Strategic Public Relations

Listen to #mktfyi for Sound Content

David E. Bowman is a social media force. I've seen the benefit of his involvement in many projects over the last couple of years, including Dayton's annual social media confab, SummitUp.

In just two years SummitUp's drawn speakers including Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Pete Blackshaw and more. Full disclosure: I've presented at both year's events.

Our offline conversations, in addition to detailing how vibrant Cincinnati and Dayton's social media communities are, realized the potential for a monthly podcast. It took us awhile, but we were able to move the concept from ideation into content creation.

So I'm happy to point you to the pilot episode of Marketing FYI (#mktfyi). It's a rough cut, we're still in beta. 

 mktfyi - the pilot episode [21:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As David notes: In our pilot edition we do a recap of the SummitUp conference, sharing our respective thoughts on the day. We also discuss Starbucks digital network and the brand's announcement that it will start serving beer and wine in certain stores.

Future episodes will feature guest speakers and cover various marketing, advertising, public relations and social media topics. If you have feedback on the pilot episode, topics you want us to cover, or have ideas for guest speakers, drop us a line at mktfyi AT gmail DOT com.

Walmart Taps Facebook, Launches CrowdSaver Social Shopping App

A month away from Black Friday 2010 and Walmart is leveraging Facebook to increase its fan base as well as its online sales.

Following in the steps of sites like GroupOn and brands like Dell**, CrowdSaver is Walmart's social shopping application. Walmart stands to acquire thousands of likes from "fans." As the brand notes it is "putting you in charge of lower prices. If the deal gets enough Likes, the price drops for everyone. Only fans get to vote, so rally your friends to Like it too!"

Much like GroupOn, it shouldn't be tough to hit the threshold established by Walmart. It generated 100 likes in the time it took me to write this and was already close to hitting the goal. It will be interesting to see how the application develops. It's an interesting way to use Facebook to stimulate online sales.

When a retailer with a retail footprint is larger than the island of Manhattan launches group buying capabilities for its customers, the concept gets interesting.

**Sears Campus 2010 Facebook app allows users to create wish lists of Kmart and Sears products. Uniqlo's Lucky Counter integrates Twitter to lock in a discount at one of its stores.

Social Media Brings a Shift in Skills

We've all been told that we're in a constant state of change. It's a mantra that loses meaning the more it's chanted in mainstream media, PowerPoint decks, business books and blogs alone.

Marketers and brands are finding themselves in new roles. Starbucks is a Digital Network (not to mention a music label). Razorfish is repping an Indie band. Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart are TV networks. Interpublic Group is acting as a venture capitalist for Pepsi.

Skill sets are changing too. We find in addition to our core focus on a left or right brain role in marketing, social media alone is requiring professionals to get comfortable with a broader set of skills. Social media is disrupting silos in companies, media and the workforce. The economy is simply increasing the urgency of change that digital technology creates when it breaks down these silos.

Brand Manager 2.0
Dave Knox, Brandery** Co-Founder and Rockfish Interactive CMO, details how this change is impacting brand managers. It's applicable to other roles in marketing today as well.

5 Themes of Brand Manager 2.0

View more presentations from Dave Knox.

Full Disclosure: In addition to being a Brandery mentor, I'm also working with Dave Knox as a co-founder of Cincinnati Social Media, a non-profit group I founded with Daniel Lally, Dave Knox and Stacy Cole. 

Starbucks' In-Store Wifi Leveraged Into Branded Media Network

UPDATE: See the end of this post for a link to screen grabs and first impressions of the Starbucks Digital Network experience.

Starbucks is giving customers one more reason to stop in, and to stick around, with Starbucks Digital Network. In a partnership with Yahoo, its taking exclusive content and free downloads that are only available to customers tapping into the wifi at one of it's thousands of retail locations.

Double Shot of Content
Customers with wireless devices are typically pushed to a branded site to accept terms of service before hitting the web. What was once a unavoidable nuisance is now a digital destination.

According to Starbucks: news, books, video and music will be available including free subscription editions of The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today, exclusive iTunes downloads and unlimited access to Zagat reviews and ratings -- all for free.

Rise of In-Store TV Networks
Starbucks joins Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy with their branded media platform and it's a natural extension of Starbucks music label. It increases each brand's co-marketing opportunities and gives customers a reason to linger in-store.

But Starbucks wifi delivery allows for more personalized and engaging experiences. It's one more way technology like smart phones are bridging the online and in-store experiences. Is it paid or owned media? It's a little of both and another example of how media is changing as brands becoming media platforms. 

UPDATE: Here’s my take on the Starbucks Digital Network experiencebelow and by Flickr screen grabs. Attempts to do a video screen cast/walk through.using Screenr bombed after several attempts. :-(

Upon arrival, there is no trace of the network in-store. With thousands of stores it will probably take some time to ramp up this as an in-store promotion. The wifi page does not even tee up the network. This surprised me as most users click through here with a specific destination in mind.

It’s clearly designed to keep people in the store. Even the downloads take awhile due to the wifi. Commuters getting coffee en route to work won’t get as much from it. And most of the content that is featured features ways to purchase it via iTunes or other third party sites.

Brands can look at this for a host of ideas and there are a variety of advertising and content partnership opportunities that come to mind based on the six sections it has for content, including News, Entertainment, Wellness, Business and Career and My Neighborhood.

There are some improvements that should be made over time. But for the most part, it’s great. I give it an A-. In-store support will definitely help.

Related: Behind @Starbucks digital network with @stephengillett
Cross-posted to my work blog, Thought Leadership

Defining Paid, Earned and Owned Media

At SummitUp yesterday, I discussed integrating paid, owned, earned and, as a result, social media.

Media Mash Up: Integrating Chaos** -- became a fitting title for my presentation as I've realized how much change is threading through media. Classifying media types by silos, buckets or Venn diagrams is no longer possible. Even AdAge refers to it as "whatever it is that we're defining as media these days."

To integrate across media, marketers must be more flexible about how content, consumers and technology connect with a brand.

Serious karma found Pete Blackshaw laying groundwork for my presentation when he presented the following slide in his keynote presentation earlier that day. "His We Can No Longer Silo Media" slide details how a brand can drive earned media through paid or earned channels. This is something we've been discussing for awhile and it's interesting to see how it's evolved in just a year's time.

Clear as Mud
Social Media can be triggered by paid, earned or owned media. And social media can also be paid, earned or earned media. It's clear that social media is messy. It disrupts silos -- media silos as well as operational silos in a company. Social media is not linear. It is a paradox. Is it shared media? Yes. Spreadable media? Yes. But it's not something a PowerPoint slide can capture with some Smart Art. Not yet. 

As consumers, content and technology continue to change, we need to spend more time studying our audience as well as their online and offline behaviors. Mapping this against the sales funnel makes it easier to consider how various media can connect with customers through this cycle.

Iteration or Irrelevancy?
To better integrate something seemingly amorphous, we must plan for ongoing change. We must set aside resources, time and talent that can test and learn from the shiny new. If something new impacts business goals, it gets further consideration. Otherwise we risk losing focus on sites and technology that are getting a lot of industry attention. Planning for a constant of change is not second nature. It's not easy. But it's also the going premium for irrelevancy insurance.

** I kicked off the presentation with a mash up of Aerosmith and Alicia Keys to underscore how content and technology are meshing together to create some emotional connections with consumers. And I ended the presentation giving out examples of the first mash up we experience growing up. Music and candy go a long way to impact your speaker feedback forms.

Cross-posted to my work blog, Social Study.



 

PRSA International Conference Gets Us All Atwitter – Over a Hashtag?!

Twitter does many things, but not *every*thing. IMHO, Twitter earns its reputation during live events as they unfold. From extreme but historic events like Iran’s Presidential Election Protests and the death of Michael Jackson to less substantive events like World Cup and just about every conference I’ve attended since early 2007, they all show in real time how useful and impactful Twitter can be.

The common discussion just before and at the beginning of an event is “What’s the Hashtag?” It’s the common thread that turns Twitter into an event communication channel, promotion tool, recording device and more for attendees, organizers and folks following from afar.

Just this post finds us spending more time than we’d ever imaging discussing event hashtags. It’s not rocket science. Is it an art form? I’ll argue it’s more of a detail than anything else.

“Hashtag Confusion”
It has also become a topic of conversation for the Public Relations Society of America this year as their annual, international conference gets underway. Why? Their hashtag is less than intuitive with an _underscore_ (one of the more dreaded characters to hit the Internet): #prsa_ic.

It has 2.0 practitioners like Kami Huyse asking valid questions while most folks are adding #prsa_ic and #prsa10 and others are just wondering wtf instead of wth. According to What the Hashtag, the official hashtag is gaining more traction. But I have to believe they’d benefit from an easier, more intuitive and shorter hashtag.

In fact, why not just use #PRSA? Twitter generates 12 terabytes of data – every day. 12TB! So Google telling me that Twitter search keeps tweets about a week starts to make sense. My point is, by the time PRSA11 rolls around, the only trace of PRSA10 tweets will be in a dusty stack at the Library of Congress.

This post is not intended to to be a Saturday morning, snark-injected rant towards PRSA – far from it. It’s inspired by a quote from the legendary basketball coach John Wooden:"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

Wooden is right. The simplest answer is usually the best one, per usual. Now get the tweet out of here! No hashtag for you!


Hashtag Nazi taken by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Change the Same Old Conversation about the Next Shiny New

Passion rules. Passion fuels everything from blogs and career choices to causes and, of course, families.

So I don’t want to rain on anyone’s fiery passion when it comes to the “next shiny new object.” But it gets frustrating when folks trade pragmatism for seemingly blind evangelism.

Very smart people suddenly turn into very shiny new hammers. And everything starts looking like shiny new nails to them as a result. It reminds me of Chris Rock’s Robitussin routine. His father used Robitussin to cure every ailment. Or perhaps you’re a “Big Fat Greek Wedding” fan and recall the healing powers of Windex. Either way, we can get so blinded by the shiny new that we start considering any and every option where we might use it. This is letting a tactic drive a strategy – assuming there is a strategy.

Conversations about the shiny new objects start sounding similar over time -- whether it’s focused on  blogs, RSS, Second Life and Twitter or Facebook, Mommy Bloggers, Foursquare and QR Codes.

Ask Why Instead of What
Passion and pragmatism can co-exist. Pragmatism is not the same as playing Devil’s Advocate.* Your pragmatism can sometimes be confused for an attempt to kill the idea altogether.

Instead of stopping or slowing down a shiny new inspired project, a dose of pragmatism can actually lend urgency and focus to the cause. Due diligence usually improves an idea and helps it succeed. Some call this a scientific method. Others call it covering your butt insurance.

The key to changing these conversations when they first occur is simple. When someone tells you that “flavr” (of the month) is going to revolutionize your industry and they want you to sprinkle it over everything, change the conversation by focusing on why. Instead of talking about what flavr is and where can we sprinkle it. Ask about why. Why will this help us reach our goals? Is it doing something we don't already have in place? Is this meeting a customer need?

Shifting to the why and bringing the discussion back to business goals is the best due diligence of them all.

**Devil’s Advocate is usually passive aggressive sabotage, imho. But that’s another post.

Death of the Digital Native

Just two weeks ago I was referring to myself as a digital immigrant in a blog post.

Then last week I heard Brad King speak at TEDxCincy. And now this week I want to retract my classification as it reinforces the term digital native.

In King's TED talk, "Telling Stories on the World," he details how technology is changing the way we tell stories. And one of my favorite points from his talk is when he declares the death of the digital native.

"It gives me great pleasure to note that there is no such thing as a digital native. Many Americans grew up speaking English. It's their native tongue. Yet they still study the subject in school. So why wouldn't students that grew up immersed in digital technology also need to study accordingly?" paraphrased from my notes vs. a verbatim quote. RELATED: Shut your digital native pie hole.

Education on Digital Issues
Recent cases of sexting and cyber bullying, as well as the constant concern of privacy in a world where Facebook frequently changes the rules, remind us how important this digital education has become.

Is the term digital native well-intended? Sure. But in some instances I wonder if it becomes an artificial excuse to avoid acclimating to the changes brought on by digital technology over the years.

We have a responsibility to teach younger generations how it all works. If we try and block access to keep it out of the schools we are not protecting students over the long term. We’re ensuring their skills won't be as relevant.

The biggest issues of social media and their use in a school setting are also their opportuniity. We need to educate instead of simply trying to avoid it altogether. 


Digital Natives uploaded by nudevinyl
Cross-posted to my work blog, Social Study

Planning & Speed of Change

During the Q&A portion of a recent presentation, someone asked me to predict the impact social media will have and look out about 10 years.

10 years? Let's assume he only said five years. I'm helping out with a five year communications plan right now. This is a much more realistic time frame. Or is it?

Social Media Launch Dates
From youngest to oldest, here are some launch dates some for a handful of sites we spend much of our time on these days.

Foursquare: March 2009
iTunes App Store: July 2008
Twitter: July 2006 
YouTube: February 2005 
Facebook: February 2004
Flickr: February 2004
LinkedIn: May 2003 
This Blog:  July 2002 
iTunes: January 2001

If I predicted in 2005 that the year old Facebook would have half a billion members and a movie in theaters while the newly launched YouTube would have more searches on it than Yahoo!, you would have had me committed. YouTube is second only to Google in searches. And guess who owns YouTube?

When it comes to search, "All Your Base Are Belong to Us." When it comes to planning, we have to plan ahead, of course. But we have to be flexible and in a position to change as needed. This all simply reinforces the need for goals, measurable objectives and strategies BEFORE tactics. It allows for this flexibility whether you need to change in 10 years or 10 weeks.

Stay the course on achieving your goals regardless of the shiny new that is launched and driving all news, tweets and posts.

Metro Woman uploaded by Extra Medium