Strategic Public Relations

Empowering News

Five weeks ago I became a free agent. Perhaps more accurately the recession paid me a visit.

Fine. I was laid off.

Since then I've been pretty focused on three things--networking, interviewing and freelancing. Not to mention the mortgage, food and money.

OK, six things.

So I'm pleased to note I've found a new home. I'm now the Director of Marketing at Empower MediaMarketing.

It's a hybrid of everything I want in a job--applying marketing, public relations and social media. It's a client-side role, but I'll also work on some client projects as well.

Empower manages every facet of media--buying, planning, strategy and consulting. They also have a full-service digital practice and a consumer research team with a set of proprietary tools.

They have many stories to be told and I can't wait to get started.

Thank You
I have many people to thank for helping me through my transition and I'm following up with each of you individually.

Prezi.com
In my zeal to announce this, I took Prezi.com for a test run. Unfortunately I did the presentation on my desktop. So instead of sharing a link to the online presentation, I can only offer you the whole honking thing as a zip file. If you're interested in Prezi, check it out. If you're on the fence, I'll manage expectations and note that it takes the above content and makes it look (much) more interesting.

Social Media Starts with Experiments and (Beautiful) Mistakes

This Ad Age article rightly stresses the need for first-hand experience when implementing a social media project.

“The biggest challenge that I see is getting people who have practiced traditional marketing for their entire careers to adopt a new set of values. The first instinct is to treat any form of social media as a channel that you use to drive a corporate message. It's relatively easy to grasp the tools but more challenging to understand how new technologies have changed communication behaviors and patterns.”

Spot on.

This is why some clients are experimenting with it. Others might focus on a particular site like Twitter. But most everyone sees the value in this facet of communications.

Regardless of where clients are on the social media curve, I stress is the concept of campaign vs. commitment. This phrase, crystallized for me in a presentation by Mitch Joel, is more than fodder for a t-shirt, bumper sticker or ppt slide.

Campaign or Commitment
Several projects I’m involved with are using a specific event or a time-based reason to get more involved in social media.

This is an excellent idea unless you think you can go from zero to Facebook page in two seconds. Trying to gain traction in social media with the flip of a switch doesn’t happen unless you’re @aplusk perhaps. For most brands and people, attention is earned through participation.

These projects are building off already established profiles. These profiles represent active participants who follow community guidelines spoken and unspoken.

Anything else comes off as drive by marketing. This is more than simply ineffective; it draws the ire of your new found community. So if anyone questions the value of experimenting or concern over making a mistake, consider the above Ad Age article and realize why they’re asking these questions. They need more than shiny new. They need to understand the new set of values in play here.

Social Media 401(k) Fund
Recessionary jokes aside, your involvement and participation in social media is a long term approach. And it might require a commitment and resources that some are unwilling to devote initially. But consider that Google is a big investment fund and all of this content builds relevance and awareness over time. This can pay off but you have to invest. And the earlier you do it you can experiment and learn from your mistakes.

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