Archive for the ‘Social Media & Networking’ Category

I am literally writing this in a knee-length Blackbeard frock jacket over a swashbuckler shirt under a buccaneer hat, my brass nautical telescope before me.

The keyboard looks mighty dirty through this thing.

When Todd Spencer, the CEO of Doe Anderson, the agency for which I work, asked me to take on the role of something he was calling “Interactive Trends Analyst,” I told him I would only agree if I could change the title. Social Media Explorer is much more romantic and interesting. Guess the copywriter in me shines through sometimes.

Well, Todd didn’t laugh me out of his office, in fact agreed that it sounded attention-getting and ordered my business cards. I then told him it would be a good idea if I could blog about my experiences since he would be sending me to several conferences, putting me out there to find ways to start a conversation, or be invited into one, with consumers about us, our industry and, of course, our clients. Fortunately, he didn’t look at me like many CEOs and say, “Blog? Isn’t that what they call it when phlegm builds up in your throat and you cough a lot?”

SocialMediaExplorer.com is officially up and running. It will not only feature my own explorations into the worlds of social media, social networking, social bookmarking and all the various and sundry other online experiences, but also insights and opinions about the advertising world in general from my colleagues at Doe Anderson. Todd even posted the first entry on the blog – an “internal” announcement of my new position.

We would be honored if you stop by, subscribe to our feed, bookmark us and so on. And please, join in the conversation. Comment on articles, email our links to interested friends, etc., etc. Exploring social media is my job, but I don’t want to do it in a vacuum. Join me.

Technorati Tags: social media, social media explorer, social networking, social bookmarking, advertising, marketing, SEO, SEM, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, branding, communications, consumers

Popularity: 22% [?]

There was a certain irony in The Straight Pitch receiving its first PR pitch Tuesday. While I suppose there is a nugget of hope in the back of my mind I might one day qualify as a blogger people pitch story ideas to, the notion never really crossed my mind since I help provide pitching advice to PR folks.

But Tom from AppSmash (he gave no last name) sent me a very short and simple email (pasted below for reference). Guess what? It worked.

AppSmash has developed a professional networking application for Facebook that mirrors some of the functionality we’ve come to enjoy about LinkedIn. It’s called “What I do” and like other Facebook apps, it’s fairly quick and easy to install and gives you an option to invite friends. Early adopters (I’m assuming) have a chance at an iPhone drawing by inviting 10 or more.

You enter your basic professional information, keywords for your skills, can enter more detailed info about your company, invite others and there you go. Your information is entered (as an optional feature) in the application’s directory of professionals. You can search for others via keyword.

Another pseudo-LinkedIn feature is the ability to write a personal recommendation for your friends. It’s just a single line dialogue box, but gives you plenty of room for a paragraph or so of text. You are able to recommend any of your friends, regardless of their having the app installed. The system says it has saved the recommendation in their system.

Overall, it’s a very simple version of LinkedIn — no real depth of information about users whereas LinkedIn offers unlimited job history, awards, etc — but useful in the Facebook environment — No reason to have a separate listing of contacts since you have Facebook friends, I suppose.

The AppSmash website has a social media-esque release about the application that has more company-based information. The link to the application add is here: http://apps.facebook.com/whatido/

And for the record, though I could be admitting to an easy sell blogger and was flattered by the outreach, the simple approach worked for me. Here’s Tom’s email that led me to this post.

Hi Jason:

I just read your post about Facebook, Paul Gillin, etc.  Our company just launched a facebook app that makes business networking on facebook simpler. It is already growing quickly and we have an article coming out with CMP tomorrow.

If you have any interest here is our press release - http://www.appsmash.com/news.html

Tom
www.appsmash.com

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Last week brought about significant changes for me. I was offered an opportunity to interview for a position within my company that would shift my roles and responsibilities and have me working primarily for one of our oldest and most exciting clients. The interview was with the client, who was looking for a unique combination of experiences and abilities in this new role.

I got the job.

My new role at Doe Anderson, one of the nation’s oldest advertising agencies, is now that of Social Media Explorer. Yep, that’s my title. Leave it to the ad business to come up with a John Wayne-y business card entry.

What I will be charged with is designing and implementing social media programs — blogs, MySpace and Facebook activity, etc. — to allow the brands we work with to be represented and a part of this online conversation and community we enjoy. Sounds cool, right? I’m sure it will be. But it will also be a challenge.

My personal theory on social media, in terms of brands, not people, treading those waters, is that it must be done with care and respect for the community. We are not here to be advertised or marketed to. We are here to make friends, connect with like minded people and have a sense of community around our hobbies, professions and other commonalities. A brand or company is welcome to that community, so long as they want to communicate with it, not to it.

Keep in mind that bands, TV shows or even comedians are also brands. Look at your MySpace or Facebook pages. How many of them are you “friends” with?

As I face new responsibilities, it strikes me I shouldn’t let my experiences and assumptions alone guide me. My theories hold no water without input from the community.

What I would like to know is how you feel about befriending and communicating with a brand or company in the online world. What’s on and off limits? I will be advising clients not just how to do it, but how to do it well.

The only people qualified to help me define that are all of you.

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A tip of the cap to the good folks at Ogilvy Public Relations for their recently posted Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics. The list, posted by Kaitlyn Wilkins, Ogilvy’s Digital Influence Strategist, offers a solid primer on how PR folks can start off a relationship with a blogger on the right foot.

Our favorites:

• We will only propose blogger outreach as a tactic if it complements our overall strategy. We will not recommend it as a panacea for every social media campaign.

• We will always be transparent and clearly disclose who we are and who we work for in our outreach email.

• Before we email you, we will check out your blog’s About, Contact and Advertising page in an effort to see if you have blatantly said you would not like to be contacted by PR/Marketing companies. If so, we’ll leave you alone.

• We won’t pretend to have read your blog if we haven’t.

• We encourage you to disclose our relationship with you to your readers, and will never ask you to do otherwise.

• If you are initially interested in the campaign, but don’t respond to one of our emails, we will follow up with you no more than once. If you don’t respond to us at all, we’ll leave you alone.

Click here for the full post.

I particularly like the last one, which is a policy I try to adhere to when approaching media (and I include bloggers under that umbrella) about filling out our Straight Pitch survey.

Be sure to read the comments, too. M.C. Milker has a great response that enumerates a Bloggers Guide To Publicity she says was inspired by their post.

And another tip of the cap to Spike Jones at Brains on Fire for leading us to the info.

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As all public relations professionals tread into the social media waters, the need for sound advice on effectively reaching out abounds. Muhammad Saleem’s recent post “How to Write a Social Media Press Release” over on CopyBlogger.com is another gem in our growing portfolio of sound advice.

Among the salient points:

Why Regular Press Releases Fail in Social Media

Here are the 3 main reasons why a press release would normally have zero chance of success in social media:

1. They have the wrong singular focus, which is on the company issuing the release.
2. They are full of marketing-speak that inherently engenders mistrust in the eyes of the social media audience.
3. They don’t have a specific audience in mind, and are written broadly and presented blandly.

And an analysis of Brian Clark’s previous discussion of how to drive thousands of subscribers to your business blog in one day that concludes these strategies help social media releases work:

1. Optimizing the headline for all three kinds of readers.
2. Writing for diagonal readers.
3. Use attractive text formatting.
4. Get to the point and don’t waste words.
5. Include a step-by-step methodology for others to follow.

Please do read the whole thing (click here). It’s a nice lesson for us all in reaching out to the new influencers in a fashion that results in the same types of success we’ve experienced with traditional media.

Technorati Tags: Social media, press releases, media relations, networking, blogs, bloggers, pitching stories, story ideas

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I had the pleasure of attending my local PRSA chapter’s participation in Wednesday’s teleseminar with Paul Gillin , author of “The New Influencers.” The presentation was insightful and fascinating as he looked at the new landscape of media in the Age of the Internet and how public relations professionals must now tread the waters of social media and online networking to reach those who impact buying and perception.

With my previous ponderings on the role of Facebook as the emerging professional networking site of choice and the problematic nature of professional networking invading the online space treated as personal networking by millions of early adopters, the teleseminar’s Q&A period offered a unique chance to ask Mr. Gillin his thoughts. I asked if he thought the Worlds Colliding problem of personal networkers being approached with professional friends on Facebook, MySpace, the blog world and so-on, meant we were evolving into a society of split personalities.

“Yes!” was his answer. (I’ll paraphrase the rest as my shorthand has long been indecipherable.) Gillin said he sees not only no problem with having several different user accounts for various social networking sites, but could foresee circumstances where a person who represents various clients and constituents as a communicator could have many different identities in the online world.

Kevin Dugan of Strategic Public Relations and The Bad Pitch Blog tossed another factor into the whole personal-vs-private discussion when he pointed out no matter how intentional your separation of these worlds is, Google tears it all down. (Darn those clever search engine developers!) A simple Google search would reveal any blog connections to you, unless of course your personal (or professional) activity is done under a pseudonym.

Curious as to Gillin’s further thoughts on the matter beyond the asked question, I emailed him to present the following questions:

1. Do you see potential pitfalls of people juggling multiple identities in the online world?

2. Where should professionals (PR or otherwise) draw the line in becoming a social networking participant on a personal basis?

3. HR professionals are already Googling potential candidates just to see what they can find. Should your Facebook/MySpace/etc., profiles be off limits and how can they be if the information is there and free?

4. How long will it take for the Supreme Court to have to decide what a person’s online world means in terms of their employment?

He answered my email, along with others, on his blog at PaulGillin.com . Here’s how he responded (from PaulGillin.com ):

Your questions imply that people should expect protection over what they say in a public forum beyond those already afforded by the Constitution. I fundamentally disagree with that. The public Internet is every bit as much a public space as Times Square, the exceptions being that one’s indiscretions on the Internet may potentially be seen by many more people and may also be easily searched, copied and stored. It’s no secret that the Internet is a public resource or that public websites are, well, public. I think it’s foolhardy to assume that what you say on the Internet is private.

This puts a greater burden on the individual to be aware of the risks of their behavior and to be discreet. Personally, I would never say anything on a public website that I wouldn’t want published in a newspaper. But the burden is with individual, not with those who witness a person’s behavior. If you want privacy, pick up the phone, use an anonymous e-mail server or encrypt your messages. But don’t expect the courts to come to your rescue. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse for breaking the law, and failing to understand the obvious risks of speaking in a public place should not be an excuse for doing something stupid.

Apparently, Mr. Gillin confused personal and private. He also fails to recognize that not everyone is at work, 24-7. Using his logic, we as professionals are not allowed to have personal lives. At least not on the Internet.

Perhaps this is an employee’s rights issue, but I do think it translates to working with our clients or our companies that want an online presence. If a personal friend jumps on Paul’s blog and leaves a comment using colorful language, are we to think less of him? Will his clients turn away should they happen upon the personal side of their consultant?

Not to belabor the issue, but let’s say Joe PR Man is chosen to author a company blog for Company X, a pharmaceutical giant. In his spare time, Joe PR Man plays around with photography and starts a photo blog. It has nothing to do with Company X or pharmaceuticals and is in no way connected, via hyperlink or otherwise. Joe takes a picture of a nude model, puts it on his blog and is fired when someone emails Company X CEO with a link to the image.

Is this what we want the Internet to become?

The topic is one that I think we in the online community should broach and quickly. I use some social networking tools for personal social networks. Does the transparency of the Internet mean that I can no longer do so under my own name?

Consider the floor yours.

Popularity: 25% [?]

Kevin Dugan at Strategic Public Relations has a fun little video series going called “Facebook Confessionals.” His latest entry offers his take on the Facebook as professional networking debate and is a fun way to start a Tuesday.

Dugan uses Facebook for professional networking exclusively it seems. I’ve offered that I believe most Facebook users will have a difficult migration toward this use as most of them fell in love with the site as high school or college students. For many of them “networking” then meant something totally different and wholly inappropriate for professional subject matter. But Dugan’s take provides some pointers for steering the Facebook usage in that direction.

And Laurence Borel at Blog Till You Drop! has an interesting take on Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn to add to the discussion as well.

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Mike Sansone’s recent ConverStations post offering Facebook ’s potential to replace LinkedIn as the preferreed professional networking site caught my attention this morning. While I agree with Mike that the potential is there, what I think many professional networkers fail to see in comparissons of social networking  is the need for personal networking and the distinct line between the two most people don’t want crossed.

Facebook and MySpace , in my opinion, will forever be personal networking sites for keeping up with friends, finding those of similar interest, like mind and so on. While I certainly have business contacts as “friends” in both of those environments, they are only professional contacts who know me well enough to understand there is a distinct difference between my profession and my life.

If Facebook evolves into a professional networking site, many users will fear that professional-personal line being crossed and either create second user accounts (good for Facebook) or drop out altogether (bad for Facebook). My gut tells me most people can’t compartmentalize well enought to have two identities, even in cyberspace.

Social networking sites are ever-morphing creatures, fighting to keep membership increasing and advertisers happy. The only people I have found discussing the professional possiblities of Facebook are people who appear to be professional networkers with little interest in the way of networking in an away-from-work environment. Hopefully, Facebook will listen to its users, many of whom use it as a freedom from the constraints of the institutions of life (expectations of job, church, family and so on) and stay true to what has made it.

Popularity: 13% [?]