It;'s Not Just for Print Anymore: PR and the Web

One of my recent adds to the blogroll is the 360 Digital Influence Blog by Ogilvy PR. Last week Laura Halsch posted "Writing for the Web", an instructive piece on re-thinking how to write press releases with the web user in mind. Ms. Halsch noted these key items and then asked for other tips:

1. Consumers are finding press releases through online search.

• Use key words in release titles
• Include links to more information in the releases
• Consider visuals – online readers are used to images
• Tell your story efficiently – online readers scan for headers, bullets, and key phrases

2. Consumers look to company press rooms as sources of information.

• link to third party and social media sources
• use conversational tone
• again, incorporate multimedia
• solicit feedback from your consumers – listen as much as you talk

3. Editors and reporters are reading blogs regularly (more than 57% according to a recent study)

• you should be reading blogs too – keep up with (and ahead of) the curve
• consider a corporate blog to help tell your story

To this list I'd add two more things from personal experience.

1. Trackback,trackback,trackback.

Trackbacks I like because they give visibility to sites you linked to right in the post. For instance, if I link to,say, Perez Hilton and leave a trackback, it's like automatic "link-love" from that site. This is a best-kept blogging secret that can lead to greater visibility for your post. Granted many blog platforms don't make it easy to create a trackback link, so you are forced to go look for an online tool. One I've used that works pretty well is Trackback Wizard.

2. Reach out to bloggers who link to you.

Building on Ms. Halsch's point on engagement, I make it a habit to reach out to bloggers who have added me to their blog roll, linked to me, or added me as a Favorite on Technorati. Technorati has a few widgets that keep count of your "links in" from other sites, such as their Ranking widget and the 'Blogs Who Link Here" section of their profile widget. This is another way to forge a relationship, learn,share, and engage.

Full disclosure: My employer, Lenovo, is a client of Ogilvy Worldwide.

Technorati Tags:pr, public, relations, engagement, conversation, marketing, ogilvy, 360

All the Pieces Matter - Brand Identity and Word of Mouth

"...and all the pieces matter." - Detective Lester Freamon, HBOs The Wire

The mantra above from HBO's The Wire refers to doing thorough investigation of all pieces of evidence, no matter how seemingly insignificant. I think the same theory applies in Spike's post today on brand identity and word of mouth. Convincing the folks in the C-suite that word of mouth experiences are the bricks in the wall of a brand's DNA is still a tough sell in 2008. Many businesses still look at branding and WOM like a Teacup Yorkie "Cute,cuddly, and expensive, but of no real value." In other words , anything that doesn't result in a direct physical product or a direct monetary gain is foo-foo dust." Bellowing about this haughtily sounds good in the boardroom,"Monitor Facebook? Yeah there's a good use of money bwaaahaha!" but it is realistically just plain foolish.

Unfortunately, many companies don't get religion on WOM until something bad happens. They get a negative blog post written about a bad customer experience. A political action committee issues a press release condemning their manufacturing practices. Someone creates a "Spacely Sprockets Sucks" group on Facebook which gets 2000 members in 24 hrs. Then companies want to employ what Spike calls the "add-on" approach,running around with their hair on fire(no pun intended), at the expense of being authentic.:

"And for ANY piece of word of mouth marketing to even have a chance to work – an overall movement, or even tactics - it has to be authentic to the company. Thus the dangers of the “add-on” approach. I’m not talking about slapping the logo on a piece of literature or blog. I’m talking about something that is true to the brand, including the voice. The attitude. The vocabulary. The values. And those things can only be found down deep in the identity of a company."--Spike Jones

For us as IMC practitioners, I think we have to be proactive and not wait for someone to tell us to go cultivate this important area of marketing. We have to go listen, be present, measure, feel, process, reflect, then sell our company on why this matters. Because all the pieces of a brand's identity matter. All the pieces matter.

My Cadillac Story Vlog Ups Cadillac's Street Cred

Cadillac has to be one of the brand reinvention success stories of this decade. They've very adeptly morphed themselves from your grandparents' cushy sedan to a way-cool cutting edge SUV and sports sedan brand which appeals to the coveted 18-35YO demographic. Cadillac took off like a rocket after the hip-hop community enthusiastically embraced the Escalade as it's SUV of choice, and they have not looked back since.

Enter their new viral video blog, My Cadillac Story. Customers can view celebrities and civilians sharing their own personal stoy on why they love these vehicles. Customers are also invited to join the club by "telling us your story" and submitting it for publication. Bingo I'm a star right alongside Travis Barker. I'm part of the club, I'm cool, right? They've established their own channel on YouTube as well as on their corporate site, and are running a drive-to-web teaser campaign in the Wall Street Journal and other publications. The one I saw featured Joan Jett. No vehicle mind you, just "Read Joan Jett's Cadillac story. Tell us yours. at mycadillac.com" or some such thing.

Now, be honest, 10 years ago did you ever think you'd see Blink 182 drummer Travis Barker, hip-hop superstar Fat Joe, or veteran rocker Joan Jett shilling for Cadillac? Barker, in my view, is their most clever and strategic choice as a pitchman, and not only because of his heavily "tatted" and pierced physique. Barker is also well-established among car enthusiasts as an avid car collector and customizer by way of numerous apperances on various "Pimp My Ride"-type car customization shows on cable. This lends even more 'street cred' to the Cadillac brand. (still can't believe I wrote the term 'street cred' and Cadillac in the same sentence, but I digress.)

To see one of 3 of Travis Barker's three Cadillac Stories go here.

Your 24/7 Brand: Fire Extinguisher or Smoke Alarm?

Where is Your Fire Extinguisher?

When is the last time someone asked you the metrics for the "About", "Who We Are" or in a few cases, "Press Materials" area of your website? Have you ever asked a customer their impression of your company after reading that section? If you are like most organizations, the "Who We Are" section of the web is treated like the company's fire extinguishers hanging on the wall:

1. Bought once. (READ: Outdated)
2. Encased in glass. (READ: Not dynamic)
3. Not proactive, but reactive.
   
4. Used in case of emergency only. (Read:Ignored 99% of the time) and...
   
5. Most employees couldn't tell you where it is. (Read: Not wel-integrated into the company's overall strategy)

Smoke Alarms

I would submit this area of an organization's website needs to be treated more like the smoke alarms in your house.

1. Located properly throughout the home. (In this case, the web.)
   
2. Everyone knows where they are. (Read: Strategic area of the site.)
   
3. Tested for functionality throughout the year. (Read: Dynamic and updated continuously.)
4. Proactive. Warn of impending trouble ahead of time. (Read: Mechanism available to warn of danger and react to it.)
   

My manager quotes this mantra often:

"Many businesses and non-profits fail to realize the web is their only marketing entity which is accessible 24-7. "

Let that marinate a second. In the web marketing arena, everyone tends to focus on the metrics tied to revenue - click through, conversion, bounce rate, page views, visits, et al. Revenue is what pays the bills, our shareholders, and us. I give this only so much credence. My personal view is, hey animals can count. What separates humans from the animals is our ability to think and reason.

What am I saying?

All the click-throughs in the world will not protect your company from a boycott, moral scandal, socially irresponsible investment, or a lawsuit. It will,however, for sure impact your brand, your image, your revenue, and your future. Hard and Fast. When something goes down, rest assured the "Who We Are" section of an organization's website is the first place the media, detractors, customers,etc. will head looking for ammunition.

The fact is in today's global economy, consumers are more socially, politically, and environmentally conscious than ever in history. Like it or not, these beliefs now dictate consumer purchasing decisions. Same goes for online. People are evaluating your company or institution based on its environmental policies, commitment to diversity, reputation of its leadership, human rights policies, etc. These things need to be clearly stated on an organization's website, whatever that position is, with a mechanism for discussion or feedback from your customers. Then my smoke alarm analogy comes into play.

Exploring Social Media: Test Driving FriendFeed

Google has created what I term a "Twitter on steroids" tool called FriendFeed. It consolidates your shared feed reader items, blog posts, youtube clips, flickr stream,etc into one RSS streamable feed. You may also share it on your Facebook profile page.
Again I'm giving it a test drive.Not sure it will stay, but blogging for class gives me the freedom to try these things out and report my impressions which is awesome.

So far, my feeling is "eh". It is nice not to have to run 5 different RSS feeds or html gadgets to your blog or portal page. I don't post videos to YouTube yet. I do see potential for it with broadcast networks who utilize all the content tools listed above and then some. It would be nice to subscribe to 1 feed for everything CNN sends out on the election, as an example. .Don't know if it will take off organically like Twitter did, and being a Google product, I expect the environment will be more stable. Judging from the 'tweets' I read, Twitter is like a temperamental sports car -- breaks down a lot but when its running, there's nothing better.

In general, I can't help but wonder when we reach a saturation point. Some links and subscriptions I have are really "just in case", as in just in case they say something profound I need to know. Jennifer, the Chief Curiousity Officer(you guys have the bomb-diggiest titles!) at Brains on Fire, went into this this week on their blog and it is very thought-provoking. She also asks if we now need "sub social networks" such as the do-it-yourself ones on Ning.

I commented on Jennifer's post that I got all excited to joining Facebook, but I'm not sure why now. MySpace I use to keep up with my younger cousins mostly. I do think Ning communities have some legs, because you don't feel like you are jumping into the wild blue yonder. You know you have something in common with the folks in the group, and you are all there for some specific purpose. Full disclosure: I joined the Society for Word Of Mouth run by Church of the Customer's Ben and Jackie. In the case of this community,you know the mods have a lot of credibility which creates a level of trust I still don't have in the 'big 2' (MySpace and Facebook). They also have a large network of marketing practitioners that I'm looking forward to learning from and sharing with.

What do you think? Are we reaching the sensory overload level in social media? Let me hear from you on this. --Krista

Technorati Tags:swomm, ning, ben, jackie, brainsonfire, community, feed, stream, rss, friendfeed, google, youtube, web2-0, twitter

Someone Calls "Shenanigans!" at SXSW

Remember how you used to feel when all the cool kids got to go to a party and you didn't?

That's how I feel watching the Tweets from SXSW in Austin,TX. Seems like a big interactive Grammys, complete with post-Grammy star-studded parties. Earlier today there was a Social Media Metrics forum that didn't hold water with some of the attendees, it seems. Here are some excerpts from the Twitter feed, which have to be some of the most dead-on feedback I've ever seen, from someone who uses the Twitter handle 'msaleem'. (Shout-out to Andy Beal for putting this in his Twitter feed.)

" Why is it that the people on these panels, talking about social media leadership, etc., have no social media presence?"

They're not making a solid argument about the existing metrics being insufficient, and they really don't have an alternative to offer.

"Marketers are not used to that level of analysis" - are you kidding me man?

Oh god... One panelist says "good question" (i.e. I don't have an answer), and the other one just concedes defeat.

Technorati Tags:twitter, sxsw, social, media, measurements, metrics, socialmedia

Joining the Social Music Revolution Pt 1: Last.fm

Intrigued by Read,Write,Web's post on Last.fm creating communities around content, I decided as an experiment to set up an account, start using it, and see whether I should believe the hype. My perception going in was that Last.fm was a streaming internet radio site, where users could get music streamed to them based on listening preferences and history.

Unique to Last.fm is the concept of what they call "scrobbling". This means the Last.fm desktop tool keeps track of, or 'scrobbles' what songs you play on your computer via either iTunes or Windows Media Player. As it scrobbles, Last.fm also makes recommendations of groups you may want to join within the community who listen to similar music, and 'friends' or members who like the same artist, song, or genre. While you are listening to a song, you have the option to indicate whether you love or wish to ban the track they recommended. You may also tag the song or add it to your personal playlist.

What I like about Last.fm is the UI. The page layout on the tool is very intuitive with just the right amount of buttons and graphics. Compared to Pandora, they hands down have the coolest blog and social media widgets, featuring thumbnails of albums and allowing you to choose the color of the buttons. Last.fm is also compatible with other social networking communities like Facebook, Myspace, and others so you can
add the same widgets to your Facebook profile to share music.

Here's where I fell out of love with Last.fm.

After playing about 100 songs straight from iTunes to be 'scrobbled', I thought I was ready to add a Last.fm widget showing my preferences, tracks,etc. Wrong. I was repeatedly told "You haven't scrobbled enough music yet" to have a widget. What? Other times, I was told the music I played couldn't be added to my playlist because it was "badly tagged". Um, why is this my problem? So I go to work tagging my wayward songs, only to be told later some of them are 'unstream-able'. Despite the fact all four major record labels have a deal with Last.fm, not all songs are allowed to be streamed, or played on the site.

Ok, at this point I'm beginning to feel like an unpaid search engine optomization analyst.

I know! I'll play my newly formed radio station "Kristasphere Hot97" right?

Wrong.

As you play, scrobble, and tage your music you also build this personal 'internet radio station' which plays only music you like. I'm guaranteed never to hear "Unwritten" by Natasha Beddingfield? Hey I'm sold! The catch is, you have to pay to listen to your own station! Granted it is only $3 a month, but I have a philosophical problem with paying a fee after I've tagged, scrobbled, and loved or banned my heart out.

Being an Interactive Marketing practitioner and grad student, I know all this tagging, scrobbling, and community data(also known as Customer Generated Media) is like pure gold to the record companies and Last.fm. With the advent of sampling and collaborations on songs, I "get" what a tangled web clearing song rights can be.

I've been advised by the 'shade tree social music guild' to give it a couple more weeks. which I will do in the spirit of an experiment. Right now I'm not seeing how this trumps my iPod and iTunes.

Technorati Tags:socialmusicrevoloution, lastfm, "last.fm", social, music, community, media, cgm, cbs, bmg, IMC, scrobble