e-liz

A few weeks ago Nick and I had the pleasure of watching the Bulls get ruthlessly humiliated at the United Center. One of the tertiary pleasures of any major sporting event is the chance to win free stuff from sponsors. You get a prize booklet at the door, and depending on who wins these little time-out competitions throughout the game, you might get a coupon for a free taco, or a Big Mac, or some coffee.

I only won one of the prizes from my booklet that night. It was a free gallon of water from Hinckley Springs. Upon closer inspection, though, I realized that the prize was really a free gallon of water with the purchase of a gallon of water. That's right: I won the privilege of going out to the store, purchasing two half-priced gallons of water, and carrying them home.

Err... thanks?

I thought about that experience again earlier this week, when some colleagues were passing around a story about AmEx's blogger outreach strategy for their new Zync card. Blogger Peter Rojas outed the PR firm who contacted him, and reposted the full text of their email offering him an "exclusive relationship" with the Zync card.

At first glance, nothing looks off about their message. It's well-targeted (Rojas is in their demo and has worked with the company before), it's transparent (the rep identifies herself and does not disguise her request), and the communication is perfectly appropriate in clarity, tone and approach. As a colleague noted, it doesn't look all that different from some of the eminent campaigns we've done ourselves. So what was the big problem?

The offering. AmEx wanted Rojas to do a lot: read about Zync, take the time to offer ongoing feedback through an online community, and host an event for 25-50 people to introduce them to the card. And what was in it for him? That's not really clear. In fact, it seems like the marketing team was counting on Rojas to consider his involvement to be a reward unto itself:

With this relationship, you would be able to be part of the “Special Committee” in which you really get to provide feedback to the product development team on ideas for iPhone applications, the next packs and much more

I can only imagine that his reaction was akin to mine upon learning of Hinckley Springs' generous prize: "Thanks?"

Let's not lose touch with reality when it comes to "advocates," "ambassadors" and "relationships." What are we really giving people? Can we turn a skeptical eye toward our own campaigns, and admit it if what we're offering fans is nothing more than half-priced water?

Public speaking coach (and Facebook friend) Nick Morgan recently published 10 Rules for Creating Successful Power Point Presentations. He gives a comprehensive and practical guide based on one major principle: slides are for illustrating. Not for explaining. Not for describing. Not for selling. Explaining, describing, and selling are the speaker's job. The slides are there to make a visual impression that reinforces the audience's reaction to what the speaker is saying.

Things that belong on slides:

• Photographs
• Charts and graphs
• Single numbers

Things that do not belong on slides:

• More than five words at once
• Agendas describing the presentation

This is all great advice for PowerPoint presentations that are being used to accompany a speaker. But I've worked in many organizations where PowerPoint is also used to create presentations and proposals that are intended to be read on their own, either after a live presentation or in lieu of one. For the audience's sake, though, we need to respect the difference between PPTs created for different purposes... which means resisting the urge to give a live presentation using slides created for private reading.

So what about those presentations that are meant to be consumed without a speaker? Ideally, those should be illustrative too. Consider the effective, cheeky and pleasing "What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later" by Marta Kagan. Agree or disagree with its conclusions, this piece demonstrates that speakerless slides don't have to mean blocks of text, lists, and bullet points:

People are talking this week about a study released by WorkPlace Media, semi-rhetorically titled "Can Big Brands Crash the Social Networking Party?" [link goes to release PDF]. The implied answer: No, they can't... or at least not yet.

The study polled "office Internet users" on their use of social networks at work and their self-reported opinions about major brands relative to whether or not those brands are present on social networks. The press release cites some nice percentages for use in cocktail party conversation, but the basic argument is something like this:

1. Most people don't use social networks at work.
2. Most people who do use social networks at work don't spend much time using them.
3. Most people say recommendations or brand activity on social networks do not influence their buying decisions or brand perceptions.
4. Therefore, “When it comes to influencing brand perception and purchase decisions, the data shows that social networking still has a long way to go.”

I suspect that most brands on social networks do have a long way to go. Marketers are still learning, consumer behavior is still changing, and the number of variables involved makes it tough to employ a universal method of measuring the impact of a brand's online activities. My skepticism about the WPM study has little to do with the conclusion reached. However, the imprecise methodology and incomplete logic of this study leave me a bit exasperated.

Numbers 1 and 2 both come down to audience. If the people your brand wants to influence are on social networks, it doesn't matter how many consumers aren't. For many brands, a consumer who is more active on social networks represents greater potential value. They may be more likely to start discussions about brands (on- and offline). They may have greater interest specifically in technology purchases, and more discretionary income with which to make those purchases. They also may have more social connections and stronger influence on people they interact with (on- and offline). The "may" in each of these can be debated... but if you're a brand who values these consumers, for whatever reason, you probably won't be dissuaded by the relatively small number of them.

By the way, why are we only measuring social network use at work? Does this have any implications for the social networking habits of at-home Internet users, or did the researchers just want to choose a body of respondents that would produce suitably low access percentages?

Finally, let's talk about number 3. Oof. This again. I find that the difficulty here is twofold:

• First, I just plain don't think many consumers in a study will ever say that their brand perceptions and buying decisions are influenced by social networks - or any marketing vehicle, for that matter. People love to believe that they are impervious to brands' attempts to influence them, and will gladly justify their attitudes and purchases with any explanation possible that doesn't have to do with marketing.
• Second, the study makes a big deal out of the combined 33% of respondents citing face-to-face or phone contact with friends/family members/colleagues as their main source of brand recommendations. It is tacitly implied here that there exists some kind of impenetrable wall between online and offline conversations - that people don't ever have phone calls about recommendations they read on Yelp, or talk in person about a company they interacted with on Twitter. Showing how many people are influenced by offline word of mouth doesn't convincingly undermine the influence of online conversations.

Now, does all this mean that the influence of marketing through social networks isn't sometimes overblown? Of course not. But if you want to prove that social networking has "a long way to go" in influencing consumers, this study isn't what's going to do it.

Some great further discussion in the comments on this related Mediapost piece.

This post was originally published on PR Nonsense, for March Communications.

Friday’s PR Week features an op-ed by Amy Dean titled “Five reasons why ghost Tweeting will come back to haunt you” [subscription required]. Dean makes a reasonable case against letting someone else use Twitter to speak for you and your brand: it’s misleading to customers, it destroys credibility with reporters, and it can cause you to lose followers in an instant.

But the heart of the issue is here:

Twitter is a new opportunity to have an engaging, ongoing dialogue with customers that breeds collaboration that leads to enhanced customer satisfaction. But that can only happen if there is an honest exchange.

There are lots of reasons it makes sense to put someone else in charge of maintaining your presence online – a ghost-tweeter may have more social media expertise than you do, an especially engaging writing style, or the superb organizational skills it takes to maintain a dialogue with your followers. This is certainly not a case for lying – if you’re going to have someone else tweet on your behalf, you’d better be ready to be completely transparent about that (see @RyanSeacrest for a great demonstration of transparency).

But the biggest drawback of bringing on a ghost-tweeter is that you’re depriving yourself of the benefits of one-on-one interaction with your audience, especially the opportunities you can discover and the business insight you can glean from those conversations. One of the most exciting aspects of social media is that it allows brands to remove a layer of mediation and affect consumers more personally. The more you’re able to participate personally, the more you’ll get out of it.

Besides, it can be quite a kick just to be yourself on Twitter. Who could have adequately imitated Shaq’s reaction to experiencing a hailstorm for the first time?

This post was originally published on PR Nonsense, for March Communications.

Over the weekend, from InformationWeek:

Practical Analysis: Social Networks Get Low Marks As Sources Of IT Info

Art Wittman cheerfully reports:

In a series of questions, we asked where you get your information and what you think of those sources, including vendor Web sites, IT trade magazines, business magazines and newspapers, E-mail newsletters, broad business tech sites (such as Information Week.com), focused tech sites (such as IntelligentEnterprise.com), analyst sites, virtual trade shows and Webinars, social networks (such as LinkedIn and Facebook), tech bloggers, and Twitter.

We used a five-point scale to gauge your opinion of relevance, reliability, timeliness, and bias for each as they relate to your work. Top responses varied a bit from question to question, but typically your top sources of information include broad IT Web sites, IT trade magazines, business news sites, and analyst sites. The bottom three responses were much more consistent: tech bloggers, social networks, and Twitter, with Twitter ranking by far the lowest in a number of categories.

As most scholars know, it’s never quite as precise to rely on people to report on their own behavior as it is to actually observe their actions. Asking people to report on the causes of their own behavior seems like an even less useful research method. Humans are motivated by a collection of often impractical and sometimes downright ridiculous set of factors... and few people have the self-insight – not to mention the humility – to accurately explain why they do the things they do. When presented with a respectable, logical, serious-looking set of alternative options (”IT trade magazines!” or “Business news sites!”), what kind of IT executive would claim that they are more influenced by their online friends and acquaintances, or by the frequency of a brand name on social networks? It sounds so irrational. And yet... most serious research on buying decisions reveals that what drives them is irrational. Purchases are made with emotion, and justified with logic.

To really start to study the influence of social media on IT buying decisions, you need to compare IT pros’ exposure to social media mentions of a company with their eventual purchases. The correlation may be small, or it may be large; but it will certainly be more informative than collecting buyers’ own self-psychoanalyses and reporting them as fact.

This post was originally published on PR Nonsense, for March Communications.

On everyone’s mind this week – the results of Jennifer Leggio’s research report: Is ’social PR’ for real? Which agencies get it?

Leggio surveyed over 600 PR decision-makers in various industries about what they consider important when it comes to ‘doing social media’ and how well they think their agencies are approaching these tactics. Some of the results were obvious: 79% of respondents think it is ‘extremely important’ for their agencies to understand social media strategy, and only 37% think they have a ‘great’ understanding of how to use social media for business themselves. Clearly this is an area where clients see the necessity and need the expertise.

More surprising and somewhat depressing? Not quite half of the respondents agreed that their current agency ‘understands how PR needs to fuel entire business strategy, not just news coverage.’ And as far as social media goes, only 20% reported that their agency recommended social media programs beyond tools to support business endeavors. Says Leggio:

This is scary. No social media decision should be led with tool selection. Companies need to first consider their corporate objectives, then determine where their customers, partners and competitors are, and also consider how such use of tools ties to the corporate culture. Agencies, this relates back to the importance of team members understanding the fundamentals of a client’s business.

With this in mind, “does your agency ‘do’ social media?” is the wrong question.

Do we ‘do’ social media? The short answer is “Yes.” The long answer is this:

All media is social. To boot, print and broadcast publications are relying increasingly on online and user-generated content, or transitioning to an online-only format. Online influencers (both collectively and as individuals) have gained unprecedented authority in the traditional media.

No company in the technology sector should entertain a PR proposal that lacks thorough consideration of how social media fits into the program – including an explanation of how social media monitoring and participation will be integrated with the rest of the media relations, marketing and lead generation strategy.

So March doesn't list “social media relations” on our list of services. Instead, we incorporate social media principles and tools into our client’s campaigns, at both a strategic and tactical level. That way, social media becomes part of what we do for every client, on every campaign.

As long as new social media tools and tactics are being developed, we will continue to find ways to use them to strengthen all of our PR and marketing activities.