Social Media Week: The Road from Listening to Activation

by Kaylen McNamara on February 5, 2010

Throughout Social Media Week, it has become increasingly obvious that companies understand what social media is and how it works. However, are these companies really listening to what is being said about their brand? Yesterday morning, I attended a panel discussion on The Road from Listening to Activation, which discussed how mining and analyzing conversations can be used to develop a strong activation strategy between brands and their audience. Read about my takeaways from this discussion on the Johnson King blog!

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Social Media Week: A Shaq to the System- Tebow, Tiger and the New Online Realities of Sports Journalism

by Kaylen McNamara on February 5, 2010

Real-time updates, instant analysis and interaction with sports fans as the game is played – social media has completely changed the landscape of how sports are covered and written about. Pete Cataldo, account executive at Affect Strategies, shares his insights from a Social Media Week panel of five well-known sports journalists on how their roles have evolved … and what it means from a PR standpoint. Read the full post on the Johnson King blog!

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Social Media Week: The Advancement of Twitter

by Katie Safrey on February 4, 2010

What have you learned so far during Social Media Week? Our next social media-themed blog post comes from Jonathan Mathias, senior account executive at Johnson King. Johnson King, our partner, is a European technology PR agency headquartered in London.

The Advancement of Twitter
By Jonathan Mathias

Since signing up to Twitter two years ago, I’m now following over 400 different accounts – something which recently led to an alarming crisis of confidence and a subsequent overhaul of how I use it.

It’s always been clear to me that Twitter would be a powerful tool, but given its ever-changing nature, the question of what you can do with it is much harder to answer. This makes it difficult to create a comprehensive Twitter strategy and has doubtlessly prevented many from investing the time needed to fully get to grips with it.

Any Google search will find you a million Twitter tips, most of which can be summed up in one sentence: “post regularly, with useful, relevant, interesting or personable content and always interact with your audience” – common sense, no?  Conversely, you’ll also find a multitude of blog entries debating why anyone would use it in the first place or whether there’s any real business value in using it (which rather misses the point – whether you like it or not, millions of people are using it to communicate every second of the day).

But, aside from what to do and why, with more and more businesses and their audiences clocking-on and signing up, how to manage Twitter has become far from straight forward.

At a very basic level, you can log on to the Twitter website, see what’s going on, search, post your updates, send private messages, etc..  Depending on how often the people you’re following post updates, this will probably work just fine up to about 100 people.  As you go past this figure – 200, 300, 400+ – it becomes very, very chaotic.

By logging into my account from the Twitter webpage at any one time, I’ll only see updates from the past five minutes or so.  If I want to see anything that happened before five minutes ago, I’ll have to go onto page two and beyond.  What about the vitally relevant tweet that was posted an hour ago?  In all likelihood, I’ve missed that chance.

Yes, you can search Twitter with relevant keywords in the hope of finding conversations you may have missed – but, if it’s anything, Twitter is immediate – and not very many people can afford to sit there on it all day doing that anyway.

A way to tackle this issue is to employ a Twitter client that specifically helps you to cope with large numbers of updates – like TweetDeck or Seesmic.

I’d dabbled with these in the past but until recently they seemed a little like overkill and over complicated – and, to the casual user, they are.  But, if you want to develop a worthwhile presence on Twitter, you’re going to want a manageable insight into what a lot of people are saying – something which is very difficult to do from the Twitter website alone.

I’ve just gone through a very long process to configure and learn how to interact with Twitter via a popular client.  This is not to say that applications are badly designed – they’re very necessarily complex, as they’re very powerful tools.

I’ve grouped the people I’m following into lists/columns (and handily added in LinkedIn and Facebook feeds), making it much easier to digest or catch-up on what’s going on at a glance.

Although most brands will have, at the very least, registered a Twitter account by now, many will be cautious users, content to wait and see just how big, useful and profitable it will be.  But some brands are already electing to use more advanced tools to manage Twitter.  And, given my experience, they are wise to do so.

Basically, to get the most out of Twitter, you need to be following a lot of people (and hopefully have a lot of followers) and you’re at an advantage if you use a client to manage the flow of information this generates.  Twitter’s user-base growth and the incorporation of it into day-to-day business seem to be pointing towards a future where Twitter could one day become a truly ubiquitous method of communication.

What’s certain is that Twitter has evolved massively in a short time, with new features and innovative ways of using it coming to light on a daily basis.  Will Twitter ever be a lean, mean, worthwhile business machine? Perhaps, but what’s sure is that if you want to be there when it does, you’ll need to put in some legwork now.

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Social Media Week: What do the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones and MarketWatch have in common? Social media.

by Julia Gaynor on February 4, 2010

Earlier this week I had the privilege of attending the Publicity Club of New York’s “The Wall Street Journal, Et. Al.” Social Media Week panel discussion. As I sat down to eat my dry chicken breast and salad, I noticed that I was one the younger people in the room. I couldn’t help but think to myself, “This isn’t exactly the audience I expected at social media week?” Boy, did they make me looks stupid. Turns out social media tools are no longer just for the young and nimble, but everyone now seems to be seeing the value in connecting via the world wide web—well everyone except financial institutions (we’ll get to that later).

The distinguished panel included reporters and editors from all major Dow Jones properties:

Each panelist gave some interesting insight into how they develop stories. Julie Iannuzzi explained that all publications under the Dow Jones umbrella are looking for a full package when reviewing a story idea. Including multimedia elements, specifically digital video, will help you immensely when pitching them a story idea.

When discussing how social media tools have impacted the media landscape, Jon Friedman made the insightful statement that social media is no longer just a tool, but a way of life. He went on to discuss how PR practitioners can effectively reach the media—his take: think like a journalist. Note to the wise, before pitching think about what the real story is and why the reporter should care.

Peter Kafka bluntly told the audience that his goals and his reader’s goals differ vastly from ours and those of our clients, so pitching him is generally an act in futility.

Although the panelists had differing views on how to reach them with story ideas, they all agreed that publicists should never call. They are always on deadline and you are just interrupting. So word to the wise, only call if you know the reporter well enough to justify your actions.

Another thing they could mostly agree on is that financial institutions have been slow to show up at the social media party. Peter McKay, who covers financials for The Wall Street Journal, is active on Twitter, but unfortunately many of his subjects are not. Peter asserted that this is likely a result of an abundance of caution and not strict adherence to any sort of FCC rules. True or not, it’s defiantly an interesting subject.

One more topic that sparked lively debate was the recent hoopla around the iPad. Does Apple’s slow leak of information and veil of secrecy around its products help or hurt? While the panelists were divided, most could agree that what goes up must come down—Apple will get their share of bad press eventually. As Jon Friedman so eloquently put it, the media loves to build people up and then tear them down, so Steve Jobs will get his—yikes!

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Get More Twitter Followers – 9 Legit Tips, No Gimmicks or Tricks

by Sandra Fathi on February 3, 2010

Image Credit to TeachersPodcast.org

A friend and colleague of mine recently shot me an email asking me how can he gain more followers on Twitter. As I started to respond, I realized that although there were many resources available, my quick and dirty response could help some other folks as well. So, here is my best/shortest advice on gaining more Twitter followers:

  1. Follow folks who are going to be interested in what you have to say. (For the non-rock stars among us, there is a direct correlation between the number of people you follow and how many follow you.)
  2. Say something interesting – have a point of view – provide great content – have an expected topic list. (Don’t go off about unrelated items or Seinfeld-like observations – provide value in every tweet.)
  3. Interact with other folks – retweet (RT) good material, ask questions, thank people for following and RTing you. (According to @skydiver, a RT is the highest compliment on Twitter!)
  4. Promote your Twitter handle – add it to your signature, your bio, website, Linkedin and other profiles, promote in newsletters etc.
  5. List yourself in Directories – like Wefollow or Twellow – that allow you to tag yourself so that interested parties can find you.
  6. Tweet live from events and use #hashtags. Folks at the event who are following it, will see your tweets and may follow you.
  7. Join groups and participate in chats in your area of interest. For example, a PR person might join #journchat a scheduled conversation every Monday night between PR folks, journalists and bloggers.
  8. Cross-pollinate – post your blog posts on Twitter, update your status on LinkedIn/Facebook (when relevant for that audience) through Twitter
  9. Find your friends – use the Twitter tools to scan your contacts for Twitter users.

On a closing note, Twitter should be about quality, not quantity. If you have a few dozen followers that you are engaged and conversing with, that’s much more impressive than thousands of Twitter bots who’ll never help you succeed in life or business.

If you want to chat with me on Twitter, you can find me here – @sandrafathi.

Happy tweeting!

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Social Media Week: The ROI Question – What Do We Actually Want from Social Media?

by Katie Safrey on February 3, 2010

How are you celebrating  Social Media Week? We are bringing you fresh social media week-themed posts all week from our partner, Johnson King, a European technology PR agency headquartered in London.

Today’s installment is a collaboration between Johnson King’s Tom Kirkham, account manager, and Jonathan Mathias, senior account executive. Keep an eye out for more updates from our friends in the UK later this week!


Social Media Week: the ROI question – what do we actually want from social media?
Tom Kirkham, account manager, and Jonathan Mathias, senior account executive at Johnson King

Greetings from Social Media Week (http://socialmediaweek.org/), where yesterday evening we attended an absorbing debate at ‘Chinwag Live: Show me the money – where is the ROI in social media? (http://smw-london.sched.org/event/96a5ab8a98ad88 081ca46d7e08b46ff3) . Speaking for Johnson King, we definitely saw an immediate return on investment – attendance didn’t cost us a thing and there were drinks and pizza provided for all. However it became clear as the debate unfolded that the business world is still struggling to quantify ROI (see this recent IAB study for starters: http://www.nma.co. uk/news/brands-need-roi-evidence-to-invest-more-in-social-media-says-iab/3009466.article), and indeed, several of the panelists made a convincing case for redefining ROI altogether when assessing social media’s value.

The debate took a while to heat up; after the first fifteen minutes all they’d determined was that ‘listening is key’ – not exactly groundbreaking stuff. However, then the idea was raised that instead of analysing the people talking about your brand (and thus already engaged with you), you need to listen to the people who aren’t talking about you, and figure out a way to interact with them. The key is to tap into the conversations taking place within a wider context, thus creating a new audience for your business.

Another key point was that social media activity has different aims depending on whether it is being used to engage directly with consumers as a sales tool. In a B2C context, ROI from a social media campaign will likely manifest itself in sales figures which can be broken down and evaluated. However, in a B2B environment social media tactics are much more useful in terms of brand building and reputation or crisis management. Mark Rogers at Market Sentinel argued that social media monitoring is actually more valuable than measurement, as it can be used to assess campaigns in real-time to decide whether to keep going or pull the plug, whereas all measurement can do is provide a retrospective proof point – i.e. “It worked,” or, “It didn’t work”.

Robin Grant of We Are Social described social media investment as similar to life insurance: you’re making a payment that doesn’t have a return unless something goes wrong. The best examples of successful business-customer interaction using social media occur when traditional channels like telephone or email have become overburdened or ignored. Yet even then appraising a social media strategy may involve dealing with something very abstract – sentiment and perception – rather than ‘results’ in a more tangible sense. While many businesses still ignore customer criticism within Facebook groups, blog entries and Twitter posts, the panel lauded several forward-thinking companies that have taken a mature, honest approach to social media outreach to address these crises.

The big question is whether being seen to be listening and taking action is ROI enough? This is of course a world away from financial ROI, and the panel didn’t seem convinced that many CEOs would be willing to embrace this concept at present. That said, last night’s overarching take-away message was that social media is going to cause a seismic shift in the way consumers perceive businesses – with a far greater emphasis placed on trust and transparency– suggesting that perhaps these CEOs will be forced to re-evaluate their own definitions of ROI in the near future.

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Social Media Week: How Does Your Agency Handle Social Media?

by Chrissy Carney on February 3, 2010

Do you manage social media programs for your clients? What’s your strategy? On Monday night, I attended the #SMPR event in NYC where I was able to hear from a panel of local PR practitioners (moderated by Affect’s own Leslie Campisi) who are responsible for managing their agency’s social media efforts. Read about my takeaways from the event on the Johnson King blog!

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Social Media Week: Social Media and the Disaster in Haiti

by Katie Safrey on February 2, 2010

Can Twitter save lives? Danielle Modzelewski, assistant account executive at Affect, offers an interesting perspective on the usefulness of Twitter after attending last night’s Social Media Week event titled “Social Media and the Disaster in Haiti.” Read the full post on
the Johnson King blog!

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Social Media Week 2010: NYC, Meet London

by Leslie Campisi on February 1, 2010

Wish you were celebrating Social Media Week in London? Me too. We’re bridging the divide by bringing you fresh social media week-themed posts from our partner, Johnson King, a European technology PR agency headquartered in London. We plan to include coverage of Social Media Week events in London and other relevant thoughts.

Today’s installment comes from Tom Kirkham, account manager, who tells the story of his social media revelation (complete with Biblical references). Tom manages Johnson King’s Twitter handle, @johnsonkingpr, and posts frequently to the Johnson King blog.

Enjoy, and look for more updates from our friends in the UK later this week.

Social Media Week 2010: Has social media come of age?
Tom Kirkham, account manager at Johnson King

Johnson King is excited, and with good reason.  You see today marks the start of Social Media Week, a five day annual conference taking place simultaneously across three continents.  Twelve months ago I doubt I’d have been as excited, for while I appreciated the need for companies to investigate new media channels, I personally felt underwhelmed with Twitter and the whole social media experience.  However, over the past year and the events I’ve witnessed, I’ve undergone a road-to-Damascus conversion (except without the temporary blinding (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Paul#On_the_road_to_Damascus)).

Most of these events have taken place on Twitter – surely the online phenomenon of 2009.  We’ve had Haiti and Iran and Michael Jackson and many other fascinating global trending topics, but the events that have influenced me the most have been UK-specific.  For example, in October 2009 The Guardian newspaper received a court gagging order, preventing it from reporting on a parliamentary debate over Trafigura (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-from-reporting-parliament), a company implicated in a toxic waste dumping scandal.  In obtaining the gagging order, Trafigura did not consider the Twitter-effect.  Twitter users and bloggers pieced together the various elements of the puzzle, and within 24 hours the whole story had spread across the UK – including to other national newspapers – rendering the gagging order meaningless.

At the time, we asked whether this was the moment at which Twitter came of age (http://johnsonking.typepad.co.uk/johnson_king_blog/2009/10/has-twitter-come-of-age-with-latest-media-gagging-incident.html), and just a week later further evidence suggested that indeed it had, when Jan Moir at the Daily Mail wrote a hugely controversial article on the recently departed Boyzone singer Stephen Gately (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1220756/A-strange-lonely-troubling-death–.html).  Twitter users didn’t like this, and within hours Jan Moir’s name was social media mud; indeed, users submitted so many complaints to the Press Complaints Commission that its website crashed, forcing the commission to create a special page specifically for Jan Moir complaints.

The final part of my conversion occurred on Facebook.  In December 2009 we witnessed Joe McElderry, winner of the X Factor television series, going head-to-head with iconic rap-metal outfit Rage Against The Machine, in a music chart battle started by disgruntled music fans fed up with X Factor’s monopoly of the Christmas number one spot.  Jon and Tracy Morter launched a Facebook group and set about creating social media noise, through their efforts gaining thousands of group members, attracting significant media interest, and even getting the band themselves involved (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/17/rage-agains-machine-singer-swears).  RATM’s eventual triumph marked the first ever download-only UK number one, with a song from 1992 that never would have re-charted without the power of social media.

Unprecedented?  Well, social media’s impact in general is pretty unprecedented.  Sure, there’s an element of the ‘angry mob’ about all this, but in each of the above cases, Twitter has been used to liberate and to enforce change, which bodes well for the forthcoming UK general election.  The main political parties will all be plotting their social media election strategies, and it remains to be seen whether they’ll successfully compete with the efforts of the general public (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=40556497527&ref=ts).

But can social media channels really be exploited for business gain?  For giant multinational companies the answer may be obvious, but what about everyone else?  At Johnson King we’re regularly asked by small-to-medium-sized tech companies what they should be doing on LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook etc. and there’s not always a straightforward answer.

Earlier I mentioned Twitter coming of age, yet at the time of writing, the trending topics are ‘#HugATree’, ‘#desperatehousewives’, ‘#Ugly Betty’ and worryingly, ‘#itampon’.  Similarly, on Facebook this morning I was invited to become a fan of ‘Picking leaves off trees and bushes and ripping them up whilst walking’. Managing social media outreach can be unbelievably time-consuming, and with so much pointless ‘noise’ out there, your company risks being completely drowned out unless you can plot an effective and viable strategy that ties into your existing marketing and PR activities

It will be interesting to see how the various presentations during Social Media Week tackle this issue, because one thing’s for sure – social media isn’t going away anytime soon.

–Tom Kirkham, Johnson King

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Coming Soon: The Status Update Shakeout

by Leslie Campisi on January 25, 2010

I’m all for social networking sites playing nicely in the sandbox. On a philosophical level, yes, thanks very much, LinkedIn, for allowing tweets to appear in your users’ status updates. Very kind of you. And Facebook, how generous of you to allow twitterers to use the tag #fb.

I also understand why the management teams of social networking sites want to expand their footprints. The economics of online communities are still mired in metrics like churn. Unable to capture the long-term attention of their core users, these sites constantly invent new carrots to dangle before prospective members to entice them into the circle. Oh, you like status updates, Mr. Twitter User? We have them, too!

Instead of rolling at our eyes of this cynical product development cycle, in which we don’t actually get new features but become a part of a pissing contest among these sites, we gobble them up. And then we — I’m talking to you, social media gurus — use the duplicate functionality to blast out the same status updates to those we are connected to on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. As my friends from South Africa say: Shame.

Have you looked at your LinkedIn RSS updates recently? What used to be a great source for monitoring your business contacts’ connections has become a crowded, noisy bar of sometimes-pithy inspirational messages, quotes, and even notes like “going to bed now.” Yes, this is partially LinkedIn’s fault. Every few weeks I fill out a trouble ticket requesting better RSS subscription options. So far, it’s still one big dumb light switch that turns them on or off.

But — paying attention, social media gurus? — any Web-savvy businessperson worth their retainer should know this fact and make the choice to adjust their social networking habits accordingly. Not only should you understand what makes each site unique, in terms of functionality, value, vibe, and community, you should also examine where your personal social networks overlap. Chances are, if I’m connected to you on LinkedIn, I’m probably following you on Twitter as well. That means if you’re Ping.fm’ing or hashtagging your tweets for cross-posting, I’m getting your status updates twice.

What’s more, your updates are polluting the stream of the actual valuable LinkedIn information I desire, diminishing the value I get out of being a part of that community. (The reverse would also be incredibly annoying: what if every time I connected with someone on LinkedIn, I sent the update to my Twitter stream? Even worse than Foursquare, right?)

So, instead of using bad functionality just because it exists, and just because you haven’t taken the time to evaluate what it means, check yourself. What is LinkedIn for? Business connections. What is Twitter for? Status updates. Yes, these venn diagrams overlap. The point is, proceed wisely. The status update shakeout is coming. Will you be unfriended?

Here’s another way of putting it. Peanut butter and jelly are both delicious. But if Smuckers’ ambitious plans for 2010 involved unseating Jif by breaking into the peanut butter market, wouldn’t you be a tad suspicious? You wouldn’t? Ah, well, there’s a word for someone like you.

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