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.

{ 4 comments }

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!

{ 0 comments }

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!

{ 0 comments }

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

{ 0 comments }

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.

{ 0 comments }

2 Articles: New PR Skills for the New Year & #TeamLeno or #TeamConan

by Sandra Fathi on January 19, 2010

Articles that I authored appeared this week in Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog and PR News on two very divergent topics; new skills for PR professionals in 2010 and who is winning or losing in the late night PR war.

Here are short excerpts and a link to both articles:

5 Must-Have PR Skills for 2010
Public relations is an evolving profession. Unfortunately, it seems that the media landscape is evolving faster than most PR professionals. There are a bevy of new nouns, verbs and acronyms that have entered our vernacular in the last 12 months—and it’s time for PR folks to take it upon themselves to learn some new skills for the coming year. These skills apply to the individual, as well as to agencies across the board. The firms that have mastered these skills will have a serious competitive advantage in 2010 and help themselves to some new business revenue at the same time.
Read full article.

Team Conan or Team Leno?
Although the Twitterverse is asking if folks are on #TeamConan or #TeamLeno, the real loser in this match is going to be NBC. It’s mind boggling that a huge media company could be so poor at media and public relations. The current battle in the late-night wars comes after a string of poor decisions made by NBC execs over the past six years. Although the late night survival of the fittest game has been going on for much longer than that, the most recent upset has its genesis in 2004 decision to persuade Conan O’Brien to stay at NBC by seducing him with the promise of hosting The Tonight Show after a five-year waiting period.
Read full article.

Feel free to add comments/criticism/suggestions. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(Correction made on 1/21/10. Article appeared in Bulldog Reporter’s Daily ‘Dog.)

{ 2 comments }

Mark McGwire: PR, Sports Journalism and the Art of “Manning Up”

by Leslie Campisi on January 15, 2010

McGwireYou run the PR department for the St. Louis Cardinals. One Sunday morning, you receive a mysterious call. “Book a flight to LA. Immediately.” Within 24 hours, your newest client is sitting down in front of television cameras for a live, hour-long, one-on-one interview. That’s what happened to Brian Bartow, the team’s director of media relations, immediately prior to Mark McGwire’s conversation with Bob Costas, in which he publicly admitted to taking steroids during his baseball career.

As I watched the interview at home on Monday night, I realized I wasn’t emotionally invested in McGwire’s story. I’m a huge sports fan, it’s true. But I didn’t grow up with baseball and definitely was not paying attention to it during the “magical” season of 1998.

Instead, my first thought was: who are the puppet masters pulling the strings behind this elaborate PR maneuver? Who made the decision that the best way to reintroduce McGwire to the media — who have been anxiously anticipating a follow-up to his awkward 2005 Congressional testimony — was 60 minutes of no-holds-barred, live questioning by Bob Costas? I don’t have immediate sources to back up this claim, but my gut tells me that other athletes in McGwire’s situation have typically issued terse, written statements and laid low. Check this list and let me know if I’m mistaken.

Here are my PR takeaways from Monday night’s interview.

The Medium is the Message
The performative aspect of McGwire’s interview can’t be overstated. The sheer act of sitting in the chair, in makeup, under the lights, for the longest, most serious interview I’ve seen on TV in ages, inherently played in McGwire’s favor: it humanized him. After a few rounds of repetitive questioning, and repetitive answering, I found myself zoning out and just thinking, poor guy and don’t worry, it’ll be over soon. And even as the sports writers (who I’ll get to momentarily) chastised him for not being contrite enough, they did give him credit for “manning up” and volunteering to speak on the record. Again, that choice puts him in stark contrast to the dozens of other silent accused steroid users.

Sports Writers Have Serious Issues
There were shades of Oprah’s public shaming of James Frey in the way the MLB Network commentators responded to McGwire’s remarks. In this case, the “million little pieces” that shattered weren’t Oprah’s book club machine but the sports writers who made a living spinning yarns about the magical 1998 baseball season, in which McGwire and Sosa competed to overtake the home run record. Just as Oprah “made” James Frey by promoting his book in her club, Tom Verducci et. al. give the impression that they somehow “made” McGwire with such effusive media coverage. And, like Oprah, they somehow felt the need to publicly shame their former hero so the taint didn’t rub onto their sportscoats.

If you read the book A Million Little Pieces and enjoyed it, does knowing it might not be 100% true retroactively erase the pleasure you experienced reading it? If you were a baseball fan who loved every minute of the 1998 home run chase, does knowing Mark McGwire was one of many players who used performance enhancing drugs during that season spoil the fun you had then? Guess what? IT CAN’T. Unless you found a hole in the time-space continuum, the fun you had was the fun you had.

It shocks me that more people don’t see the underlying ninja PR-move at play, on the part of the journalists who somehow are able to make us believe that they are victims, and, in the case of McGwire, chastise him for not reading off of their pre-approved contrition script. (Though McGwire admitted to using steroids, he didn’t “admit” that they directly, positively affected his performance, i.e., his record breaking home run season.) Wow. As I said in my tweet, I never thought I’d agree with Harold Reynolds but was relieved when he gave Verducci and Rosenthal a reality check in his post-interview remarks.

Exclusives Can be Pulled Off
Apparently Bob Costas was approached as early as January 6th to conduct the interview, though he didn’t know when or where it would take place. And though the media had been anticipating a McGwire interview — Costas himself had been chasing him since February 2009 — it appears that, until his statement was published on the Cardinals website around 3pm Eastern on Monday, the story hadn’t leaked. Kudos to Bartow and his team, led by former Bush press secretary-turned-sports PR flack Ari Fleischer for pulling off that feat.

We All Deserve a Boss Like Tony LaRussa
He hired McGwire as the Cardinals’ new hitting coach knowing that in itself would cause a PR stir — whether McGwire decided to “come clean” or not. And not only did he stay out of the preparation for Monday’s events (“I had a heads-up it was coming, but I didn’t know what he was going to say,” La Russa said Tuesday), he took tons of interviews to stump for McGwire immediately afterward. Here’s one. That says a lot about LaRussa as a person, and a manager.

There are No Fairytale Endings
The one writer whose opinion I actively sought out on this topic was Will Leitch, former editor of Deadspin, current contributor to New York Magazine and, perhaps most importantly, die-hard Cardinals fan. Check out his recent McGwire post on NYMag.com’s The Sports Section, which concludes with this thought:

There will always be something wrong with any statement McGwire or the rest of them make. We’re mad because we feel duped. Who cares that PEDs weren’t banned by baseball when McGwire played? Who cares that he looks like a truly penitent, haunted man? He messed with America’s memories, and he can’t put a nice ending on it now. Sorry, Mark; sorry, Barry; sorry, Rocket: Your crime is not taking steroids, your crime is taking steroids too late in your careers to make up for it on the field before you retired.

He’s right. There is no antidote for “messing with America’s memories;” there was never going to be a perfect outcome to please all those invested in the story. But, in my opinion, the past week’s events have been a net positive for McGwire, the Cardinals, and their PR team — and a net negative for sports journalists who, unlike Leitch, can’t tell where their feelings end and McGwire’s contrition begins.

By the way, Oprah eventually apologized to Frey. Anyone ready to man up yet?

{ 0 comments }

8 Ways Commenting On Blogs Boosts Your Reputation & Web Traffic

by Sandra Fathi on January 15, 2010

Courtesy of AmericanHell.com

Courtesy of AmericanHell.com

Blogs are a critical component of any public relations and marketing campaign. Today, there are prominent blogs associated with almost every well-respected publication but there are also blogs that have no ‘print’ or traditional media affiliation but garner a significant following. In addition to the professional blogs that are associated with a journalist, reporter or company, there are citizen bloggers who can also yield tremendous influence.

We recommend for all of our clients a ‘Blog Monitoring & Commenting Campaign’ where we monitor relevant conversations on blogs and recommend opportunities for them to comment on articles or discussions. Regardless of whether or not they have a company blog of their own, this practice helps support a variety of goals and objectives just a few of which are listed below:

1.    Increasing Awareness of Your Products & Services – Commenting on blogs provides you with an opportunity to capture ‘real estate’ with high-profile blogs. For example, if there is an article in the NYTimes regarding your company wasn’t included in, by commenting on it, your comment has the potential to be viewed by everyone reading the same article.

2.    Strengthening Relationships with the Media – Commenting on blogs is providing feedback to the writer/journalist. This is a great way to build and maintain relationships with the media on an ongoing basis. It keeps your company top of mind for future articles.

3.    Bypassing Media – If your company was not included in a critical article, you can insert your company in the conversation through the commenting feature on the blog.

4.    Reputation Management – If your company was included in an article in a negative light, leveraging the commenting feature gives you an opportunity to provide feedback without the filtering of the reporter/blogger.

5.    Engaging with Customers & Prospects – Often within the comments themselves, customers or prospects will ask questions about the article or companies mentioned in the article. This gives you a platform to respond directly.

6.    Thought Leadership – Commenting on blogs is a forum to show your insight and intelligence on a particular subject matter or the industry. This is an opportunity for you to position key executives as thought leaders and the company as a market leader.

7.    Driving Web Traffic – Commenting on a blog usually offers an opportunity to include a link to one’s website and/or email address. This can help promote your company website.

8.    Search Engine Optimization: Link Building Strategy – Commenting on blogs provides a link back to your website. This is important in helping increase your organic rankings in search engines.

So, do yourself and your company a favor, and add your comments to this post!

{ 0 comments }

The Hangover: CES 2010

by Katie Safrey on January 14, 2010

ces22I’m back from CES and no my hangover isn’t due to Vegas over-indulgences. I’ve never seen anything like CES (and I’ve worked at my fair share of tradeshows). It’s the largest, craziest, coolest tradeshow I’ve ever been too, and I must say it was one of my best professional experiences (do you think I’m crazy yet?).

I have so much to say about the show that it’s been difficult to write this post. I’m sure you’ve read plenty of technology recaps, so I figured I’ll do what I do best and provide a public relations and social media recap (based on my personal experience at the show).

So let’s talk about my pre-show goals:

1. Demonstrate the value of social media at a large-scale tradeshow. I can’t even begin to tell you how critical social media is at a show like CES. Before I left, I linked my client’s Twitter account to my Blackberry through OpenBeak, and hooked that up to their Twitpic account. That’s all I needed to provide on-the-ground coverage of my client’s booth and participation in the show. I found that pictures say more than words, and noticed a direct uptick in Twitter followers every time I posted a picture. Next year, I’d consider running a simple contest on Twitter, using a hashtag encouraging people to interact with us.

2. Meet journalists — make connections. Talking to journalists in-person was an invaluable experience. CES enabled me to have conversations with mainstream media that would ordinarily be challenging to get face time with. My tip for PR people attending large tradeshows: get out of the booth. I walked the floor and stopped to talk to journalists that I knew would be interested in covering my client. When it came to larger “if-I-book-this-it-would-be-a-dream-come-true” media and networks, I stopped by their booths everyday to say hi and inquire about their schedule for the day. By the end of the show, they recognized my face and were willing to come speak with my client on Saturday (as things were slowing down).

3. Get as many interviews and write-ups for my client as possible. Obviously. Once I made friends with a few reporters, it was easier to secure coverage. Our PR team had booked some appointments in advance of the show, but as I said before, walking the floor really took things to the next level. My tip to get tons of interviews and write-ups: follow up immediately. Every night when I got back to my hotel room, I emailed the reporters that were hot leads and thanked them for coming to the booth and asked them if they had the information that they needed for a write-up. I found that by staying on top of the reporter’s mind, I was able to motivate them to cover my client.

4. Stay away from the blackjack table. This wasn’t a problem, I didn’t have the time. Good for me (and good for my wallet).

I think the most important thing I learned at CES is the value of being a friendly, outgoing and knowledgeable PR person. Don’t pitch reporters that don’t cover your space. Know your pitch like the back of your hand, know your client and understand the value that they bring to a journalist in their space and you’ll be set up for success. Having a good attitude helps too. Everyone is exhausted, and a friendly and understanding demeanor definitely gives you a leg up.

I’d love to hear about your PR experiences at CES. Leave a comment below or shoot me an email. Hope to see you on the floor next year!

{ 0 comments }

True Life: I’m Going to CES

by Katie Safrey on January 6, 2010

ces-logo

I’m leaving for CES tonight and I’m not gonna lie….I can’t wait. I’ve never been, and so far I’ve heard some mixed reviews ranging from, “That’s AWESOME” (from a co-worker) to “OH GOD that’s torture,” (from a vendor coordinating media opportunities at the show). I have to admit that I love tradeshows, and I’d rather be an exhibitor than an attendee any day. I’ll also be accompanying a client and working with them to secure media opportunities on-site — all good things if you ask me.

So, in the spirit of my excitement, I’ve set some goals for the next few days:

1. Demonstrate the value of social media at a large-scale tradeshow. I’ll be tweeting on behalf of my client from the show, and I’m hoping to use Twitter to meet  bloggers and journalists. I’ll also be in attendance at Thursday night’s tweet-up at the Hilton. I want to show my client how valuable social media can be to make connections, network and generate media coverage.

2. Meet journalists – make connections. Yes, I’ve set social media high on the priority list, but I do believe in the value of shaking hands and talking in-person. I’m excited to meet journalists and bloggers in the tech space, learn from them and expand my network.

3. Get as many interviews and write-ups for my client as possible. Obviously.

4. Stay away from the blackjack table. Well, that may be a personal goal.

I’ll be doing my best to tweet in real-time from the show (follow @ksafrey to keep up with me) and I’ll try and post some blog updates and pictures while I’m there.

Oh, and if you want to help me achieve goal #4, shoot me an email.

{ 0 comments }

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →