Blogging

Thirteen to One

October 25, 2007 by Susan Getgood

In honor of last night’s stupendous Red Sox performance in game one of the World Series, here are 13 things that I’ve been meaning to write about. Mostly social media and marketing related and in no particular order.

1. A new social network The Point attempts to harness the power of collective action to bring causes to the tipping point. People and organizations post their causes on the site as an if/then. The basic idea is that if enough people do whatever the action is – if the cause tips, then some other thing would happen. Once it emerges from alpha, it could be an interesting vehicle for a company that is supporting a charitable cause. If enough individuals/customers do something (volunteer, quit smoking, whatever) then the company would do something as well — donate money, sponsor an event, and so on. From Jeremy Pepper, who works for the company, via Twitter.

2. Last week Doug Haslam from Topaz Partners emailed me about a social media survey done by his client, community builder Prospero Technologies. What was most interesting about it, though, wasn’t the survey. The sample size of 50 from a population of the company’s customers is neither large nor random, and the results were pretty much what I’d expect given that population: generally positive about social media with no clear idea of what is working and what isn’t. I do however give the company credit for actually asking its customers, rather than assuming. What was most interesting was that Doug was pitching other marketing and communications bloggers; both Shel Holtz and BL Ochman wrote about the survey. If you wanted more tangible proof that the media landscape is shifting, this is it. We aren’t just the media relations folks. With a nod to Dan Gillmor, we are the media. Ain’t that a kick. Doug also blogged about this phenomenon.

3. "You could be a Durex Condom Tester and Win $1000" Durex is ~~pimping for~~ recruiting condom testers on-line. Must be that new form of word-of-mouth: virile marketing (seen on Media Buyer Planner).

4. Do It Wrong Quickly: How the Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules by Mike Moran. Not much news here for anyone already deep into social media marketing and communications, but a good read anyway. I’d recommend this as an intro text for experienced marketers who want to come up to speed quickly and get some practical advice on what they should do next. Plus Moran is funny and he says lots of things I agree with 🙂 (via pitch from Peter Himler)

5. Society for New Communications Research is holding its annual Research Symposium & Gala in Boston December 5-6.

6. Kudos to Kami Huyse for spearheading liveblogging and twittering at the PRSA Annual Conference last week.

7. Andrea Weckerle has a good post on how social media has been, and will be, used in real-time disaster response. And if you twitter, make Ike Pigott happy and follow the Red Cross.

8. Congratulations Josh Hallet, on joining Voce Communications and Geoff Livingston, on the publication of Now Is Gone.

9. I’ve been playing around a bit with Photrade, a new photo sharing site. It’s now in closed beta but I have three invites. Email or twitter me if you want one.

10. Courtesy of Scott Baradell, a great example of why we should NOT write blog posts simply for search engine optimization.

11. Papeldance.

12. Thank you to all the PR and marcom students who have been reading the blog and leaving comments. I love to hear from you, even if I disagree with you.

13. Are the comment spammers getting a little more clever? Check out this one on an old Marketing Roadmaps post, comment left up purely to use as an example. Someone less suspicious might not catch it as spam, as the comment is pretty innocuous. BUT: I almost always follow commenters back to their sites. It’s a great way to discover new bloggers and get to know my readers better. AND: I am always a little suspicious when I get comments on really old posts.

Tags: Mike Moran, comment spam, PR, Red Sox, Prospero Technologies, Durex, Society for New Communications Research, Photrade, Red Cross

To blog or microblog?

October 21, 2007 by Susan Getgood

Saturday morning, before I went into town to see Wicked, I had a little twitter-chat with Steven Streight "Vaspers the Grate" (quotation marks not superfluous) about blogging versus microblogging using Twitter, Jaiku et al.

Personally, I seem to be back in a "twitting" mode after a few months of just occasionally checking in. That, combined with the interchange with Vaspers got me thinking, again, about how blogging and microblogging fit in the total social media scheme, and especially how they both relate (or not) to marketing communications.

Here’s the back and forth over about a half hour before I had to leave for the play:

vaspers – Marketing experts *have* to be on Twitter. Fear of fast messaging and loss of narcissistic platform (slomo blogs) are two major impediments.
vaspers – "slomo blogs" = conventional blogs, where new posts take a whole day to appear, and comments accumulate less than every few seconds. LOL
sgetgood @vaspers but there is place for both slomo and microblog, it’s not either/or
vaspers @sgetgood – Correct, but for a marketing expert to shun Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, YouTube seems rather drearily Luddite and egotistic to me.
sgetgood @vaspers agree that is dumb to ignore twitter et al off to read about target
vaspers @sgetgood – I stick to my claim that slowmo bloggers hate the anonymity, loss of ego, loss of message control that microblogging represents
vaspers @sgetgood – I’m not trying to be mean-spirited to non-microblogging bloggers, just wondering why they resist the evolution of blogging
sgetgood @vaspers fear, control issues, attention disorders, difficulty following threads, not good at sensemaking

I agree with him 100% that to ignore the microblogging platforms, and particularly Twitter where so much of the microblogging conversation happens, is extremely shortsighted for any marketer, particularly marketers in the tech space. The conversation that happens there is just as — if not more — important than the conversation that happens on our blogs, in email and through social networks like Facebook. And the reason some balk is most likely fear of losing message control. Just think about how PR pros stress about each and every word in a PR message. Those same messages that may be becoming the biggest anachronism in marketing communications today.

It’s also hard sometimes to follow the disconnected conversation on Twitter. Nevertheless, that, in my personal opinion, is where the real power of the Twitter network is, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

Microblogging doesn’t replace blogging. Sometimes 140-characters won’t do, and we need the longer format. I know very few bloggers who have completely abandoned their long format blog to just converse on Twitter. Blogs and microblogs have different roles.

The microblog. Twitter. Sure, it’s where you can find out who is free for lunch and literally twitter on about nothing. But it is also fast and close to real-time. Not unlike the old news ticker. In fact, it is where news happens. Follow the thread and you can learn and influence the conversation much more rapidly than ever before.

The blog. The blog is for analysis. It’s where, yes, as long as a day later, a blogger can sit down and put the perspective on the news and comments issued in rapid-fire bursts on Twitter. And it’s where bloggers, and ultimately, reporters will write the longer stories about the things they read in Twitter. Like this post from BL Ochman about Spirit Airlines’ customer service problems, which she initially read about "via Twitter from Mack Collier."

But the thing I find most fascinating about Twitter is the discovery. Each user only sees the messages from the people he is following. When someone you know replies to someone you do not, you only see half the message. And that is the opportunity for discovery. If it interests you, you can follow the trail back, check out the Twitter profile of the unknown person (assuming it is a public profile) and perhaps make a new acquaintance. That is how social networks grow in interesting and unexpected ways.

And the real reason I think marketers who ignore the microblogging tools are missing out.

Tags: twitter, microblogging, blogging, marketing

The lines they are a-blurring…

October 17, 2007 by Susan Getgood

Over at Communication Overtones, Kami Huyse has proposed a "drip theory" for social media adoption. No, not that we are all drips, thank you very much. Her thesis is that social media is adopted slowly, by presenting it to clients/bosses in easily digested bits or drips :

"By adding in a few social media tactics at a time, they start to get the power of the medium and they tend to add a second, then a third element. Soon, they are converts."

She concludes:

"Progress is achieved by the relentless drip of water weakening the established structure. When the dam finally gives way it looks like a revolution, but it really happened just one drip at a time."

A spirited discussion ensued in her comments, and I urge you to check it out.

Even before her post, I was thinking quite a bit about how companies and agencies adopt, or not, social media strategies. And the conclusion I keep coming to is that the traditional lines between the disciplines of public relations and marketing are blurring. Perhaps into a new discipline, but definitely into a new set of requirements.

Here’s how it goes. A long time ago, when the earth was green….

Well maybe not that long ago.

It used to be clear. We had public relations and we had marketing. PR reached out to the press, which acted as intermediaries between companies and their customers. There was a process, and everybody understood the rules of the game. It was all about news.

Marketing, on the other hand, developed programs and campaigns to communicate directly to customers. There was a process and everyone understood the rules. It was all about mutual benefit, mutual value.

Each side had its place, and rarely the twain did meet.

But it isn’t that clear anymore.

When we talk to a blogger, we are talking to both an influencer and a customer. We need to bring both the marketing and the PR mindset, and skill set, into the conversation.

And that makes it hard. Because the traditional PR agency trains and reinforces the skill set necessary to reach out to intermediaries, reporters. Talking to customers? Not the strong suit.

And though marketers are often not much better, talking to the customer is a slightly more natural state for them, so it may be easier to make the transition. Once they stop calling them "consumers" that is.

The fact of the matter is that the lines between the two disciplines are blurring as a direct result of social media. You have to bring both sensibilities to the table. That means understanding that bloggers are influencers, often with as much, if not more, power than the mainstream media. It also means talking to them with enthusiasm, commitment, and caring — just the way you would a valued customer. They don’t need, or want, the studious detachment you practice when talking to reporters. They also don’t want press releases with no cover note (pet peeve).

Learn how to meld the two skill sets when you reach out. It truly is adapt or die.

Or risk becoming the unicorn (YouTube vide o)

The Unicorn Song
words and music Shel Silverstein, performed by the Irish Rovers

A long time ago, when the Earth was green
There was more kinds of animals than you’ve ever seen
They’d run around free while the Earth was being born
And the loveliest of all was the unicorn

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born
The loveliest of all was the unicorn

The Lord seen some sinning and it gave Him pain
And He says, "Stand back, I’m going to make it rain"
He says, "Hey Noah, I’ll tell you what to do
Build me a floating zoo,
and take some of those…

Green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born
Don’t you forget My unicorns

Old Noah was there to answer the call
He finished up making the ark just as the rain started to fall
He marched the animals two by two
And he called out as they came through
Hey Lord,

I’ve got green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but Lord, I’m so forlorn
I just can’t find no unicorns

And Noah looked out through the driving rain
Them unicorns were hiding, playing silly games
Kicking and splashing while the rain was falling
Oh, them silly unicorns

There was green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Noah cried, "Close the door because the rain is falling
And we just can’t wait for no unicorns

The ark started moving, it drifted with the tide
The unicorns looked up from the rocks and they cried
And the waters came down and sort of floated them away
That’s why you never see unicorns to this very day

You’ll see green alligators and long-necked geese
Some humpty backed camels and some chimpanzees
Some cats and rats and elephants, but sure as you’re born
You’re never gonna see no unicorns

Tags: public relations, pr, marketing, social media, unicorn song

Feeding the trolls

October 12, 2007 by Susan Getgood

This week, events in two blog circles in which I travel drew the trolls out from under their bridges: the League of Maternal Justice’s BreastFest and the "retirement" of a PR blog character whose public face was attractive but who was best known for its ill-spirited, trollish attacks on other bloggers.

When a topic is controversial, even if only mildly so, the trolls are inevitable. What do you do when they show up in your place or in your face?

The safest and sanest approach is to ignore them.

That’s why I don’t feed the trolls. Sure, I’ve had them here from time to time, but lack of sustenance leads them to go elsewhere for their jollies. I don’t respond here, and if they attack in the comments on other blogs or Web sites, I ignore them there. It’s hard, especially when they get personal, as they always do. But the child’s nursery rhyme is true: sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me.

Dealing with the trolls was particularly hard for some of the women actively engaged in the breastfeeding debate. The act and the decision itself are so highly personal, and it didn’t take long for the trolls to get offensive. But remember: the troll is the one with the problem. Not you.

If a troll or two turns up here as a result of this post, I’ll ignore them. But unless a comment is obscene or libelous, I won’t delete it. I stand by my words. Let them stand by theirs.

Some folks take a different approach. They bait the troll, on the theory that a troll’s arguments are so ridiculous, the troll will end up proving the initial point it is attacking. This can be successful, but you have to have a really strong stomach. Because a troll is not rational. No matter how logical your argument, it will never penetrate the troll’s generally thick skull. You will never convince him. Or her.

But maybe, just maybe, proponents of this approach argue, if you can stay the course, the weird non-logic, personal attacks and ramblings of the troll, as compared to your logical, reasoned arguments, will convert a few folks on the fence. And of course, initially there is an adrenaline rush from building your argument to beat the troll.

The rush doesn’t last, the troll will get ugly, and the chances of changing anyone’s mind this way are pretty slim. So, think hard before troll-baiting. Because it is going to hurt.

As for the late, not lamented blog character, Robert French’s "eulogy" for the not-so-dearly departed says it best.

Tags: troll, trolls, League of Maternal Justice, Robert French