pr-media-blog.co.uk

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?

Companies will, no doubt, say that PR agencies don’t always live up to the heady promises made in the heat of the client pitch. Anyone working in PR who disagrees with that should be washing their mouth out with soap.

But companies procuring PR are sometimes equally guilty of not getting the best out of their agencies. Versus buying stationery or getting the photocopier repaired, buying PR is different. That might seem obvious, but despite the agency/client relationship working best as a true partnership,  some businesses still behave as if an agency is just another supplier.

Yet some of the most visceral exchanges I’ve ever seen in business relationships occur between a client and its PR agency. Why? Because the reputation of a company, the success of promoting what it does and the vital connections it needs to build with its audiences - be they customers, neighbours, stakeholders, media or the CEO’s wife - are all critical. The best agencies understand this dynamic and don’t take it lightly.

So, creating an environment in which a company can really share the responsibility for the business’ future with its agency (the guy who comes in to water the plants or check the rodent poison won’t offer this) will engender a united approach to the task. A wise business trainer once suggested that there is no client and supplier, just an objective which we all need to treat as the client. 

Sure, you might say, of course PR Media Blog would come out with all this malarkey. So, in the interest of unbiased reporting, I’ll hand you over to Nicole Jordan, a marketing and PR professional on the client side in LA, who has been willing to share her views on getting the best from PR agencies with Todd Defren’s PR Squared blog.

And thanks to Todd, for being willing to let a former client air her views on PR, with his company her most recent experience.

Social media provides a conundrum for advertising.

Some advertising campaigns have talkability, but rarely - if ever - fit comfortably into a social environment. Ads sell, they do not socialise.

Hence the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising has commissioned a report into how the advertising industry needs to adapt its way of working in light of the social media explosion, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The FT’s digital media correspondent, Tim Bradshaw, fingers the problem precisely when he notes that users of social media sites “are logging in for communication rather than commerce”. The traditional advertising model - even adapted for the web as banner ads and click-throughs - is considered intrusive in social media. My colleague, Mark Hanson, refers to it as “like sticking a billboard in someone’s front room while they’re watching TV”.

Where advertising’s “telling and selling” struggles in social networking, PR should flourish for a number of reasons: firstly, it’s about creating content that’s useful, portable and shareable. Also, there should be a better appreciation of the need for two-way communication and an understanding of what goes and what doesn’t go in a particular social situation online. From our own experience at Staniforth, a PR-led approach is also good for persuading senior executives to get involved directly when there’s a crisis in customer confidence being played out online.

That said, Todd Defren over at PR Squared has rightly questioned the dubious practices that some PR people are bringing to social media, and this blog has also visited the topic recently, but seeing more encouraging signs that PR is cleaning up its act in time to claim a worthy place in the social media sphere.

Companies and brands will continue to advertise, but in thinking about how to unwrap the riddle of marketing to people who are pre-programmed to resist your advances, a closer collaboration with PR is essential.

Personal Branding on the Social Web

Why, I wondered does Neville Hobson hold his hand in front of his face in the picture on his blog…and on Twitter…and on…hang on a minute.

Is this a subtle form of personal branding?  Social networks; Facebook, Linked-In and microblogs like Twitter are growing fast and individuals are, if not clamouring for our attention, at least aware that there is a lot of noise out there.  If we are going to build an individual online presence it makes sense to follow some of the tradional rules of branding.  Consistency is one, which means using the same image across a range of networks.  Using a strong, stand out and easy to remember image is another.  Pr 2.0 gurus Todd Defren  and Brian Solis  both do this - Todd has a cartoon style image on his Twitter feed and Brian uses an arresting image with his specs in the foreground on his blog.  

Chris Brogan has just published an ebook on personal online branding so it’s a hot topic.  It’s an interesting read and looks at personal branding from a broad prespective.  What particularly fascinates me is the way in which people apply the iconographic rules that have histrically been used by brands totheir own images of themselves.  

This world has created some rules of its own.  Take a look at the picture above of some of the people I follow on Twitter.  These images are tiny, smaller than thumbnails, so making something work at this scale becomes part of the art.  Colin Byrne  CEO of Weber Shandwick and Deirdre Breakenridge author of the book PR 2.0 both use strong purple colours in their backgrounds to make them stand out.  Aleks Krotoski , presenter of The Guardian’s Tech Weekly podcast uses a close up of her fire red locks as her Twitter image (fifth row, left of middle).

I have no proof that any of these individuals have done anything other than post the first image they came across but whether by luck or good judgement they all stand out.  I have to confess I have toyed with the technique myself.  There is a deliberate use of colour in my profile pic and it seemed to me that if social networks use small images an extreme close up might be a good idea.  Charles Arthur Technology Editor of The Guardian didn’t agree.  He thinks I’m trying to hide a dodgy moustache.