During Internet Week in New York, I attended a presentation that drove home the point that communicators are overloaded with social media options and sinking under the weight of an endless flow of data. Up on the video screen a chart displayed dozens of interconnected logos—each one representing a hot, formerly hot and soon-to-be-hot digital channel.

“Does this represent your typical workday and the choices you have to make?” the speaker asked.

You could feel the air leave the room—not that there was much to begin with on that muggy New York evening—and sense people slumping in their chairs. Yes, it did represent their typical workday.

It’s all too much, sometimes: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, LinkedIn, Vimeo, YouTube, Tumblr, Blogger—and whatever else is next—on top of more quaint but still necessary channels like email, news releases and Web sites. How can a PR professional manage it all and show proof that the time invested in each platform is paying off on the bottom line?

One solution is to first admit to yourself that you can’t possibly do it all and to work with an outside agency that can help you manage your social engagement programs. Such an agency can provide you with the data you need to figure out what’s working, what isn’t and what to report to senior leaders in your organization. By doing so you can spend more time being creative with your overall communications strategies and less time jumping from browser window to browser window, app to app—racing, racing, racing to monitor comments and pin, tweet, post, shoot, edit and wade through mountains and mountains of data.

Working with outside experts isn’t always an option, though. As we’ve heard from top digital communicators—some of whom will be leading sessions at PR News’ June 21-22 Social Media Summit in New York—focusing less on the various modes of communication and more on the proclivities of your target audience will help you learn where to spend your time and energy. Maybe your audience has drifted to Pinterest and maybe you’ve been sitting on a storehouse of images that they will want to repin. Maybe immersing yourself in Twitter is all that’s necessary at the moment. Go where they live online, and commit to the process of finding your own voice.

And when that next, hot platform launches, remind yourself that you have no power to halt technology’s march and that you can’t possibly do it all. And then tell yourself that you can do some things very, very well.

To learn more about the latest social media platforms, register for PR News’ two-day Social Media Summit event which will be held June 21-22 in New York City. The Early Bird Rate ends May 23. 

Steve Goldstein is editorial director of Access Intelligence’s PR News, which encompasses premium, how-to content, data and competitive intelligence for public relations professionals; PR News Online; PR News conferences, Webinars and awards programs; and PR News guidebooks.

The last two columns, Web Traffic, and Lead Gen, require intelligence from your company. Web Traffic would require insight into analytics from the a company website which should be available from your web team. Lead Gen depends on your internal process for tracking sales sources if it’s part of the intake process. In addition, if there are events that require registration, such as a webinar or demo, the sourcing question can be added into the process.

This matrix is not exhaustive nor does it take into consideration the quality of engagement. This is just meant to be a simple tool to satisfy the numbers folks in your organization and to track performance across platforms over time.

Photo by My TwiStEd wOrLd

I have had so many discussions lately with marketers and PR folks that are practically in a panic about how to engage in social media. Suddenly, their CEO or their clients are adamant that they need to be on YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, blogging…. and a host of other activities. They want them to go from zero to 100 miles an hour by Friday. With budgets shrinking and appetites increasing for customer engagement and revenue generation, executives are right to turn their attention to social media. But, it can’t ALL be done overnight if you want it done right. So, here are a few tips:

1. Pick one medium – one form of social media – and do it right. You don’t have to be on every channel. Pick one, commit to it, own it.

2. Incorporate social media into what you are already doing. Can you add widgets to your website to allow people to save, share or discuss topics? Can you expand your profile on LinkedIn or add a button that says ‘Follow Us’ on Twitter to your existing web campaigns?

3. Set Expectations. You’ve read about the runaway successess that companies have had with social media campaigns – you might not. Set realistic expectations and work towards those goals. Once you meet them, raise the bar again.

4. Get some ROI. Make sure you are picking a platform to invest in that is going to give you some tangible ROI (to show your boss). Will it increase web traffic? Sales? Downloads? Registrations? It’s good to listen, engage, and keep the customers happy, but usually the person paying the bills wants something a little more hard core to budget dollars and time against it.

5. Find an expert  – in or outside of your organization. If you aren’t sure where/how to begin, find an expert that can help you. You can hire a big gun at a pricey agency, or small guns (like us!) that can be affordable and efficient. Surprisingly, you might just have one in your organization as well – an employee with an active blog, a master networker on your sales team with 1000 Facebook friends, a Twitter addict on your IT team. If you don’t have the budget for outside counsel, use your internal resources or search for free ones on the Web.

6. Collaborate. Putting together any successful social media program usually requires interactivity – with customers and influencers on the outside as well as on the inside of your organization. Check in with legal, take the pulse in IT, talk to marketing and see if you can pool resources and brain power to make it work.

On a final note – don’t let the fear of making a mistake paralyze you from making any progress. If you have good intentions, you’ve done your research and you’ve thought out your strategy, you’ll probably be in good shape. As the wise Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, once said on a panel with me regarding what your social media usage policy should be – “Just Don’t Be Stupid.”

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

I thought it was a great gathering: The keynote speaker was Ray Kerins, VP Worldwide Communications, Pfizer. The panel that followed was moderated by Melanie Milstein, author of Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution with Dave Armon, President PR Newswire, David Sacks, Founder of Yammer, Paul Gennaro, Chief Communication Officer, AECOM, Morgan Johnston, Corporate Communications Manager, JetBlue, and Marc Monseau, Director, Media Relations, Johnson & Johnson

The forum then broke out into roundtable sessions moderated by professionals in PR and Marketing who are involved and active in social media and real-time communications.

It was exciting to actually meet and talk to all of these good people that are the front-runners in embracing and using social media and real-time communications to strengthen their brand and connect and communicate with their customers.

I must say, it was mostly in a B2C context, but the forum tried to cover B2B as well.

Everyone was fired up; the room was abuzz with talk, questions, and networking. All the social media buzzwords you could find were flying around: Twitter, YouTube, FaceBook, MySpace, Flickr, blogging, tweeting, video, RSS, IM, email, wikis and on and on…

I felt that people could not get enough information. Everybody was thirsty to learn more.

The questions seemed to be unanimous and ubiquitous:
How do I start?
What does it take from a tactical point of view? One person or a team of 10?
What are the risks?
What are the benefits?
Can I calculate ROI?
How do I get executive management on board?
How do I manage a crisis?
What is a fast response? Two days, two hours, 2 minutes or 2 seconds?
How do I control what’s out there?
How do I manage and aggregate all the different platforms for RTC?
What about traditional media?
How do I get buzz going for a small company that’s not a JetBlue or J&J?

Some questions were tackled and answered, some were not, some got an honest “we don’t know the answer to that yet”.

My key takeaways – and I hope this helps all of us – were:
- Start by discovering what conversations are going on in the social media space like Twitter, YouTube and blogs
- Monitor these everyday by getting RSS feeds through Google RSS or Google Alerts
- Make sure you understand and define your goals and what your communications strategy is
- Don’t be afraid to dip your toe into this fast-flowing social media river.
- Conversations are happening about your company anyway, so get involved
- Depending on your corporation or business, you should decide how to become part of these conversations and who should be answering
- Key: BE HONEST, BE TRANSPARENT
- Employees are spokespeople for the company – they are out there using Twitter and the likes, so they should be brought up to speed
- To do this, and do this right, in a big corporation, there needs to be a mind shift from the top down. Changes in the organization need to be made. Processes need to be streamlined. The social media spokespeople need to be empowered to reply quickly
- To quote Morgan Jonston from JefBlue, “This is about humanization of the brand!”
- Be careful not to seem like the overbearing “big brother”, don’t be intimidating
- Open up, LISTEN to your customers, be committed to change
- Remember and be aware: The line is thinning between traditional media and social media – many journalists have left traditional media and are now influential bloggers/tweeters

Lots of *stuff* to take in…

I look forward to a follow up event, which, in my opinion, could be a full day event, instead of half a day.

If you’d like to hear the two main sessions they are available here.

*Please* add your comments – I would love to hear your opinion and additions!

The controversial “negative” ad seriously offended “babywearers” and moms nationwide who felt that it implied moms wear babies in a carrier as a fashion accessory or to make them look like an “official” mom. The bonding, positive experience of the baby carrier was totally overlooked by J&J.

Watch the ad here – do you think it’s offensive?

Here’s the print version (click to enlarge) :

I’ve got to say, its pretty harsh, and yeah, I would say, offensive. I can think of a hundred ways to change the copy to make this ad so much more engaging, appealing, pleasing, and a little more sympathetic and sensitive to moms with small babies.

The VP of Marketing at McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Kathy Widmer, immediately issued her first official apology on the Motrin home page: “We have heard you. On behalf of McNeil Consumer Healthcare and all of us who work on the Motrin brand, please accept our sincere apology. We are in the process of removing this ad from all media. It will, unfortunately, take a bit of time to remove it from our magazine advertising, as it is on newsstands and in distribution.

There is now an updated message from Widmer on Motrin’s home page.

Tweets from both influential mom bloggers with hundreds of followers and regular moms were heard alike. The power of Twitter shows that you don’t have to have thousands of followers on Twitter to start the ball rolling. Tweeters with smaller networks have just as much influence as people with large networks. It works both ways.

Again, we are being shown the power and alacrity of online social networking and how quickly people’s opinions galvanize and proliferate, which in this case, brought down J&J’s national Motrin ad campaign.

Check out the cash cube money machines that are available to rent from Ideas4Events.

These cash cubes come in different shapes and sizes: hard case or inflatable and can even be customized with your company name and logo. I think real banknotes always work best – there’s nothing quite like the thrill of having dollar bills flying all around you – but coupons, vouchers, certificates, funny money or any paper product that fits into your event marketing strategy would apply here.

One of our clients, Radware, just did a high impact integrated marketing campaign at RSA Conference 2008 in San Francisco this week using a cash cube machine. It was a great success. The marketing team created tons of buzz and excitement around their booth, the messaging of “Can You Save Your Company Money in 18 Seconds or Less?” and specific product push all aligned and tied in to the cash machine. Read the blog here and watch the YouTube video below.

Of course, be clever in the way you do this, like Radware did, to get the maximum out of your budget. For example:
Don’t fill the cash cube with $100 bills. $1 and $5 bills will do just fine.
Don’t keep people in the cash cube for 5 minutes. 20-30 seconds is sufficient.
Don’t let *anyone* into the cash cube: Qualify your leads and make sure they are serious prospects and not tire kickers. Let them sit through a presentation, fill out a detailed contact form or questionnaire before they get a chance to play the cash machine and win some money.

Here’s to more creative and succesful event marketing!