High-Tech PR Blog >> Beyond the Hype

Social Media Super Bowl

Our friend Jason Keith noted on Twitter this morning how surprised he was was the lack of talk and debate on the Super Bowl this week.  From my perspective, the game isn't the same with my team not in it. As a sports fan, I'll watch it (Go Cards!) -- if anything, for the ads. 

In the past couple of years, we've seen how advertisers have been using social media to amplify the impact of the ads they spent so much money to air. Whether it's teasing them on YouTube to build buzz, or creating Facebook pages or groups to spur viral discussion before, during and after, social media gives brands the ability to extend the shelf life of those 30 or 60 second spots and perhaps get a better return on their investment.

As some people have called 2009 the year of Twitter, I was interested to read in this well-done article on the impact of social media on this year's big game and how one advertiser is using it:

But fans aren't the only microbloggers getting in on the action. In anticipation of its Sunday spot, E*Trade has created a Twitter account for its talking, stock-buying baby who stole the show at last year's big game. Nielsen's Sandra Parrelli told InternetNews.com that last year's E*Trade ad was second only to Pepsi's spot with Justin Timberlake in day-after Web buzz.

So far etradebaby doesn't have much to say for himself. As of this writing there are five tweets: "Baby powder ... like taking your bottom on a tropical cruise"; "Making my way down to Tampa for some pre-Big Game R&R"; and three directing users to sites where they can see outtakes from this year's TV spot.

I've noticed this week, as the article points out, how "Super Bowl" has been a top trending topic on Twitter, so while it may not be a big topic of chatter in my network, it certainly is on the public timeline.  Beyond how the brands themselves are using Twitter, I'll be interested in what viewers have to say as the ads unfold. If you are on Twitter and want to follow this discussion, you can do so using by subscribing to this search, which uses the #superads09 hash tag. There's already some good chatter.

So, will you be following etradebaby, and more interested in what he has to say than the game?

Why social media matters

[Image from Greg Verdino]

Twitter is my best source of content from great thinkers, and Shannon Paul (no relation to my boss - at least I don't think) is one of those.  She directs the social media efforts for the Detroit Red Wings, and brings a lot to the table with every post on her blog.

I found a path to her latest one through Twitter, and feel it's worth sharing here because it echoes a lot of what I've said about social media on this blog and in conversations with clients.  She focuses on why blogging continues to be important, despite what some surveys say.  I would say, though, that the major points she makes speaks to why social media matters.

What social media engagement really requires is a fundamental shift in how companies approach mass communication. Without this shift — even if it comes about gradually, any attempts at throwing up outposts on Facebook or anyplace else on the web will basically be a waste of time.

The key is not to create a social media check-list with names of social networks or tools that dictates you have a Facebook page and a MySpace page...

Sure, a good understanding of how these technologies work will come in handy, but companies are better served by understanding how information travels along the social web. Whether anyone likes it or not, information no longer travels in a straight shot from company to journalist to public.

Instead, it bounces back and forth between all three. It’s just as possible for information to swell up from the public to the journalist to the company, or from the public to the company to the journalist. Or from the journalist to the company to the public and back again.

This idea about non-linear information travel speaks exactly to one of the fundamental aspects of PR 2.0.  As the way I came to Shannon's post shows, the audiences we are trying to reach no longer get their information through silos.  Rather, it is through interconnected, overlapping networks -- or as Facebook likes to say, social graphs -- that increase the way our audiences can hear about us, as well changes what they hear.  Traditional announcements and media coverage continue to be important, but we need to go way beyond that to understand how what kind of conversation that coverage generates.  We need to be ready to respond to that conversation in a way that shows we respect it, can learn from it and use it to improve the way we communicate with our audiences.

For a client that launched this week, it was extremely important to get in front of the right set of media, analysts and bloggers that would be most interested in the news in order to generate the visibility they wanted.  The client had a very good story to tell, so the interest amongst this group was high and it resulted in good coverage. 

We knew before the launch, however, that their buying community was very active in the blogosphere and on Twitter.  We knew this by listening, and could see as the coverage appeared how it was being spread by individuals with their own megaphones.  Just as the client was celebrating a successful launch, we pointed them to this viral reaction and identified where they needed to respond.  They appreciated this and could understand how this fit into what we need to do from a communications perspective.  Going forward, how we build on our use of social media is going to be based upon an understanding for how information flows within their community and adopt the right tools to leverage this.

So, are you approaching social media in this way?  Or is it a "build it and they will come" approach?

Lighting a Fire Under Clean Tech

 

Yesterday, President Obama initiated several more steps to help the U.S. become an energy independent country. It is a task several U.S. Presidents have tried to accomplish in the past, yet we all know none of them have had any luck so far. I'm optimistic that we'll see progress in this area over the next few years and anxious to see how this will impact the clean tech sector.

Venture capital funding has taken a hit across the boards for all sectors over the past few quarters, though The New York Times noted today that investors put $4.1 billion into 277 clean tech start-ups last year, which is a 52 percent increase over the previous year. For any of those people out there that still haven't seen the light - this market is exploding. 

Despite the uptick in start-ups, (and as I've said before, from what I've gathered), the challenge to commercialize renewable and green energy isn't necessarily about the technology - it's more about economics and changing policy. So President Obama's decision to introduce a $825 billion stimulus package last week to help green technologies merge with our nation's power grid will be warmly welcomed by many following the clean tech industry.

There is still room for innovation, though. Plenty of it. Yes, we need to change policies and our expectations for energy costs, but the demand for innovation will continue to exist. Henry Petroski, a professor at Duke University, wrote an interesting op-ed today in The Washington Post responding to a comment President Obama made in his inaugural speech about "restoring science to its rightful place." He clarified that what we really need is engineering - not science, to help bring real change to our energy mix.

"Most people who aren't scientists or engineers seem to think that science and engineering are the same. They're not. Science seeks to understand the world as it is; only engineering can change it."

He said steam engines were fully functioning before scientists could even explain how they worked. And 19th century scientists argued with engineers that steamships couldn't transport coal on transatlantic trips just before they actually did. Petroski went on to point out that if the Wright Brothers waited for the scientific explanation of aerodynamics, they wouldn't have lived long enough to make their famous flight.

Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, but regardless, he makes a fair point. Now let's hope engineers are finding themselves busy right about now. If anyone needs to be busy at this point in history, it's them.

How to Avoid the "No-Ad-Dollars CMO Blues"

A link to an interesting article in AdAge was in my early morning Twitter feed, courtesy of George Dearing by way of Kate Brodock. The article relayed the findings of a study of 400 CMOs that revealed that few feel they are effectively tracking social media or word of mouth.

"For all the talk about listening to consumers, few marketers think their companies are doing so effectively and even fewer are monitoring what people say about their brands in social media," according to a new survey by the CMO Council.

The survey of 400 executives found that 56% said their companies have no programs to track or propagate positive word-of-mouth; 59% don't compensate any employees based on improvements in customer loyalty or satisfaction; and only 30% rated their companies highly in their ability to handle or resolve customer complaints.

Few have a system in place
Despite all the hype about social media, only "16% of respondents said their companies have any routine system in place for monitoring what people are saying about them or their brands online. "

This was very interesting, especially when you think about how much CMOs have had to adjust their game plans over the past six months and well into 2009 due to the economy. Given their pressured charters to effect major change very fast and, often, to rebrand a company, CMOs typically rely very heavily on flashy advertising campaigns and events, as well as PR and direct marketing. A major weapon in their arsenal -- print, radio and television advertising -- is severely reduced for most and off the table entirely for others. Even the less costly marketing vehicles have been curtailed and are under additional pressure to show ROI quickly. One would think, therefore, that focus on the alternative channels of social media would be well underway, as this can provide a cost effective replacement for some of the pricier marketing methods that have to be sidelined at the moment.

The Ad Age article noted that even a big consumer brand like P&G is at a fairly early stage of evaluating social media as a way to gather great feedback from their customers and tap into word of mouth views and issues about their products.

Interestingly, a number of the technology BtoB CMOs we work with are moving rapidly to embrace social media as a way to get closer to their customers and combine these channels with their highest return marketing programs (that thankfully includes PR) to ride through the downturn. Perhaps tech savvy is giving these marketers a leg up on these new approaches which will serve them well. At the very least, they won't be downloading the "No-Ad-Dollars CMO Blues" to their iPods.

Social Media ROI

It's time to stop and take a breath from two significant client launches this morning to tend to our blog, as it's been neglected in the last week. Today, I'm introducing a new channel for LP&P to communicate with our community -- our Utterli channel. This should give us the ability to share some quick-hitting thoughts with you through another mechanism and ensure we keep our content coming. Look for more content through this channel in the future, and for a widget to be added to the sidebar eventually as well.

I want to reflect on social media ROI today. It's a topic that's been the hottest in the social media echo chamber since the New Year because of the economy in particular. I published an article in PR News this morning that gave some advice on how to think about this and build the ROI case as part of planning a social media program.

In the article, I discuss how many organizations still are skeptical about social media. The prevailing perception is that social media is too new and unproven, and in the current economy, there is little appetite for anything new. The inevitable question is, “what is ROI?” In every conversation with our clients on social media, articulating how you integrate social media into your program needs to be coupled with how it will be measured.

In order to talk about ROI in the same breath, one needs to think about measurement differently -- in a blended sense.

Mobile post sent by BeyondTheHype using Utterli.  Replies.  mp3

A lesson in plain english from the inauguration

In our current super-heated information environment, everyone is grabbing pieces of news and data at lightning speed and then moving on to our next burning task.  Few, if any, have the luxury of intense analysis of information.  The onus is on the communicator to simplify messages so they can be readily understood and remembered. 

When presidential candidate Barack Obama delivered his now-famous speech on race, I blogged about the fact that it was a well written, heartfelt speech, but it would not give him the quick sound-bites he needed to battle the clips of his former pastor that were everywhere on the news and Internet.  Interestingly, now-President Obama's inaugural address followed this pattern of being more plain speaking than soaring rhetoric that people likely were expecting.  Rather than reaching the heights of  famous speeches from Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy or Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the speech was one Harry S. Truman might have been comfortable delivering.  I am not saying this to offer criticism, but to comment that Obama's style of communication seems to use more plain English -- telling the world clearly and succinctly what he feels we need to hear rather than focusing on the ringing phrase that will be remembered by posterity.  It may be the right approach for the time.  Just as in my marketplace, breaking it down to the clearest most concise message is the best way to provide information that influencers, customers and prospects really appreciate when they are making buying decisions.

It was interesting to read some of the commentary about the inaugural address.  Former speechwriters were polled by the Sydney Morning Herald and there were mixed reviews.  Nixon's former speechwriter, William Safire, felt its theme -- "a new era of responsibilty" -- was not threaded through and felt like it was tacked on at the end.  Mary Kate Cary, a speechwriter for George Bush, acknowledged that, "The Bush family is the first to admit to being rhetorically challenged, so I don't think I'm hurting anyone's feelings by saying that after eight years Americans were hungry for a good speech."  She went on to say that the speech got better as it went and its imagery of Valley Forge at the end "brought the house down."  

Catherine Elsworth of the Telegraph also wrote about the sharp divide in views of the hugely anticipated address.  Historian Michael S. Roth declared the speech "brilliant, deeply felt" and containing "echoes of the great speeches of the past."  CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin was underwhelmed, noting, "I thought this was a speech with a lot of ideas but no theme and most importantly, this was a speech without a single memorable phrase." 

When I asked Toronto-based journalist, corporate communications professional and "plain English" trainer and expert Wendy Herman her view of the speech, she uncovered a theme that none of the other commentators cited -- bridging the gap between the unbelievable expectations set for him and his ability to deliver quickly. "He kept his messaging focused on bridging that gap right from the beginning, regardless of how unpleasant the truth was to hear during a day and time of extremely high expectations."

Starting with his statement of being "humbled by the task before us," Herman pointed out that Obama only dedicated 114 words of polite recognition of the day's event and focused his words on the issues and problems at hand.  "Even though he does offer hope, he keeps true to his key objective of managing expectations by continuing to drive messaging around how serious the issues ahead are," she added, with simple, honest phrases such as:  'Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.  For everywhere we look there is work to be done.'

The battle that every communications professional in the technology space wages daily is to be clear and succinct when the unvarnished messages to be imparted are innately complex and dense.  Digging through acronyms and dense specification-heavy descriptions of products and their features, we work hard at deciphering the complexity and describing in press releases and all written material exactly what a product does, in English. 

Now that the excitement of the inauguration is over and the hard task lies ahead, perhaps our new president is adopting that plain English approach to be as economical and clear in words as he needs to be in actions.

Advice Worth Taking from Management Guru Tom Peters

Leave it to Tom Peters. As Inc. Magazine pointed out in its December issue:

"Among all management gurus, Tom Peters is most associated with managing during bad economic times. His In Search of Excellence was published amid the sharp recession of 1982, and Thriving on Chaos debuted on Black Monday in 1987. On TomPeters.com, he recently wrote about running a business in a time of 'significant and sustained economic disarray.'"

The magazine quoted a recent Peters blog post that I think just says it all:

"[I]nstant, mindless cutting of R&D or training or salesforce travel in the face of a downturn is often counterproductive -- or, rather, downright stupid. Tough times are in fact golden opportunities to get the drop, and the longterm drop at that, on those who respond to bad news by panicky across-the-board slash and burn tactics and moves that de-motivate and alienate the workforce at exactly the wrong moment."

I plan to listen, as I absolutely hate being "downright stupid" about anything.

Less is More and Sometimes No Comment is Best

Roughly one month from pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training in much warmer climes than I'm experiencing right now, Roger Clemens is ruefully watching Jim Rice get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and seeing his chances for the Hall, as well as his future, spiraling downward.  The reason:  he spoke first and thought later in the aftermath of last year's Mitchell Report on the use of steroids in baseball in which he was named by a former colleague and trainer.

Good communications is based on providing the right message at the right time to the right audience.  Sometimes the best communication is no communication, a lesson Clemens clearly has not learned and it may cost him.  The Los Angeles Times, among others, was buzzing yesterday that Clemens' testimony before a House Subcommittee denying the use of performance enhancing drugs -- actions he took after he publicly denounced his accuser Roger McNamee and denied his claims -- may be the subject of a Grand Jury probe. 

"Let me be clear," Clemens told committee members. "I have never taken steroids or HGH."

Lying to Congress is a federal crime that could lead to prison time if Clemens is indicted and convicted.

This is a perfect example of failed communications hubris.  Clemens took the offensive after the Mitchell Report came out.  This is certainly an aggressive strategy and when you are well known, as Clemens is, it can pay off, as long as you can prove your claims.  But on the flip side, this is a tremendously risky strategy if you are primarily leaning on your celebrity status and are ultimately proved wrong. 

As the LA Times article continued:

Clemens had come across as eager to testify, dispute McNamee's claims and save a tarnished image." Darmer said that strategy clearly backfired.

"It's one thing to be called, another to get up there and so clearly lie," she said. "He should be held accountable for wasting the time of several members of Congress, who had better things to do.

The fallout might keep Clemens from the Hall of Fame. On Monday, retired slugger Mark McGwire, stained by steroid allegations, received 21% of Hall of Fame votes, when 75% are required for entry.

Others who could be summoned for testimony are drug supplier and former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski, investigators who worked for former Sen. George Mitchell's 2007 report and Clemens' former teammate Andy Pettitte, who claimed in a sworn deposition that Clemens had admitted to HGH use.

Contacted by The New York Times, Radomski had no comment, though The Times also reported on Monday that he had been subpoenaed. Radomski has reportedly given investigators an overnight-shipping receipt for a package of HGH he sent to Clemens' Houston home, and McNamee turned over needles and bloody gauze pads he claims were used in Clemens' injections.

The investigation could pose an interesting ethics puzzle for President-elect Barack Obama's incoming team at the Justice Department. Lanny Breuer, a lawyer hired by Clemens last year, is expected to be announced as Obama's choice to lead the department's criminal division.

The U.S. Attorney's Office is making no comment on the speculation around a grand jury being convened about this matter.  They understand that no comment is often the right comment.

Time for a PR Stimulus Package (at least in thinking)

With the inauguration just a few days away, everyone seems to be anxiously awaiting President-elect Obama's economic stimulus package.  Clearly, something broad and bold is needed.  Not to just get the economy going again, but to restore people's confidence.  In uncertain times its easy to fall into the "let's just wait it out and see what happens mode" of operating.  People and companies become so frozen and unsure of what the future will bring that they decide doing nothing, or even worse, re-trenching is the best thing to do. 

The business of strategic communications is certainly not immune to this.  We've all heard or experienced cut backs in activities and budgets.  Certainly, communications can't operate in a vacuum and must participate in the belt tightening. Lately I've seen too many instances where the steps taken may look good on the balance sheet today, but tomorrow may inflict damage that is long term and hard to recover from. 

The problem as I see it is that companies are cutting back on the strategic communications just when the field is going through the most dramatic changes in its history.  The channel through which most communications has been funneled -- the media -- is going through a gut-wrenching transition.  I believe that we will always have a media channel, but nobody can predict what that will look like.  The only thing that is certain is that things will continue to evolve.  Now it is truly about public relations, not media relations.  We all must become publishers of content, creators of relationships and facilitators of conversations with all our external and internal constituencies.  This means investing in new approaches and using new tools, most importantly being brave enough to experiment and not be afraid to fail. 

Hoping that the recession will end sooner rather than later and assuming that we'll see a return to the old ways is a recipe for failure.  Each of us must be the engine behind our own PR stimulus program.  Those who take the chance to embrace this challenge and the opportunity to do things differently will not just be the survivors, but the winners when we come out the other side of this recession.

Inside one newspaper's transformation

There is a great feature in the current New York Magazine that takes us inside how the New York Times has been tackling what so many newspapers are struggling with right now -- how to embrace the Web. Emily Nussbaum profiles the "Interactive Newsroom Technologies" team, the 10-person group responsible for carrying out an integration between the print and online operations of the paper, particularly on the editorial side.

From my position here leading our social media practice, I've noticed the interactive elements the Times has been adding in the last year and have been impressed. One of the opening graphs sums up what they've been doing very well:

And yet, even as the financial pages wrote the paper’s obit, deep within that fancy Renzo Piano palace across from the Port Authority, something hopeful has been going on: a kind of evolution. Each day, peculiar wings and gills poke up on the Times’ website—video, audio, “drillable” graphics. Beneath Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed column, there’s a link to his blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube videos. Coverage of Gaza features a time line linking to earlier reporting, video coverage, and an encyclopedic entry on Hamas. Throughout the election, glittering interactive maps let readers plumb voting results. There were 360-degree panoramas of the Democratic convention; audio “back story” with reporters like Adam Nagourney; searchable video of the debates. It was a radical reinvention of the Times voice, shattering the omniscient God-tones in which the paper had always grounded its coverage; the new features tugged the reader closer through comments and interactivity, rendering the relationship between reporter and audience more intimate, immediate, exposed.

You'd think from reading the article that the New York Times is having a successful transformation.  You'd be surprised reading the articles of late that some are predicting that the paper would fold this year. That is, until, you get to the very last sentence where one of the members of the team states how this evolution will make it a better media outlet...if "there's a business model when we get there."

In the meantime, the good news is that companies are not as reliant on newspapers like the New York Times to reach their audiences. The new world of communications affords us a great opportunity to be self-publishers. But that needs to be done as part of a well thought-out social media program. I'm pulling for the New York Times and others to make it, but isn't about time to start hedging your bets?