Strategic Public Relations

The Paradox of Social Media

In preparation for an upcoming conference*, I’ve been considering the paradox that social media creates.

The very technology, platforms, communities and widgets being used to bring us all together online can also keep us from truly engaging and connecting with each other.

You start noticing it in small ways. Consider LinkedIn’s invitation to connect. Far too often after I met a person at an event I’ll get the auto-invite and I’m usually glad they reach out and I accept the invitation.

But instead of quickly referencing the context we established a few hours earlier, the person runs with the form letter. Whether or not someone is collecting contacts, the form letter gives off this impression.

This is one of the reasons I tell people to eschew automation like this if they really want to establish a social media presence. The same goes for the automatic direct messages sent to me after following someone on Twitter. It’s meant to say “thank you” or "hi" but all it really says to me is “this is a transaction.”

As you get into larger scale efforts like media relations, databases like Cision can help you quickly pinpoint the people you should be talking to, their contact info and sometimes even their turn-ons and turn offs. Instead it appears far too many PR people simply do a keyword search and send a news release to the search results. It’s the only explanation for some of the pitches I get.

Cheap, Good and Fast: Pick Two
Building a reputation in social media takes time. Using robo-tricks to do this may initially get fast numbers for someone, but it won’t get them influence or a real connection with other members of the site, community or platform they’re gaming.

Impressive social media results do not usually come at impressive rates of speed. True progress with social media usually takes time -- think 401-(k) vs a lottery. But many people don’t want to hear that.

To me the opportunity in social media is knowing when to leverage the art/human aspects of it and when to leverage the science/machine. And yes, that takes time too.


Modern man angle 1 uploaded by GUANOdesign.

* SummitUp is a conference being held in October with a great line up including keynotes from Chris Brogan, Bob Garfield, Artie Isaac and Lewis Howes. I’m geeked out to be kicking off the day with a keynote.

Comparing Opinions Across Twitter, Mainstream Media and the Public

"The People Have Spoken" is a fun research project I helped out with at work.

Our Consumer Insights team reviewed media critics and Twitter around the debut of The Jay Leno Show. We also commissioned a public opinion study and compared the results.

Critics and Twitter did not particularly care for Leno’s new show, but the general public seems to like it.

More info is here and the full study is available here.

The moral of the story is to tap into the conversations online and offline if you really want wisdom from the consumer crowds.

Before Apple’s 1984, There was Daisy in 1964

Before every Super Bowl, over the last 25 years, we inevitably point to Apple’s 1984 as the “one-run” commercial that sets the bar for all other Super Bowl commercials.

But there was another one-run commercial that did more than build buzz off a major TV event -- it helped Lyndon Johnson stay in the White House. And it aired 45 years ago this week.

According to Time magazine:

”The most famous political campaign ad played only once, during a September 7, 1964 NBC Monday Night at the Movies broadcast. Referred to as "Daisy Girl," the ad — Lyndon Johnson's response to a statement by Republican candidate Barry Goldwater that he would consider using nuclear weapons in Vietnam — created an immediate controversy and was pulled from the air.

“But news organizations picked up the spot and ran it in their nightly news segments, increasing its influence by an order of magnitude. Daisy Girl is now credited with helping Johnson defeat Goldwater in the 1964 election.

The Stuff of which “Mad Men” is made
In researching this post, I found a web site that digs deeply to explore the history behind this ad. It feels like an episode of Mad Men just waiting to happen. Ad history buffs should check it out.

People still wonder aloud if another 1984 spot will grace the Super Bowl -- where a single :30 second spot will cost $3 million this year.

But media and consumer habits have changed too dramatically in the last 10 years to get a one-run hit. Media fragmentation alone has impacted the likelihood of a TV event locking in an audience large enough to warrant a "one-run" investment. It will never happen.

Or will it?

The One-Run Misnomer
These one-run examples took place before an ad could go viral. But Daisy Girl and 1984 arguably did just that. How? The media helped propel Daisy and 1984 to their now historic perches in the :30 second spot hall of fame. Daisy Girl even wound up on the cover of Time magazine.

One-run is a misnomer when describing these ads. 45 years later viral also tends to be a misnomer. Much like one-run ads, viral is often pointed to as a goal. But viral is not a goal or a strategy. It's an outcome.

So we may see more examples of Daisy and 1984. But more than anything else we'll see examples of failed attempts at going viral...examples that probably failed for all the right reasons.

Dell Makes a Social Shopping “Swarm”

If you’re like me (condolences), when you’re thinking of buying a computer you consult a tech savvy colleague, a friend who works in IT or a nerdy teen a.k.a. digital native. Or you might be into social shopping where the so-called “wisdom of the crowd” points you to the best products.

 

These approaches might help you specify your purchase. But they do not necessarily help you narrow down the best price.

 

But what if you also consulted other’s in the market for a new computer and organized them into one group so you could all get a better price? Group purchasing is common among large companies and buying cooperatives to achieve lower prices on individual items by buying in bulk. Dell is harnessing this group model with a word of mouth component to create its new Swarm program.

 

Swarm, Share and Save

Andy Lark and Lionel Menchaca/@LionelatDELL point us to the pilot program that debuted in Singapore and, as the video above details, is currently running in Canada.

 

The more you have in your group, the more you save. So there's incentive to spread the word about Dell and this program to your personal online networks. It’s an interesting model and it even has a feature reminiscent of Priceline where you commit to a purchase at a certain price. This wraps you into someone else’s group buy. The program means that Canadian consumers can get Dell computers cheaper than they would on the Dell.ca site.

 

Swarm reminds me of the Laptop Hunter ads as another example of how the PC is competing with the Mac in our current value-conscious economy.