Part Three of Three

Nicheworks are highly coveted or soon will be as no brand is an island. Attention and interests are focused within social streams and as individuals are empowered to define their online experiences, connecting the dots proves pivotal. If conversations are markets, nicheworks represent the glue that binds disparate conversational ecosystems. And through effective engagement, we make inroads towards community and being the construction of bridges between our brand and each desirable market.

From Silos…

While many creative initiatives find their way into social networks extemporaneously, it is the intentional and manual act of linking content to new and traditional influencers. This, for the moment, is the most genuine and authentic way to demonstrate intent and drive awareness and activity among the very people we’re hoping to reach and galvanize directly within the communities where their attention is focused.

To…Unity…Hybrid Theory

Hybrid Theory Explained

Hybrid Theory is the fusion of creative and communications, combining earned and paid media to enliven ideas, unite communities, amplify stories and spark desired outcomes. It unites marketing, advertising, service, and public relations (note: not PR) with engagement and digital influence. This is about applying influence to rouse response where attention is focused. As such, Hybrid Theory requires a cross-breed of marketing and service professional. This new breed  essentially becomes the influencer they wish to engage through the embodiment of what I call the “5 I’s,”an evolution of the 3I’s introduced by Forrester Research in its Future of Agencies Report.

1. Intelligence
2. Insight
3. Ideation
4. Interaction
5. Influence.

The 5I’s are rooted in peer-to-peer networking where the individuals with whom they connect are viewed as equals and conversely, those making contact are qualified as worthy of attention.

In a conversation several years ago with Doc Searls, Chris Heuer, Robert Scoble, among others, Searls described social media as the “live web.” It’s a name that resonated and is now a fully-realized prophesy. Indeed, this live web has evolved into a hyperactive conversation ecosystem that encourages and rewards real-time content creation, collection, and distribution. As social consumers, we willfully drink from the firehose and as such, Hybrid Theory introduces the strategies and means necessary to not only compete for the moment, but also inspire a more vested form of participation that fosters presence and affinity.

If we were to visualize the 5I’s into a workflow for Hybrid Theory, everything would begin with intelligence and the data necessary to inspire insight, innovation, and a corresponding action plan that officially brings creative to life. It is during this process that influential voices who reach and influence other individuals within our desired markets surface.

Ideas are then tested against an influence filter to gauge the viability of meaningful vs. promotional engagement. As such, channel diversity is then explored to chart effective courses for direct connections and the social objects commensurate with conversations within each. Concepts are then transformed into campaigns, stories are packaged as social objects and highly personalized social hubs are constructed to host, define and steer the user experience.

As the campaign goes live in its respective mediums, the hybrid team is then tasked with optimizing content for search in traditional search engines and also social networks. This form of inbound marketing, speaks for the program when consumers seek out related content outside of proactive outreach. Once optimized, social objects are then syndicated through all channels previously identified to reach our audiences and prospective participants as they search for relevant content.

But, it is the last mile where our connections with influential people brings our campaigns to life. This is where we connect the brand, its persona, its mission and purpose, and extend value to our consumers and the markets they represent. It is how we engage and with whom that defines the reach, velocity, and ultimately the resonance of our campaign. And, it is our participation that either credits or debits our social capital.

The state of brands in social networks is measured by the multiple axes of resonance and fortified by the relationships we earn and the actions we merit. Hybrid Theory introduces a human framework that marries best-in-class attributes of data analysis, sociology, advertising, marketing, communications, and service to connect people and brands through relevance, empathy, and empowerment.

Without relevance, we cannot trigger resonance, and without resonance, we cannot establish significance in social media.

Continue Reading…

Part One
Part Two

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Part Two of Three

In the book Engage!, I use music as a metaphor for the business approach necessary to execute socialized programs flawlessly. I suggest that today, many organizations approach new media with the style of jazz improvisationalists. They possess an incredible ability to jam independently and also together, but they often drift into wild, wonderful solos that may or may not lead the audience back to the heart and soul of the brand purpose and mission. Instead, I suggest that we assemble a team of virtuosos who can perform the dedicated requirements of their roles to contribute to an organized and powerful performance designed to engage and stimulate its audience.

A conductor who possess social prowess and business savvy is necessary to creating and managing a holistic social media program that extends from the top down, from the center outward, from the bottom up, and also from the outside in.The quest to find the conductor and the members of the orchestra rekindle the debate to who owns social media. But, I argue, that the only the person who masters the majesty of music theory, instrumentation, leadership, artistry, and stagemanship can effectively lead and inspire a band of leaders. Simply said, The person and team qualified to lead social are those qualified to do so.

Again, a hybrid approach is essential. In the very least however, they will possess the ability to understand customer touchpoints, channels of influence, market dynamics, challenges and opportunities that face consumers, and how engagement and the production of social objects trigger measurable reactions that impact the bottom line.

Advertising Must Look Beyond Madison Ave.

Advertising, along with every form of marketing, communications, and service, is not immune to the radical changes that amount to nothing less than the complete transformation of business and culture. In my dealings with some of the most creative and forward-thinking advertising agencies, it’s clear that social media is indeed sparking imagination and inspiring experimentation. Yet in a highly critical article that ran in the Washington Post, the advertising industry was labeled as smug and unable to realize the need for innovation. The opening of the article reads more like a bitter generalization than a call to action, but nonetheless, it’s an impression that I’m sure plagues almost every industry in the new content democracy, “Is advertising the next casualty of the ongoing digital tsunami? For now, advertising looks like the patient who developed an asymptomatic form of cancer without realizing how sick he is.”

This view is as extreme as it is dire. However, social at the moment is only one channel that reaches a growing subset of an overall market. Print, broadcast, billboards, and digital are still relevant and in many ways, effective. In the era of 360-degree, holistic marketing, people are now a vocal majority in our markets and as such, social becomes the “last mile” of connecting the dots.

Part of the challenge as well as the opportunity is the embodiment of an age-old cliche, “thinking outside of the box” or “thinking differently.” As Chris Heuer rightly believes, we should think as though “there is no box.” Social Media inspires new thinking that very well assembles the best practices from advertising, marketing, and communications. But to be clear, the future of effective marketing and engagement lies in the reinvention of strategies, media, methodologies, processes, and their respective industries by and large. This starts with rethinking campaign development and deployment to now also integrate the ties that bind them through ongoing relevance and resonance.

Social networks represent new media channels that offer paid and earned platforms that invite ingenuity and contribution. The difference with social networks and other media however, is that consumers are vested in each medium. Social networking is a very personal venture and here, people define their experiences through the relationships they forge, the content they share and consumer, and the devices they use to interact. Here, intention is everything. Programs are not rewarded simply for innovation, gimmicks or artistry.  Consumers embrace programs rooted in empathy, aspiration and emotion. While they’re designed with mass appeal, effective initiatives are disguised as personalized communication to hook viewers into an immersive experience. It is the emotional and aspirational connection that entices engagement and response, but it is relevance and some semblance of empowerment that inspires sharing and loyalty.

From Campaign to Continuum

In new media, advertising and creative businesses are criticized for approaching social through the constructs of campaigns. While they spark increased brand awareness, activity, engagement, campaigns inherently place constraints on community and relationship development – unless designed otherwise. They start, incite activity, stop, and then disappear only to re-emerge as a completely different production when time, budgets, and events align.

Indeed campaigns are catalysts for conversation and action. However, in social, creative campaigns must now introduce continuous sequences where adjacent objectives, messages, and storylines are reinforced through ongoing participation. Essentially, campaigns must be strung together through brand-driven conversations and connections.

Consumer attention is increasingly thinning and as a result, we are forced to compete for the moment in order to stay top of mind. At the same time, we must also compete for the future and the only , advertising must now contribute to marketing for the long term through a connected series of creative initiatives that promote rightly versus right now.

Advertising is now presented with a new lease on marketing, one where the right to connect with individuals and audiences is continually renewed through value. If paid media offers mutual benefits, the pace for introducing micro creative programs multiples as they now serve as bridges between larger campaigns.

If we don’t actively compete for mind share, then we lose our placement within the hearts, minds, and decisions of consumers and those who influence their actions.

While creative is designed to perform an intended function or evoke a desired reaction, social networks and the influential beacons that connect potential audiences and ultimately participants create a signal repeater that extends the reach and effect of any campaign across media platforms. And, with research and analysis, we can now identify the specific people within these social graphs that form highly desirable nicheworks, where the long tail is visualized and also revealing. Nicheworks, or what Twitter refers to as “interest graphs” is the next big thing for marketing and business in general. In social networks, meaningful content is only surpassed by context. As such, the formation of contextual networks is both the promise and reward for social networking at large. People invest in knowledge sharing and beneficial relationships and as a result, people establish linkages based on common interests and themes with individuals they may know or wish to know.

The Death of CPM and CPC and the Birth of Resonance

At Twitter’s first annual developer conference, details of its initial foray into advertising were unveiled. Two words that were repeated throughout the conference, resonance and relevance, underscored Twitter’s commitment to creating an advertising platform that would earn the support of the community. As Twitter’s COO Dick Costolo noted, “Promoted Tweets that don’t resonate with users will disappear.” The same is true for any social object and supporting campaign that’s introduced to social networks.

Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare and the like truly believe that the user experience is the source of social media’s future. As such, Twitter is introducing a new metric to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns that will only fortify the approach of Hybrid Theory.  Initially ads will be based on a CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions or 1,000 qualified individuals exposed to the Tweet). But as Twitter learns about the performance, accuracy, and how the community responds to each program, it will migrate from a model of CPM to one of ROI…yes, Return on Investment.

Using resonance as a metric and also as a form of inspiration, we’re now introduced to multiple axes of engagement to design resonance into our campaigns. Doing so will ensure prolonged existence, visibility, and engagement.  Advertisers will need to not only get creative, but also ensure that campaigns and social objects are engaging, actionable, shareable, and valuable. If not, as Costolo said, those campaigns that don’t resonate with uses will “disappear.”  As such, Twitter introduced the idea of a resonance score to determine the lifespan of paid social objects. The multiple axes of engagement defining Promoted Tweets for example included:

- Retweets
- @Replies
- #Tag clicks
- Avatar clicks
- Link clicks
- Views after RT

Twitter’s use of the word “resonance” forces relevance into their campaigns in order to trigger positive responses and ultimately word of mouth and measurable activity. And, herein lies the opportunity for Hybrid theory. The key to marketing within social network is to uncover the possibilities, people, and connections that prolong the lifespan of social objects in the stream now and over time. Everything begins with intelligence in order to inspire relevance.

Resonance is the reinforcement or prolongation of social objects. In this example, a Tweet, whether it’s paid or earned, represents a social object as its introduction and exposure possesses the ability to spark conversations. The extent and volume however, are determined by relevance and the shareability of the social object however. The same is true for a campaign introduced in any social network.

Twitter’s metric of resonance could be applied to all forms of social media. Twitter is not only changing communications between people, it also changing how brands and people interact. Resonance represents the impetus for contextualizing and humanizing advertising, in real-time. Without the ability to connect to and inspire people, campaigns will fail miserably. Those that appeal to the emotions and interests of consumers will spark a social effect that reverberates across the social graph online and eventually into the real world.

R.R.S. – Without relevance, we cannot trigger resonance, and without resonance, we cannot establish significance in social media.

Activating the Fifth P of Marketing

Many progressive agencies and internal teams are employing communications professionals to escort campaigns on the long and winding road between media and attention. In the overall socialization of business, marketing is one of the tentacles necessary to reach and grasp consumers. In advertising and marketing, the last mile is best served by connecting messages and people instead of assuming that information goes viral through its own propulsion. Information is just too readily available to ignore and placing people on the front line to personally deliver insight and relevance to decision makers is the difference between temporary visibility and increased presence. In social media, presence is felt and prized. And, this is how we begin to redefine viral marketing…

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to work with Mekanism, a leading San Francisco creative company that builds digital audiences. The team is incredibly gifted and in the projects where we collaborated, they were tasked with developing immersive and “viral” online experiences that pushed the boundaries for even the most radical advertising and branding. However, concepting and building these campaigns would prove straightforward. Luring consumers, clutching their attention, and compelling them to act and share is the true challenge and opportunity in the social economy.

Attention here is thin. Engagement is a form of currency. Recognition and rewards are the deliberate acts of establishing goodwill and earning social capital. In order to bring campaigns to life in social networks, a comprehensive and demanding socialized approach where new influencers and influential consumers are identified and engaged is nothing short of mandatory.

This relationship served as the inspiration and providing ground for Hybrid Theory. And over time, digital influence evolved into a natural extension of creative campaigns, from concept to the Last Mile.

Today Mekanism employs a five-person team that fuses digital PR and influence. And this is only going to grow as advertising seeks to connect campaigns to the very people they wish to inspire and engage. According to Adweek, digital shops are increasingly investing in the creation of communications departments to spread awareness through earned media.

For a creative example of this today, look no further than the Old Spice Guy who is reinvigorating the advertising campaign by creating custom videos for online influencers.  It reverses the process of syndication by recruiting people to connect the dots and storylines across social graphs. Videos were initially targeted at Kevin Rose, Alyssa Milano, Justine Bateman, Perez Hilton, Starbucks, among others. Old Spice is also experimenting with Twitter’s Promoted Trends platform, combining earned media (Tweets and posts about these videos), owned media (Old Spice Guy), and paid media (Promoted Tweets) to engage and activate the social web. It creates a confluence of sorts, a concentrated collective that raises awareness and causes action, that if planned accordingly, also rouses desired outcomes.

Here is a sample video to @Alyssa_Milano…you can view more custom videos here.

To successfully tie creative, intention, outcomes, and affinity through paid and earned media, Social Media requires a talented orchestra…and a master conductor.

Continue Reading…

Part One
Part Three

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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Please consider reading, Engage!: It might just change the way you think about Social Media

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Dan Schwabel is not only a personal branding expert, he’s someone I’ve come to know and respect over the years…and definitely someone I consider a friend.  We recently sat down to discuss Engage and the resulting interaction culminated in a wonderful discussion that explored the state of professional and personal branding in the era of new media.

How do you define “Engage” and do you believe that people and business that fail to engage will cease to exist in the next decade?

Engage was inspired by the original Social Media Manifesto published in June 2007. At the time, the manifesto served as a rallying cry for businesses to embrace the new world of participatory media in order to earn attention and ultimately relevance in democratized and highly influential online societies. As people were and are becoming increasingly selective about where they discover and share information, consumers are also expanding their social networks (or social graphs) and changing how they form and maintain alliances online.

In the middle of the essay, I summarized the transformation of business landscapes and the ability to connect with customers and influencers as undeniable, wrapped around three simple, but resonating words that were intended to serve as marching orders, “Engage or die.” If we do not participate and eventually lead online interaction related to our business, then we are walking a path toward oblivion. Consumers, regardless of industry, have choices and if we’re not top of mind where and when they’re seeking information and direction, then we are absent and forgettable.

“Engage or die” became the prevailing mantra of not only the essay, but also the social business movement and honestly, it is truer today than it was three years ago. To this day, it continues to inspire champions and it was also the inspiration for this book. As you can imagine, those words might not attract potential readers in a positive light. The message, and the book overall, is incredibly helpful and motivating and as such, the essence of the title was representative in one word and one word only, “engage!”

Over the next decade, everything changes and while the realization that transformation is inevitable, it will only gather unstoppable momentum. The true value of this book is that it minimizes public experimentation and guesswork and helps businesses, of all shapes, sizes, and industries, to answer their own questions as well as the questions they didn’t know to ask. It’s designed to expedite meaningful and effective engagement strategies and escalate the brand within all communities of influence online and offline.

What does Engage mean to you as a personal brand?

What’s in play right now is something so profound that we are only on the verge of realizing its true impact and potential. The path that many of us are on today however, places us on a collision course between our personal and professional brands as well as the brands we ultimately represent. Social media requires us to engage transparently and as such, the networks and corresponding social graphs that we’re forming blur the lines between who we are to friends and family, peers and professional contacts, and also those we hope to reach on behalf of our business. Our attention is finite and it’s increasingly thinning to a point of diminishing returns.

We, along with those who follow our online updates, will become selective in those we follow tomorrow, focusing our streams into curated and discerning channels of material contacts and information. Think about it this way, if you’re the admin for a Facebook Fan Page on behalf of your brand, you usually interact with a captive audience, and as an admin, people see and hear the “voice” and avatar personifying the brand. But in order to grow the community, we have to attract attention where it’s focused, which means engaging in outside communities as well. When you do so however, you lose the “brand” facade and are now participating as the brand “you.” Now your streams start to cross as those who follow you may or may not be interested in the promotional updates that hit their news feed.

Engage tackles this subject as it teaches us how to effectively embrace “multiple personality order” to maintain strategic presences for our personal and professional brands and the relationships that are important to each.

You recently rebranded your blog from “PR 2.0″ to “Brian Solis.” Can you go over the repositioning? Do you feel that after carving out your niche, you can go for the “more general audience”?  How does this decision impact your core audience of PR practitioners?

This is a topic that is heartfelt and one that continues to unfold daily. PR 2.0 was an overnight success over a decade in the making and that’s not something everyone realizes as it is just now starting to get traction. As such, new PR is gaining awareness among the decision makers who can lead the communications industry toward significance and prosperity. However, the true story is the shift from PR to public relations and this crusade was captured in my last book with Deirdre Breakenridge, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations – a book that is a must read for anyone in PR or marketing communications.

Everything is changing. PR is also undergoing a renaissance much like service, marketing, advertising and all disciplines affected by conversational and participatory media. PR is also a topic that is debated in minefields. I believe that in order to truly transform businesses from a position of introspection to one of an outward view, and in turn, bring about change from the outside in, PR, for the most part, does not travel freely on paths to executive offices, the boardroom, nor marketplaces. While internal groundswells are triggering responses across middle management, my goal is to bring both ends to the middle, evoking a reaction among leaders to accelerate change from the top down.

If it’s one thing we’re learning is that everything contributes to public relations and this is why social media and strategic and meaningful engagement becomes paramount to the future of any business. Everyone on the front lines within social networks as well as those responsible for the creation and dissemination of social objects are now part of the public relations team. As a result, this becomes so much bigger than PR 2.0. This is now about the personification of a brand and its culture and the ability to connect it to those who can benefit from the interaction and alliance. My work is dedicated to every aspect of business to contribute to the socialization of the brand and every touch point that connects companies, audiences, influencers, and consumers. This is now the minimum ante for businesses to compete for market and mind share today and in the future.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Google Buzz, Facebook
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Happy New Year!

Well, this is it. The final installment of the most read, shared, and discussed posts of 2009. I hope that Part X as well as the other nine parts help you to leap into 2010 with confidence, inspiration, and direction.

Let the education and stimulus continue this year…

The Greatest Hits of 2009 Part X

1. Is Facebook Losing its Coveted Demographic?

2. There’s an App for That: Mobile is the Next Frontier for Brand Engagement

3. The Evolution of A New Trust Economy

4. In Social Media, It’s Not Just Business, It’s Business-To-Business

5. Live Video Streams Go Mainstream

6. Twitter: The Business of Community

7. The Future of Interactive Marketing

8. Facebook Brings Fans into Focus

9. Top Twitter Trends of 2009

10. Twitter Economics

11. Ning Proves That There’s Life Outside of Facebook and Twitter

12. Ideas Connect Us More than Relationships

The Greatest Hits of 2009: The Series

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

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Happy New Year!

The closure of 2009 sparked a series of important news and events that only seemed to further the evolution of Social Media rather than subsiding and waiting for a new year. Your path in 2010 is defined by the knowledge you’ve amassed and embraced. It affects not only where you are, but where you’re going and how long it will take to get there.

The Greatest Hits of 2009 Part IX

1. The Rapid Evolution of Search

2. What IF We Redefined Influence? The New Influence Factor in Social Media

3. Evan Williams on the Past, Present, and Future of Twitter

4. Hollywood’s Next Production: Gagging Social Media

5. My Foreword for Twittfaced: Your Toolkit for Understanding and Maximizing Social Media

6. With Klout Comes Influence: How To Find Influencers on Twitter

7. The Golden Triangle

8. On Twitter and Social Networks, Brands Benefit from Conversations

9. On Twitter, What Are You Doing Was Always The Wrong Question

10. The Social Media (R)evolution: Your Time is Now

11. The Twitter Star: Nova or Supernova?

12. The Benevolent Acts of Reciprocity and Recognition

13. PBS MediaShift: Social Media Marketing

14. On PR, Social Media and the Evolution of the Web with Robert Scoble

15. Socialized Media: The Powerful Effects of Online Brand Interaction

The Greatest Hits of 2009: The Series

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, or Facebook
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Get the new iPhone app!
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Click the image below to buy the book/poster:

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Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2010…this is your year. Let’s build upon the lessons we learned in 2009 in order to help us continue on our journey towards earned relevance.

The Greatest Hits of 2009 Part VIII

1. The Second Life of Second Life

2. The Science of Retweets on Twitter

3. Teens Adopting Twitter

4. Social Media Accounts for 18% of Information Search Market

5. The Future of the Social Web

6. The Competition for Your Social Graph

7. The Future of the Embargo

8. Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated

9. Do Twitter’s Trending Topics Signify What’s Important to You?

10. Our Journey Defines Our Future in Social Media

The Greatest Hits of 2009: The Series

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, or Facebook
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Get the new iPhone app!
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Click the image below to buy the book/poster:

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As 2009 comes to a close, we’re inspired to take what we learned this year and apply it to the uncharted year that lies ahead. Our resolutions for 2010 must include learning and participation. With an open mind and an open heart, we can continue to learn, grow, and in turn, teach those around us to make 2010 a banner year for new media literacy and change.

The Greatest Hits of 2009 Part VII

1. One in Five Tweets are Related to Products

2. Revealing the People Defining Social Networks

3. Twitter Trends: Airline Hotlist August 2009

4. In the World of Social Media, Women Rule

5. FTC Values Sponsored Posts at $11,000 Apiece

6. NSFW: When Social Networks are Blocked for Your Own Good

7. Introducing The Social Compass

8. The Psychology of Twitter with Dr. Drew

9. We’re Spending More Time with Social Media: Advertisers Follow

10. Twitter Celebrity Hotlist

The Greatest Hits of 2009: The Series

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, or Facebook
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Click the image below to buy the book/poster:

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Valuable Information flies across our attention dashboards at blinding speeds. As 2009 comes to a close and we embrace a new optimism for 2010, let’s revisit some of the most read and shared posts this year.

Greatest Hits of 2009, Part IV:

1. Social Media is Rife with Experts but Starved of Authorities

2. Unveiling the New Influencers

3. PR Does Not Stand for Press Release: Equalizing Spikes and Valleys

4. The Decline of Traditional Advertising and the Rise of Social Media

5. Facebook Helps Brands and Personalities Transform Visitors into Fans

6. The Internet is More Biology Than Technology: The Top 10 Ways to Monetize Twitter

7. Real-Time Conversations Gain in Influence, Hasten Social CRM

8. Zappos is Powered by The Empowerment of Employees

9. Casting a Digital Shadow; Your Reputation Precedes You

10. Channeling Our Inner Celebrity Through Twitter and Social Media

The Greatest Hits of 2009

Part I

Part II

Part III

Connect with Brian Solis: Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, or Facebook
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Get the new iPhone app!
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Click the image below to buy the book/poster:

pr pr+2.0 pr2.0 public+relations marketing advertising interactive social+media socialmedia brian+solis social media media2.0 media+2.0 2.0 smo social+media+optimization marcom communication publicity advertising expert interactive spin brand branding guru social+architect

In the world of reruns, there’s a saying, if you’ve never seen it, then it’s new to you.

As we near the end of 2009, I wanted to share with you some of the posts that I believe will help you as you tackle challenges, opportunities, and set the stage for innovation and growth in 2010.

Even if you read the original posts when they initially hit the Web, chances are that their lessons, experiences, and insights still apply today – perhaps more so.  The rate of innovation and insight shared online is blinding and overwhelming. Sometimes a refresher is all we need to push things forward. Remember, the price of personal and professional relevance is directly related to the cost of the investment in your education, learning, and experience.

Greatest Hits of 2009, Part I:

1. The Poetry of Social Networking to Court Customers and Invest in Relationships

2. Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform?

3. Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships

4. The Ties that Bind Us – Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks

5. I Like You: The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation with Macro Impact

6. Social Networks Now More Popular than Email; Facebook Surpasses MySpace

7. Are Blogs Losing Their Authority To The Statusphere?

8. In the Statusphere, A.D.D. Creates Opportunities for Collaboration and Education

9. The Human Network: The Social Economy is Influenced by How We Communicate Online and Offline

10. Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM

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Guest post by Dan Zarella, author of “The Social Media Marketing Book,” published by O’Reilly.

When you’re trying to find targets for a social media marketing campaign, you should be looking for two types of people, influencers and audience. Your audience is the people you’re trying to sell to, this is a wide swath of potential users, clients or customers. They may or may not be heavily involved in social media and they may or may not have large followings. Your influencers are the people your audience listens to. They are actively engaged in the social web and can communicate with lots of people. They are the vector for your contagious messages to spread through, to reach your audience you should seed your campaigns to your influencers.

There are two ways of targeting influencers, you can either find the social media sites they frequent the most and attempt to reach them en masse, or you can identify especially influential individuals and engage them one by one. Both methods work well in concert.

Fishing Where the Influential Fish Are
The key to the first, en mass method is “fishing where the fish are.” That is understanding which behaviors typically indicate that someone is a savvy and frequent user of social media and placing your content in the path of those behaviors. I’ve done some research on these behaviors:

The research I did on viral content sharing shows that frequent users of social web technologies like Twitter, blogs, and social news and networking sites tend to share online content with more people, more often than those that do not.

An interesting detail of this data is that while frequent users of Facebook and web forums share content with more people and more often in some aspects, generally they’re not as virulent as the users of less-mainstream technologies (with the exception of blog readers).

This means that if you can locate topic-specific social media sites (for example Sphinn, which is Digg for marketers) and get your content to go popular there you’ll be in front of large groups of relevant influentials. Tools like Alltop or Quantcast’s related sites features can be used to discover relevant sites for reaching influencers.

Finding Individual Influencers

The flipside of the influencer marketing coin is to identify individuals who stand out from the “influential fish” crowd as especially important and approaching them one-on-one to build relationships.

Perhaps the easiest first step in this direction is to find the most influential Twitter users about your niche. Tools like Twitter Grader and Klout both offer very similar user search features which allow you to enter a keyword and find the most powerful users who are related to that topic. Of course my favorite metric for this is “ReTweetability.”

There are also tools for identifying niche influencers on oher social media platforms like Facebook Grader, Technorati, and BoardReader. A number of tools also exist to search across many different platforms at once, like Who’s Talkin’, and Social Mention but these tend to be less effective at identifying who the most influential users are.

After publishing Putting the Public Back in Public Relations with Deirdre Breakenridge, one of the greatest rewards was the ability to connect with wonderful people all over the world who are facing extraordinary challenges while also accomplishing amazing things.

I’ve learned first-hand from their experiences, obstructions, struggles and resulting triumphs in almost every industry imaginable. In turn, I shared my journey and escapades to offer outside perspective and ideas to help trigger new opportunities.

As these exchanges continued to surmount, I realized, the common thread tying each instance together was the book. Every company I would speak to initially purchased books for their PR, service, marketing, interactive, digital, and social media teams to read, discuss, and then hopefully innovate inside. In turn, representatives from many organizations  took the initiative to ask for a call, Web chat or in-person visit to discuss the book and also take the time to answer questions from the team.

What unfolded was an online and offline book club that connected ideas, questions, and guidance.

I would like to extend the same opportunity to your company or school.

If you purchase books for your team, please let me know if you’d like to host a book club chat where we can discuss the lessons, examples, concerns, and thoughts contained in the book or those that stemmed from reading it. Or, if your class is reading the book this semester or next, let’s arrange a virtual visit.

In most cases, we hosted a video discussion via Skype to save on travel fees and time. We simply organized the book club team in a conference room with a notebook and webcam one side and me with a notebook and camera on the other. Seamless and effective…

Some of the companies that have hosted Book Clubs to date include:

- Facebook
- Southwest Airlines
- Home Depot
- Wynn
- Forrester Research
- GM
- San Francisco University

Please reach out and let’s explore the possibilities of hosting a live chat.

I would also like to take a moment to thank Lara McCulloch. She created and hosted the first Twitter-based book club series, discussing a chapter online every week. Thank you Lara. And also, thank you to everyone who helped organize a book club in the past.

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In media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.

In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a position of authority on that particular event. The con for PR, is that usually, other media properties will forgo participating in the round of coverage because it quickly become old news.

The news business is similar to buying a new car. It’s immediately worth less the moment you drive it off of the lot. Once the press release crosses the wire or a reporter/blogger publishers the story, the news loses its value. Thus, news boasts its greatest leverage prior to public dissemination.

Embargoes on the other hand, are tied to newsworthy stories that are presented to a series of top newsmakers simultaneously before its official release with the intention of negotiating and coordinating an orchestrated release across multiple platforms concurrently. The advantage for PR is that it can architect a successful, expansive, and amplified release – giving more weight to the announcement as it’s distributed. Participating reporters benefit by contributing to a breaking story and creating the perception that each reporter was on top of something buzzworthy. On the other hand, journalists and bloggers can also feel the sting of participating if one writer should publish even one minute early.

This has become an increasingly competitive practice among online reporters trying to scoop each other to give the appearance that they broke the story and that others followed. Also, there can be a sense of animosity generated if the story was pitched profusely to colleagues and competitors based on quantity and not necessarily the quantity of quality. In many cases, the corral of participating influencers can and will become uncontrollable as it increases its circumference. Someone will inevitably break the embargo. Once that happens, chances are, that the rest of the group will kill the post and never run it, harboring bitterness against PR as a result.

Personally, I employ a less is more strategy, one where I work with a select few who represent varying reach, but ultimately impact the right people who are truly looking for relevant news. In my world, everything starts with expectation setting and management, as I no longer find value in casting a wider net, only to eventually shovel excuses to one side or the other of reporters/bloggers or company executives “when” something doesn’t live up to unsaid presumptions.

With embargoes, they are highly effective for all parties when practiced strategically. At the same time however, reporters and PR professionals who regularly abuse them, whether or not its intentional, set the stage for a series of boycotts and debates that continue to unfold in the public spotlight and damage relations between media and PR with every step of the way.

Although, I have yet to hear a backlash against exclusives except from unhappy executives who “always” believe that their news is consequential and disruptive regardless of reality.

But, PR, unfortunately, is perpetually working against a common dilemma; no matter what we achieve, it’s never enough. Nonetheless, PR in many cases, works against itself.

Michael Arrington, publisher of TechCrunch, one of the world’s leading and most influential blogs, has publicly decried embargoes claiming that the editorial team will no longer honor them. As a result, he dedicates a significant share of real estate to explain his position by chastising those who fortify his decision and perception (disclosure: I contribute to TechCrunch).

The Wall Street Journal also recently issued a statement recently that its reporters will only entertain exclusives moving forward and that for all intents and purposes, the embargo is dead to WSJ reporters.

What’s at stake here is a sacred bond between reporter/blogger and PR. The explicit and implicit trust that exists between the two sides will either grow stronger or completely unravel with every embargo and exclusive – depending on its outcome.

In the world of embargoes and exclusives, the risk can be greater than the reward and unfortunately, PR is usually caught holding the smoking gun when orchestration collapses.

The Future of News

While I was traveling in support of the new book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, which also addresses issues surround new media relations and embargoes, I missed an important discussion in San Francisco dedicated to the exploration of the embargo’s possible future. The expert panel included Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, Dylan Tweney of Wired, Mark Glaser of PBS/Media Shift, Damon Darlin of the New York Times, and was moderated by Sam Whitmore of Media Survey.

Rafe Needleman of CNET/CBS and Paul Boutin of VentureBeat/NY Times participated from the audience.

I would have loved to participate on that panel. Even though it was hosted by global PR firm Waggener Edstrom, it appeared to be a soapbox for a one-sided view of a much larger issue that effects two sides of the news process – media and PR

Wired’s Dylan Tweney perhaps shared the night’s most interesting perspective on embargoes,, and as such, embodies a sentiment that reverberates throughout the media industry, “Embargo is Latin for F you!”

The New York Times Darlin said that embargoes co-opt the media. More importantly, he acknowledged that the Times often accepts embargoes because they ensure reporters don’t miss a story and that an inherent benefit is that they have time to do a thorough job.

Mark Glaser on the other hand, maintains a much bleaker outlook on the embargo, “I think they will become extinct.”

In fact, he believes that all journalists should reject them.

Tom Foremski partially agrees. In a post written prior to the event, he shared that even though the accepts embargoes, he often forgets or loses interest in them over time and as such, he believes, “embargoes don’t seem to work anymore.”

I disagree wholeheartedly. In fact, embargoes are powerful and effective for all parties when coordinated properly and centered on information that is indeed newsworthy.

As David Needle of Internet News reported, Dylan Tweney summed up the sentiment on embargoes in a positive light, “While most embargoes aren’t exclusive, he said the embargo process puts a story on the same continuum. Even if you’re one of 25 others getting the story, that’s worth something.”

Rafe Needleman is no stranger to the topic of PR #Fail. He maintains a separate blog, PR Pro Tips, and even published a recent book dedicated to documenting what doesn’t work, while also providing advice on how to practice PR in a way that actually helps him do his job more effectively.

He discussed the need for obtaining an NDA in advance of sharing news under an assumed embago.

In the process of corralling reporters, many make the mistake of sending the request for an NDA or agreement to the embargo along with the news. This is a mistake that is more common than not and one that hits a little too close to home. Someone on our team discovered this hard way and the pitch was rightfully called out because technically, the news was shared before we received commitment to the NDA – thus an embargo was never established.

Needleman wisely advised in his PR Pro Tips blog, “If you send an unsolicited email with an embargoed press release in it, we consider that fair game to cover immediately. Get your NDAs agreed to before you send them.”

Expectation Chain or Chained by Expectations

At the center of this quandary is the news release and the expectations that govern its pickup and distribution. While many place blame on the resulting tactics associated with pitching and placing news, the true source of the problem is the expectations of those companies and executives responsible for generating the news and ultimately the marketers and communications professionals who report to them. The expectation chain also continues beyond the c-suite as they also report to a board of directors and advisors, stakeholders, and investors. To them, it’s not about less is more, they’re goals are fully rooted in a “more is more” mentality rooted in a prevailing sense of entitlement. PR thus starts off from an almost losing position. The economy doesn’t help either…

Reporters and bloggers are also to blame for the inefficiencies and problems circling the embargo. While some have mistakenly published early, others have done so intentionally. There’s an advantage for doing so, traffic.

The Race to Authority: Content is Still King

At the San Francisco event, Mark Glaser didn’t buy the excuse that being one minute ahead of everyone else is important to page views. But if you are considered the lead in a breaking story by the public, it makes all the difference in the world – namely bragging rights and a much more profound case for selling sponsorships and ads. In the tech world, there’s also a visual element to the lead story. Techmeme, for example, usually rewards the first to publish a story that sparks a news trend, positioning following stories beneath the lead. You can bet that Techmeme sends a greater volume of traffic to the lead versus supporting posts. And, of course there’s Twitter. First to break an interesting story usually benefits from a wave of retweets.

Paul Boutin compared the embargo to a horse race. If we line up horses at the track, it’s in his best interest to break early.

And, Boutin also takes a hard nose position against those who break earlier and beat him to market. Even though many PR pros try to salvage coverage among those who then choose not to write a story because it’s already public, Boutin believes that there isn’t any value to a deeper story or new angle, “there’s no second chance to write a deeper story, speed counts.”

As Dylan Tweney from wired observed and then echoed by Rafe Needleman via Twitter, “The stories that get the most pageviews are almost never embargoed stories.”

But reporters and bloggers aren’t the only force to dictate the future of news and embargoes. PR also has a choice in who they decide to align with on important stories. Even though there is an unnecessarily great emphasis on the volume and mass of coverage (H.I.T.S. as KD Paine defines as How Idiots Track Success). In the immediate future, activity and influence will count for everything as PR becomes accountable for contributing to the bottom line of business, not just publicity. Some more advanced communications teams are already measuring the activity that derives from each post/article and it absolutely determines who is invited to participate in embargoes and stories in the future. Practiced well enough over time, PR fundamentally invests in the authority of chosen individuals and organizations.

The power and allure of a-list blogs and reporters is undeniable, but PR cannot ignore or overlook the value of the Magic Middle, the class of bloggers that earn between 1,000 and 50,000 monthly unique visitors. It is the Magic Middle that out numbers the a-list in reach and volume when compared to the overall blogosphere, and for that, provide an almost endless array of opportunities in and around news and trends.

However, if page views are of concern, then what can be considered timely news on one day could also be packaged as a feature or trend story in the future. I am not in the news business, but I do report on news. However, if I were to publish stories as news is breaking, I would surely lose out in the race for visibility and authority compared to those better at this game than I. Instead, if something is interesting, I will file it away and revisit it at a time when I can perform deeper analysis and thus share interesting and newly timed and relevant perspective. Page views are then incredibly more abundant. Thus I believe that Boutin and Tweney may consider rethinking their stance especially if the story is of particular substance to their audience.

The reality is that embargoes are an important and fundamental part of the news ecosystem. They mustn’t lose their stature. As such, it is the responsibility of PR to use them only when warranted and not relegate them merely as part of a day-to-day tactic in the process of PR pitching.

Current and future relationships with media are defined by our investment in collaboration with every news release, now and over time. This is a long-term play and there is no value or reward for practicing PR through shortsighted and insular campaigns.

In the end, PR earns the trust and relationships that it deserves.

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Please also read:

The State of PR: You are the future

PR Doesn’t Stand for Press Release

The Art and Science of Blogger Relations

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Each year, PRNews hosts an awards gala where they salute the winners and honorable mentions of the PR People Awards, the Hall of Fame Inductees & PR News 15-to-Watch.

I am honored to be nominated in the PR Blogger of the Year category along with Tim Haran of Usana Health Sciences and David Westcott of APCO Worldwide. I’d also like to take this opportunity to spotlight all of the nominees across all categories for the PRNews PR People 2009 awards.

The event will be held on December 1st in Washington D.C.

PR Blogger of Year

- Brian Solis – PR 2.0, FutureWorks, Inc.
- Tim Haran – Usana Health Sciences, Inc.
- David Westcott – APCO Worldwide

Account Director/Supervisor of Year

- Julie Batliner – Carmichael Lynch Spong
- Marie Cacciato – JB Cumberland
- Nora Sarrawi -Weber Shandwick
- Robyn Fink – MWW Group Inc.

Agency Executive of the Year

- Robert Chandler – Chandler Chicco Agency
- Leslie Gaines-Ross – Weber Shandwick
- Ed James – Cornerstone Public Relations
- Douglas Spong – Carmichael, Lynch & Spong

Corporate Social Responsibility Leader

- Tara Greco – APCO Worldwide
- Matt Rose – MWW Group Inc.

Brand Marketer of Year

- Stacey Havel – Bernard Hodes Global Network
- Jeff Tammes – Cornerstone Public Relations

Community Relations Professional of Year

- Beth Courtier – Trimedia UK
- Tricia Link – Mission FCU

Crisis Manager of the Year

- Eliot Hoff – APCO Worldwide
- Tim McIntyre – Domino’s

Digital Communications Leader of the Year

- John Bell – Ogilvy PR
- Anne Carelli – Coca-Cola Company
- Jennifer Houston – Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, Inc.
- Chris Perry – Weber Shandwick

Investor Relations/Financial Communications

- Stan Collender – Qorvis Communications
- Barb Iverson – Weber Shanwick
- Keith Mabee – Dix & Eaton

Measurement/Research Expert of Year

- David Michaelson – Echo Research
- Ashley Pettit – Southwest Airlines Company

Media Relations Professional of the Year

- Matt Clark – Lotus Public Relations
- Anthony Sanzio – Campbell Soup Company
- Colleen Wilber – America’s Promise Alliance

PR Professional of Year: Academic Institution

- Melissa Connolly – Hofstra University
- Tomika DePriest – Spellman College
- John Walls – Southwestern Medical Center

PR Professional of the Year: Corporate

- Allison Falkenberry – Men’s Health
- Chris Fuller – Pizza Hut
- Drew McGowan – Edelman Chicago
- Sal Petruzzi – Turner Broadcasting Systems
- David Shane – Hewlett Packard Co

PR Professional of the Year: Nonprofit/Association

- Leslie Aun – World Wildlife Fund
- Niane Gage Lofgren – Kaiser Permanente
- Ken Johnson – PhRMA
- Megan Lozito – American Heart Association
- Ellen Murphy – YMCA of Greater NY

PR Team Leader

- Tim Fry – Weber Shandwick
- Jan Hausrath – APCO Worldwide
- Gloria Janata – Chandler Chico Agency
- Richard Licata – Showtime Networks
- Laura Monica – American Water Works Co
- Susan Peters – Edelman Chicago
- Holly Potter – Kaiser Permanente

PR Trainer of Year

- Sally Falkow – Expansion Plus
- Jean Gonsoulin – Golin/Harris

Public Affairs Exec of Year

- Jonathan Collegio – National Association of Broadcasters
- John Davies – Davies Public Affairs
- Richared Ramlall – RCN

Spokesperson of the Year

- Chris Mainz – Southwest Airlines
- Stacy DeBroff – Mom Central Consulting

Hall of Fame

- Don Bulmer – SAP
- Peter Debrecney – Gagen MacDonald LLC
- Donna Imperato – Cohn & Wolfe New York
- Michael Kempner – MWW Group Inc.
- Marcia Silverman – Ogilvy PR
- Larry Parnell – George Washington University

Tweeter of the Year

- Christi Day – Southwest Airlines
- Morgan Johnston – Jet Blue
- John Ratcliffe Lee – MWW Group Inc
- Charlie Witkowski – Weber Shandwick

15-to-Watch 2009

Agency:

- Joey-lyn Addesa, MWW Group
- Kipp Bodnar, Howard, Merrell & Partners
- John Cangany, APCO
- Laney Cohen, Makovsky & Company
- Kristin Dwyer, Euro RSCG
- Paul Dyer, Weisscomm Group
- Amanda Kaufman, Edelman
- Francisca Llamas, Weber Shandwick
- Rachel Lenore, Marina Maher Comms
- Nicole Mrasek,MS&L
- Anne Marie Murphy, Porter Novelli
- Lavanva DJ, Gutenberg Comms
- Suzanne Rosnowski, Quinn & Co.
- Kate Ricard, MS&L
- Andrew Ryan, Hellerman Baretz Comms

Corporate & Nonprofit

- Krista Canfield, LinkedIn
- Jaclyn Darrohn, Allstate
- Aerial Ellis, Tennesse State Univ
- Steve Field, BAE Systems
- Tonia Hammer, Molson Coors Canada
- Elizabeth Halter, Cox Enterprises
- Jessica Hanson, Property Casualty Insurers Assn of America
- Tiane Harrison, USO
- Elizabeth Jaycox, Mc-Graw Hill
- Kimberly Kanary, Associated Estates Realty Corp
- Serena Levy, Coca-Cola Company
- Michael Odle, Oregon National Guard
- Stephen Radick, Booz Allen Hamilton
- Darryl Ryan, Time Warner Cable
- Bryson Thornton, Del Monte Foods

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I recently participated in #PRStudChat, a recurring discussion between PR experts and those looking to learn on Twitter.

I found it enthralling.

The interactive forum was created by Deirdre Breakenridge, my co-author for Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, and Valerie Simon in response to an ongoing series of questions they received from students seeking advice or insight into how PR was changing in the face of the “now” or real-time Web. In one such interview, PRSSA member and student Angela Hernandez, @AngelaHernandez, posed a simple, but poignant career question, “Is PR Right for Me?”

It was then that Simon and Breakenridge developed the idea to host and moderate a chat session on Twitter for students. It was their intention to connect students with professionals and educators directly to discuss firsthand the practice, career, and business of Public Relations and what it takes to be successful in this industry – today.

The business and practice of Public Relations is experiencing a profound metamorphosis. This is indeed a momentous time in our lives where we each can benefit by assuming the role of students.

I wanted to share with you the questions and answers posed during my participation…please note that these answers were edited slightly to make sense outside of the Twitter stream. Or you can follow the discussion here: #PRStudChat.

1. What happens when you no longer believe in a client or the issue you’re representing?

I believe that when you lose conviction about what you represent, you lose passion and that screams in everything you do.

Life is too short not to be inspired and inspiring.

This is your moment. opportunities are rife. if not, create your own path. otherwise, treat it as business & cash the checks

2. What should be included in a PR portfolio?

As an employer, I would love to see what you read, your ideas, online experience + your a representation of your professional connections. Then, examples that demonstrate action from A to B.

Your digital portfolio now also includes not just what you say about you, but what’s said about you now.

I would also love to see why you “didn’t” include press release examples in your portfolio. Tell me a story outside of a template.

3. What’s the PR person’s role in a public health concern, i.e., H1N1 and how do you minimize the “scare?”

Information. Direction. Answers. Build a portal to communicate facts & updates. Find the beacons & recruit their help.

Read more here, “Reinventing Crisis Communications” and here, “Creating Dark Sites.”

4. What should you get out of a PR internship and what should you expect?

I believe that shadowing an experienced person is far more valuable than getting thrown into work directly. We need context.

Experience is priceless. Write for reporters, write for bloggers, write for social consumption, and have it run through the mill. Research. Read. Immerse yourself.

5. How important is continuing education, i.e., APR certification?

Continuing education is valued in how the subject matter applies to the state of the industry. Sometimes experience IS the education.

Nothing replaces the value of knowledge. If we stop being students, we stop learning.

Ambition, passion, & curiosity speak volumes about you + your work & ultimately serve as the harbinger of your success.

6. What are some non-related PR classes beneficial to the filed of public relations?

Sociology, Ethnography, Economics, Psychology are important subjects to the study and future of Public Relations

Read more about the state of PR in our book and here:

The State of Public Relations

PR Doesn’t Stand for Press Release

Connect with Brian Solis on:
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6 Questions to Assess Your PR Vendor’s SEO/Social Media Readiness

Recently Jason Falls made an insightful comment on his blog about PR professionals being “social media ready”. In that post, he cited the need for specific social media marketing skills to be assessed for companies evaluating the effectiveness of their PR efforts.

The state of the PR industry is in flux with increasing emphasis on the digital and social side of communications. In the context of digital PR, social media savvy is the jelly to SEO (search engine optimization) peanut butter. As PR efforts continue to emphasize content publishing, digital and social communications, the opportunity to keyword optimize content for search is low hanging fruit for those that are in the know.

Forward thinking companies would do well to assess the SEO and social media readiness of their marketing and PR resources. Is the current digital PR effort leveraging improved visibility through search engines? Do current PR and Marketing staff or vendors possess the digital PR tools they need to offer competitive consulting in a “PR 2.0” world?

Consider the following questions to assess the SEO and social media readiness of your digital PR assets:

1. Is social media participation conducted without attention to SEO?

According to the iPressroom Digital Readiness Report, social media adoption outranks organic SEO. Yet more than 82% of Internet users surveyed in “When Did We Start Trusting Strangers” (published by Tom Smith, one of the researchers of the Digital Readiness Report) stated search engines are the tools most frequently used to source information about products, brands and services. That disconnect reinforces the need for search engine optimization as a key digital marketing and PR tactic.

2. Do your social media and SEO efforts work together?

Some companies are indeed implementing social media and SEO programs, albeit separately. SEO and social media have a clear intersection, and if both are in place, they can work together to compound results.

The outcome of many social media interactions and sharing is content. One of the most important concepts to grasp when exploring possibilities with search for PR is that, “If content can be searched on, it can be optimized for better performance.” Therefore, content creation should factor in search optimization whenever relevant.

Social media marketing efforts that factor in keyword optimization of content can directly influence the discovery of communities and social content via search engines. Additionally, social content can boost links to your website, improving search traffic and Pull PR results. In other words, if you’re going to create it, why not optimize it? Implementing social media and SEO as silos misses a significant opportunity.

3. Is a search and social media friendly website part of the digital PR strategy?

The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer indicates that companies’ own websites are viewed as more credible sources of information than blogs, social networks or advertising. The positive effects of frequently updated, quality content on search rankings present a strong case for investing in a search and social media friendly content strategy. Whether PR professionals have influence over content creation on an entire web site or limited to an online newsroom, keyword optimization of news content creates entry points to stories through search for journalists, analysts and bloggers researching online.

4. Where does a blog fit within the social media content strategy?

The highest-ranked digital skill for large organizations, according to the iPressroom Digital Readiness Report, is blogging. Blog savvy PR efforts should include the ability to develop a blog content plan that not only publishes news that the company wants to distribute, but information of specific value to target audiences. Such a blog content plan might include a scheduled mix of posts on subjects relevant to an industry niche in formats that are journalist and/or blogger friendly.

Now that every company that is promoting themselves online is in effect, a media company, it’s important to begin to think like one by leveraging an editorial plan and to package information that is useful to customers as well as journalists and other bloggers. Search optimized and social media friendly blog content can extend the reach of company news to search engines as well as social media news and bookmarking sites.

5. Are target audiences profiled and what is the best way to reach them?

Analyzing survey results is a great start to determine best practices, tools and tactics for a digital PR strategy. But it’s just that—a start. Profiling the target audience should be an early and integral part of the process.

Who is the target audience? What are their preferences for types of social content? Which social media sites do they visit, and how often? What type of search do they use for story research? Answers to these questions and more will make a digital PR effort that leverages both search optimization and social media participation more efficient. A good model for understanding social behaviors is the Forrester Technographics report. If consumer social behaviors can be profiled, why not journalists and bloggers?

6. What is your PR firm’s true core competency: traditional or digital PR including social media and SEO?

The demand for traditional PR skills by many accounts is slipping. 18% of respondents in the Digital Readiness Reports said they have no interest whatsoever in traditional PR. For the vast majority of respondents, knowledge of social networks (80%), blogging, podcasting and RSS (87%), and micro-blogging (72%) is either important or very important when it comes to PR and marking hiring.

The big question for companies that want to stay ahead of the digital PR game is, “How do your PR resources (in-house or agency) measure up?
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Please also read PR Does Not Stand for Press Release

First, I am proud and humbled to have been named among 39 other incredible PR and communications thought leaders and practitioners in the 2009 PRWeek edition of the annual 40 Under 40 list.  For the record thought, they added another year to my age before its time…

Second, Eric Chandler published a great review on PRWeek of my new book with Deirdre Breakenridge, “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.”

Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge feel now is the time for PR to lead the charge in owning social media communications. Putting the Public Back in Public Relations is a call to action that sheds light on how PR pros have a window of opportunity to reclaim a leadership position.

The authors convincingly explain how PR has always been about storytelling. Somewhere along the line, targeting “audiences” with “messages” stole the thunder and eroded PR’s reputation. Today, we’re talking to real people – not “users” –who are customers, reporters, bloggers, and visionaries. They crave real, meaningful conversations, free of marketing fluff and corporate-speak.

This book examines how social media can help reestablish those connections. It offers an organized, methodical approach to the underlying theories and technologies that define social media: traditional vs. new journalism, blogger relations, social media releases, VNRs 2.0, corporate blogging, social networking, and micromedia…

As Eric so eloquently notes at the end of his review, “This is a must-read for all PR pros.”

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Successful businesses are always making choices and sacrifices, strategically looking as to how they are going to prioritize their resources, including human capital, budgets, and, of course, time. As the world around them adapts, so too do they need to make changes internally to respond, or to predict where trends are going – and if they guess right, the business could catapult ahead of less-agile competition.

Almost nowhere else in business has the radical transformation of how we consume and share information in the last few years been felt more than the world of public relations and corporate marketing. Tried and true practices in terms of who to reach out to, what timescale to respond, and where to find potential prospects no longer work – and often, the people who used to hold influence no longer do – forcing Marketing teams and PR agencies alike to rethink everything.

The debate around “old media”, consisting primarily of newspapers, news magazines and network television journalism “dying” has been rehashed a million times. In parallel, the discovery of new social settings where customers, prospects, partners and competition is participating is also well known (at least to most savvy companies). The summary is simple (old media: doing badly… new media: rising rapidly), but the solution as to what to do next, and how to best approach the change, is not clear.

For the last ten years, in parallel with my more visible blogging activity, I’ve been responsible for much of the public relations and analyst relation strategies for Silicon Valley companies in the enterprise hardware space. For companies like this, who don’t have the flashy colors of Web 2.0 brands, and don’t have a large array of consumer tech blogs fawning for their every update, accepting and embracing the world of “social” or new media can be a tremendous challenge.

The old methods are tried and true: Prepare a launch plan well in advance. Test messaging with trusted confidants. Seed a few choice reporters with the details. Brief analysts and gain placed quotes. Find a handful of referenceable customers. Then, plan for a big boom on the product’s debut date, where every publication you briefed writes about you and nobody breaks the embargo. Success!

Or… at least it used to be that way.

In the last few years, many of these media publications have been decimated, seeing a high number of journalists turning in their reporter card in exchange for an analyst badge. Not only must one now wonder where all these new analysts could possibly be quoted, but companies are still left trying to find enough positive high-profile media hits to spread word on their product, to reach potential buyers’ eyes.

And the story gets worse for practitioners of this old method. As many studies have displayed, trust for company spokespeople is dramatically declining – and the readership for a great number of the remaining media outlets is declining, as peers choose to talk to peers, many are publishing their own blogs, in effect becoming media outlets on their own, and a good portion have become cynical of intermediary outlets, like traditional press, both offline and online.

The challenge then becomes: How does a company adapt, in real time, to this new world? I’ve stressed there are really three phases to accurately deploying a social strategy:

1) Be aware of the tools and services, and know their functionality. (Know the difference between Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed and others, and why people use one tool instead of another)

2) Listen to what is being said about you, your industry and competition in each of these networks to get an understanding of the environment.

3) Engage in a direct, trusted manner, that sets up the company as a peer instead of a megaphone.

Engaging too soon, without having a strategy, and accurately understanding the outlets, is bound to fail. Engaging without listening to what is being said about you is bound to fail. But, and this is tricky, so too is the strategy to abandon the “old way” of doing things completely in favor of the “new way”.

I often run into situations where, especially in these cost-sensitive times, it can be tempting to cut PR budgets in order to focus on the less-expensive social media. One without the other is unbalanced. I see social media not as a parallel activity that operates independently of your corporate plans for spreading the word and your brand, but instead, as a core piece of the infrastructure, which augments everything that you do.

Therein lies a major part of this new “influencers’ dilemma”, as companies need to choose how much focus they give the new media instead of the old. How much money? How much time? How long do they wait until the achieve results? What does ROI look like and how effective is it?

Customers are demanding a seat at the table.  They are tired of being talked at, and they want to be talked with. They want to be trusted, and to know that their input has merit. Companies are looking to find a safe middle ground where they can extoll their products virtues, but do so in a familiar, personal way. And in between sits the PR and Marketing team – roiled with these conflicting goals of being aggressive yet being sensitive – pushing yet listening, and fighting to find balance. This new dilemma is not a question of if it exists, but how do you respond, and how do you overcome?
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Louis Gray, author of louisgray.com, an early adopter Silicon Valley blog focused on real time, technology innovation and social media, is the Senior Director of Corporate Marketing at Paladin Advisors Group in Woodside, California.
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Perhaps Lewis Carroll was peering into the looking glass when he wrote “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.” In it, we were introduced to Tweetle Dum and Tweetle Dee, a curious duo that always shared a fruitful, entertaining, and complementary conversational exchange even though they always agreed to battle each other.

Some suggest that the significance of Alice’s encounter with the twins explores how curiosity leads to the unknown and therefore, may not be worthy of pursuit.

It’s just not safe right? These encounters either remind us why we’ve created a comfort zone or they challenge us to venture outside of it.

And if Tweetle Dee and Tweetle Dum were the executives to whom we report, then we can assume that our imagination and ambition, and any attempts to justify the value of new and social media, serves zero relevance and therefore will receive zero support.

As we’ve learned in Carroll’s book and through real life experiences, sometimes curiosity and experience reveal new and more effective and efficient ways to get from here to the ever elusive “there,” even though we ventured into the unknown.

Caution, however, isn’t something we throw to the wind.  Within social networks and the blogosphere, the rules of engagement are currently in the process of definition. History serves as a foundation for intelligence. However, as historians evaluate events outside of their historical setting, in this case behavior in social networks vs. the efficiencies and lessons learned in the era of broadcast marketing, history ceases to be history and starts to transform into sociology. There’s much to learn, but we can’t grasp or master anything by sitting idly and watching the world pass us by. Nor, can we jump in with both feet and engage without observing how we effectively contribute value and also earn the relationships that spark communities, associations, and ultimately action and/or commerce.

I tend to forget that for every discussion that explores lessons learned, new directions, or the future of Social Media, many more are struggling with the reality of having to successfully initiate, implement and justify their foray into new media.  Many are simply looking for the specific steps necessary to accomplish new and great things while tying strategies and tactics to real world business value.

Those responsible for green lighting a new pilot, campaign, or program may or may not be qualified to do so. And, those who are not competent will not readily or willfully admit so aloud. Instead, they’ll stand in the way as a desperate act of job preservation and attempt to direct it into oblivion, tangle innovation in a web of processes and aging infrastructure, or worse, denounce new ideas and recommendations out of fear or ignorance in the name of not rocking the boat and going with what they already know.

Thankfully, there are also those gatekeepers who are never content with the status quo and recognize opportunity and their chance to not only adapt and evolve along with their customers and influencers, but also help lead them to answers and insight to make more informed decisions.

We’re all learning. However, history, experience, and intuition will help save us from learning and progressing through friction and perpetual mistakes.

We are the champions…

Attack of the Social Media Experts

Credit: Hugh MacLeod

While many social media experts are capable of demonstrating the benefits of and processes for building and managing personal brands online, only a small, but growing group can share the step-by-step instruction and framework necessary to obtain buy-in from the most traditional or skeptical business executives and more importantly, craft, shape, implement, and develop calculated social programs that build valuable communities, inspire measureable activity, connect to the existing infrastructure that already works well, and continually demonstrates how these activities translate into indisputable sales and referrals.

It’s less important to know how to “tweet” and more important to use Twitter as an extension of who you are, what you stand for, and the value that you can add to the community.  Tools are just that, tools. They will help you reach people and they always will. They’ll adapt. They’ll change. They’ll emerge and merge. And, many will simply vanish.

Yet, this new breed of social media “experts” are guiding those that employ or listen to them to run out and setup profiles on Twitter, create Facebook Fan Pages for their brand, build and deploy widgets for social networks, buy a Flip and start shooting and sharing videos, get a phone with video capabilities and start livestreaming everything you experience, and get a blog and blog! And, you can bet that this list will expand with every new and shiny service that debuts and gathers momentum.

Think about it for a moment…

Essentially, experts are purporting the use of new tools and not necessarily connecting businesses to their customers and influencers where and how they congregate and interact.

Source

What if I told you to run out and get billboards; shoot and air a commercial on radio and TV; launch a banner ad campaign online; sponsor events, advertise in trade magazines and newspapers; blast press releases; send direct mail; spam inboxes; host focus groups; invest in retail end-caps; distribute coupons; start a contest; and create a mobile app? As you could imagine, the list goes on and on.

My point?

This list of action items represents the tools of the trade as well. If I added “social” to any one of those, you would probably have probably paid more attention.

We’re intrigued and infatuated with “social media” and we’re lured into the illusion of expertise through experimentation when we’re not quite sure of how our personal endeavors translate into the unique cultures, business climates, market challenges, competitor history, state of customer perception, an understanding of customer pains and requirements, and where they seek guidance.

We’re usually missing the “day in the life of” viewpoint and the “why should I listen to you” perspective in our strategy and execution, yet it’s supposed to serve as the core of anything and everything we do and should be doing.

There’s a reason why many champions lose a bit of glimmer and spirit when they create these disparate online presences and see very little, if any, return.

We tend to broadcast.

Case in point, my wife works for an important national organization where she is by default, the new media champion as well as the change agent who now carries the burden for learning and justifying everything associated with the experimentation and piloting of social media programs, from listening to content production and publishing to engagement. The onus and responsibility of vindicating the time and resources necessary to participate across multiple networks also resides with her.

She recently participated in a Webinar that advertised how to effectively manage and measure Twitter on behalf of her company. The Webinar featured some of the most visible and notable Twitter experts online today. While their advice was accurate and relevant, she left unfulfilled, uniformed and worse, further confused.  The answers to her questions were unrealistic, generic, impractical, unsustainable, and fundamentally flawed for the business world. Worse, she also walked away from the experience with more questions and less direction. Unfortunately, she’s not alone.

Why?

There’s a stark contrast in the experience and expertise that’s earned through the process of establishing and promoting a personal brand and building prominence, cultivating an active and vibrant community, earning trust and loyalty on behalf of a company brand, and inspiring measurable action and transactions.

In truth, the social marketing playing field is rife with “experts” but starved of masters.

WILL THE REAL SOCIAL EXPERT PLEASE STAND UP!

In a recent article in PC World, “Beware the Social Media Charlatans,” Robert Strohmeyer assumes an offensive position against the onslaught of these social lemmings, “So suddenly all those poseurs who might otherwise have bilked the hapless with offers of life coaching services or Feng Shui consulting have jumped on the social networking bandwagon.”

This isn’t new. Many of us have documented the rise of the new gold rush for years. To this day, you have experts who tell you everything except what to do specifically. I recently was referred to a post from Focus Research that insinuated that businesses needed to engage in 50 social networks in order to stay in business, “50 Social Sites That Every Business Needs a Presence on.”

This is simply foolish and irresponsible. Articles such as this demonstrate the lack of social mastery or expertise that is so critical to truly helping businesses connect with customers on the social web.

Will the real social media expert please stand up?

Truthfully, my inbox is riddled with promises of riches, fame, glory, bevies of new customers, and greater profits if I attend the next big hands-on training, workshop, webinar or conference that reveals the untold secrets and proven techniques of today’s leading social networkers and social media gurus.

Sound familiar?

• Join me for this one-time, life-changing event! You’ll learn:

• The hidden one-thirds follow/follower rule on Twitter
• How to attract legions of friends and followers
• How to get retweeted
• The confidential techniques for making viral videos

So, the real question is, how does this help you?

It doesn’t.

This activity demeans and cheapens the real promise, advantages, and possibilities that lay hidden underneath the benefits that initially appeal to individual vanity and ego.

There is far too much “me” in Social Media and not enough “we” in the Social Web.

Conversation Starters vs. Meaningful Exchanges

Any anthropologist or sociologist will tell you that before attempting to join any online society, we must conduct initial fieldwork to observe and document the culture, behavior, communication, customs, traditions and habits of its citizens.  And before we can determine which networks we prioritize, we have to first “listen” to the conversations across multiple social networks to identify and discern relevant interaction versus worthless chatter.

Use the Conversation Prism to establish the Conversation Index.

Transformation begins with observation.

We need to spend more time listening and less time broadcasting or talking “at” people.

Disregarding the flagrant salesmanship and oily networking practices of typical social media consultants, we must realize that there are benefits to monitoring, observing, listening, communicating, and connecting.

Credit: Hugh MacLeod

Earning the attention of peers as part of an integrated B2B, B2C, or D2C (Direct to Customer) communications program necessitates a level of mastery that shares roots and certain tactical attributes with personal branding, but requires supplemental skills and talents that inspire and fuel relevant techniques and strategic vigilance that ultimately beget presence and mindshare.

No Hard Feelings, This is Just Business

The primary metric for business success is measured in profitability, not followers. However, the path to profitability is impeded by the tolls of customers and influencers who govern passage and direction.

While basic communications and personal skills factor into user engagement, they should be solely responsible for defining perception, reach, and persona.

While many preach personality, voice, and humanization of the corporate brand on social networks, there’s something to be said for mystique.

Being yourself or being present simply isn’t enough and many times, it can also take away from the persona that symbolizes the company and its products.

Would Apple maintain its magic if hired social media experts were transparently engaging with people on Twitter? Would Steve Jobs preserve his charisma if we as the public could freely access him through social networks?

I’m sure with the right strategist behind them, anything is possible. But, think about it. Simply having access to the company wherever, whenever through the voices and personalities of John or Jane Doe, how would that change your idea of Apple or Mr. Jobs?

In social media, participants will forever be at odds with the brands they represent.  Who we are as an individual and who we are as a representative of a company aren’t always in harmony or unison. However, there is an attainable balance and it’s this balance that inflates and steers the impression of all brands involved on both sides of the conversation.

While we profess to inject a human element to those companies as a way of making them approachable and compassionate, we must assess our intended role and the advantages of engagement in the communities we wish to reach before our inaugural utterance or declaration. Then and only then, can we discover our bearing and trajectory.

Humanizing the brand is necessary, if and only if, a human voice will reduce or eliminate potential friction between the customer and the company. Otherwise, social strategies must personify the greater purpose, significance and symbolization of the brand and reinforce those traits through everything we contribute. We do so by also humanizing our existing and potential customers, gaining empathy and sincerity in the process. But we must do so at a profound measure through not only a deep-rooted comprehension of human nature and connections as it relates to our individual personality, but also an entrenched comprehension of perception management, brand shaping and reinforcement, and active counseling and guidance that leaves those you encounter more informed, aware, and fulfilled. We’re instilling the attributes that engender awareness, enthusiasm, and loyalty.

The shift from specialist to authority is driven specifically by experience and the activities that define your social portfolio.  As a business professional seeking guidance, direction, and insight, become the person you’re trying to reach using the voice of the persona you wish to convey and fortify.

This is connectivity through inspiration. In the process, we become the very social media experts we sought to employ.

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While I was traveling in NY for InternetWeek and DC for the Vocus conference recently, Mark Olson sent a note inviting my thoughts on a post he was authoring on the subject of authenticity versus authority. I immediately replied, “I’m in.”

This is a subject that is garnering much of my attention and contemplation as they are among the key words that orbit the social media marketing universe and are in danger of spinning off course and into a black hole of obscurity.

We stand at a crossroads where the language of social media either matures and develops or depreciates and decays.

In his post, “Authenticity vs. Authority,” Olson featured an industry-leading ensemble of leading minds and voices in the new media marketing landscape including, Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Mike Volpe and yours truly.

Seth Godin, author of ten international bestsellers including Tribes:

“If it’s a word game, then authority wins, because authority is about the perception of the consumer.  If they believe you an authority, you are.  In the long run, of course, authenticity will trump it, because your authority fades without it. The converse is not true.  And yes, it’s a word game.”

David Meerman Scott, bestselling author of the New Rules of Marketing & PR:

I remember in college there was a professor who had tons of authority. He was tenured, had written books, and was the head of the department. Although he had authority, he was not a popular teacher and his classes were empty. I recall other teachers who were young and dynamic and had no authority. Barely older than the students, they had an authentic love of their subject and of teaching. Their classes were packed. In the always on, one-click-away world of the Web, authenticity wins every time because unlike a college class, people can immediately leave the sites that don’t capture their interest. That’s why a lone blogger can be more popular than a stuffy old trade journal both on the same subject.

Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs:

Authenticity and Authority in the Age of Trust
From around 1950 until maybe as late as 2006, organizations have been able to get away with mass communication and one-sided blurting. No longer. We are ALL the media. We all have networks. We all have cameras and video and newspapers at our disposal. We have the memory of Google on our side. How do companies succeed in this environment? They do what probably should have always been done: be human. It’s not a vast reworking. It’s not throwing out all that’s come before. It’s doing what we know in our guts to be right. How do you build authority? By being human. Be fallible. Be apologetic. And communicate in both directions. Listen, and build trust by responding and interacting. You’re still the leader, but you’re now a responsible leader who cares about your constituency. Try it. You’ll like it.

Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing at HubSpot:

I think authority and authenticity are related but different. Authority is a measure of importance, impact or influence.  You can measure authority by your ranking in Google and tools like Twitter Grader or Facebook Grader.  Marketers should work to improve their authority in their market – today’s marketing goal is to turn your own web presence (website, blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to the leading authoritative source for your market. The overall numbers don’t matter as much as the relative authority of your company vs. your competitors’ authority.

Authenticity is a measure of openness and lack of “marketing speak”.  One way to measure authenticity is to run some of your content through Gobbledygook Grader and see how much corporate-speak you use.  As the web has moved our society to more of a two way communication and given everyone more control over content, outbound marketing and advertising has become less effective. Marketers are embracing inbound marketing, which is more interactive and authentic by nature. I think most people will find that it is hard to achive a high level of authority without being authentic. However, being really authentic does not get you much without authority.

Marketers need to be authentic, but the primary focus for marketing should be on building authority. Authority is a marketing asset – you can use it to drive more people to your events, content, thought leadership, and products.  Authority is far more important to driving leads and sales, which is what we marketers should care about most.  Building an authoritative presence on the web is part of inbound marketing. You can use your blog, website and social media presence to attract more customers to you, and this effect is stronger as your authority grows.

Brian Solis, PR 2.0, author of the recently-released book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations:

“How are you doing?”
“I’m fine. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.”

What started out as an authentic gesture to understand how someone was feeling eventually dissipated into an almost meaningless exchange to ease into a conversation or simply acknowledge someone’s presence. Authenticity is the minimum requirement in any exchange, online and in the real world. Authority however, is earned with every exchange where those involved are enlightened as a result of their participation.

Relevant information, consistency, and insight are the attributes of those who build credibility among their peers. The transparency that facilitates genuine and sincere interaction helps us build meaningful relationships with those who value each other’s contribution. It’s how we earn trust, loyalty and establish significance.  Perhaps what we learn is that it’s not a case of authenticity vs. authority, but authenticity + wisdom + engagement = authority.

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Framing authenticity and authority in opposing positions insinuates resistance or competition when they are in fact, interrelated and entwined.

But nowadays, authenticity and authority join the likes of other social media buzzwords that serve as anthems for the social communications revolution  including but not limited to, “transparency,” “engagement,” “conversation,” “human,” “listening,” and “relationships.”

The essence and usefulness of each important and distinct word is slowly migrating into a hollow of obsolesce as we attach them to all things social media, without truly stopping to reflect and observe their intent, definition, weight, and opportunity.

Before we veer astray, it’s now imperative to associate these words with sincerity, purpose and action. It’s not just a matter of Authenticity vs. Authority nor is it a race to listen and forge relationships by engaging through transparency, it’s about transcending the ideas behind the words into something of significance, trustworthiness, education, and remembrance. In the end, we are defined by our actions, not words.

By way of stated illustration, what if we embraced:

Believability vs. Transparency

Contribution vs. Engagement

Participation vs. Conversation

Hearing vs. Listening

Connections and Collaboration vs. Relationships

Humanizing vs. Being Human

Suddenly there’s a deeper resonance and significance associated with each word, almost as if each sung individual instruction, direction and motivation – sparking imagination and ingenuity in the process.  It’s education through inspiration…

Authenticity + Wisdom + Reinforcement through Participation = Authority.

Helpful Posts on PR 2.0:
- The State of Public Relations, Marketing and Communications: The Future is You
- Is Twitter a Broadcast or Conversation Platform (or Both)?
- Is Twitter Evolving from the Facebook to the Myspace of Microblogs
- Time Spent on Twitter Soars by Over 3,700%, Facebook 700%
- Gazing into The Twitterverse
- This is Not a Sponsored Post: Sponsored Conversations & the FTC
- Reviving the Traditional Press Release
- Twitter, Acquisition vs. Retention
- You Are Significant
- The Art and Science of Blogger Relations – Updated eBook
- In Social Media, The SEC Removes “Relations” from Investor Relations
- Twitter Flutters into Mainstream Culture: The Competition for Attention Starts with You
- The Social OS, The Battle Between Facebook and Twitter is the New Mac vs. PC
- The Domino’s Effect
- Can The Statusphere Save Journalism
- The Conversation Index
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect and Disruption Theory
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- Are Blogs Losing Their Authority to the Statusphere
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web

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Good friend Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) reached out to let me know that the company is releasing the latest financial figures for its @DellOutlet account on Twitter tonight.

Last December, the company generated over $1 million in revenue through @delloutlet by posting special offers and also nurturing customer relationships on Twitter. Today Dell reported over $2 million in sales through its popular @delloutlet presence.  @delloutlet currently boasts close to 625,000 followers seeking exclusive deals available only on the micro community.

As Dell notes, “We’ve surpassed $2 million in revenue in terms of Dell Outlet sales, but we’re also seeing that it’s driving interest in new product as well. We’re seeing people come from @DellOutlet on Twitter into the Dell.com/outlet site, and then ultimately decide to purchase a new system from elsewhere on Dell.com. If we factor those new system purchases that come from @DellOutlet, we’re actually eclipsed $3 million in overall sales.”

@delloutlet has been active on Twitter since June of 2007, but as the chart visualizes, connection to Dell’s special pricing and the company’s vigilant focus on service and customer attention has helped attract over 500,000 followers in three months.

Current Dell involvement with Twitter focuses on listening, learning, and engaging in direct connections with customers. There are ~ 200 Dell employees using Twitter to interact with customers, including the product development team for Dell’s Mini line of fashionable and functional netbooks (@dell_mini).

In particular the Dell Mini team is leveraging Twitter to develop the next generation of netbooks. Other examples range from individuals in the CTO’s office to those who work on technology for education @edu4u and @paradigmshift, and of course the company’s largest business involving corporate data centers and servers (@dellservergeek, @brucerericatdell).

RichardatDell noted, “Like you say in your book Brian, this is about putting the public back in public relations where relationships are direct. The dedicated practice of connecting with customers generates real results on many levels. While this announcement focuses on revenue results and referrals to dell.com, they are also reinforced by the relationships and direct connections we have with customers everyday using the Web.”

Helpful Posts on PR 2.0:
- The State of Public Relations, Marketing and Communications: The Future is You
- Is Twitter a Broadcast or Conversation Platform (or Both)?
- Is Twitter Evolving from the Facebook to the Myspace of Microblogs
- Time Spent on Twitter Soars by Over 3,700%, Facebook 700%
- Gazing into The Twitterverse
- This is Not a Sponsored Post: Sponsored Conversations & the FTC
- Reviving the Traditional Press Release
- Twitter, Acquisition vs. Retention
- You Are Significant
- The Art and Science of Blogger Relations – Updated eBook
- In Social Media, The SEC Removes “Relations” from Investor Relations
- Twitter Flutters into Mainstream Culture: The New Competition for Attention Starts with You
- The Social OS, The Battle Between Facebook and Twitter is the New Mac vs. PC
- The Domino’s Effect
- Can The Statusphere Save Journalism
- The Conversation Index
- Social Media Influences Buying Decisions
- Is Social Media Recession Proof?
- The End of the Innocence
- The Social Effect and Disruption Theory
- Twitter and Social Networks Usher in a New Era of Social CRM
- Humanizing Social Networks, Revealing the People Powering Social Media
- I Like You The Emerging Culture of Micro Acts of Appreciation
- The Ties that Bind Us - Visualizing Relationships on Twitter and Social Networks
- Make Tweet Love – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- Are Blogs Losing Their Authority to the Statusphere
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web

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