Danny Whatmough.com

PR Week has today revealed comments from the Daily Telegraph’s assistant editor Neil Midgley who warned journalists and PRs that Facebook shouldn’t be used for work:

‘It’s my network. I won’t post details of my sex life on it, but I can post status updates on there that I wouldn’t post on Twitter. Don’t talk to me about work on it’

These are comments that I’m sure many PRs and journalists – indeed most people – would agree with. I certainly use Facebook very much from a personal standpoint.

But, as you have possibly seen me ranting talking about recently, I think Facebook is changing. And I wonder whether these changes will alter the way we all use the service.

This has appeared on the same day as PR blogger Steve Rubel has launched his own Facebook page. As Steve explains:

“Now I am also adding a Facebook Page that will feature everything that’s posted here plus exclusive content for those of you who opt in and become a fan. It’s very similar to how I approach Twitter – which also features links that I don’t always share elsewhere. The difference is that the new Facebook Page will sit in between what I do here and Twitter and hopefully spark a rich discussion from a broader group of people who don’t necessarily read blogs or use Twitter.”

So is this possibly the way we – as individuals and also possibly as brands – should be going? Are Facebook pages the new ‘public Facebook’?

With Google in the US now showing Facebook updates in Google social search, I’m sure it’s a trend that Facebook is keen to encourage.

Facebook pages don’t have the same ‘conversational’ element that Twitter has, but could be an effective way to have a publicly available presence on Facebook that doesn’t encroach on your personal space.

I wrote last week about the battle between Google and Facebook. Now there is more interesting research out which adds yet another subplot: according to Compete, Facebook has passed Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is amongst the leaders for other types of sites too.

This follows news earlier this month that Facebook is now the 4th driver of traffic to major news sites.

Whilst for many businesses, Twitter is seen as the social network to use, it would be foolish to ignore the power of Facebook.

This preference towards Twitter was well founded. Twitter has a very open doors policy to brands, unlike Facebook – at least in the early days – when the emphasis was social networking between friends that you actually know.

This ‘walled garden’ was a scary place for brands (and the media) that didn’t want to experience a backlash from consumers.

But it is perhaps exactly this walled garden approach that makes Facebook such a hotbed of social media (and traditional media) sharing. Facebook networks are tighter, more controlled than the often sprawling connections that are made on Twitter.

Sharing on Facebook is perhaps less frequent than retweets on Twitter, but when it does happen, the effect can be significant, allowing brands to reach targeted and carefully curated networks of like-minded individuals.

And it’s not the no-go area for B2B companies that it was in the past. To my mind, social media blurs the boundaries between work and home, between professional and personal.

With 400m users worldwide, ignoring something this powerful is ludicrous.

Social media is a great tool for marketers, no question about it. But what about when things go wrong and the tables are turned?

I’ve argued before that in many ways, PRs are best placed to run social media operations and there are number of reasons why I think this is the case. One of the key reasons is that experienced public relations pros are adept at responding to situations – good and bad – and communicating messages quickly and effectively to a particular audience to inform, whilst taking strides to protect the reputation of the brand or business involved.

Last night, five Eurostar trains stopped working as they entered the Channel Tunnel, leaving the trains and passengers on board trapped. Many were trapped for hours in what must have been a scary and terrifying ordeal for them as well as their families and friends.

This is a nightmare situation for a company like Eurostar. And this is not the place to look at attributing blame. But, I do want to look at how the company approached one of those mainstays of traditional public relations: crisis communications.

Across the board, Eurostar seems to have fallen down on it’s duty to its customers, by failing to adequately transmit information.

And nowhere has this been more evident that on social media and, in particular, on Twitter. Mike Butcher at Techcrunch has covered the unfolding of this story in detail. But, essentially, there were no updates on either the @Little_Break or @Eurostar_Uk Twitter accounts as the crisis unfolded. In a twist to the story, it transpires the latter account wasn’t even an official Eurostar channel – it has now been suspended – and @eurostar is used by someone in Shanghai!

The @Little_Break account wasn’t updated until 11.30 today (Saturday) – a full 16 hours after the first incident happened! WTF!? If we have learned anything about social media, it is that it works best in real-time.

What does this situation teach us about the handling of social media when things go wrong:

• It doesn’t matter what you want the account to be used for – it looks as though the @Little_Break account was being used for some sort of social media marketing campaign. Which is fine. But the public don’t put brands into boxes like this. If you have a social media channel then the public will see this as your brand on Twitter. So expect them to get in touch with you as they see fit, and not necessarily in the way you would like
• Monitoring, monitoring, monitoring – it doesn’t matter if it is a Friday night before Christmas, the public will still use social media and will expect companies – if they are using the channel, and increasingly even if they are not – to be listening
• Social media is real-time – we all know this, so why did it take Eurostar 16 hours to update their Twitter account? There is no excuse, especially as real-time take centre stage with Google transmitting the whole story as it unfolds
• Social media shouldn’t be an afterthought in crisis comms – as all good PRs know, in an emergency, you need to get clear, transparent and helpful information out to people as quickly as possible. And that means social media too
• Advanced planning is crucial – when something like this happens, there isn’t time to start putting plans together, it needs to have been thought about in advance. It looks as though this didn’t happen. Having social media as part of your crisis communications action plan is vital
• When things go wrong, who’s in charge – with this confusion over ‘who is best placed to use social media’ within organisations, it is no surprise that when things go wrong, social media could fall through the cracks. Is it the PR, ’social media’, SEO, marketing or customer service team that should be in control, pushing the agenda to the fore?

Obviously this is a horrid situation for Eurostar and it is easy to sit and criticise from a distance. But the fact is that this has not been handled at all well and their reputation, their PR, has taken a serious knock.

UPDATE: It seems this is a topic that isn’t going to go away any time soon. Already there are some great posts from Dirk, Rachel, Mark and Neville on the subject. As Dirk says, expect this to be coming to a social media case study near you soon…

UPDATE: Eurostar CEO Richard Brown has released a video apology on the Little Breaks blog site – it’s a good effort and sounds pretty sincere.

UPDATE: I was very careful not to mention any agencies associated with Eurostar in the above post. At a time like this, decisions will be made at a senior level within the business. An agency will only be able to sit and advise to their best ability. If this is ignored, there isn’t much to be done. And it seems this is pretty much what happened. In a very honest post, Robin Grant from Wearesocial, a social media agency, has given a very open overview of things from their perspective. It’s worth a read as it perfectly highlights some of the organisational challenges I referred to above.

I like a good prediction post as much as the next person and so I was intrigued to read an article by Augie Ray from Forrester entitled: 2010: The Year Marketing Dies…

In it, Ray asserts that, due to a number of factors (including the demise of traditional media, the growth of technologies like PVRs that are rendering TV advertising obsolete and the growth of social media), marketing as we know it is under going a dramatic sea-change.

And 2010 is guaranteed to be the year when social media has its biggest impact on brands to date. The recent real-time search changes will only quicken this as I’ve already suggested and as Ray states:

The search engine changes mean that 2010 will be the year when brands can run but they cannot hide.  Gone are the days when marketers could carefully craft messaging and then broadcast that message in a few channels to huge portions of their audiences.  Oh, you can still spend money that way if you want to but in our transparent world, no marketing budget can possibly overcome the actual experience consumers have (and share with friends, followers and Google) with the product, service, or organization.  It no longer matters what you say;  in 2010, your brand will be more defined by what you do and who you are!

So actual experience will replace the image that brands want to portray about themselves, especially as we all get more involved in social media and climb up the social technographics ladder (see above). What does this mean in practice?

• customer service and customer experience becomes vital
• product development needs to be more user focused
• marketing and PR teams need to be ready to act and react to issues; crisis management becomes crucial, but harder
• marketing and PR campaigns need to focus on engagement rather than trying to enforce brand values
• no part of the business can afford to ignore the audience

Central to all of these is the ability to understand your audience. One line in particular in Ray’s article is fundamental to this too:

“in 2010, your brand will be more defined by what you do and who you are”

It’s a challenge.

So I’ve been playing around with a great little website called TweepML. The site basically allows you to create and share lists of tweeters that anyone can then follow at the click of a button.

It’s a great way to find new people to follow as recommended by others. Of course I’m sure some people will start complaining about spam, but becuase Twitter is ‘opt-in’, I get a bit confused by this argument (not DM spam of course, I get that). If someone follows you and you don’t want to follow them, it’s simple – don’t!

Anyway – rant over! – to put the service through its paces, I put together a list of the people I find most interesting/useful/entertaining as a tech PR person on Twitter.

You can check out my list here. And please do let me know who I have left off…!

One of the problems about writing a personal blogs is that you don’t have any deadlines to force you into writing! I wrote this a week or so ago and meant to return to refine it, but I’ve only just got round to it. Excuses over! Here’s the (belated) post…

I’ve been closely following a debate that initially stemmed from an article in Research, where the IAB’s Amy Kean and Nielsen’s Brad Little locked horns.

I’ve been meaning to blog about it, but have failed to do so until now, when a thoughtful post from Michael Litman stirred me into action!

I can see what Amy is saying: that measurement for measurement’s sake is meaningless. And she is right. Whereas measurement tied directly to business value (could be) meaningful. And again, she is right. Amy concludes:

“If your social media activity generates 100,000 views on YouTube, gets you 40,000 Facebook friends and 20,000 positive blog mentions over the period of a month and your net promoter score rises, this may show incredible brand engagement. But what are we to measure it against for the campaign to be deemed a success?”

She answers this last question with ‘case studies’. And yes, case studies are certainly a useful self-improvement vehicle. But I can’t help but think she misses the point here.

What is really missing from the example given is a concrete business aim or objective that has been put in place from the start.

And this aim can be different from campaign to campaign or from company to company (and/or both).

For me, there are three questions that need to be asked – the why, what and how of social media measurement.

The answers are not straightforward and will change from case to case and even within projects or campaigns, but are in my mind a good starting point. It is worth also stating that these aren’t mutually exclusive for social media, but the answers often will be.

Why?

This first question – why? – seems straightforward; why are we doing this? It’s crucial though and so often neglected. Why do we need/have/want a Twitter/Facebook/Myspace account or blog? Is this right for our business?

So much of this stems from proper audience insight. Social media is dependent on conversation amongst communities, either already in existence or that are created or nurtured by the brand or business. So the question here is, will social media work for your target audience (or their influencers)? Are they where you think they are, and if so, where is that?

This is one of the reasons why I think there is much value in having a non-specialist agency (or an internal department) at least initially in control of social media strategy. It’s sometimes tough to say: “no, social media isn’t right for us/this business objective”.

So how does this affect measurement? Well, if you don’t know why you are doing something, then you won’t be able to measure it. And if you don’t have a sound business reason for doing something, then it probably isn’t worth doing.

What?

Intrinsically linked to the previous question is the decision about what to measure. A brand looking to increase brand awareness in a community will likely be looking to measure something different that a brand looking to maximise web sales.

How?

There are many different ways to measure things. There is no right or wrong here necessarily. Social media is still a (relatively) new thing and an agency that tells you they have all the answers is worth dumping.

Again, we come back to the previous two questions – what do you want to achieve and what will indicate success. Then they question is: how will you measure this success?

No golden bullet

There is no shortcut to success here, but it’s worth trying and worth persevering with. If we don’t measure what we are doing, then we have no way to demonstrate success and no way to improve.

Amy doesn’t really mean measurement is meaningless, she means that meaningless measurement is meaningless. And this is spot on.

As Michael states:

“It may not be in the traditional marketing sense of what ‘value’ is but for me, social media requires new metrics and benchmarks than to what has been tried and tested in years previous. Success now looks different. Instead of looking purely from a numbers perspective and at additional sales, is there value in increased levels of brand perception and awareness, along with the conversations and connections made because of the company activity?”

Just as social media is a new and emerging discipline, so is the way we measure it. But measure it we must, even if the way we go about it needs us to ask more and more questions – the why, what and how…

picture credit

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the online PR debate organised by NMK last night, but I’ve been following the fallout today on Twitter and entering into the fray myself, as well as catching up on the blog posts that are now starting to trickle through.

It looks like it was a good event (as Ian’s always are) that tossed around some interesting arguments.

For me though, I get slightly annoyed by the need to define everything. Often we go out of our way to define something which then loses its meaning or is interpreted in a different way. It’s all just semantics really.

And the jargon of new media certainly falls into this space. It is why PR is so synonymous with media relations and journalism. Why SEO and social media seemingly also exist (or feel they need to exist) within their own spheres.

I’m not saying that specialisms aren’t important but that rather than PR v. SEO v. digital etc., we should be looking at the wider, bigger picture. I’m sure this is how many of our (as agencies) clients see things; the bottom line is everything for them. [And I note that it was pretty agency-weighted last night]

This is what we are attempting to do more and more at Wildfire. We are seeing the blurring of disciplines and are also identifying areas where the traditioanl media aspect of PR is dying very quickly. Our venture into new realms isn’t driven by shiny new toys and networks, but by an attempt to get results for our clients and influence the publics they are attempting to reach.

Now to me, this feels very much like a definition of PR. But, I am aware that it is equally true of other disciplines, e.g. advertising, as this Ad Age article demonstrates.

One thing underlines all these tactics though, and that is establishing a message and conveying this to an audience – and this is something that PR professionals are usually very well placed to do. The conveying might be through traditional media, it might be through engagement or conversation on social networks or it might involve search engines and advertising.

As a PR (and marketing) professional (caveat: who is and has been immersed in digital and social media), I am excited and thrilled by the opportunity the internet and digital affords us practionners and our clients or businesses.It’s refreshing to be able to knock out the middle man, to ‘go direct’.

And in order to achieve this effectively, the more tools we have in our tool box, the more options we have and the more potential we can achieve.

The future is bright. It might not be PR as we know it. It might not be called PR. It might even be called social media and be carried out by ’social media experts’

But my bet is that no one group will dominate and that there will be plenty of new tricks to learn and plenty for everyone to practice.

picture credit

Update:

Lots of chatter about this – here is a quick round-up:
Lloyd Gofton

Peter Hay (PR Week)

Jo-Rosie Haffenden

Rowan Stanfield

Roger Warner

Jed Hallam

Ian Delaney

Steven Waddington

Gerel Orgil

Drew Benvie

Oh Charles, what have you started!?

Tech journo supremo Charles Arthur this week compared the client/PR/Journo relationship with the car industry.

Confused? Well, yes, you might be! But stick with it. There are some interesting points raised (some more valid than others) including in the comments section if you can be arsed to wade through them.

Here are a few short, sharp observations of my own:

• Mr Arthur is not your typical journalist
• Every journalist is different – see this post Not all PRs/journos can be tainted with the same brush – this is a big industry with many sectors
• Media relations (which is what we are talking about) is only a (diminishing) part of PR
• MRs (and therefore PRs and their clients) still depends on journalists
• There are more and more PRs and fewer and fewer journos
• There is still a place for good quality, best practice MRs
• PRs need to be consultants and need to be specialists and need to be realistic
• As Guy says, the journalist doesn’t work for the client
• But, the PR does work for the client
• And most many journos need MRs
• Many PRs HATE MRs
• ‘Did you get my press release’ – these calls do work sometimes and, in desperation, are understandable (if unfortunate)
• But they don’t justify/want/need spam
• As with everything in modern-day marketing, targeting is absolutely crucial
• Good PRs are not merely consumed by money and/or results. We know the issues and the topics and how to write good stories
• But we all (PRs and journos) have commercial interests; sometimes (at the best times) these can be mutual
• We all get it wrong from time to time

Over at the Guardian, Bobbie Johnson has written a little piece entitled Why I’m finished with ’social media’

In it, he suggests that social media isn’t new so why all the jumping on the bandwagon every time a new celebrity signs up to Twitter or has a shower.

In the comments, a number of people have replied, venting their fury about all things Twitter and proudly stating that they have now quit. So there.

But they are missing the key thrust of Bobbie’s post. He’s not saying that he is finished ‘using’ social media, but that he is fed up with the social media ‘craze’.

And I see where he is coming from. I’m also fed up of hearing about the latest celebrity doing x y and z. But then I get fed up of that anyway in the ‘real world’. I hate Heat magazine et. al. So of course I am going to get fed up of hearing about it on Twitter.

Bobbie’s other point is: “‘Social media’ is mainstream – we don’t need to claim any more victories for it.”

Again, I partly agree. But some platforms aren’t mainstream yet. Just because the technorati and digerati  have been using Twitter for ages doesn’t mean its dull to the rest of the world. I find the Twitter phenomenon fascinating. And so do all the people out there (journalists and PRs included) that are learning about it for the very first time [i.e. the public].

But Bobbie’s eventual conclusion is correct – “Social media is people. People talk about stuff. The end.” – and this is often forgotten. Social media is just a different platform for content or conversation or broadcasting or listening or research or socialising…

What we are seeing is two levels here:

On one hand, we have the ‘platform’ itself. What it does. How it’s used. Takeup. Popularity. Strategies for using it in marketing/business etc. As a medium or a platform, social media does continue to evolve and change and, for digital analysts/influencers/marketing-bods, this is interesting. It’s not fair to liken it to the telephone or the pub.

On the other hand we have the content on the platform itself. The ‘Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift’ story. This is gossip, news (yes, to some it is) etc.

So you have the platform – Twitter/pub/telephone – and the content – ‘Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift’.

You can choose what content suits you and of course you can choose which platform suits you. If you don’t like the content then buy a different magazine or follow someone else. If you don’t like the platform then select a different one.

Just don’t blame the platform for the content. And don’t blame the public for liking the content. And don’t blame the PRs/media for liking that the public like the platform/content…

Tuesday was a great day. We sat in the office, in awe of an undoubtedly great man. We were transfixed.

As Paul Carr said in his weekly column, the usual British cynicism that so often comes to the fore when anything American is concerned disappeared like $1 Obama water offered to a million-strong crowd.

The reason: he’s a great, natural marketer.

From day one, Obama has marketed himself brilliantly. There was a great comment piece in last month’s Revolution magazine which compared some of Obama’s early speeches from before he won the nomination to the email he sent on the night he was elected. The messages were almost identical.

That’s great branding. Great messaging and great strategy. We are always telling our clients that if you get the messaging right at the start, then everything else follows and works much better. It’s true and Obama knows it. I guess from a political standpoint, it suggests that this is also a person who is true to his beliefs and his vision. A good business lesson too.

Sure, he was very different to what went before, and that certainly helps. But so is the best marketing. And Obama accentuates and plays on these differences, if subtlety. Marketing the same message in the same way as everyone else is only going to get you so far. Doing something different, something unique, gets you noticed.

David Meerman Scott has brilliantly demonstrated the linguistic differences between Obama’s inaugural address and the one Bush gave 4 years ago. It’s subtle but it seems to hit home.

As Seth Godin says: be remarkable. Obama is certainly remarkable – the person and the brand.

Politically speaking, the hard work starts now. And, at the end of the day, he is a politician, not a marketer.

But in the days when countries are hiring PR agencies, what better leader to have than one that seems to understand how to inspire, persuade and communicate effectively to his own country and globally.