SPAM ME NOT MY FRIEND

The title of this long due post may sound a bit boring as there is really nothing that you don’t already know about spamming. It is indeed extremely irritating to deal with spam on a daily basis, and you wish for some breakthrough technology to spam proof your mailbox (although Gmail does this quiet effectively). If you have been looking at the spam you receive, you will realize that the spam you receive now has undergone a sea change. This is the type of spam that no spam guard can ever be designed to quarantine or free your mailbox of. These days you receive a lot of content in your mailbox from your own network of friends, its almost never intended as spam, and is largely an off shoot of our active online social networking lifestyles.

Blame it on Web 2.0 if you must, but the reality is that we are generating more spam than ever before. This overload of information is not limited to personal lives, it has a spill over effect and is creeping into our professional lives as well. And that is what I want to address here, more specifically from a PR point of view.

Take for instance a case where you send out or post information pertaining to your client on every possible social network, group, forum and blog. What happens next? What are the parameters for evaluation of your efforts – the number of places you managed to post your links, the number people you managed to reach? While this practice is commonplace, it has no meaning because what you actually need to monitor or listen to is the conversation your content generates. Is it in line with your core objectives?

Let’s take a moment first to define spam in the context of this discussion. In all our enthusiasm to integrate social media into our PR plans, we are actively participating in forums, social networks, creating groups, fan pages, twitter accounts, and posting and mass mailing content to bloggers. Stop to think for a moment about what is that we are doing here – all we are doing is distributing content/information about our clients and making it easily accessible to anyone and everyone.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. While we have the right intentions in our SMPR efforts, the application is often off the mark. Anyone and Everyone is almost never your target audience. And pushing information without context to the receiver is nothing but spamming. While traditional media has been at the receiving end of this sort of spam for ages and have their own ways and means of dealing with it, spamming digital media platforms and bloggers can actually be counterproductive.

So before you put ' Create a Facebook Fan page’ in your PR plan, just because you can, take some time to evaluate your client in relation to the community. Are there for instance any hate communities already existing on that social network? What is the general opinion of the network?

We are all aware that most social media efforts start with friends and bloggers. Yes your friend will become a fan once or twice, but is reaching out to your friend your core objective? We all use our friends as seeding grounds with the intent of making our messages viral. And while your friends may be indulgent, without a relevant context the friend of your friend is not going to subscribe to your effort.

Now that we have defined the problem, where do we go from here? The steps involved in approaching social media are no different from traditional media. Study and understand how different tools and platforms work, in much the same way that you would study newspapers, magazines or television channels.

First and foremost, listen and listen close. Just like you gauge the media perceptions about a particular client, spend some time understanding what people are saying about your client in the digital space. Classify the different points of view and classify them, for example: key influencers, followers (people who subscribe to that negative/positive view).

Evaluate that report and then develop your messages. Evaluate these messages and ensure that they fall in line with your overall strategy. At no point you can have separate messaging for traditional and digital medium. You might follow different tactics to counter different views but your messaging should remain same. You also need to define a long term social media strategy and implement it in phases.

When developing your strategy, break down the social media tools into two groups:

• Distributions tools: RSS, Flickr, slideshare, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg, Stumbleupon etc.
• Community & Active Conversation tools: Twitter, message boards, Q&A forums, Facebook groups, Facebook fan pages (FB groups and Fan Pages are very different and offer different controls so make an informed choice), Orkut communities, LinkedIn communities and groups etc. (Some of the distribution tool may also have community options but they are not necessarily built as a community platforms).

Note: Blogger outreach will form part of your digital plan, but you will also touch base with them on some of the above mentioned tools if you target them contextually.

In the initial phase it might be a good idea to restrict your plan to the distribution tools. It is also prudent to start building/creating a digital profile for your client at this stage. It could be a blog, a website which is Web 2.0 friendly and have content which is updated regularly and distributed on social multimedia sites like YouTube, Flickr, Slideshare etc. (If a digital profile already exists, you should work towards aligning it with the overall strategy).

Your next phase would involve establishing contact and providing context of engagement. Only when that is done should you consider participation. The golden rule and this has been said before is ‘Don’t start speaking just because Web 2.0 is all about participation and expressing yourself’. When forming or using a community tool for instance, define the strategy first, if you succeed in forming an active community, how will you keep them engaged and what will you like them to do for you?

Through all of this do not lose sight of the first step: listening. Continue to monitor conversation at all times to see whether your effort is producing the desired results.

Now this is no different from what you will do for traditional media, but when it comes to social media we seem to think the basics of communication change. They don’t. Social media is not merely a distribution tool, it’s live active conversation and unless you are talking and participating contextually, you are only creating noise, and noise is nothing but spamming my friend.

Redefining the Scope of Public Relations - Adapt or become obsolete

As a PR professional I am glad that the PR Industry as a whole has come of age. PR is now looked upon as more of a strategic function and it definitely goes beyond the tactical media relations program which companies used to hire PR agencies to do. PR now encompasses corporate reputation management, Brand management, crisis, issue and change management and other important stake holder communication.

With the growth of PR Industry in India, true blue PR professionals working in PR agencies have been very caught up with managing the increase in scale of operations that has come with growth in new businesses. The explosive growth of the media industry has further compounded their challenges. While they have managed to keep abreast with the fast changing traditional media industry, they have largely turned a blind eye to the rise of new media, often according it step motherly treatment.

I believe the problem lies in not understanding and appreciating the real value the medium has to offer. Both companies and PR agencies, fail to see the value in new media.

Companies in India largely continue to approach to PR the old fashioned way, where PR agencies simply get them visibility in leading business magazines, the pink papers and TV channels. For them PR continues to be thought of as an offline optimization of the brand.

PR agencies’ continues to follow the traditional method of engagement even with the bloggers and their interactions with bloggers remains limited to an Email Id and random follow up calls for press releases.

In a scenario where the Internet is the only medium used to research or to find any information about a company, product or brand; the approach of refraining from this user driver medium is counter productive. As a strategic communication partner, the onus truly lies with PR consultants and corporate communication professionals to master this emerging medium and showcase how one can truly leverage the new media in a professional manner.

There is a definite shift amongst several consumer technology companies and entertainment firms, who are asking their PR agencies to include internet and social media in their PR plans. We see PR agencies running ad-hoc experiments with bloggers, on you-tube and on social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut, without truly understanding the merits of the tools available on the Internet. The know-how required in managing and maintaining conversation in new media is seen as outside the scope of PR.

A few PR agencies now offer Digital PR or PR 2.0 as a separate offering at an extra cost to their clients by outsourcing it to third parties. And this is where I think they are really missing the bus. I believe the demand for these services will continue to grow, and agencies that outsource will in the longer run render their own assets (staff) obsolete.

PR agencies should, in my opinion, look at pro-actively training their staff to understand the new media and offer their clients an integrated strategy and media plan to leverage it to its full potential. Having had exposure to digital media, I can tell you its not very difficult. The rules of engagement with independent bloggers (although there is a very thin line which differentiates them from journalists) remains the same as engaging with any professional journalist - be professional in your approach, know the person you are engaging with, understand what he/she writes about, understand their readership and accordingly offer them what he/she wants. The rest is merely a question of understanding the tools and using them innovatively.

There are many questions being raised about the measurability of the output and outcome of new media initiatives. Such questions are not new to PR. Just as we now have many established ways of measuring output and ROI when it comes to the traditional media, a variety of tools are also available to measure the output of our efforts in the digital media; these will continue to evolve and develop with time in much the same way as is the case with traditional media tools.

What it finally boils down to is a question of mindsets. We need to re-look at the scope of public relations on the whole, and take ownership in redefining our existing standards. We need to train ourselves to innovatively use social media tools and plan integrated campaigns to really add value to our offerings.

And finally, I would like to hazard predictions on social media PR, here are my top 5:
• The scope of work of PR agencies will become increasingly complex, as will the billing process.
• Twitter will become the preferred social networking platform for PR professionals, journalists and bloggers at least in key metros.
• Social Media Press Release will become a reality in India.
• Multimedia, photos, audio & video, will become a critical part of press kits.
• Professional independent bloggers will continue to grow

Enough said about ‘Why use Twitter’, lets talk about the ‘How’

A Users Guide for PR Folk

Hasn’t enough been written on Twitter already? Well, when it comes to social media being used as a PR tool in India, there is still both room and the need for more to be written.

I have gone through the whole process of questioning myself on the utility of Twitter - from why should I use Twitter (I find that when it comes to my personal I am not interested in posting continuous updates on my activities and participate in what sometimes seems like useless banter) to how can I use Twitter in my daily work life.

I won’t get into the why, each of you will have to find your own answer to that one and in time you will, but before we get there let us focus on how you can use Twitter in your daily work life as a PR professional.

For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform which allows you to post up to 140 characters per message through the web, your mobile and via other applications. It’s also a social networking platform as it allows you to follow your friends and network with experts in your area of interest.

First, what Twitter is not: Just like all the other social media tools, don’t think of Twitter as a stand-alone channel. It should be viewed as very effective media channel in addition to your existing tools, its effectiveness can be best harnessed in an integrated campaign which has all the elements of new/social media.

Now let’s get to how Twitter can help.

Effective Promotional Tool: Like blogs Twitter is most effective and useful when used for promotions, be it self promotion (to promote your blog, your views), new product launches, interesting updates on your client, or simply sharing a piece of news/article which you found useful. Twitter is often used to evangelize a new concept, product or service. You could leverage this aspect in the following ways:

• Simply create a handle (user name), and post links to interesting news. Other users can subscribe to your updates through RSS or follow you.
• Point to interesting / positive article written by one of the influencers about you or the company you are promoting.
• Profile your spokesperson as a thought leader/expert on a certain topic by encouraging him/her to create a handle with their original name, and having them update it regularly, use it connect it to their blog and other platforms.

Networking Simplified: Many a times we try to network with media and columnists on social platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn, without getting a favorable response. On Twitter you can network with them without being intrusive or pesky. Simply start following them and connect with them over time by replying to their posts.

Track Conversations: We constantly track news in all form of media, and social media is becoming increasingly important to track and monitor. The latest and most topical on the web finds its way onto Twitter pretty quickly and spreads even faster from there. You can easily keep track of the conversation taking place on Twitter, just like we set Google Alerts to track keywords; you can use Twitter Track to keep track of what is being said about your client both positive & negative.

Opportunity Mining: Most journalists use twitter when they are seeking information with regard to a story they are working on, or simply post their views on certain products or companies. You can use twitter to help them with inputs or connect with them and try to point them to facts which might change their views about your company or client.

Understanding Journalists: Twitter is a great tool to understand and keep track of journalists who report on your industry. As you follow their updates on their daily routine, share their views on interesting articles, you can get a better understanding of the journalists’ views, ultimately helping you to connect with them more effectively.

Instant Feedback Mechanism: Twitter is great platform to get instant and to the point feedback about your service or product. This helps you to take immediate corrective action to change the perception when negative.

Monitor Pop Culture/Media Consumption Trends: Tracking conversations on Twitter and noting the kind of stories people are reading and sharing on twitter will help you gain an insight into pop culture, stories that are doing well in current times and how consumers actually view them.

Some Basic Tips
• Define the target audience and proactively find them and follow them on twitter, this could be a journalist, bloggers, columnists and actual users/buyers of your client products and services.
• Take time out to regularly post updates, its only required initially, as soon you see the value in it you will get hooked.
• If people follow you, proactively follow them back, this will help you to grow your network.
• People are constantly innovating and finding newer ways of using Twitter. While my list here gives you a starting point, don’t confine yourself to this list - innovate and find newer ways of using Twitter.

The latest innovative campaign on Twitter that caught my attentions was the Burger Kings campaign: You can read about it here: But-is-it-a-burger-king-campaign

PS: Twitter is prone to some minor hiccups and some functionality might be disabled but it works just fine most of the time.