more. The other observation worth noting here are the organizational models, (err, model), which seems to in a lot of companies boil down to a very lean, very skilled cross-functional strategic team that establishes standards, protocols and practices that are then pushed out to a much larger set of business unit practitioners and regional teams for local implementation. It’s just interesting to see familiar patterns of corporate organization and structure finally taking hold around a new discipline, a sign of the industry’s maturation?
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Defining Social Media ‘Expertise’
mike manuel
I joked (mostly) about social media expert-itis in a previous post, but if you really had to try and dig into what makes someone a “social media expert,” it’s really not that difficult of a thing to deconstruct, I mean, if you just focus on direct experiences. So…uh…that’s what I did. Well, it’s a start at least. Keep in mind, I’m approaching this from a communications consultant’s point of view, in-house folks have some unique skill requirements that I’m skipping here. Also, it bears mentioning, while it’s helpful to try and draw some simple distinctions between what it means to have an understanding of this industry verses real-world know-how and knowledge, let’s be honest, in the end, “expertise” will always be relative to need, so yeah, your mileage will vary, but hopefully this is a start. [cross-posted to Voce Nation]
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Social Media Education, an Ongoing Challenge
mike manuel
I just chewed through Jennifer Leggio’s piece today which analyzes the results from her second ‘Social PR Survey,’ it’s a good read, and while I can’t say much of the findings were terribly surprising, still, there’s some interesting data points for agency folks at all levels. One of the sections touches on agency education and training, something the lion’s share of respondents seemed to oddly dismiss as a ‘non-issue.’ Really? Really!? I’m telling you, based on my own experience, plus what I hear from my peers at other firms, this dismissal is either our industry spinning itself in the worst sort of way, or people are absolutely clueless about what social media training and education efforts really entail (hint: “learning” and “changing”). I’m not convinced we’ve seen enough of either yet. Oh, and one more thing related to all of this: too often this industry points and prods at undergrads and junior staff as needing the most ‘training and education,’ when sadly, in reality, there are some senior folks who could use a kick in the pants too. In fact, I’d argue if the end result of agency training is, well, organizational change, then top down learning is where it all starts.
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Integrated Programs Are The “New Normal”
mike manuel
Alright, the need to integrate marketing and comms work these days makes a world of sense, trust me, I get it, but you know, when that need requires competitors to come together and work directly with each other, perhaps in ways they might not otherwise, it really forces you to rethink what were once comfortable business boundaries. Case in point, I’m spearheading a social media program and working with an ad firm (that offers social media services), a PR agency (that offers social media services) and a web shop (that, yes, offers social media services). It’s unique for sure, and yeah, at times, it tests an already unhealthy paranoia most service folks have over their IP, but it’s also becoming more common, especially in this market, so maybe in an odd sort of way it’s just slowly turning into the new normal?
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The Rise of Agency Apps
mike manuel
So earlier this week a reporter asks what I considered to be “some interesting agency trends?” Aside from the chronic spread of social media expert-itis, oh and some Grade-A Twitter shilling, the one I felt the strongest about was what I’ll just call, for now, the “rise of agency apps.” Net-net, I think we’re starting to see some early signs of agencies developing all sorts of custom-built web apps — each app designed specifically for the way it does business and packaged up as a value-added service/perk for clients and prospects. Converseon’s been doing this for a while now (see “Conversation Miner“), Edelman got in the game too (see “StoryCrafter“), WaggEd as well (see “Twendz“), and yeah, Voce’s keeping in step (see “Bridge“). I think we’ll see a lot more firms roll their own apps this year, probably suites of apps too. Watch this…
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Social Media “Generalist vs Specialist,” a Tired Debate
mike manuel
Ugh, okay, the “social media generalist vs. specialist” argument is really getting tired, especially within agency circles. I’ve always thought it’s healthier to think of social media experience as a spectrum: on one end you’ll always have the laggards and on the other you’ll always have the early adopters. And it’s the space between these two extremes where the large majority of practitioners sit (i.e., the generalists). As a result, every firm needs its early adopters, it’s specialists, it trail guides to help pull the majority further across the spectrum (while the early adopters themselves continue to push forward and define new experiences, new skills and new boundaries). This being said, why some folks continue to wag their fingers at those agencies that have service teams comprised of early adopters focused on social media is, well, beyond me…
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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.
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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.
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The Web Divides: PR vs. Advertising
mike manuel
Alright, I guess it’s inevitable that amidst this economic shake up, we would return to the age-old argument of Public Relations vs Advertising, and debating where your business dollars are better spent, and you know, whatever, that’s fine, it’s not without good reason.
In fact, I’ll admit, this was a hot topic at last week’s SMC meetup, and again at this week’s PRSA International conference, but here’s the thing: if we (the PR industry) are going to collectively make the business case for a shift in corporate spending, we need better leverage, and man, if there was *one thing* we should be leveraging to our advantage in this argument, you’d think it’d be all the benefits and potential of the social web for business, right?
Sadly, the PR industry, for being inextricably tangled with the web, continues to oddly struggle with how best to use it for communications — and therefor, articulate its value and return in this larger argument we’re all trying to make.
And yeah, to be fair, the ad industry is really struggling with this too, so in a big way, the challenge is just seeing which industry can get past its own tired modes and models of business and acclimate the fastest to new attention, usage habits and trending patterns on the web.
For what it’s worth, I think the PR industry, for better or worse, can actually win this race by doing two things:
First, by each of us assuming personal responsibility for where the industry sits today and how we’ll each move it forward. Seriously, to win this bigger argument, we have to become smarter practitioners through professional education, personal learning (through adoption?) and, well, by having a curiosity and a willingness to experiment and try on different approaches to communications on the web; and
Second, by realizing that once separate or ancillary business disciplines are now a much, much bigger part of the communications charter. Things like web development, search engine marketing, media production, data analytics, etc., have all become increasingly valuable for communications purposes, and because of that, PR departments (and PR businesses) can no longer afford to draw dotted lines into these disciplines. Something I’ll be blogging about separately, soon-ish.
Net-net, I think a lot of this argument for PR comes down to how diligent and creative we as professionals and as an industry can be about rethinking and reshaping a role that’s been otherwise comfortable, and largely misunderstood the past few decades. If we make the stretch, then right on, we get to reset the terms for determining PR’s business value, hopefully its perception too.
And if we don’t, well, I guess we remain neatly (and reluctantly) relegated to a few bullets in the next business plan. Either way, it rests on us.
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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]