PR Communications

Finding The Pioneers Of Social Media For PR, SEO, HR & Law

Shel Israel is writing a history of the pioneers of social media. That's great; I don't think there's a better person to write such a book in the community. Shel is a journalist, and he excels at story writing. I think his first chapter in Twitterville on the history of Twitter was the best overview of the Twitter story I've read so far. And his description in collaboration with Robert Scoble on the history of blogging at Microsoft in Naked Conversations was one of my favorite sections of the book.

We really do need a history written about the beginnings of the industry. I'm especially excited Shel's writing this because I know Shel will look beyond business, while I've always focused on the history of corporate social media, or business blogging, ever since I started blogging in 2003. We also need people to write about the early beginnings of social media beyond business.

I will recommend to Shel he give a call out to finding good stories from people in the professions of PR, SEO, law, and HR. Those four professions really embraced social media early one, unlike my own profession, marketing where most marketers were late to the industry, except maybe for digital marketers or for that matter product marketers.

For PR he could do no better than look at the Global PR Blog Week of 2004 and 2005, and all of the participants there. Many of the communications professionals are still active and have grown their reputations.

As for SEO, who better to start with than Rebecca Lieb, who in her role at ClickZ as editor-in-chief saw the rise of email marketing, digital marketing, and helped with the rise of searchenginewatch.com. Rebecca helped run one of the first blogging conferences in 2003. Even if Shel doesn't feature Rebecca he would do well to ask Rebecca's advice on who were the pioneers in social media for SEO.

If HR, it has to be Heather Hamilton from Microsoft, someone I think Shel has already written about in his book, Naked Conversations. And someone I featured in my first corporate blogging survey in 2004.

For the law it has to be Kevin O'Keefe from Lexblog.

Clarifying The US Air Force's Non Involvement In Persona Management Software Contract

Shel Holtz recently wrote a post about persona management software; this software enables people to manage multiple social networking accounts remotely. Shel made the strongest recommendation that organizations and companies don't use such tools because of the potential for a PR disaster when it's discovered that an organization is using such tools for communications purposes to manipulate opinion.

 Shel had also noticed that the US Military had an open contract for such persona management software, and quoting Erik Sherman's post on the topic, Sherman speculated that the US Air force was going to use the software for personnel recruitment.

Sherman mused that the software may be used for the following activities:

• Play a part in antiterrorism activities.
• Offer an outlet to disseminate propaganda as though it were the opinions of disinterested individuals.
• Keep tabs on what military personal do online.

I followed up with a post of my own. But then I thought I should ask the US Air force about their intentions for the contract, and so I contact the acquisitions officer, who put me in touch with a Military media officer, CDR Bill Speaks Media Officer/Chief, Digital Engagement Team CCPA. Who told me that the contract was not for the Air Force, and was posted for the following reasons, "this contract supports activities at US Central Command, as opposed to the Air Force. The software supports classified social media activities outside the US intended to counter violent extremist ideology and enemy propaganda." and Bill went onto say, "I will add that we do use social media for traditional public affairs activities, informing the public of our activities, we certainly do not employ this kind of technology in that effort. The persona management software only supports those classified activities I described."

So it seems that this contract has nothing to do with the US Air force and the part of the military that did issue the RFP does not use this software for recruitment or their public relations activities.

It seems reasonable to me that the US Military would use such tools for antiterrorism, when it comes to individuals, but I have concerns if they are using this software to influence opinion within a society because of the potential for a PR disaster, as Shel states, and not that it was stated that the software was being used for this purpose.  So while I think it's important for the PR community to understand who issued the contract, and its purposes. It is still important to give advice to the community that influencing communities in a society using such tools has inherent communications dangers.

So many business people argue that to make a profit they have to bend the rules, and people who are young, inexperienced, afraid, pressured, go along because they don’t have connection with a community. My colleague Shel made his post for the community to speak out about such practices in business, because he like I believe in the power of community and social media to influence business people to do the right thing for both ethical reasons and profit.

More articles on the topic.

Information Week

Examiner

How To Use Agencies To Achieve Self Sufficiency In Corporate Social Media

Quicktake: I propose a new agency model for corporate social media services, based on the model of immerse and disperse used by General Motors.

Currently in the field of agency services for corporate social media we have three situations happening.

1) Those brands who outsource project work for sites to be built.

2) Those brands that outsource some management of their social media channels.

3) Those brands who may purchase some project services, but when it comes to who manages and engages audiences, the individuals have to be employees of the company.

For agencies there are opportunities to sell services to all three of these types of situations at companies. However, with number 3 there's less opportunity to sell services because brands hire their own staff, and build their own systems for corporate social media.

I ask the question: What services can an agency sell to a brand that believes it doesn't make sense to outsource the engagement process within social media to an agency?

I think you then have to ask what is not working is not working for those types of companies. And really the issue becomes it's difficult to hire sufficient staff with social media expertise who will get a company up to speed quickly enough.

Christopher Barger's model of immerse and disperse from General Motors gives agencies a model for how to sell services to those brands that don't want to outsource their social media to agencies. Yet, who also have trouble getting up to speed with corporate social media.

Barger's model consists of building a central social media engagement center for corporate, where a few people practice listening, triage, and response on a corporate wide basis. New employees are hired into the center, as well as long time experienced communications and marketing people from the company who understand the products and how their company works politically. They stay in the center for six months to a year. Gaining the skills of how to conduct communications and marketing in social media, as well as picking up social media vendor contacts, and internal contacts with the central social media team.

Barger then releases or places those trainees into the rest of the company. They are off his budget, and working for brand managers, or other corporate division manager.

The benefits of this approach for multi brand companies are that you spread social media marketing expertise around to where budget exists. You give brand and corporate managers’ oversight of employees with real social media expertise. That’s important, because those managers will feel more comfortable pursuing social media strategies if they manage the resources, budget and people. But you also have a network of people who through their relationships within the company and from the central social media engagement center, have the ability to call mentors, colleagues, and get opinion when corporate or brand managers suggest strategies for social media that go against the overall corporate approach for social media.

In the agency model, the agency would sell the service of building and setting up a central social media engagement center for a client. They would staff the center with an engagement manager, or listening analysts. But in conjunction with an employee from the company who is a director of social media, who would manage the team including the agency. The goal would be for the agency staff to train by showing what they are doing. There would be transparency, but the brand would get up to speed with social media at a faster rate. Once the six months or one year is up, the agency engagement manager would move on, maybe to another client, or to another brand division with the same company. As social media grows in use, and there is more ROI, the agency would have more opportunity to grow the account through project services, such as building sites. But the core strategy remains the same of getting the client up to speed with corporate social media.

I've spoken with a number of colleagues in the industry, and I've heard a range of opinion on this approach, 1) that's what's we are doing now, as the brands social media expertise ramps up, the agencies falls away. 2) Companies may just prefer to just do social media themselves. 3) It would be good to check with both agencies and brands to see what their opinion on this model is.

So I'm embarking on a process now to talk with a number of colleagues at brands to see what they think of the process, and also chatting with agencies for their opinion. I'd also value yours on this blog or via email.

Ref: Why Your Social Media Strategy Needs Agency Support To Be Self Sufficient

Removing Sock Puppet Personas From Your Social Media Strategy

Shel Holtz writes an important post, "The PR industry must condemn massive, automated sock-puppetry."

Aaron Barr, CEO of HBGary Federal is providing software to companies that allow management of personas in social media.

And that HBGary Federal is seeking to pitch for a contract from the US Airforce that seeks to retain a vendor that can provide such fake persona software.

I've discussed the issue of transparency and authenticity many times before on this blog; most completely in my joint post, “30+ Diverse Opinions On Social Media Agency Transparency,” with Toby Bloomberg last year, where we saw a range of opinion about agency transparency.

As social media has matured, the industry has grown larger, and more actors have come into the industry that either don't have an understanding of how to conduct themselves in social media, or merely seek to game the system.

Like Shel I recommend companies and organizations seriously consider the potential problems that arise from using such systems. They can only backfire.

Entrepreneurial Master Class On Building Market Leading Companies

Jason Caplain of the Southeast VC blog tells me he is hosting his next event “Building Market Leading Companies” on March 15 from 1:30-4pm at the Brier Creek Country Club in Raleigh, NC again. This panel will be all entrepreneurs:

-    Sean Glass, co-founder and former president, Higher One (NYSE:ONE), IPO in 2010
-    Rich Lee, co-founder and former CEO, Hosted Solutions, acquired by Windstream (NASDAQ:WIN) in 2010
-    Garth Moulton, co-founder, Jigsaw, acquired by Salesforce.com (NASDAQ:CRM) for $142 million in 2010
-    Earl Galleher, CEO, Basho Technologies, former EVP and Series A investor, Akami Technologies (NASDAQ:AKAM), IPO in 1999

Full agenda with topics covered and registration here: Building Market Leading Companies. Please pass on a discount code around. “CASSVIP” saves folks $5.

5 Event Social Media Marketing Tips

Judi Knight writes a great post on using social media to promote your event. Here's a synopsis of some of her tips, find our more event marketing tips using social media within her article, "How to Use Social Media To Have a Wildly Successful Event".

When hosting a regular event, take the following steps to ensure success:

• Set up a website to host all of the event related content.
• If you don't have time or inclination to build a set. And you can do as little as hosting a blog. Make sure you set up a Facebook page for the event, or a group.
• Schedule events in Facebook, this sends an update to your fans and friends.
• If you need people to pay, use Eventbrite. Embed the eventbrite code into your website.
• Post your presentation on slideshare and YouTube.

International Content Strategy Insights From John Yunker

John Yunker is a US based internationally recognized expert on global websites. He runs the boutique agency and research firm Global by Design. And is best known for his annual web globalization report; who better to ask a few questions about the state of content, and how content strategy is evolving.

John C: Welcome, and thanks for being willing a few questions. Let’s start off by me asking; how do you see content strategy evolving?

John Y: One of the most interesting developments that I see is that of companies coming to the stark realization that little of the content they produce is worth sharing. Creating content that people want to share with one another is really difficult. And Facebook and Twitter are forcing companies to take a more personal (and, hopefully, honest) approach to their content strategies.

John C: That's great... one big issue for me is how important sites structure their content. Whether it’s generated by journalists, or free contribution columnists; you'd mentioned that it was important to think about writing content that was sharable. How does the structure of how content is developed on a website influence the ability of site's to make more social content?

John Y: For large companies I'm seeing individual contributors becoming more prominent -- beginning as Twitter authors and then, in some cases, migrating to blogs. But blogs are still rare. Twitter integration seems to be about where many companies are right now.

But I should qualify that I'm thinking more of tech companies (where users need a great deal of support). I’ve also been impressed by what Best Buy has been doing in social.

And did you notice Samsung's new home page (.com) design? Social elements take up nearly half the page.

A general rule of thumb when going global with Twitter and Facebook is to NOT try to squeeze multiple languages into one feed. Better to create language-specific feeds. This also applies to countries in many cases. Starbucks, for example, has a widely popular global Facebook page, but also has a large number of country specific Facebook pages.

John C: That's interesting, what you say about Twitter. Why do you think it's so tough to find individual contributors? And do you think there's a natural progression from twitter to blogging?

John Y: I think much of it is due to the legacy within companies of only allowing PR folks to communicate externally. There is unease, particularly in some markets where culturally it's wiser to not stand out too much. In the US it's probably less of an issue, though I've even encountered global PR people who weren't happy to find employees within various groups launching Twitter feeds. There is this sense of losing control that bothers many. But given what Dell and others have done, I'd say the train has left the station.

I think Twitter can be used to lead to blogging, but I have no proof. With Twitter, you really don't have to worry about typos or bad grammar -- everything feels so ephemeral. So perhaps it's less restrictive feeling than blogs, which are static and long-term. But I'm just guessing here based on what I hear. Blogs are tough to maintain but I believe they offer greater long-term return. After all, what do your Twitter folks link to? If you don't have a blog post to announce whatever new product you have? But that's just my two cents...

John C: That global perspective is helpful....can you give me a gauge of where the rest of the world is compared to the US on social?

If you look at ZDNet, Mashable, Social Media today, those are all sites that have some sort of mix when it comes to content generation through various means. ZDNet has some journalists on staff, but a lot of free contributors, and/or analyst firms, Mashable has 90% journalists, 10% free contributor columnist content, and SMT is majority syndicated content from members blogs, with some unique content from the lead names on the site.

The web appears to be evolving into a place where publishers try to reduce their costs of content generation through social and free contributions. How do you think brands are embracing these ideas here in the states and across the globe? Are you seeing sites that think seriously about how they need to develop content from outside the walls of the company?

John Y: Boy, it's hard to generalize about the world as social is so uneven. Also, some companies are more decentralized than others, which give local offices the freedom to try social feeds. But I'd say UK, Brazil, Italy, Spain are all hot markets. Asian markets are very hot, but not necessarily on Facebook/Twitter, though Japan is definitely embracing Twitter lately.

In terms of content, I see the more mainstream consumer companies still preferring to create product-specific content themselves, but integrate users to provide input (product suggestions) and to share product news/etc. But there is a gray area there with, say, a Microsoft MVP, which has been in existence for some time -- in which the MVP program has a blog and describes new MSFT products in depth.

John C: Do you think the product specific content is effective for mainstream consumer companies?

John Y: Regarding other companies, so hard to say.  I did sit on a presentation awhile back regarding Fiskars and how they've engaged their users via a Fiskateers club ( www.Fiskateers.com ).

Very impressive given the product!

John C: Thanks John, good to chat, and let me know if you see more examples of content mix on an international level.

Should You Use A Dash In Your Domain Name?

Revisiting the question of dashes vs. non-dashes in domain names, I thought I'd start putting together this post with references to some good articles on the topic. There are a number of factors to consider:

• Search engine & SEO consequences
• Branding and memorability of the domain name
• Playing it both ways.

Matt Cutts  In this post Matt Cutts discusses the benefits of dashes to underscores. While the post was written in 2005, it continues to generate traffic and comments. And the comment section is worth a review. Essentially dashes are to be preferred if you are using the URL extension.

Webmasterworld This post on webmasterworld has the community debating the merits of using dashes or not using dashes in the actual domain name. Many community members thought domain names with dashes were less memorable than domain names without. Here it will be tough for many people to remember what to type into their browser if there's a dash in the domain name. Plus, domain names with dashes gave the impression of a cheap, or fly by night organization. Quite a few community members suggested buying both the domain name without dashes and with dashes, and pointing the domain name with dashes to the other.

NetMechanic This article makes an important point that marketers have to consider if search engines can parse domain names without dashes correctly, and uses the example of windowneedsnow.com, which may be read as "window need snow," instead of the intention, window-needs-now.com. Update: 2/9/11 Brian Fending provided another example of where a lack of a dash can cause confusion, "experts-exchange.com v. ExpertSexChange.com always makes me smile".

John Burke, True Ventures, Thoughts On Venture Outlook 2011

John Burke, from True Ventures is a man I can agree with a lot, he believes that partnering is an important part of the entrepreneurial process, having started my career working in the technology business working for IBM, and several Technology Solution Partners in California I cannot agree more.

John is my second interviewee from Jason Caplain for the Venture Outlook 2011 conference, next week on Wednesday, February 09, 2011 from 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM (ET) in Raleigh, NC.  Where leading venture capitalists explore trends in technology, start-ups, and where VC firms are looking to deploy capital in 2011.

John was kind enough to answer my same series of questions I asked Matthew Witheiler of Flybridge Capital Partners.

John C: What are the most important things an entrepreneur should have in mind when developing a business and a business model?

John B: Create a business that you want to be involved with for 10 years.  Both as a passion and intellectual interest.

Don’t obsess on venture funding.  There are many many great businesses and ideas out there that don't require or warrant venture capital funding.  Build a business that you want to build, in the way you want to build it – if it attracts venture funding great.  If it doesn't, then you are still doing something you love.  Very very few businesses get or should get venture funding.  When you love what you are doing – it shows to customers, partners and potential investors.  Simply creating and modeling a business so it will attract venture funding is a mistake.  Venture funding is not a end to itself.

John C:  What's different for entrepreneurs today from five years ago?

John B:  One of the biggest differences we see is the increasing amount of dollars chasing the seed deals and the continuing drop in costs associated with starting a software and even a hardware business.  Clearly the major trends of cloud computing, increasing ubiquity of broadband and ever increasing computing power at the edge of the network are changing the way customers interact and consume content.

John C: What mistakes do entrepreneurs often make when pitching investors, and how can they avoid them?

John B:

• Arguing among the team
• Not doing your homework on the VC's portfolio
• Arrogance
• Saying your raising "between $1M and $5M depending on valuation."

John: Thanks John! If you'd like to hear more from John and his co-panelists, join him at Venture Outlook 2011, Wednesday, February 09, 2011 from 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM (ET) in Raleigh, NC.

Matthew Witheiler Views On Venture Outlook 2011

Jason Caplain recently let me know there's a great conference for people interested in venture investing called Venture Outlook 2011, Wednesday, February 09, 2011 from 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM (ET) in Raleigh, NC.  Leading venture capitalists explore trends in technology, start-ups, and where VC firms are looking to deploy capital in 2011.

One of the speakers appearing is Matthew Witheiler of Flybridge Capital Partners, Matthew found time to answer a few questions I had for him about entrepreneurs and the state of the venture industry. Here's the result.

John: What are the most important things an entrepreneur should have in mind when developing a business and a business model?
 
Matthew: When choosing a business and business model that may need venture capital funding, three aspects are particularly important: targeting a big market, having unique insight into how the business will win in that market and surrounding yourself with a high quality, passionate, relevant team to attack that market.

On the market size, venture investors typically look for markets that are $500M or above in size. We do this because our business is built on trying to find, cultivate and grow other businesses to an exciting outcome. It's one thing to build a $100M business in a market that is $1B a year where the business is 10% of the market and quite another to do the same in a $200M space where one has to capture 50% of the market to obtain the same outcome.

When it comes to attacking the market, it's important to know what will differentiate your business from others already in the market. Having a particular insight into the market being attacked is crucial in helping to make sure the business has a chance of gaining some customers or users. This insight can come in many forms: a unique customer acquisition channel, a disruptive pricing model, an improved experience, etc. The unique angle itself isn't as important as having one.

Finally, be sure the business being built leverages the skills of you and your teammates. An idea is only as good as the people executing it and the most successful businesses put together the best people to do so. Talk to people who have experience in the market being attacked and recruit the best of them to help you along the way. Be sure not to leave out the passion piece as well. If you're going to be living and breathing a business for countless nights and weekends, you best make sure you and your teammates have your hearts in it.

John: What's different for entrepreneurs today from five years ago?
 
Matthew: I think the main differences are that it's less expensive to get a business off the ground today and it's easier to get seed/angel funding. These two are closely tied together: since a business can leverage the cloud to get up and running less expensively than in the past, it makes sense that financing dollars flow into companies earlier than they have in the past given more can be proven on the same amount of capital. That's not to say that the average amount of capital needed to build and scale a business is necessarily lower today than it was five years ago, just that it takes less to get off the ground today.

John: What mistakes do entrepreneurs often make when pitching investors, and how can they avoid them?

Matthew: Some of the common ones are:

While trying to get a meeting with an investor:

• Sends cold emails - it's significantly better to get an introduction from someone who we know and, ideally, someone we respect than to email us cold
• Attaches a business plan to the email but no pitch deck - we get a lot of plans and tend to have ADD, making flipping through a handful of slides much more likely than reading even then first 5 pages of an 80 page plan
• When in a first meeting with an investor:
• One of the participants is checking email - if you can't hold the attention of the people you bring to the meeting for the hour, you probably can't hold ours either
• Does a poor job managing the time - we probably have an hour together – if you spend the first 20 minutes talking about the weather and the next 20 telling your life story, that only leaves 20 minutes to cover your business in its entirety; try to get into the pitch relatively quickly so we can have a discussion around your idea
• The materials don't address competition / what could go wrong and what you will do to alleviate the risk - every business has competition of some sort and challenges to worry about; you're fooling no one by leaving it out and it only makes us wonder if either you're naive enough to think you don't have any or that you're brash enough to think you'll pull the wool over our eyes by not including it
• The materials don't have a detailed ask - you should leave us knowing how much you are raising, why are you raising that amount, where that capital gets you and how much more capital you think is needed.

John: Thanks Matthew, and folks if you'd like to hear more from Matthew and his co-panelists, join him at Venture Outlook 2011, Wednesday, February 09, 2011 from 9:30 AM - 11:30 AM (ET) in Raleigh, NC.

Panelists:
•    Tom McMurray, former General Partner, Sequoia Capital and current angel investor
•    Hooks Johnston, General Partner, Valhalla Partners
•    John Burke, General Partner, True Ventures
•    Matthew Witheiler, Principal, Flybridge Capital Partners