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As the Conservative Party prepares to complete the conference season in Manchester on Monday and launches the online campaigning tool, myconservatives.com, (seen here in Beta form), PR Media Blog put questions to Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport and Spokesman for Online Campaigning. The questions and answers were supplied in written form and have been reproduced as such.

PR Media Blog: The Tories are way ahead in the polls. Does it matter what the party does online between now and election day?

Jeremy Hunt: While the Party is currently ahead in the opinion polls, the only poll that matters is on General Election day and we’re taking absolutely nothing for granted.

In terms of our online efforts, we’re the only party that has committed consistent time, effort and resource into online communications since the last General Election, and you can be sure that digital will continue to play a massive part of our engagement with voters.

PRMB: David Cameron has been dismissive of Twitter where people in the other parties have embraced it as a communications tool. Is he worried that encouraging Tory MPs to use it would be too uncontrollable and risk re-toxifying the Conservative brand?

JH: Twitter is the fashionable tool of choice at the moment, but as Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital said: “Services like Twitter are scattershot and dizzying. They burn political capital. Besides, they don’t talk to the people you want to talk to.”

It’s OK using Twitter if, like Grant Shapps, you already have an email list of over 10,000 local residents with whom you can communicate directly. But many Labour and LibDem MPs have a totally disproportionate attitude to it - how many of Kerry McCarthy’s constituents are on Twitter? I’d be amazed if it was over 10%.

It’s not fear of Twitter by any stretch of the imagination - our Party account has more followers than Labour and the LibDems combined, and several public facing staffers are on there too and constantly engaging with people - it’s rather that our MPs and Candidates focus on the digital activities on channels that matter in their local campaigns - websites, email, Facebook and supporter mobilisation.

PRMB: Do you see so-called “right wing” bloggers such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes as the Tories’ natural allies online in the run up to the election?

JH: The dominance of the centre-right in British political blogging is a testament to their quality and independence, and though we have a relationship with almost all of the big beasts in this world, it is up to them to decide on their editorial line.

The top centre-right bloggers are, however, part of a broader Conservative movement that is looking to challenge the wastefulness, incompetence and lack of vision in this current Labour Government.

PRMB: Does having a social media presence conflict with the Conservatives’ need to control the message very tightly in the coming months?

It’s important for any political party to have a clear, distinctive message so the voters know exactly what we stand for. However, it’s equally important to be reaching out to voters so they can ask us questions and figure out if they want us to be the next government. Social media offers us an excellent opportunity to have that conversation and open ourselves up to public scrutiny, but so do other channels.

Email is still the most accessible engagement tool out there and public meetings provide a great way to engage directly. David Cameron has also held almost fifty ‘Cameron Direct’ events over the past year, engaging with over 10,000 people face-to-face and answering their questions on a range of subjects.

PRMB: Is the party afraid that social media will become the source of damaging stories or allegations that will turn the polls against it? How well prepared is the party to deal with a scandal erupting online?

JH: We saw from the Draper-McBride scandal what happens when a central Party tries to take control of independent, online media - it ended in the kind of fiasco and disgrace that will come to define Labour’s approach to the internet in the minds of most people for many years to come.

The Conservative Party inherently understands that online communications comes with risks, but that the opportunities are too great to ignore.

PRMB: I’ve read that the party is going to advertise on Spotify. In what way is this the right medium for a political party to engage with the electorate? Is this just trying to piggy-back on the latest “hot thing”?

JH: Your advertising strategy has to be about reaching out to people who would never ordinarily engage with your content - or even be that interested in politics and platforms like Spotify (or Google AdWords, which we’ve also used with significant results) are a great way of reaching new audiences.

We’re absolutely not about going for the latest “hot thing” - if a platform wasn’t going to be effective for us or offer value for money then we wouldn’t use it.

PRMB: Does the party think it will harness online communities in the way Barack Obama did ahead of his presidential win?

JH: Can we emulate Obama? US elections are very different in tone, size and scale to ours in the UK but we are the Party that has best understood and adopted the lessons they learnt last year. Obama’s achievements in terms of organising activists and raising money have certainly raised the bar in terms of what a political party can achieve online and we’re obviously looking to do something similar in Britain.

To that end, we’re launching something very exciting at Party Conference - the most advanced political campaigning tool outside the USA, and the endpoint of our content and supporter recruitment strategies.

Congratulations or, should I say, “thank you”, to Co-operative Financial Services for doing something simple that works so well in social media.

This video, delivered with endearing amateurism, was done to mark the company’s success in being chosen as Which’s “Financial Service Provider”.

What’s so effective about this, seemingly, throw-away piece of film?

1. Real people being themselves.

2. A thoroughly likeable and memorable way of delivering a simple message that would be difficult to do any other way.

3. It’s fun for a sector not renowed for having a sense of humour (or being allowed to have a sense of humour).

4. It’s daring for a financial services brand to be so frivolous, at a time when financial services are not top of anyone’s Christmas list.

5. It’s neither slick nor corporate, but invites but human interaction, which is the essence of social media after all.

For anyone with marketing or communications in their job title, in a sector whose usual messages might be considered “dry”, this is something to take note of.

Recent blog posts on social media here at PR Media Blog seem to have had people reaching for the boxing gloves.

Whether it be the use of social media in politics or in business, there seems to be sharp divide between those who think it’s the earthly paradise of Shangri-la and those who feel, like in the old days of the witch hunt, it deserves to be strapped in the ducking stool to see if it floats or sinks.

Not wishing to see people fall out about it, I did the conciliatory thing and started an argument on LinkedIn where, naturally, people are known for their reasoned responses.

And it raised some interesting points.   

Simultaneously, another LinkedIn question was asking: “When you run into someone that tells you that Social Media is going to rule the world…what’s your funniest response?”

Social media ruling the world? Be careful what you wish for…

The Labour Party’s final conference before the next General Election - and perhaps its last as Government for the next few years - begins on Monday. How will the party hope to engage with the electorate and stave off what looks now like an inevitable defeat? PR Media Blog spoke to Kerry McCarthy, recently appointed new media campaigns spokeswoman about how the social media sphere is influencing Labour’s communications.

If New Labour will be forever associated with anything in the English language, it will be the phrase “on message” and the word “spin”.

Tight, centralised control of communications and an unfortunate habit of using the ugly face of public relations to manipulate the truth has peppered much of New Labour’s time in power.

And while US congressman, Joe Wilson, recently caused a furore when he shouted “You lie!” at President Obama mid-speech, such an outburst against Tony Blair - if it had happened - following the exposure as fiction of the Iraq “dodgy dossier” would probably have been roundly applauded in the Commons.

This year’s Labour “Smeargate” scandal and the ensuing departure of government advisers, Damien McBride and Derek Draper, raised questions about Labour’s relationship with dirty tricks in the communications department.

But the party’s new media campaigns spokeswoman, Kerry McCarthy - or “Twitter Tsar” - believes that by embracing social media, Labour is making itself both more transparent and accountable.

Speaking of Smeargate, she says: “It was a tricky period. It was wrong, the ideas that were being kicked around - we don’t need to stoop to that level.”

But she also laments the growth of what she describes as “right wing blogs”: “I would be quite depressed if we had need for a Guido Fawkes on our side. The difficulty with blogs like that, and Iain Dale’s, is that they are not elected politicians and they would be held up to certain standards if they were. We haven’t got sites spreading smears about people.” 

Yet the idea that Labour might lean on a Labour blogger who was writing scandalous copy is not the case, says McCarthy: “If it was a keen, young activist we wouldn’t have any control over it. But I don’t think it’s a control freak thing to say we think it’s wrong and unprincipled. We don’t want the Labour Party tarnished with this.”

But how does a party with a history of autocratic control over communications relinquish its rule? “You can’t control it in the way Labour controlled the message in 1997 and afterwards. The news agenda has changed,” she says. “News is so much more rapid and also there is the commentary from a myriad of voices. The issues are all over the blogosphere and Twitter and it would be obvious if politicians are parroting soundbites. If you have got lots of different media outlets there is more chance that truth will come out. Stories get another life online.

“And [social media] is also about how [politicians] respond to people when they are challenged. Getting into debates [online] there is no way you can dictate that from the behind the scenes.”

But at a time when Labour is trailing in the polls and needs clarity about why people should vote for them, isn’t the idea of  MPs having countless, public conversations in social networks counter productive? McCarthy says: “Though politicians might have differing views on things, what comes through are the underlying principles and values.”

She draws a comparion between Labour’s immersion in social media and what she sees as the Tories’ reluctance: “I think it will be difficult for the Tories as it will be the maverick voices and the wilder elements of the party that will stand out”.

Labour is experimenting with different social media activities, including a way of using Twitter to make grass roots activists feel more included in debates at party conferences.

But is there a risk that Labour positioning itself as the “social media party” will detract from the real issues the public care about? “We’ve been careful about this,” says McCarthy, “as there’s nothing worse than politicians trying to be trendy. Authenticity is important and people will see if we are using it as a gimmick.

“Twitter is a two-way thing and it’s done in public, reaching a much wider audience. Politicians can be held more accountable so it is a useful tool.”

But how significant will social media be in helping Labour to victory in 2010? “It’s not the magic bullet that will win the election; it’s a small part of getting across the message but will help in getting activists enthused.” She notes that the need for door step campaigning and getting face-to-face with voters has not gone away.

And how does she juggle social media with the day job? “I’ve got 101 ideas for blog posts but it’s having the time to sit down and do them. With Twitter you can do it in a couple of minutes while you’re in the middle of something else.”

You could be led to believe that musicians see the internet as an evil source of file sharing which is causing long-term damage to artist and audience alike.

For some - and even those who have been at the very top of the tree - it also provides a new way of linking directly to the audience without the record company as the gatekeeper.

One artist Daryl Hall, one half of Hall and Oates who are the biggest selling male duo of all time, has grasped the potential to move beyond live performance to communicate directly with the audience.

In what he called ‘one of those light bulb moments’ be decided to launch ‘Live from Daryl’s House’. The concept was simple - he would play music with friends trying new songs, more familiar Hall and Oates tracks with twist and unique performances of his fellow musicians’ songs. He has likened it to Later with Jools Holland.

The formula has worked and there have now been 23 episodes which have featured an eclectic mix of established artists including Smokey Robinson, members of The Doors, K.T. Tunstall, Todd Rundgren as well as recent newcomers including Plain White T’s, Parachute and Canadian techno-rockers Chromeo.

It has given his fans new access to Hall being able to see how he works in what he has described as an “opportunity for me to exhibit what it is I do directly to the public without any pre-judgment.”

As Hall said in a recent interview  when asked the question about how the web has changed his relationship with his fans he said: “The internet has taken away the influence of the gatekeepers, It’s offered a more populist, more direct way of communicating with people and I feel more attuned to the way I think and the way I perceive things.”

For other artists the web has enabled them not only to maintain their careers but also build on a solid fan base. One that has really grasped social media in all its forms is the former front man of the 1980s band The Alarm, Mike Peters.

Since the mid-1990s, without a major record deal, he was an early adopter of the medium by using the web and fans forums to maintain and build interest in his solo work. As the channels has grown so he has used them even using iTunes to send regular video reports of his climb up Everest to raise money for his Love Hope and Strength cancer charity.  

What Peters has done is to use social media to give his fans a real feeling of community which has also moved off line. On past tours, those attending gigs have been able to use email to shape that concerts set list; at each concert Peters takes time to meet the fans during an interval even giving impromptu acoustic performances in the middle of the audience; and every January he holds ‘The Gathering’, next year’s will be the 18^th, in his native North Wales where 2000 fans gather for a weekend of acoustic and electric concerts by him concerts as well as other Peters/Alarm related events.

What these two examples show that whatever level artists have reached that social media is a way to talk directly to their audience and build a solid community which can maintain a career outside the mainstream record labels.

Update: an insightful take on the future of social media for marketing, c/o Sydney, Australia’s Ganador Management Solutions.

Social media versus traditional marketing communications? Gentlemen, please choose your weapons.

It’s always good to see some healthy debate about one theory or another - in any field; but it’s such a long time since I’ve seen a blog post comment so overflowing with vitriol that I thought it was worth a closer look (see comment 2 in the link).

The thrust of the comment - made by a Jacob Wright in response to the Econsultancy post and the preceding video film all about social media - is summed up by the phrase he plunders from Jerry Maguire:  “Show us the money”. In short, where’s your cast iron proof that social media marketing works? And he’s got a point. Amid all this wonderful engagement stuff, is anyone spending one more euro, yen, buck or pound on anything thanks to social media?

But, unfortunately, there’s a priggishness that creeps into his argument that suggests social media advocates are merely Johnny-come-latelies who haven’t got the grey matter to grasp traditional marketing, and should do so before they herald its successor. Now, before traditional marketing advocates/social marketing haters rubbish the new kid in town, they have to admit one thing: that for every great piece of marketing activity undertaken, there’s a great big dud consigned to the marketing dustbin of history. That’s life, and all the “straw men” that go with it.

Mr Wright demands engagement with “WHAT MAKES PEOPLE BUY STUFF” (I wish people wouldn’t shout in type; I fear for their blood pressure). OK, so let’s engage ME.

I’m a reluctant shopper, full stop; a shopper of necessity, ie., when the trousers are ready to split. So, in theory, I’m looking for the fastest route to making a purchase; one which barely engages the part of the brain labelled “shopping”. So, when I needed a way of carrying money abroad last holiday, what did I do?

1. Launched Google.

2. Found news sites recommending travel credit cards (the most prominent being a Santander card and a Thomas Cook cash passport).

3. Sought online reviews where I’d get punters’ views.

4. Found nothing on Santander (already I’m worried) and a few discussions about the Thomas Cook card, with mixed reviews.

5. Picked up a leaflet and went for the latter, as it felt like the least terrifying option, despite the mixed messages I was getting online.

It’s risky treating oneself as a case study, but for someone disinterested in buying stuff, I certainly spent time circumnavigating the traditional marketing communications effort to get at the truth before making up my mind. So, Thomas Cook won my business because I trusted real people’s views more than I trust it as a commercial entity. However, if Thomas Cook had been engaging in the same forums and clarifying some of the conflicting experiences of its cash passport users, how many other cautious customers could they harness?

So, while the Jacob Wrights get hernias about metrics (and they count, don’t get me wrong) the customer is out there making purchasing choices with the help of social media.

Olivier Blanchard seems to get the balance right with his insight into proving that social works by looking at its effect on “transactional prescursors” - a lofty phrase for the stuff you do before you buy, I think - and so being able to measure and track its true value in marketing terms.

But also, as The Guardian just revealed, the BBC has a team of reporters dedicated to trawling the social web looking for stories. And if your organisation is engaging in those places, who’s to say these online networking natives aren’t going to find something valuable and NEWSWORTHY (now I’m shouting) in what you’re doing.

Just as the talkies didn’t kill cinema and TV didn’t kill radio, it’s far fetched to think that social media marketing will deal a killer blow to the establishment.

Put your weapons away, gentlemen; there’s room for everyone.

Update: More - this time from Nielsen - on how retailers can benefit from recognising and engaging with social media - or, a new phrase, Consumer Generated Media.

UK high street retail veteran, Debenhams, came over all social yesterday with its Twitter assistants “experiment”.

The idea was to ensure its staff gave “top notch service” for the launch of its new season stock by giving customers the chance to tweet their queries to @DebenhamsRetail, whereby six assistants in its Oxford Street store would spring into action, either in person or - obviously - via the Twitterverse.

Was it simply a PR gimmick, as Socially Minded questions, or a giant step forward in customer service? Why would a shopper browsing in the store tweet an assistant for help rather than just tapping one on the shoulder?

Well, the Debenhams Twitter team, clearly still buzzing from their Tweet-fest, sent me this message within minutes of being asked how it all went:

But social media, and particularly Twitter, for retailers - while no longer new - is a strategy worth looking at:

Chris Lake over at Econsultancy has taken the time to collate the “27 varieties of tweet used by retailers” (I think he should’ve found 57, just for cringe value) which demonstrate that just pumping out offers is a legitimate, but far from being the only, reason to be a retailer active on Twitter. With this Twitter “to-do” list, a retailer should never be short of something to tweet. And Lake makes the point that using Twitter for customer service is a good way of demonstrating openness and willingness to help while displaying that in an open, online forum.

Asda is one retailer that has grasped Twitter, to the point where it has different Twitter feeds for different purposes: @asda is a place for its “Rollback” offers, getting sneak previews of new TV ads and seeing retweets of media coverage and complimentary comments. @asdajobs speaks for itself, while @asdaserviceteam is monitoring Twitter for customer upset and providing a response and @GeorgePRGirl is talking up new products, picking up quirky media mentions (Allister Darling saying he preferred George suits to Armani) and bringing some personality and humour to the brand.

Clearly, Twitter is not a cure-all for retailers’ marketing communications and customer service ambitions and issues. But as part of a social media engagement programme, it is becoming another effective tool in the box.

UPDATE: I wonder if McKinsey’s survey respondents were thinking about social media ROI in the way Olivier Blanchard depicts it here? 

Is business really benefiting from the use of social media?

It’s now a perennial question coming from companies who want to be in on the action, but also need assurance that it’s not the latest magic potion that promises everlasting life, but - in fact - has been made by boiling potatoes in a back-alley flop house.

Last week’s post by Todd Defren at PR Squared suggested a dual “eagerness” and “wariness” among big companies to get involved in social media activities.

But the September report by McKinsey management consultants - How Companies are Benefiting from Web 2.0 - may begin to allay some of those fears.

Conducted among 1,700 company executives worldwide, this comparative study (taking in changes in business’ social media experience during the past two years) suggests that 69% have gained measurable business benefits from web 2.0.

In the spirit of interactivity, McKinsey has come up with a nifty tool which neatly summarises the findings across web 2.0 used internally with staff and externally with customers and suppliers.

And the results make for interesting reading: McKinsey’s research claims that use of web 2.0 means ”a different type of company may be emerging…a networked organisation…using interactive technology” that makes it “more resilient and adaptive”. And the commitment to investing in these techologies is apparently on the rise, with 53% forecasting an increase in spend plus 26% promising to maintain previous levels.

But is it for every company? The research reveals that those benefiting most from web 2.0 fit into the $1bn-plus revenue bracket (and, unexpectedly, B2B organisations) as opposed to smaller or consumer-focused companies.

Uptake of social media for business seems to be developing from the inside out, with 65% of users adopting it first for internal purposes, against 58% using it for customer interaction. However, sales and marketing teams are beginning to outstrip other departments in using web 2.0, with a corresponding decline in users in IT and R&D. And the use of company blogs is becoming focused thoroughly on acquiring new customers versus the needs of customer service, product development and inter-customer discussions.

Does this mean that the early adopters’ fear that marketing would eventually abuse social media by shoe-horning traditional, one-way messaging into social networks, has been unfounded? 

With blogs, wikis and podcasts the most heavily used tools according to the research, users cite the principal commercial benefits to be ideas sharing, access to knowledge, reduced costs and improved employee satisfaction when used internally, while external use has “increased customers’ awareness and consideration of companies’ products” alongside “measureable increases in revenue”.

So, is it time for business’ “baby steps” into social media - that Defren rightly feels we should “applaud” - to become giant strides?

It isn’t often that we opt for introspection on this blog but we think that being shortlisted for a hotly contested award is cause enough to briefly break the habit.   PR Media Blog has been shortlisted in the ‘Best Use of Social Media’ category in the 2009 CIPR Pride Awards.  It is up against some very tough opposition but we are all proud to have made the final cut. Congatulations to all the contributors listed on the right.

Staniforth, the PR agency behind PRMB picked up three awards in last year’s event and is shortlisted for five this year with campaigns for Smokefree NorthWest, Chill Factor^e and two for Kellogg’s completing the line up.  The results are announced at a ceremony at the Hilton Hotel in Manchester on 16 November.

Is this what the social media world has been waiting for: a detailed study that equates companies’ social media activity with (gasp!) pounds and pence, dollars and cents?

Well, technology and business analyst, Charlene Li and her digital consulting firm, Altimeter Group, have come up with just that. The study took the top 100 brands according the Business Week index and, first, analysed their engagement across 11 social media channels.

The top 10 list of social media performers contains no surprises - Starbucks, Dell, Google, etc - but it’s the next part of the engagement analysis that should put a spring in the step of social media advocates everywhere and give marketeers with metrics on their mind something to think about.

The study claims that revenues of the most social media-engaged companies - or “Social Media Mavens” as the report has it - rose 18% on average in the past 12 months, compared with an average decline of 6% among the least engaged. Finance people (welcome, if you were looking for the FT and have found yourself at PR Media Blog by accident) take note: the same results were identifed in gross margin and net profit figures.

What’s that you hear? It’s the sound of a few thousand social media experts saying “Phew! We knew we were on to something…”

But not content with showing how it benefits the bottom line, Altimeter’s work goes on to deconstruct how the top performers’ social media efforts are paying off. For those who consider themselves social media literate, this will seem obvious; but companies which refresh content regularly and actually respond to comments left on their blogs (i.e., conversing) are already streets ahead. It’s the difference between saying “we must get some of that social media magic” and actually doing it.

Other useful findings show that effective social media engagement is not the realm of the few in an organisation, but the many. This goes against the traditional marketing communications approach of maintaining a vice-like grip around every utterance from within an organisation and is, without doubt, a hard habit to shake off.

Finally, the study focuses on the importance of companies’ attitude to social media, in that it’s no longer something that can be dismissed as irrelevant to a particular business or business sector or something that be treated as a campaign with a finite life span. Sorry folks, but if you want some of those numbers that make the FD smile, it’s in for a penny, in for a pound. 

And in the fine PR tradition of giving catchy names to different modes of behaviour, the study categorises companies from the top flight “Mavens” to the bottom end”Wallflowers”, which are involved in social media, but only just. This tool gives you the chance to rank yourself.

So will you be Maven, Wallflower or something in between? If the study is to be believed - and real, financial fruits can be harvested from social media - then maybe it’s time to stop being (my term) the potted plant, that sits on the shelf waiting to be watered and hoping the sun will shine.