Many thanks to Doug Stewart, a guy dedicated to helping small businesses dominate their space on the web, for asking me to talk with him for a few minutes about effectively using social media and PR together to market businesses. If you’ve never heard me speak, here’s your chance If you have and you’re game for more… bless you, firstly, and secondly, enjoy the interview!

Have a topic you want to see me cover here? I’ve been toying with the idea of breaking my no-video style… what would you most like to see/hear for the first vid post on this blog?

The most overused business phrase from 1995 through about 2005 was “increase shareholder value.” It appeared in more corporate mission statements, vision statements and annual reports than “be environmentally responsible” does today. The worst part wasn’t the monotony (litany?) of corporate speak during those years… it was that the strategy wasn’t really a strategy. It was a result.

The best companies didn’t focus on creating shareholder value. They focused on their customers, products, services… delivering what people wanted, in the way they wanted it, in exchange for fairly valued compensation. The right focus and smart execution drove success, which ultimately increased shareholder value. Regardless of its inclusion in any mission statement, I might add. Do you think employees can all rally around the idea of doing their very best so they can increase the value of stock owned by someone else? Or even their own stock, which generally is a tiny portion of their compensation or retirement? Doubtful. Employees rarely care about shareholders.

Today, companies are urged to be responsive, engaging, transparent and social. Employees tweet or manage facebook pages for themselves and for businesses. There are videos, photos, review sites… so many ways to share information. And the customers are out there… tweeting, facebooking, reviewing, too. The companies who are engaging, who are social, who are transparent (which is just to say, HONEST), build this army of fans or friends. When something negative is posted to the facebook wall, fans defend the brand. When a tweetstorm erupts over someone’s negative experience, the brand responds, the followers defend and retweet, and all is rosy and well in the social sphere. Until… a major crisis hits, and those fans want answers.

They have been trained through interaction to feel like part of the team. Fed a diet of transparency and access, they feel entitled to answers, honesty and truth in short (very short) order. And they are correct. Those fans you’ve been cultivating? They are your businesses’ social shareholders. They have an (emotional) stake in your company. They defend, but they also demand. Just like in the old days of increasing shareholder value, creating raving fans is still a result, not a strategy.

Serve the customers…. in the immortal words of Becky McCray at the recent Get Social conference in OKC, “Customer service is all you’ve got.” She didn’t mean just the basic idea of customer service (being nice, greeting them, sacking the groceries correctly, etc.); she meant truly serving them. Putting those customers first, in all ways. Then, right after you take care of those customers and create those loyal followers, friends and fans, go take care of your social shareholders. They deserve it, too.

My big takeaways from the conference?

The Context / Content stuff is going to come together for another post soon

What do you think? Do you believe in the idea of social shareholders?

Thanks to Blake Jackson… the inspiration for this post came from his opening discussion at Get Social.

A few weeks back, I posted then original PR People, Tips & Resources post. Several of you submitted additional people, espectially, whom you thought should be included. I’ve vetted, added and here, for your enjoyment, is a new and improved list of PR goodness.

Again, please use the comments to let me know if you have a submission for the list. I will periodically update… though it’s approaching the size where a formal list of some sort might make more sense.

PR tips and PR People

Twitter hashtag #PRtips and one of the main contributors, @CyndyHoenig

@Kristen_Okla (Kristen Turley, Oklahoma practioner and PRSA leader)

@techpr (Marivic Valencia)

@dustinpyeatt (Dustin Pyeatt)

@rcrissinger (Rob Crissinger)

@wiredprworks (Barbara Rozgonyi)

PRSA on Twitter

PRSA web site

@SternalPR (John Sternal)

@HowellMarketing (Amy D. Howell)

@AnneDGallaher (Anne D. Gallagher)

@SueYoungMedia and her website (Sue Young)

@Barb_G (Barbara Gibson)

@PRMoxie (Mary Lower)

@MarisaCorser (Marisa Corser)

@worob and his blog (especially great for students, young PR pros and those transitioning in) (Andrew Worob)

@ShannonPaul and her website (Shannon Paul)

@ConversationAge (Valeria Maltoni) and her site

PR wonderfulness

PR Sarah Evans web site

The Fight Against Destructive Spin

PR Squared site (and also @TDefren on Twitter)

Ragan Communications (and also @MarkRaganCEO on Twitter)

Brian Solis web site

The 360 Days in a PR Life blog

PR Breakfast Club blog

Arik Hanson’s site, Communication Conversations

For how not to do PR

The Bad Pitch Blog (not always work suitable, but always targeted and often really funny)

I spent some time this week editing my feed reader and was reminded again about how much good information exists out there on the interwebs. Also a lot of bad, really bad, information… and I want to make sure to share the good stuff with you guys.

I compiled a beginning list on the Journal Record’s PR blog (yes, I write that one, too) and am asking that you add your thoughts to the list. We’ll all be better together, and I am definitely about connecting people and ideas. I hope you find some (new to you) nuggets of PR goodness and that you’ll share your favorites with us.

Please feel free to either comment/share here or over on the Record’s site, as you wish I’ll gather submissions from both sites and prepare a more in-depth list of resources and people based on everyone’s shared links.

PR tips and PR People:

Twitter hashtag #PRtips and one of the main contributors, @CyndyHoenig

@Kristen_Okla (Kristen Turley)

@techpr (Marivic Valencia)

@dustinpyeatt (Dustin Pyeatt)

@rcrissinger (Rob Crissinger)

@wiredprworks (Barbara Rozgonyi)

PRSA on Twitter

PRSA web site

@SternalPR (John Sternal)

PR wonderfulness

PR Sarah Evans web site

The Fight Against Destructive Spin

PR Squared site (and also @TDefren on Twitter)

Ragan Communications (and also @MarkRaganCEO on Twitter)

Brian Solis web site

The 360 Days in a PR Life blog

PR Breakfast Club blog

For how not to do PR:

The Bad Pitch Blog (not always work suitable)

(NOTE: this is by no means a comprehensive list… I follow and interact with LOTS of great PR-types, especially on Twitter. For more, try this Twitter list.) Remember… better together. Leave your favorite resources/tweeps/sites in the comments

Yeah… bubbles. Stay with me… you’ll see

After another furious #blogchat on Twitter where smart people were discussing the differences between passion and influence as it pertains to blogging and why (if?) it mattered, some things I’ve been thinking about began to crystallize. And because it’s what I do when that happens, here I am writing about it.

Before we dive in, thanks to @spikejones for inspiring some of this, @MackCollier for #blogchat (and lots of inspiration over time) and @edosegal, who wrote the ambient streams post I read recently.

First, some definitions (well, mine, anyway):

Passion (in the marketing sense) = commitment to/attachment to a brand, product, idea or position regardless of compensation.

It’s a feeling, an internal condition. It cannot be manufactured or externally created. Passion is a choice the individual makes… I choose to love Godiva dark chocolate. Godiva hasn’t asked me to love it, paid me to love it, and doesn’t particularly care that I do so… I, on an individual level, am not influential in their marketing planning. (Oversight on their part? Perhaps… )

Influence = ability to affect other’s perceptions or awareness.

Influence CAN be purchased/created. It’s an external perception… Billions of ad dollars are spent every year trying to influence the awareness and perception of potential customers. Is it possible for an individual blogger to have influence in a space he or she is not passionate about? Long term, I think the answer is no. Bloggers who have influence in a particular space usually have earned that right through good information, solid community, earned respect. Not always… because, as we’ve already said, influence can be purchased. Programs and tools and schemes exist to “grow your blog” and “get thousands of followers” to jump-start influence.

At least initially. Some of the current “stars” of the social media world, for instance, may not be around in a year or two. If they aren’t passionate about the relevant, interactive web, they will run out of things to say that resonate with the community marketers are hoping to reach through their influence. If they stop resonating, they will lose influence, and their relevance.

Someone who is passionate about an idea or product or brand keeps on learning, and loving, and sharing experiences and interactions born of the love affair. And those shared moments will typically only resonate with those who are interested in the same brand or idea. Maybe the audience isn’t in love yet… maybe just experimenting or looking for a first date. That’s where passionate people and influence intersect.

I can be influenced only by those people or messages I choose to pay attention to. Repeat… I can only be influenced by those people or messages I choose to pay attention to.

Why do I care what TechCrunch thinks in general about [insert brand here]? I don’t. I don’t care about what TechCrunch thinks about a lot of things. But I <3 Apple products. I tend to pay attention to what TechCrunch says about all things Apple… I am passionate about that brand and TechCrunch’s opinion is more relevant to me when they are talking about Apple than when they are talking about XBox360. I choose to pay attention… and then TechCrunch has a chance to influence me and my opinion.

What is missing from all this influence and passion is a way to filter relevance. It’s a fact that humans filter information and stimuli all the time. The web’s current model is based on active search:

Random thought triggers question…

Brain can’t supply answer…

Enter phrase into Google, or more typical for me, Twitter (or your weapon of choice)…

Scan results… (FOR WHAT… ?)

Click on choice that seems THE MOST RELEVANT to me (I trust the source/know the source or believe Google’s method for determining importance and value)

The future of the web, I believe, won’t be based on active search, but on ambient streams. Already, who I choose to follow on Twitter creates ambient streams that bubble up the information I care about. As more and more of the web dabbles in relevance… more information will find us rather than us going to look for it.

Who we choose to be influenced by (who we let control our information streams) will matter a great deal more than it does now. I suspect we’ll get more picky, too. More fragmented as a marketplace, more determined to know what we want to know and not see the rest. How will we determine who makes the cut? Passion… who we believe. Influence… who we trust. And relevance… who we perceive to “understand who and where we are in life.”

Already, the web can tell where I’m located, who is tweeting or geotagging near me, what sites/locations/stores I’ve visited recently (and if I positively or negatively reviewed them), and who I’m choosing to be influenced by (who am I connected to on Twitter, Facebook, Ning groups, LinkedIn, etc). How far off is that one app/program/site that will analyze that info, assign relative relevance scores to the possible streams of info, and show me what is relevant to me based on ME, not on Google’s basic algorithms?

Heady, and scary, stuff. What do you think… what’s next?

Google's Real Time Search is the "oh, Shiny!" topic we need to talk about.

I don’t claim to be an SEO expert…. But I DO know something about marketing. This post is about the future, the possibilities, and what people who are using any form of online marketing need to be thinking about NOW to get ready for what is coming. And it’s coming much faster than you might think.

Buzz is beginning about Google’s search integration deals with Facebook and Twitter… here are a couple of other people’s posts with more of the details, if you wanna know the specifics:

Info from Mashable

More, especially about Facebook

What does it mean for marketing? It means “integrated marketing” can’t just be about cross-platform and multi-channel. It now has to be about timing and velocity, too. If enough people on Twitter and Facebook are talking about your company’s product release, blog post or other shiny new thing, will you achieve the golden Google award of auto-real time search? What drives Google to choose which search terms/items get an auto real-time feed? I (obviously) don’t know the algorithm. But I bet it’s got everything to do with velocity and relevance. If Mashable tweets a post, and lots of people retweet it, is that out of the ordinary? Or a “blip” in the search world? Not really. If I tweet a post, and two hundred people retweet it, is THAT out of the ordinary? uh.. yes. Quite. It makes a blip on the search radar. It means something that WASN’T relevant a short time ago (my blog) is now relevant to (proportionally) many more people. Maybe I get my own Google live feed for a bit while people are tweeting, facebooking and commenting on the post. And then it goes away… rather like the auto live-feed for “Tiger Woods Mistress.” Was there… then not. May be again when another “revelation” breaks from someone else.

The point? “Buzz” has another dimension now. Real time matters because it gives the whole world (well, the whole Google-ized world, anyway) a snapshot of what’s important to EVERYONE, right now. Think of it as Twitter trending topics, writ large. Companies need to be ready…

Imagine a major hail storm hits the midwest in the United States. Guess what would suddenly start being very relevant?

“Roofing damage”

“Hail damage”

“local roofing in [city]“

These searches would all gain immediate, non-characteristic, traffic. They would form a blip, and the real time, relevant web will respond with live updates. If you’re a local roofing company, will your tweets/FB page/web site/blog be ready to take advantage of the traffic potential?

What do you see as the dangers? Benefits? Strategies needed? Future? So much to discuss here… looking forward to your thoughts!

UPDATE >> the number of results on Google for “Mandy Vavrinak” has jumped by about 1,500 since I last searched, about a week ago. THAT is what adding results from Facebook and Twitter means…

This is the response received from Saxsum|PR Friday, Oct. 30th, 3:42 PM. My original blog post follows. — Mandy
 
Social media is a very effective communications tool if used strategically and appropriately.  Per our proposal and contract with ODOT (which are both public documents available from the State upon request), we are assisting ODOT develop and implement a strategy to enhance their communications efforts through a Twitter pilot project.  From developing the overall strategy, specific guidelines and performance metrics, to designing and establishing the account and training staff, we are helping ODOT provide the public with the most up-to-date information on state highways and bridges.  We began our work on Oct. 6 and are continuing to provide counsel, evaluate this new means of communications and recommend next steps. 
 
At Saxum, we take pride in providing value-added services to our clients and believe we have and continue to add value for ODOT through this project. 

——— original post ———-
FACTS:

ODOT paid $7,500 for SaxsumPR to set up their account and “spend about 10 days” with their employees teaching them how to use the service.
After 2 weeks, they had 552 followers
ODOT tweets traffic delays, congestion and other traffic issues.
Saxsum “will be helping ODOT track their effectiveness and track their Twitter following”
Saxsum says the account is going to save ODOT money through manpower savings: Not staffing phones like they would otherwise, not sending people to congested areas as they would be doing otherwise.

See KFOR’s news story here:

Twitter commentary was quite negative over the expenditure, as evidenced by tweets with the #okdot hashtag. When @saxsumPR got involved, hours after the controversy started, they promised to e-mail me their comments after conferring with their client. So far, nothing… and then they responded to a Twitter/Social Media crisis with a TV interview. Ouch… and I’m still waiting on that e-mail. Granted, it’s only Tuesday, but there’s been some time for a public response, as evidenced by the interview on KFOR.

One of my biggest challenges with this is that the main argument of Saxsum of value provided is dollars being saved because ODOT’s staffing requirement is now reduced through sharing information via Twitter.

How large is Oklahoma’s driving public?

There are 2,819,781 people 16 and over in Oklahoma… and ODOT is responsible for providing all of them with transportation related information. Unless ODOT is the most retweeted Twitter account EVER (and they’re not), 552 followers does not mean ODOT can reduce staff and still keep the same level of service to the other 2,819,229 people they serve.
I believe Twitter is a valuable information-sharing tool. I believe ODOT is right to attempt to share information this way. I believe planning for success and sometimes paying for help achieving it is necessary for any business to achieve its goals. And I don’t believe that, based on what I know at this point, the taxpayers were best served by this level of expenditure.

If additional information becomes available, I may revise my opinion…. in the meantime… please share yours!

This post is inspired by a conversation with @billhandy and @freshpeel on Twitter, and by Bill’s (lengthy, but good) post about the science behind communities.

My key takeaways/thoughts on the subject are:

Bigger isn’t necessarily better
The ties in your community matter
Work yourself out of a job if you want to matter long-term

Bigger isn’t necessarily better because the value of a community must be defined through a particular set of lenses. Think about the value of your home. The key question is… value to whom? We all think about value of a home as the price we’d get if we sold it to another person interested in living in it. What about the value of your home as potential raw material for a new project? The value of just the land your home is on, to a non-residential user? The value of the goods/furnishing inside? The lens used to evaluate value makes a difference. You need to define the purpose of a community before you can assess its value. If the purpose is to create “a community of bicycle enthusiasts” you need to re-think. You’ve defined who you’re after (bicycle enthusiasts) but not WHY they’ve come and WHAT you hope they’ll do for or be to each other. A better purpose (lens) would be seeking to create “A place where bicycling enthusiasts can share knowledge about the best trails/rides so others can discover and enjoy them, too.”

NOW we have something… we know we’re seeking current riders to anchor the community (new riders would be welcome, but won’t necessarily have the foundational knowledge about best trails/rides to share). We know we’ll need to try to build that community in a space where sharing and organizing information, including potentially maps, photos, written descriptions, even user calendars, will be easy and seamless. We know that search/discovery within the community will be important. AND… if we build it smartly, we can define value to potential marketers of trail-proven cycles, gear, lodging and food/supplies.

ALSO… we have a community built on shared, strong affinity for not just a hobby (cycling) but a particular aspect/segment of that hobbyist community (longer rides/trails/trips). The strength of the ties in your community matter… they’ll drive longevity and advocacy. If people self-identify as belonging to that group, our carefully constructed place should give them a portal to other like-minded individuals and space to share their passion. They’ll seek out others to join who also share that passion if they love the space.

The group’s owner/moderator won’t matter… the group’s own cohesion will serve as glue. If you successfully work yourself out of a job building the community, the value of that community as a sellable, marketable thing increases. “Ownership” can be transferred easily since the group’s members feel ownership… it’s their space. If the community remains a hub-and-spoke connection (each person individually connected to the center, but not many community-member interactions) it’s in danger of becoming irrelevant, regardless of how large it is at the moment. Miley Cyrus had a huge Twitter following. She quit Twitter. Other than tweets lamenting the fact that she’s gone, that community is fast becoming irrelevant on Twitter.

So… to wrap it all up:

Know why you’re building a community, regardless of the venue.

Have a clear purpose and direction and take deliberate actions so you attract the right kind of self-elected community members.

Make it a place where people are there for the THE BIG IDEA so the community won’t falter if you need to back away.

What do you think… how do you best build community?

As I repeated, for what seemed like the millionth time, the phrases that so often accompany a meal with my kids:

Stop kicking the table
Chew with your mouth closed
Take a bite!
Sit up 

I thought… how wonderful it would be if I could automate that process. 

What a timesaver it would be, and how much more effective? No opportunity for correction would get missed because I was busy correcting someone else, or swallowing, or blinking or breathing.
Automation can be a blessing. 
There seems to be a school of thought in social media circles that automating anything is not authentic. I disagree. Would you go back to keeping your books in a spiral notebook, or have you gotten used to software to automate many of those tasks?
How about your Tivo or DVR? Is scheduling programs to automatically record watching television in an unauthentic way? Advertisers might say, “Yes!!” but I digress….
Some social media tasks shouldn’t, in my opinion, be automated. Pulling a news or quote feed and sending it to your Twitter stream is not authentic. Scheduling a tweet to announce the blog post you completed at 3 AM so that it posts at 9 AM… I think that’s just smart. 
Listening is another social media task that can benefit from automation. Set up tools like an RSS feed of Twitter searches or Google Alerts. You don’t have to remember to go listen that way…. You just have to respond. And response is one of those tasks that shouldn’t be automated. Conversation cannot be automated, either… Posting tweets or status messages all day when you are not there to respond to a question, comment or conversation is not authentic. 
If I ever figure out how to automate table manners, I’ll let you know. I promise. In return, would you let me know what your favorite tools for automating social media tasks are? And why?  

A while back I found this great list from Web Worker Daily: 62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business . If you read through it (go ahead, I’ll wait… )

>>

>>

You’ll see it’s chock-full of tips that make sense for businesses. And for individuals using Twitter for business reasons. All well and good. But beyond the practical… Twitter me this, Batman… why do we try to use Twitter as a giant echo chamber? So often the “business individuals” using the platform devolve into tweets that:

Virtually reinforce each other’s beliefs
Digitally debate the finer points (sometimes razor fine) of a still-evolving medium rather than actually using it and producing results (let’s debate those, instead!)
Sling crap of various stripes at those who don’t agree religiously, politically, or professionally.

Unfortunately, Twitter is a public forum. People who are rude or obnoxious in person are likely to be rude or obnoxious online as well. Lots of advice exists on managing this… don’t feed the trolls, don’t engage in personal attacks, etc., etc. But the bottom line is if we’re going to all stand around at this giant cocktail party, there WILL BE some people you don’t want to hang out with. That’s OK. Good discussion, meaningful (but respectful) disagreement and folks who are just a bit “out there” are what make a party worth attending.

I choose to wander out of the safe harbor of my main Twitter feed (of those I follow) and see what the wider world is chatting about a couple of times a week. Sometimes it’s a little scary, frankly, but I always find a new person or two to follow, a bit of conversation I want to participate it or someone who’s style makes the party worthwhile. So go on… leave the safety of the known and self-reflective glory of the echo chamber. You’ll (probably) be glad you did!