Posted on Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Bin Laden Announcement Spotlights Power of Real-Time

by Tony Faustino

I checked my laptop's Twitter stream around 10 PM Sunday evening for real-time news feeds. And, that's when Twitter informed me of Osama bin Laden's death in real-time.

Our Consumption and Participating in Real-Time News Drives a Traditional Industry's Transformation. I've reflected on the media activities of the past 48 hours. The picture above symbolizes more than the aftermath of September 11, 2011.

It galvanizes how we are both consumers and participants in the transformation and reinvention of a traditional industry (especially how we interact with news content):

Searching / Learning
Broadcasting and Sharing
Consumption

Earth-Shattering Insight? No. But, how the Osama bin Laden news story unfolded in real-time presents an instructive case study for many tradtitional industries (not just journalism and publishing but also marketing, advertising, and public relations).

#1: Social Networks are Our Real-Time News Channels

More People Found Out About bin Laden's Death Via Twitter and Facebook. Mashable conducted a poll with 20,000+ respondents. Twitter and Facebook easily outdistanced television. Even broadcast television lacks the real-time impact of online media platforms.

Facebook's News Function Goal– Become "The People's Newspaper." I mentioned earlier how I consult Twitter for real-time news updates. It's no coincidence that Facebook also recognizes real-time news as a competitive differentiator.

According to this Fast Company article, Meet Facebook's Journalist Ambassador, the social network now accounts for more than 5% of traffic for many major news outlets. The article describes Vadim Lavrusik's role as Facebook's Journalist Ambassador.

Here's a Wall Street Journal video publicizing Facebook's recent hire of Vadim Lavrusik. Note Mr. Lavrusik's comment describing his intent to make Facebook "the people's newspaper."

Journalists on Facebook Page. The Journalists on Facebook Page is part of the company's strategy to build relationships with journalists. Notice how several status updates pertain to the bin Laden story:

#2: Mobile Devices are the Accepted Real-Time Publishing Platform (Especially the Smartphone)

According to this May 1, 2011, Fast Company article, Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for the office of the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield, appears to be the first to have broken the news about bin Laden's death:

Urbahn Broadcasted the Tweet From His Smartphone. I'm not surprised Urbahn broadcasted the news on Twitter. But, notice the news broadcasting platform — his smartphone. Maybe, I'm old-fashioned in thinking the publication of a major news event requires a computer keyboard and wireless Internet connection.

#3 The Real-Time Marketing & PR Power Law

This TechCrunch article requires no explanation: Google Saw One Million Percent Increase In Searches For 'Bin Laden' on May 1. The article says Google's greatest traffic spike occurred between 7:30 and 8:30 pm PST (around the time the news broke on Twitter). TechCrunch graphed the number of Google queries by time. Look how the graph shares the properties and shape David Meerman Scott describes as The Real-Time Marketing & PR Power Law.

Looks Like Page 29 of David Meerman Scott's Real-Time & Marketing PR Book. Here's the graph from the TechCruch article. Notice how the spike in Google search queries correlates with the real-time announcement on Twitter and eventually trails off:

#4 The Real-Time Marketing & PR Law of Normal Distribution

Looks Like Pages 30 to 31 of David Meerman Scott's Real-Time Marketing & PR Book. This TechCrunch article, Bin Laden Announcement Has Highest Sustained Tweet Rate Ever, At 3440 Tweets Per Second, displays a graph of tweets per second the evening of May 1, 2011.

Notice how this graph shares several real-time attributes David Meerman Scott describes in his book (my notes are in red text):

Breaking News
Triggers
Excitement
Peak
Old News
Done

#5: The Blurring of Trusted, Traditional News Sources

Non-Traditional "Hard News" Sources Provide Diverse Points-of-View. Each of these organizations or individuals is a trusted news source pertaining to technology and online media. Their points-of-view blended their niches with this traditional "hard news" story:

Fast Company and Wired: Social Technology Related

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land Blog: Google Now Versus Google on September 11, 2001

#6 We Share and Consume Powerful Images With Viral Speed

This Situation Room Image Will Be Burned in Our Minds Forever. This picture from the White House's Flickr account showing President Obama and his top advisors speaks volumes. According to a May 3rd TechCrunch article, the image garnered almost 1.6 million views:

An Important Historical Artifact. The TechCrunch article further states this image is probably the fastest viewed photo on Flickr. The image achieved its viewer volume in less than 38 hours.

Conclusion

How Did You Learn About the Osama Bin Laden Announcement? Were you on Twitter, Facebook, or another social network? Did you head right to Google News or did you go straight to a traditional news source (i.e., New York Times, BBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Bloomberg, etc.)?

I would love to understand your views on how the news unfolded.

A Historic Moment. This event marks an important time in United States history. Its unfolding in real-time portrays how we choose to publish, search for, and share historical events.

And, our use of social technology during this event reinforces the forever-changing, transformation of all media.

Link to Photo Credit 1: Time Magazine

Link to Photo Credit 2: White House Flickr Stream

Posted on Saturday, April 23, 2011

5 Competitive Advantages in Studying Real-Time Marketing & PR by David Meerman Scott

by Tony Faustino

Members of the Social Media ReInvention Blog Community understand I'm an enthusiastic student and fan of David Meerman Scott. In numerous posts, I've referenced David and his latest book, Real Time Marketing & PR.

Bottom Line: I studied Real Time Marketing & PR from cover-to-cover. And, I highly recommend purchasing it as a key resource in your digital marketing library.

1. The New Competitive Advantage is Speed & Agility

Leverage and Respond to Real-Time News Events. Companies and individuals who leverage current news events to instantaneously communicate with customers (as these events unfold) hold a distinct competitive advantage over larger, bigger budget rivals. These larger rivals value size and scale (not speed). And, that distinction provides significant opportunity for competitive differentiation.

Real-Time Responsiveness Differentiates Important Service Capabilities. Applications of real-time competitive differentiation include:

Using direct and swift communications in customer service
Preparing for and moving quickly in crisis communications (aka disaster recovery situations)
Developing and testing new products / service offerings
Creating an organizational culture valuing speed and open communications

The Link to Important Business Objectives. All of the aforementioned capabilities achieve one or several of the following business objectives:

Driving sales revenues
Saving money (i.e., lower customer acquistion costs)
Acquiring new customers (e.g., enabiling additional lead generation)
Strengthening existing customer relationships

2. A Mindset of Real-Time Competitiveness

The Real-Time Mindset Means Thinking Differently. Here's my graphical interpretation of David's description of the real-time mindset (page 34):

Blink and You've Lost the Advantage. Gaining (or losing) the competitive advantage depends on WHEN you react/respond to breaking news events. Pages 29 thru 31 explain why ultra-fast, first movers win in real-time deployment:

The Real-Time Marketing & PR Power Law
The Real-Time Law of Law of Normal Distribution

3. Select Your Real-Time Platforms Carefully

Real-Time Differentiation and Capability Isn't Always Obvious – Just Ask Twitter Co-Founder Evan Williams. I conducted a back-of-the-envelope analysis of the real-time tools most often cited in Real-Time Marketing & PR. Hands-down, the real-time winner is Twitter.

But, Twitter's differentiating niche wasn't always obvious from its beginnings in July 2006. From FastCompany.com in November 2010, I Want My Twitter TV! (by Ellen McGirt), Evan Williams says on page 3:

"We didn't know what we were at first. I think it's pretty clear now that Twitter is a real-time information network (e.g., any previous confusion about Twitter being a social network or Facebook is now over)."

Throughout his book, David provides several examples describing how Twitter, TweetDeck and HootSuite are used for important real-time functions:

Monitoring conversations
Responding directly to current customers or new, potential customers
Directing Twitter audience members to long form channels (i.e., the company blog or YouTube) for more details

The New Media Life Cycle Helps in Evaluating the Right Real-Time Platforms (and Avoiding the Wrong Ones). Pages 131 to 135 highlight input and data from Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer at Tippingpoint Labs. Davis explains the New Media Life Cycle as the adoption of any platform (blogging, microblogging, photo sharing, or live video streaming) or content distribution channel (YouTube.com, Slideshare.com, Flickr.com, or Twitter.com).

The New Media Life Cycle openly tracks and analyzes an online platform's current life cycle phase in seven (7) distinct phases:

Experiment
Adopt
Gestate
Escalate
Monetize
Consolidate
Maintain

Early Adopters / First Movers Win. Early adopters understand The New Media Life Cycle, and exploit it to their competitive advantage. They know participating early in an emerging social network matters. Page 134 expains the secret to becoming well known on a social media network is to participate in one that's growing quickly, but is still in the early stage. A perfect example is the fast-growing Empire Avenue – The Social Media Exchange.

Remember Second Life? They're not a Real-Time Player (but Twitter is). Tippingpoint Labs and Google Insights provide data driven examples showing why Second Life is already past its prime (page 134). But, Twitter continues growing and is an outstanding real-time platform (page 135).

4. Managing Crisis Communications Means Real-Time Speed

The Money Insights of Real-Time Marketing & PR. The insights shared on crisis communications and disaster recovery are worth the purchase price alone. Why? The situations described in the book can happen to all of us. No one is immune in a digital age.

In my opinion, these sections require careful study:

Chapter 7: Crisis Communications and the Media (pages 71-81)
Chapter 8: What are People Saying About You This Instant? (pages 92-94)
Chapter 10: Real-Time Customer Connection (pages 124-126)

Build Your Media and Journalist Contacts NOW. David explains how too few organizations (particularly the larger ones) fail to build media and journalist relationships before they need them (i.e., contacts with analysts, editors, and reporters).

Credibility and Trust with Media Contacts Requires Time. A communications crisis requires speed and focus (so you have little to no time). In addition, you compound risk by introducing yourself to your media contacts for the first time.

Five Ways to Build Media and Journalist Relationships. Build your media and journalist relationships before you need them. David provides the following suggestions:

Follow the Publications and Its Journalists
Comment on Their Stories and Blog Posts
Introduce Yourself Via Email
Follow Journalists on Twitter and Engage Them in Conversation
Earn Their Respect by Providing Valuable Content and Information (e.g. No Spam)

When Disaster Strikes, Refer to the Real-Time Communications Checklist. David provides a 9-Point Crisis Communications Checklist. All of his suggestions should be implemented before the crisis hits:

Assigning a crisis communications team
Gathering and storing key contact information inside and outside your organization
Delegating who's the organization's lead communicator
Responding through multiple real-time, online channels (i.e., company blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

IMPORTANT: Respond in the same online medium spawning the crisis. If the event happened in YouTube, respond with your own YouTube video.

5. Real-Time Organizations Have Communication Guidelines

Developing Real-Time Communications Guidelines and Roles in Your Organization. Pages 171 -172 provide an 8-Step Checklist for creating and implementing guidelines. In addition on pages 175 – 176, David introduces his take on a new senior executive position: Chief Real Time Communications Officer. On page 176, he explains the job description in a 14-point bulleted list.

IBM, The U.S. Air Force, and Telstra Succeed as Real-Time Communicators. Pages 161 – 173 describe how each organization uses real-time communications, empowers their employees, and publicly shares their guidelines. IBM's guidelines are shared on pages 162 – 170.

Here are hyperlinks and titles of the communications guidelines for these organizations:

Telstra even created YouTube Videos introducing their 3R's of Social Media Engagement to their employees: Representation, Responsibility, and Respect:

BONUS SECTION. Here are additional resources for social media guidelines:

* Social Media Governance's database to 100+ publicly published real-time / social media guidelines

* Econsultancy Blog: 16 Social Media Guidelines Used by Real Companies

Conclusion

Fortune 500 Executives Please Read This Book. Real-Time Marketing & PR is essential and required reading for C-Level executives, communications, marketing, and public relations professionals. As stated earlier, the disaster recovery and crisis communications advice shared makes it a worthwhile investment (especially if you hold that responsibility for a Fortune 500 organization).

Leaders of Small or Medium-Sized Can Outflank the Fortune 500. David describes how small and medium-sized businesses are practicing real-time communications and ringing their respective cash registers. Their commitment to real-time marketing and PR is how they're outflanking their larger Fortune 500 competitors.

Have You Read This Important Book? If you haven't, you're at a key disadvantage relative to competitors. If you have, I'd love to read your comments. Please let me know what you learned (especially the points I failed to capture in this review — there are so many)!

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist. He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention. Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+.

Real Time Mindset: Photo Credit 1 by dirk schaefer via Flickr

Speed: Photo Credit 2 by Randy Le'Moine Photography via Flickr

iPhone Stopwatch: Photo Credit 3 by dyobmti via Flickr

Posted on Monday, April 18, 2011

Public Relations Strategy: Integrating Digital and Traditional Patient Advocacy Tactics

by Tony Faustino

Full Disclosure: My employer provides management consulting advice to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. The opinions and content published within this blog post are mine only.

The Inspiration for this Blog Post. The Wall Street Journal published this April 8th article: Resistance to FDA on Avastin Limits. The article describes Terry Kalley's integrated public relations strategy using social media channels and traditional face-to-face meetings with Capitol Hill representatives. Mr. Kalley initiated this public relations campaign with the assistance of AQABA Technologies (a global web strategies firm) because the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) plans to limit the approved uses of the drug, Avastin. His wife, Arlene Kalley, suffers from advanced breast cancer, and Avastin slows its progression.

The Challenge. As cited by the article, the FDA will conduct a hearing on June 28th – June 29th to "focus on competing interpretations of medical data about Avastin's effectiveness in delaying the spread of late-stage breast tumors." The FDA wants the upcoming hearing focused on scientific data. However, Avastin's manufacturer, wants patients to be able to testify.

What's at Stake: Drug Access and Reimbursement. The Wall Street Journal quotes Avastin's cost around $88,000 for a series of injections. The article further states: "The Kalley's say that if the FDA withdraws approval for Avastin as a breast cancer treatment, insurers and Medicare might not cover the costs, even though doctors can still prescribe it for breast cancer."

A Case Study in Integrated Public Relations Strategy

Traditional and Digital Public Relations (PR). Mr. Kalley's and AQABA Web Technologies public relations strategy aligns the support of influential legislators and policy makers and builds public awareness through social media channels. These traditional and digital tactics form an integrated public relations strategy that informs, publicizes, and rallies support from important stakeholders:

Breast cancer patients
Physicians
Lawmakers
News media

* Traditional PR. Meet face-to-face with key Michigan legislators and influential Capitol Hill policy makers. In addition, The Wall Street Journal article references that The Kalleys would be meeting with Avastin's company representatives.

* Digital PR. Publicize in the online channels when meetings with Michigan legislators took place and with who (readily observable in the Freedom of Access to Medicines Twitter stream).

* Digital PR. Attract potential supporters to the digital home base or hub – The Freedom of Access to Medicines Home Page.

* Digital PR and Traditional PR. Promote within the online channels (i.e., Twitter, Facebook) positive media coverage (i.e., the recent Wall Street Journal article appeared on the front page of WSJ's print Marketplace Section).

Building Public Awareness Via a Social Media Home Base

The Freedom of Access to Medicines Home Page. Mr. Kalley and AQABA created a foundation web page to increase public awareness and build patient advocacy. The web page acts as the home base for the foundation's public and media awareness activities:

Easily Connecting Through Social Channels. If you scroll further down the home page, you'll find the following social media "buttons" on the bottom right-hand section of the foundation's home page. Easily finding these social media "buttons" is critical so the foundation can quickly connect with supporters and advocates who can further spread its mission through online word-of-mouth.

LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are Social Media Content Distribution Outposts

Four (4) Social Media Outposts. The "home base and outpost model" leads viewers back to The Freedom of Access home page from selected social networks. The four outposts distribute content that:

Describes a physician-patient discussion on drug access and reimbursement
Provides real-time updates of important meetings with key legislators/policy makers
Promotes the mission of the foundation
Thanks supporters sharing testimonials

For more information on using a content outpost approach as part of an overall public relations or social media strategy, here are additional resources:

How Freedom of Access to Medicines Leverages YouTube. By clicking on the home page YouTube button, you are linked to this 7-minute video about a distraught breast-cancer patient on Avastin. These YouTube videos explains the drug access and reimbursement scenarios without a lot of medical or scientific jargon.

How Freedom of Access to Medicines Leverages Twitter. Real-time updates about meetings with key government officials and policymakers are part of the content strategy. Twitter plays a significant role in promoting the foundation's activities with these stakeholders:

How Freedom of Access to Medicines Leverages Facebook. The foundation's Facebook page provides more detailed updates beyond Twitter's 140 character limits. Facebook's status updates provide summaries and links to online articles the foundation wants to share with supporters.

How Freedom of Access to Medicines Leverages LinkedIn. Mr. Kalley leverages the SEO benefits of his LinkedIn Profile because the #1 Google search result for his name is his LinkedIn Profile:

His LinkedIn Profile describes the foundation's patient advocacy mission and objectives in the Professional Experience Summary Section:

Conclusion

The Freedom of Access to Medicines Blog Launched on May 1st. As of the original publication of this post, the missing piece in the Freedom of Access to Medicines digital public relations portfolio was a blog. However, The Freedom of Access to Medicines Blog launched on May 1st.

A press release describing the Freedom of Access to Medicines Blog can be found here.

Adding a blog provides numerous search engine optimization (SEO) benefits that can increase the foundation web site's:

Important long-tail search keywords and phrases
Number of indexed pages in search engines
Number of inbound links (a key metric in search engine rankings)

Two resources I've studied on the SEO benefits of blogs in building your Google search rankings are:

Initiative and Creativity in Public Relations. The Freedom of Access Medicines example showcases how an organization can harness The Internet's global scale and reach particularly through social media. Similarly, The Wall Street Journal article references how Avastin's manufacturer employs Weber Shandwick (a large, global public relations firm) to garner public and media support.

One Person's Individual Efforts Augmented by Integrated Social Media Tactics Can Make a Difference. I'm sure other organizations and individuals are taking notice of Mr. Kalley's and AQABA'S combined face-to-face and digital efforts. I plan on following the results all the way to the June 28th – June 29th finish line.

Photo Credit by e-MagineArt.com via Flickr

Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2011

8 Takeaways from Mashable’s Modern Media Agency INFOGRAPHIC

by Tony Faustino

Have you seen the cool infographic Mashable published in the article, What Makes the Modern Media Agency [INFOGRAPHIC]?

Lisa Waananen wrote the article and created the infographic describing important trends, data, and priorities of modern media agencies and their clients.

My 8 Takeaways. What are Yours?

#1 Digital Media as a Priority. Media buyers still prefer TV over digital by a 2:1 ratio.

#2 Trivializing Social Media (Not Smart). Public Twitter snafus at Kenneth Cole and Chrysler highlight why all brands need social media guidelines.

#3 Mobile Marketing. Digital Agencies are betting bigger on mobile applications versus their clients (e.g., 75% digital agencies versus 62% of advertising clients).

#4 Measuring Buzz for Data. Measurement is important but the biggest challenge is turning all that data into meaningful action.

#5 The Static Newsletter. Static emails aren't enough. They require compelling content (i.e., video) with social sharing buttons to increase engagement and click-throughs.

#6 Using Social Media – Part 1. 65% of executives feel emerging technologies and Web 2.0 tools increase marketing effectiveness.

#7 Using Social Media – Part 2. 25% of Fortune Global 100 companies use ALL four (4) of the most popular social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs.

#8 Recession Cutbacks. 2011 advertising spending will increase (even in TV).

Conclusion

Infographics are becoming more important in the art of storytelling. I love them because they communicate a lot of data in a visually compelling format. To learn more about infographics, I suggest this post by Adam Singer: Data Visualization and Infographics to Tell Your Story.

I especially like Ms. Waananen's infographic because all the data sources for her research are cited at the bottom of the infographic.

What do you think of the infographic? What are some of the key takeaways you learned? Or, what do you think of using infographics as a storytelling tool?

Posted on Sunday, February 20, 2011

Where Was Microsoft at President Obama’s Private Tech Supper?

by Tony Faustino

President Obama dined this past week with several power players from the technology world. As expected, this private event held at the home of John Doerr, a partner with Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers generated significant public relations buzz for the business leaders in attendance.

The picture above is from Mashable's article: Obama Toasts Tech with Industry Luminaries [PICS]. Here are articles from The New York Times Technology Section and additional sources describing the exclusive guest list:

Here's my question:

Where's Bill Gates?
Where's Steve Ballmer?
Where's Microsoft?

I'm not the only one who noticed.

Search Engine Land and ZDNet provide more "read-between-the-lines" analysis of the alleged, univited technology CEOs. Via Larry Dignan's post, Obama's Big Tech Powwow Invite List: A Few Stunning Omissions:

Sam Palmisano, CEO of IBM
Leo Apotheker, CEO of HP
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com

Microsoft's absence is glaring. And, a picture speaks a thousand words …

Photo Credit: Mashable

Posted on Saturday, February 12, 2011

3 Lessons on Reinvention, Trust, and Commitment from Peter King, Author of Monday Morning QB

by Tony Faustino

Peter King

HBO Sports recently televised an interview between Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel correspondent, Mary Carillo and Peter King. King is the author of the popular, online Sports Illustrated column, Monday Morning QB.

The embedded video previews the longer Carillo-King interview televised by HBO in late January 2011. I enjoyed this interview because it provides relevant lessons on:

Personal Reinvention Via Social Media Technologies
The Significance of Trust and Reputation (Professional & Online)
The Power of a Relentless Work Ethic

Lesson 1: Reinvent and Adapt to Change

A Traditional Print Journalist Who "Gets" Online Media. King started Monday Morning QB (MMQB) with SI.com 13 years ago. He told Carillo he's better as a new media journalist because he understands:

1. Real-Time Marketing & PR: The importance of immediacy because speed wins

2. Content Quality: Volume is great but it's worthless without quality

3. Content Volume: The Internet rewards high volume (but always remember #2)

Bonus: Read Mitch Joel's great article, The Answer to a Dilution in Attention.

He Understands Social Media's Hub-Outpost Model. King's Monday Morning QB functions as his online home base while Twitter and Facebook serve as outposts. Both Twitter and Facebook point his readers back to Monday Morning QB. Here are links to his social media channels

Hub or Long Form Content Base: Monday Morning QB
Short Form Content Outpost 1: King's Twitter Profile Page
Short Form Content Outpost 2: King's Official Facebook Fan Page

Bonus: If you want to learn more about the benefits of the "hub-outpost model" for online publishing, I highly recommend Debbie Weil's latest eBook: Why Your Blog is Your Social Media Hub.

Here's an image of Debbie's eBook (with the download link) from the Why Your Blog is Your Social Media Hub Homepage:

Debbie knows what she's talking about. Plus, Debbie's THE industry authority on corporate blogging. Here's the Amazon link to the latest, Kindle edition of her best selling book, The Corporate Blogging Book.

Lesson 2: Trust is Everything

If You Want People to Trust You, Directly Engage Them. King inspires a loyal, tribal-like audience. As I write this post, here are the latest online stats on Peter King and Monday Morning QB (and counting):

503,193 Twitter Followers
5,902 Facebook Fans
3 million weekly page views (according to the Real Sports longer interview)

Study how King converses with his audience in MMBQ Mail: Packers Owe Lions, Eagles Thanks for Super Bowl Run. This piece shows how much he loves talking NFL Football with everyday fans (because he's a fan too).

Look how he answers selected readers' email questions with their names. The selected readers seeing their names and questions published in King's column must feel great!

In the embedded video, King shows Carillo how he alerts his 500K+ Twitter Followers via TweetDeck when the latest edition of his column goes live. It's Social Media Engagement and Content Promotion Strategy 101!

Relationships Founded on Trust and Respect. Former Super Bowl-winning NFL coach and NFL executive, Bill Parcells, described to Mary Carillo why NFL coaches, players, and executives want to work and engage with King. They Trust Him.

In the longer interview, Parcells explained how he respected and admired King's work ethic and integrity. He witnessed how King would do anything to get a story but not at the expense of compromising himself personally.

King has invested 26+ years in building his professional network and reputation. That vast network and stellar reputation provides access to A-List NFL coaches, executives, owners, and players. This makes King's Twitter Feed the place for breaking, real-time news events in NFL Football.

Lesson 3: Unrelenting Commitment

Be Relentless. Peter King covered the NFL for New York Newsday from 1985 to 1989. To succeed, he had to build professional trust with Bill Parcells (then the New York Giants head coach). This was no easy task considering Parcell's sometimes antagonistic relationship with the New York sportswriters.

But, King persevered and won Parcells over. How? Parcells told King he'd be willing to help him if he'd come to the Giants practice facility before 6:30 AM. After that time, Parcell's focused solely on Sunday preparation.

King's solution? Arrive at the Giants facility before Parcells. Parcells remarked how King would greet him at 6 AM (sometimes earlier) at the facility gates. King consistently demonstrated this work ethic and desire to Parcells.

And, he eventually won and earned Parcells' respect and trust. That's why Parcells nicknamed King, "Relentless."

Be Commited. The embedded video doesn't give full justice to King's required weekly, workman-like commitment in publishing MMQB during the NFL season:

1. Completes Sunday evening work on NBC Football Night in America around 10:30 PM

2. Works on MMQB's initial drafts from 11 PM to 5:30 AM

3. Boards the 6 AM Amtrak train to Boston

4. Refines / Posts final draft before 8 AM SI.com deadline

Wow! And, that doesn't include all his other professional and personal responsibilities …

Conclusion

Inspiring Success Stories Like Peter King Don't Happen Overnight. Members of this community know Successful Social Media Marketing Is Neither Free Nor Easy. There's nothing free in social media. There's nothing free about achieving success.

Peter King achieved his stature over the course of a 26-year career. He's invested significant time in:

Adapting to change (i.e., building new skills to compete in online media)
Building professional and online trust (i.e. integrity and authenticity)
Working relentlessly (i.e., doing what it takes)

Competitive Differentiation. Some traditional, print journalists aren't online media fans. Here's a piece describing Frank Deford's opinions about traditional, investigative newspaper reporting versus the proliferation of online, citizen journalism (i.e., blogs).

King continues developing new technology skills married with hard-won journalistic instincts. Every MMQB post represents how he sees and seizes online media opportunity.

He epitomizes earning audience attention in a digital age. He masters blogging, tweeting, and facebooking as both journalistic mediums and competitive differentiators.

What are you doing to competively differentiate yourself or your organization? How are you earning audience attention?

Posted on Friday, January 28, 2011

Personal Opportunity Sits Next to Social Media Privacy

by Tony Faustino

eMarketer recently published statistical findings on consumers' perceptions about privacy in their social networks. If you are interested in reading about the detailed findings, you can find them here in this Harris Interactive News Release: The Pros, Cons and Learning Curve of Social Media.

Here's the eMarketer graphic showing a demographic breakdown of the Harris Interactive data:

The survey results show 76% of Gen X'ers (34-45 year olds) are either "very confident" or "somewhat confident" their privacy settings in social networks are functioning properly. I'm part of Generation X so this result interests me. Also, I actively participate in social networks. I agree with the Harris Poll based on my participation in The Big 3 U.S. Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn).

Will Something Bad Result From Tweeting, Blogging, or Sharing?

Not So Much. The survey represents 2,331 participants. Based on the research, only 7% of respondents had gotten in trouble at school or work or lost a job opportunity because of social network activity.

But, Always Think Twice. Use common sense as your guide. Similar to when email entered our 1990s professional lives, think twice before selecting "send, publish, or share" when posting something on your social network or blog.

On the Worldwide Web, You Are What You Publish

It's a Cold, Hard Fact. That headline is one of my favorite David Meerman Scott quotes. It also explains why 90% of my social media / social networking participation represents a professional purpose:

Networking with other like-minded professionals (i.e., LinkedIn, Twitter)
Providing links to useful articles / research / blogs about social media, technology or the pharmaceutical / biotech industry (i.e., Twitter, this blog)
Commenting on industry blogs or social media thought leaders' blogs to expand my professional connections and build my online reputation

The other 10% of my social network participation represents a personal purpose (i.e., Facebook). I made the choice to restrict my connections on Facebook to personal friendships only. In Facebook, I connect and share with only a select, few individuals from my professional life. I have a trusted friend who works in the Human Resources function, and this is how she manages her Facebook account.

Is Your Social Media Data Really Yours? Almost two weeks ago, Mitch Joel published an insightful post about online privacy implications and social media / social networking participation. My interpretation of several points in his post: Once you tweet, post, or share content online, that content is no longer private. It's beyond your control.

Here's a direct quote from Mitch's post: "While you retain the rights to the text, images, audio and video that you post online, always consider that the content is now public and shareable forever."

Forever. That's a long time.

Conclusion

There is a Personal Cost Associated with Online Participation. When I made the choice to start actively participating in social media / social networking, I understood this cost. Always be mindful, someone is reading and reacting to your online activity (either positively or negatively). Always be aware of what you tweet, what you post, and who you connect to.

But, The Benefits Outweigh the Costs. Online participation provides access to professional and personal development opportunities traditionally reserved for select individuals:

* Publishing a blog provides an opportunity to demonstrate and build your reputation and thought leadership on a global scale

* Tweeting and connecting provides an opportunity to professionally network on a global scale

* Commenting on industry and thought leaders' blogs provides an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge and augment another person's research, thoughts, and opinions on a global scale

Sounds Globally Opportunistic, Doesn't It? It is! And, I wish I'd started sooner. And, I'm running as fast as I can to make up for lost time.

How about you? What's the opportunity for you?

Trust me, it's sitting right next to you.

Photo Credit: By cliff1066^TM Via Flickr

Posted on Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 2 – Open Leadership, Guidelines, Process Discipline, and Goals

by Tony Faustino

This post represents Part 2 of a series covering the insights shared by Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, David Meerman Scott, and Martin Giles (moderator) on The Business Value Behind Social Media (part of The Premier Business Leadership Series presented by SAS). Part 1 provided an Executive Summary of the hour-long panel discussion.

The panel discusses the characteristics of model organizations currently succeeding in social media implementation and management. Common success factors describing these companies included:

* Social Media Guidelines and Employee Rules of Engagement

* Process Discipline

* Open Leadership (the rules for playing in the social media sandbox as explained by Charlene Li)

* Goals (e.g., defining the business outcome the individual organization wants to achieve with social media)

The summary of key takeaways pertains to 3:33 to 15:38 of the embedded video.

Companies Succeeding in Social Media Established Employee Guidelines and Processes for Customer Engagement

The US Air Force and Guidelines (3:33 – 5:08). All 30,000 members are allowed to participate in social media. The establishment of guidelines and a structure for interaction were key success factors. David references a favorite quote from from a high ranking officer about giving Air Force Team Members the opportunity to engage in social media: "If we trust them with a $300 million airplane, why can't we trust them on Facebook?

CitiBank and Defining a Process First (5:11 – 6:45). Charlene describes how the key learning from here is the importance of establishing and putting a process in place first. This process should define the employee interaction with customers via social media. Defining the process provides senior management (especially the legal department) with a level of reassurance. Establishing this process is especially important if the company is engaging in social media for the first time.

Dell Corporation's Uses Twitter as a $6 Million Revenue Generator (6:46 – 7:30). Chris liked how Dell started using the Web initially as a means of deploying customer service. This initiative eventually morphed into IdeaStorm which is their collaboration forum to share ideas on new products and services that customers would like Dell to develop. He also noted how Dell generated $6 million in revenues for bargain hardware via Twitter.

The Confidence to Let Employees Engage Customers

Open Leadership – The Sandbox Covenant (7:57 – 8:45). Charlene says "open leadership" is your company's definition of how "open you will be." It's important for companies to define what are the filters for communication because no company can be completely open – that's unrealistic. But, the companies using social media effectively have defined their social media strategy and set up the rules of customer engagement within that strategy. If you don't provide the discipline and structure, you're leaving open the possibility of anything happening online.

The Use of 1st-Person Singular in Online Communications (8:48 – 9:37). Something David has seen work effectively is implementing a guideline asking employees to express their views in the manner of "I believe" or "I think" to show the employee isn't speaking directly on behalf of the company. The fear of companies is they now have 1000 company spokespeople. Far from it. What they now have is 1000 employees directly communicating with customers.

Preventing Chaos – Deploy Social Media Gradually and Define Goals

Starbucks and Its Gradual Release of Social Media (10:02 – 10:57). Charlene says Starbucks is one of her favorite examples because its small team successfully and gradually deployed the company's social media strategy. According to her book, Open Leadership, the Starbucks' social media team consists of six (6) people: two (2) community managers who directly interact with people and four (4) programmers and support people.

The book also describes how Starbucks chose a more centralized approach at the corporate level for selected channels (i.e., Facebook, Twitter). According to Alexandra Wheeler, Starbucks' Director of Digital Strategy, the goal is to eventually give their thousands of baristas freedom to operate in social media "but not until the right structures and training are in place to ensure a consistent customer experience."

IBM and Goal Definition (10:58 – 11:54). Chris spoke about how IBM started out as "1000 flowers blooming," but it eventually found a way to purposefully harness their social media activity. They did it by asking what's the goal:

* Enhance customer service?
* Generate more revenue?
* Be more promotional?
* Build more awareness to our sales funnel via lead generation?
* Is our purpose related to B2C or B2B?

The Zappos Model Isn't Right for Everyone

Determine the Appropriate Level of Openness for Your Individual Company (12:18 – 12:58). Chris points out that the Zappos Way isn't for everybody because that model exposes an organization to be in "situations filled with opinions." And for a lot of companies, these are situation they don't feel comfortable operating in.

Ask Who and How Should Employees be Engaging (13:00 – 13:56). David says companies engaging in social media shouldn't assume that every employee wants to participate. Employees shouldn't feel forced or obligated to communicate this way. In his opinion, he talked about how there's probably a specific personality profile for people who enjoy engaging in social media. Therefore, if you have these folks in your organization, encourage them to be part of the online conversation.

How Best Buy's Twelpforce Personally Engaged Charlene Li (13:57 – 15:11). Twelpforce enables around 2,400 Best Buy employees to share their electronics expertise directly with customers. These employees use Twitter to converse directly with customers by answering questions usually asked everyday on the store floor.

Charlene personally tried out this service to better understand what's the best phone with parental controls that she could purchase for her 11-year old son. A Twelpforce team member replied back with an Android phone recommendation and asked her to stop by the store that Saturday so they could evaluate phones together. Essentially, someone on the store floor reached out to her and said: "I'd like to build a customer relationship with you." This type of innovative initiative gives Best Buy a competitive advantage especially over Wal-Mart, Target, or any of the phone carriers.

Conclusion

The biggest fear of large organizations when it comes to social media is their loss of control. Their customers now have low-cost tools (e.g. social media channels) that can influence the outcome and perception of the most elaborate and sophisticated advertising campaign.

However, the organizations described by Charlene, Chris, and David are prime examples of companies who have successfully implemented guidelines, procedures, processes, and goals so their employees can directly engage these customers. And, it's that customer engagement that enables their employees to positively influence customers who not only purchase their company's products and services but are also Blogging, Tweeting, Liking, Sharing, and Digging about these offerings as well.

Please stay tuned for next Saturday's Edition of The Business Behind Social Media, Part 3: Lessons From Wal-Mart and The Importance of Failing Well.

Bonus Section: Additional Links

The US Airforce and Guidelines from Web Ink Now

* The US Air Force Armed With Social Media
* The US Air Force and Social Media: A Discussion With Colonel Michael Caldwell
* Launching Ideas at The US Air Force
* Free Social Media eBook and Video: New Media & The Air Force

IBM's Participation in Social Media Covered in Web Ink Now

* IBM Blogging Guidelines and the Company's 3,000 Bloggers
* Ben Edwards on the IBM Transition from Outbound Marketing to Inbound Marketing

Altimeter Group and Wet Paint Report on Starbucks and Other Social Media Case Studies

* July 2009 Report: The World's Most Valuable Brands: Who's Most Engaged

Photo Credit: By Monica's Dad via Flickr

Posted on Saturday, December 4, 2010

The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 1 – Social Media Strategy from A to Z

by Tony Faustino

David Meerman Scott shared an informative YouTube video in his November 16th blog post, The Business Value Behind Social Media. The video took place during The SAS Premier Business Leadership Series and included a panel discussion on The Business Value of Social Media with the following participants:

* Martin Giles, The Economist, US Technology Correspondent. Martin moderated the October 2010 panel discussion. In David 's aforementioned blog post, he notes how Martin Giles is the best moderator he has ever worked with. After viewing and studying this video, I understand why.

* Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs, popular blogger and co-author of Trust Agents and author of Social Media 101.

* Charlene Li, Founder and CEO of Altimeter Group, popular blogger, and co-author of two (2) books, Groundswell and Open Leadership.

* David Meerman Scott, popular blogger and best-selling author of the two (2) books The New Rules of Marketing & PR and Real-Time Marketing & PR.

The discussion topics covered the following issues relevant to social media strategy, emerging trends, and several case study examples of its successful execution (or in some cases, unsuccessful):

* How should organizations build a social media presence?

* Who within the organization should own the social media function?

* How can organizations measure and analyze the value of social media?

* Who are the model organizations of modern social media management and strategy execution?

Part 1 represents the first piece of a multiple-post blog series describing the insights shared in this video. My goal is to publish the posts from every Saturday morning until completion (but please bear with me if I slip on a date). Part 1 will be the A to Z Executive Summary provided by Martin Giles at the end of the panel discussion. In the future posts, I will publish the deep dives generated from the panel's discussion. And trust me, there's a lot of substance in this panel discussion because I recorded 20+ pages of notes.

Martin's A to Z Executive Summary starts at 1:01:57 of the video. His Executive Summary recapped Chris', Charlene's, and David's insights from different parts of their hour-long conversation. Where appropriate, I sprinkled in my point-of-view (I hope you don't mind).

Executive Summary: Social Media Strategy from A to Z

* A = Analytics. Understanding the value and ROI your social media initiatives produces requires analyzing the data with analytics tools.

* B = Brogan and Boeing. Chris did a great job as a contributing member. Boeing showed it was listening to the conference's live Twitter Feed by acknowledging David Meerman Scott's positive comments citing Boeing as a model organization in social media strategy and execution. Here' the tweet, Boeing sent to David: @dmscott thanks for citing us during #pbls10. Here's the air show effort DMS mentioned. http://bit.ly/dkQEqC

* C = Control. Control in social media means you have to give it up. Learn to lose control.

* D = Disaster Recovery. Mistakes will happen in your business. Have a disaster recovery plan in place to address these mistakes through the right social media channels. For example, if an irate customer makes a highly publicized complaint via their blog, respond quickly by commenting on that customer's blog. Responding via a press release is a mistake.

* E = Earpiece and Earning Credibility. Martin made light of having to constantly readjust his earpiece during the panel discussion. He also pointed out how much of the discussion focused on "earning credibility" through your social media efforts versus the traditional advertising mentality of "buying credibility."

* F = Facebook and The Future of The Web (two highly debated topics among the panel members).

* G = Grab Audience Attention. On the World Wide Web, you have to creatively think of ways to grab audience attention. Martin also said G stands for Go Giants because he lives in San Francisco.

* H = Human. Be human and don't be afraid to put real human beings on The Web to support and implement your social media efforts.

* I = Innovate and Influencers. Identify the online influencers in your impacting your organization's online reputation and think of innovative ways to reach them.

* J = Journalists. Martin noted The Internet's impact on traditional publishing and how he may be searching for a job soon (so please hire him). Also, David suggests organizations bring journalists into their social media operations because of their storytelling abilities and gift for creating share-worthy content.

* K = KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). Carefully think about and select your KPIs and how they can inform your decision-making.

* L = Charlene Li and Listening. Charlene Li contributes great insights to the panel and cites many different examples particularly in the Fortune 500. Martin thanks the live in-person and online audiences for listening. Most of all, he cites how organizations need leverage social media in listening to their respective online audiences.

* M = David Meerman Scott, Modeling (a humorous reference to David's former career as a male model in Japan), and Measurement. An ongoing and important future trend in social media is understanding how to best measure its impact.

* N = Need to Respond Quickly. Martin notes how he and his fellow journalists are online 24/7. Learn to respond in real-time because if you're not, there's a problem.

* O = Open Leadership and Ownership. This is the title of Charlene's recently released book (I purchased my copy this past week). Her book describes the required organizational and leadership attributes required to effectively compete and successfully engage audiences in today's World Wide Web. In addition, her new book discusses how to determine, manage, and execute the right open leadership strategy for your organization. Ownership is for who's going to own and execute your social media strategy (and what's the best way to do that).

* P = People and Paris Hilton. As Martin says, I'll stop right there …

* Q = Questions. Pose better questions to your audience because we've discussed numerous examples of how really smart companies benefit from seeking audience feedback.

* R = ROI and Real-Time. The panel shared examples where companies have achieved ROI and how they measure it. Furthermore, companies who learn or take the initiative to respond and act in real-time will have future competitive advantages in areas ranging from product development, interacting with the media, and capitalizing on real-time events impacting your industry.

* S = Sharing. Social media is about sharing great content so be willing and generous in sharing it.

* T = Twitter and Trusted Advisor. The panel provided a number of examples of using Twitter to generate revenues, enhance customer service, and promote content. Consistency, commitment, responsiveness, and a genuine attitude to help customers make better, informed decisions described organizations developing Trusted Advisor reputations online.

* U = Understand Customer Insights. A lot of these insights come from "L" Listening and "A" Analytics.

* V = Virality. Whatever you're publishing on the World Wide Web, learn to accept that your content will flash across at the speed of light.

* W = Word-of-Mouth. That's the real goal here. If you get existing customers and potential customers to talk about you to one another, you've created a fabulous success story.

* X = X Marks the Spot. Martin joked this is what he figured what the audience was wondering for what he would write for "X."

* Y = You. Martin also joked "you" (as in the audience) must be wondering "when I'm going to shut up."

* Z = Zero. Zero because Martin had zero time left.

Conclusion

Watching and studying this video was a labor of love. How many times do you get the opportunity to learn from thought leaders like Brogan, Li, and Meerman Scott interacting on the same stage. I personally want to thank SAS for publishing and sharing the videos from The Premier Business Leadership Series. By allowing thought leaders like David Meerman Scott to share this content, everyone in the social media community benefits.

Thank you for reading and if you watched the video, please let me know in the comments. What did you enjoy and learn? I would love to hear from you.

Please stay tuned for next Saturday's installment – The Business Value Behind Social Media: Part 2 – Open Leadership, Guidelines, Process Discipline, and Goals.

Photo Credit: By Kyle Van Horn Via Flickr

Posted on Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Fortune 500 Favors Twitter and Blogs as Social Media Channels

by Tony Faustino

Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D. and Eric Mattson through the Center for Marketing Research at The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth recently published a study titled, The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America's Largest Corporations. I've reviewed the study, and it contains many findings worth sharing about the 2009 Fortune 500's use of social media:

I. 22% of the Fortune 500 have a Public-Facing Blog
* Represents 108 companies
* Shows a 6% growth relative to 2008 (81 companies)
* Firms in computer software, peripherals, and office equipment had the most blogs in 2009 (e.g., 11 companies) and included firms like H-P, Dell, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and Xerox
* Blogging almost doubled in the specialty retail category (i.e., Home Depot, Best Buy, Toys "R" Us) from 4 blogs in 2008 to 7 in 2009

II. The Inc. 500 has Adopted Blogging 2x Faster than the Fortune 500
* 45% of The Inc. 500 have a blog. This is not surprising since the Inc. 500 represents entrepreneurial, fast-growing, private companies in the US
* The Inc. 500 doesn't have marketing budgets to support costly media campaigns (i.e., Super Bowl ads, regular television campaigns)
* The study points out that the difference may be due to "corporate philosophy regarding open communication with its stakeholders." I think there's a lot of truth to this point because the larger, established companies are concerned with "losing control" of their corporate message.

III. 35% of the Fortune 500 Use Twitter
* Represents 173 companies; The authors noted the growth of Twitter as "explosive"
* The insurance industry had the most Twitter accounts in 2009 (e.g., 13 companies); I find this very interesting and will have to do some self-research on how this industry is using Twitter
* The researchers deemed Twitter interactivity as having "consistent interactions with other users and on-going discussions that are easy to follow"
* A measure of the interactivity — 69% of the companies consistently responded with @replies or retweets (i.e., RTs) in the past 30 days

IV. The Fortune 500 are Integrating Other Social Media with Their Blogs
* 86% of the corporate blogs are linked to a corporate Twitter account
* 19% incorporate podcasts; 31% use video on their blog sites
* This usage represents increases in comparison to 2008 (i.e., 16% for podcasting and 21% for video)
* Shows an attempt to integrate different social media efforts

Conclusions — The Positive
* Shows there is a continued and steady adoption of social media by the largest US corporations
* The Fortune 500 participating in social media is a big step because these organizations achieved their success through traditional "outbound marketing" such as traditional print and television advertising campaigns (with maybe the exception of Google)

Conclusions — Lots of Room for Improvement
* There is still a long way to go – the other way to interpret the data is that 78% of the Fortune 500 do not blog and 65% do not use Twitter
* This blog post by Dr. Leslie Gaines-Ross titled The Fortune 500 and Social Media presents a similar view of this conclusion and a review of the same study

Additional and Related Resources
* A previous blog post titled: 5 Insights from Hubspot's The State of Inbound Marketing 2010 Webinar

* HubSpot's State of Inbound Marketing 2010 Report (in PDF)

* Hubspot's Webinar Slides on State of Inbound Marketing 2010: I've embedded them here

The State of Inbound Marketing 2010

View more presentations from HubSpot Internet Marketing.

Social Media ReInvention

I'm A Data-Driven Marketer & Business Strategist Who Helps Small Businesses Drive Website Traffic and Revenues

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