pr-media-blog.co.uk

Online privacy has blown up on several fronts in the last few days.  Yesterday the twittersphere took collective umbrage at the audacity of  James Cunnigham and his Twifficiency site.  It was publishing twitter efficiency ratings (huh?) without users’ permission.  

This is pretty small beer in privacy terms when you put it alongside the comments of Eric Schmidt, the chief executive of Google, who in an interview with the Wall Street Journal issued stark warnings about the volume of personal data people upload to social networks.   ”The internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy we’ve ever had” he said.  “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time.”

Foursquare has also been under fire.  Are you sure that you want all of your friends, family and people you do business with to know that you are the mayor of some of your home town’s finest drinking establishments?  Foursquare is endeavouring to square up to the issue.  In a blog this week the company said “We’re always looking for ways to give our users more control over the data they share through foursquare… For example, you can now choose to share your email or phone number with friends, opt out of all Mayorships, and have more control over email settings.”   

The Facebook privacy debate is well documented but we really haven’t seen anything yet.  I wrote a book about PR and the social web which was published last year and in the final chapter I speculated “imagine combining the huge volume of photographs on the web with facial recognition software and… data gleaned from social networks… We could use a camera to inform us about a person’s history.”   Well that day is almost upon us.   “We know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are” says the Google chief.  “Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don’t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You’ve got Facebook photos.”

We can already point a camera a bulding and recieve a wealth of data.  How long before we can do the same with people?

Exactly one week ago the annual Manchester Jazz Festival was entering its penultimate day of nine, which had seen crowds packed into venues across the city to see more than 80 bands.

It was also the culmination of a festival marketing campaign that, for the first time, had social media hot wired into it.

With a small core team, a modest budget and a principal focus of getting the music right, the festival organisers gave a couple of people - myself included - a fairly free rein to see what social media could do for audiences this year.

So, did the social investment work? The honest answer is, I don’t know. Hopefully the research among gig-goers during the week will reveal all. But what I do know is that using a small selection of social media platforms effectively exposed the festival to a greater number of eyes and ears, and created the beginnings of loyal online community.

The main issue we faced was having little concrete information to work with until a few weeks before the festival, when the line-up was finally confirmed and published. Add to that a pre-existing suspicion among the general public about what they think jazz is: in other words, elitist, pretentious and a whole load of screeching noise.

So, what did we do?

• Invited festival Facebook Group followers to migrate to the newer (and more versatile) Facebook fan page.
• Trawled the festival’s existing Twitter follower and followee lists to pinpoint and connect with the influential/popular feeds in Manchester and North West England music/arts and entertainment.
• Began retweeting others’ content; showing the willingness to share.
• Started conversations where appropriate and where we could add something meaningful.
• Set up an Audioboo account to generate some low-cost content, by way of interviews with scheduled bands and music samples.
• Set up Google alerts to track all mentions of the festival by bloggers and venues to provide a steady stream of content for Facebook and Twitter updates.
• Used the Twitter “all friends” feed to find useful jazz content to keep the platforms refreshed with audio and video.

By the time the festival’s new website came online, with extra facility for multimedia content, we already had a burgeoning online community eager for festival fodder. Using links from static parts of the website (such as daily gig listings) on the Facebook page provided another route in to the online materials.

What did we achieve?

From a humble base of just over one hundred Facebook fans two months before festival launch, this reached nearly 500 by the time the music started.

Interaction on the page had also increased considerably:

 Twitter followers doubled from 600 to 1,200 and we had developed some great contacts, including leisure and entertainment bloggers who featured festival previews, reviews, competitions and - amazingly - became jazz converts! Granted, the numbers weren’t in their tens of thousands but, don’t forget, this is jazz not Kylie Minogue!

If an increase in social media followers for the festival - and the user generated content that showed up on the sites - is indicative of active audience interest in the event, I would like to believe this contributed to the week of packed houses.

In the words of the old jazz tune, “T’ain’t what you do it’s the way that you do it (and that’s what gets results)”

(Photo of Adam Nussbaum, drums, and Steve Swallow, bass, c/o William Ellis)

There’s no doubt that social media has become the favoured flavour of the PR and marketing community’s month.

As mentioned in a recent post the demand for social media consultancy is on the rise as well as the search for people with the right skills in the field.

And brands are getting their fair share of flack when retro-fitting traditional marketing methods for the social media domain.

So is there anything left for PR and marketing in the channels looking comparatively long-in-the-tooth? Take radio: is it merely what writer and broadcaster, Garrison Keillor describes as (and I paraphrase) “the thing that sits in the corner giving you a warm feeling and makes you think of your Mum”.

Well, not so fast it seems.

The latest RAJAR figures for UK radio (covering changes in radio station audiences) show that commercial radio - said to be in terminal decline only a few months ago - suggest it’s gaining more listeners from the BBC and achieving its highest ever levels of reach (ie, the number of people tuning in for longer). Unsurprisingly, the figures are welcomed by the media buying community.

So, what does this mean for PR and marketing people?

Independent radio buyer for On Air Promotions, Shehnaz Sirkhiel, says the time has never been better to buy into commercial radio: “Stations are enticing listeners back to local radio by streamlining their programming, making it a lot more accessible and giving their output a national sound with networked shows while holding on to a local feel.”

According to Sirkhiel, this means there’s a great opportunity for brands to stand out from the on air clutter and reach enlarged audiences via sponsorships and promotions, which sit more in the editorial than advertising sections of programmes.

And if companies are looking for a good radio deal the time is now, as they will - until the new RAJAR figures are implemented on station planning systems - pay radio rates based on the previous figures, while obtaining a higher listenership.

Meanwhile digital radio, once considered the white elephant of the medium, is also gaining more “ear time”. Sirkhiel says this is another boon for businesses wanting to ride the radio wave: “Brands should be taking digital radio more seriously, especially those stations integrating their broadcasting with commercial activity online.” She cites Jazz FM  as a digital-only station whose programming “doesn’t shout, but excites” and which provides a currently cost-effective way of reaching a targeted audience.

Keillor’s book title “WLT: A Radio Romance” suggests there is still love to be had with the old “wireless telegraph”. The investor who said in the 1920s, “The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular,” might just have been wrong.

For most technological and societal trends, the UK tends to look Stateside to predict the direction of travel for our own experience.

Social media and its use in marketing communications has been no different, with the earliest case studies into how to, and how not to do it, coming eastwards from the Atlantic.

But how does the UK population behave online now and, in particular, within social media?

Ireland-based agency, Simply Zesty, has compiled some insightful information on that very topic into a short and snappy (or maybe zesty?) video that sums up the current UK experience.

Is social media now a mainstay of mainstream marketing?

In more than two years since PR Media Blog began - when commercial, social media activity in the UK was more rooted in theory than practice - the online engagement revolution seems to have gained enough momentum to pose a serious challenge to the marketing hegemony.

Whereas, at one time,  it was a struggle to get arrested for talking social media with in-house marketing teams, now they are positively dragging you to the table, eager to open up and peer inside the latest “Ark of the Covenant” for business. 

Some organisations, more accustomed to adopting relatively conservative communications methods, are now even choosing to lead campaigns with social media activity. And then there’s the likes of Asda, immersing itself and its customers in social media and even thinking of itself as more than just a retailer - i.e., a content generator.

Why is this?

As Scott Liewehr, senior consultant and lead analyst at Gilbane Group, said in a highly informative webinar yesterday: “Social media is the web…and consumers are shaping your brand.”

He went on to explain how social media, in influencing purchasing choices, means that “customers are trusting complete strangers more than household brands” and that “brands should be viewing this as an opportunity rather than a threat”.

Liewehr describes the “superbrands” as embracing online customer participation and engagement as the social web allows companies to listen, understand and respond. At first look, this isn’t easy, as the social media landscape is more (in his word) the “Splinternet” - with conversations and activity happening simultaneously in disparate online locations.

With this in mind, he offers a checklist for the modern digital marketeer:

1. Be open

2. Be a good listener

3. Be prepared - you need to have something to say in response to a customer comment, and quickly!

4. Be knowledgeable and add value

5. Be consistent

But for those organisations and marketeers still cautious about balancing the threat and opportunity of social media - and wondering how to keep up with the latest gizmo - Liewehr cousels calm! “It’s mostly NOT about technology,” he says, suggesting the skills needed for online engagement aren’t new, but that the delivery channels have changed.

Getting started with social media should include modest expectations in the early days, focusing on small wins and learnings with an eye on building long-term impact.

But, he adds, firms shouldn’t underestimate the transformational power of one person - the right person, doing the right things - representing a brand online.

The net gain should be better brand awareness, increased sales and customer loyalty.  

Funny that; sounds a bit like marketing.

A guest post from Dr. Tia C. M. Tyree, Assistant Professor within the Department of Journalism at Howard University, Washington, D.C.

In August 2009, I was quoted in a PRWeek article titled “Lessons for the Future,” which dealt with how professors across the country were “grappling” with social media. Today, I am confident there isn’t much grappling being done. Those who were on the proverbial fence have probably hopped it and jumped on the bandwagon like everyone else. Over the last few years, most of us were trying to figure out how we could incorporate social media into our course. Now, I think most of us have built or are building social media PR courses. Mine will debut in Spring 2011.

I was convinced I needed the course after attending Edelman’s New Media Academic Summit last month. Educators from across the globe converged in New York, New York to hear from some of the top viral and public relations professionals who are changing the landscape of social media. Presenters included the Group President of Conde Nast, Main Presenter from BBC (Nik Gowing), Co-Founder & CEO of MeetUp, SVP of PepsiCo and Director of Worldwide Communications from Pfizer Global Manufacturing, and each shared their opinions, hopes, desires, stories and lessons learned from the social media landscape. From successes with “Tweetups and Meetups” and the great debate surrounding paywalls and journalists, which raged this weekend with Gannett’s test, the flow of information, ideas and advice was overwhelming. Ultimately, it’s clear PR professionals are still learning exactly how to best use the right mix of social media to obtain success within the media and marketplace.

The summit taught me there is a great benefit in still having a strong mix of online and offline tactics, and it was really a caution not to abandon those practices that are fundamentally successful to try the new online tactics that have not proven successful to a specific company. In essence, it takes time to earn trust, develop relationships and build an online community. PR professionals must learn the new techniques, master them and fold them into their overall strategic plans, because when consumers can participate (i.e., engage with the company through social media) in a brand, than the return on investment and impact is much higher.

How this relates to me and other educators is important. We train the next generation of PR professionals. If we don’t learn social media and teach students how to strategically use social media, than we will graduate thousands of young entry level professionals who are clueless about how social media impacts a company and how they can harness its potential for the benefit a company’s greater good or bottom line.

With social media, the traditional media landscape is continuing to change. The idea that “every company is a media company” was frequently tossed around at the summit. With social media tools, the ability to reach customers, teach customers, inform customers and interact with customers is no longer tied to earned or paid media. Instead, it’s based on the marketing, sales and public relations professionals within a company and their ability to utilize social media tools. I am committed to helping my students use these tools, and I hope other educators are willing to do it, too.

As you may imagine, PR Media Blog spends much of its time soaking up PR and social media knowledge from around the web.

It’s not novel by any means, but sharing some of the more interesting and useful links seems like a socially-inclined service to our readers. So, here goes for round up #1…

Enjoy!

1. Who owns social media? - a view on how responsibility for social media criss-crosses several departments in an organisation, c/o @mashable and @smmguide.

2. Facebook facts - both useful and mind blowing, rendered in a cheat sheet infographic, c/o @PRwise.

3. Foursquare and Starbucks cosy up over coffee - there’s profit in them, there online geolocation services, as shown in the tie up between Foursquare and Starbucks (via @SocialMedia411)

4.  Nestlé, Kit Kat and the Orang Utans - was it social media that saved the rainforest? (via @PRwise)

5. “What will social media do to us?” - how ready is your business to tackle the social media revolution? (via Forrester)

Does PR have a role to play in social media?

Sorry, was that a chorus of PR agencies and professionals I heard screaming in unison “Duh, of course it does!”?

Well, people, you might be right. But - more often than not - it’s good to stop and think.

That’s what I was asking a group of nominated company spokespeople to do during media training this week. For while engaging with the media is an opportunity, it’s also a risk. And whether you’re a CEO, engineer or on the shop floor, opening your mouth on the company’s behalf means you are entering new territory; you’re now in the business of public relations and reputation management.

Which is why media training shouldn’t be about soundbites or spin, but taking a carefully considered and methodical approach to the impact of what you say in a public domain.

Which brings us neatly back to social media.

Blogging technology has torn down the barriers to publishing and this is a good thing for both PR agencies and their clients, so long beholden to the media’s permission for their story to be heard. The turnout at a CIPR social media learning event in Preston last night suggests there’s an insatiable appetite for PR consultants to get involved in the brave new(ish) world online.

But as anyone who’s been through journalistic training will tell you, the privilege of publishing also comes with a high degree of responsibility. Get it wrong and you could end up in court facing the full force of the law. British defamation law may leave something to be desired, but for now it remains the law. Which is why the checks and balances of an editorial hierarchy are essential.

PR agencies and their clients are neither professional publishers nor editors. And yet the button marked “publish” on the blogging software enables them to be so. Which takes us back to “stop and think”.

One of the lazy, get-out clauses of making an editorial mistake in the bygone days of print-only publishing was that today’s newspaper is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapper. But this is not so online. Not only does your online content or comment not end up wrapping fast food, it is potentially one click away from Google’s homepage.

Knowing how to respond in the event of a client’s potential reputation meltdown should be the meat and drink for PR practitioners. But even better is working to ensure it doesn’t happen at all.

That’s why the passion to publish online needs, sometimes, to take a cold shower first.

This blog has charted decline of newspapers for the last two years but the sale today of The Independent for just £1 is proof if any were needed that the value has gone out of print.  Less than ten years after the New York Times paid over a billion dollars for a city paper (the Boston Globe), a UK national title changes hands for small change.

The Independent has been bought by the Russian billionaire Alexander Lebedev, who acquired the London Evening Standard last year, and has been in the market to secure for the Independent for some months.  The deal includes the Independent on Sunday and follows a year in which the Independent titles lost £12.4m.

Even though the titles have been snapped up for close to nothing there must remain a question mark as to whether the ex KGB man has actually got a good deal.  Earlier today at the AGM of the North West Creative & Media Industries, Sara Wilde-McKeowan the Regional Managing Director of Trinity Mirror who acquired the Manchester Evening News a few weeks ago decribed being in the newspaper business as “like skiing downhill unsure as to whether there will be a soft landing”.

It’s an odd and sobering thought to think that for the price you paid for a single copy of the Independent at your local newsagents this morning you could have bought the whole shebang. 
 

Google has made global headlines today with the revelation that it is redirecting users in mainland China to its unrestricted Hong Kong site in order to avoid complying with the Chinese laws that direct the search engine to censor results.  Chinese firewalls however mean that results for searches such as ‘Tiananmen Square’ still come back censored.

For those who want to delve behind the headlines you can replicate the experience of one of the half a billion Chinese internet users.  Internet browser Firefox has a plug-in that simulates the great firewall of China.  Users who add the Firefox China Channel to their browser can experience what it is like to surf the internet from inside the republic. 

You may have heard the factoid that if Facebook were a country it would be the world’s third largest behind China and India.  The web is seen as the borderless, global and free but it isn’t.  States like China filter and block content that they don’t want citizens to access. The so-called Golden Shield Project is policed in China by an estimated 30,000 strong task force who deny access to politically sensitive or regime critical content.  

The battle between Google and the Chinese government is symbolic of the rise of web communities and the decline of the power of the nation state.  Challenging censorship is an honourable aim but before we celebrate the rise of the web community too much we should spare a thought for the fact that the leaders at Google aren’t elected either.