Strategic Public Relations

Strategic Public Relations' Book Giveaway

UPDATE: BOOM! All books are gone. 

UPDATE: With just one book left in the stack, this has been a lot of fun. I assumed readers claiming the books would be scattered geographically. But it's been even more global than I anticipated.

Yes, I will be covering postage to Sweden, Turkey, Italy, the UK, Austrailia, Canada, Iowa, Georgia, Ohio (5), Washington, DC (2) and New York (2).

UPDATE: Only seven books are left. I'll be emailing the other books' new owners shortly. I've highlighted the last seven in yellow and struckthrough the others that are no longer available. Thanks.

After spending Labor Day Weekend purging, I have some books to give away. Some are older than others. But, as you'll see in the list above, they cover social media, public relations, branding, marketing and business topics. All of them are still relevant to one degree or another. If I did a blog post/book report, the list has a link to it. 

In the past, I've passed books along to others. And I've had books sent my way as well. So I felt it best to offer them up to readers instead of recycling or trying to get a few pennies back for them via Half Priced Books. 

Free Books? I'm in. What's Next?
If you want a book, just walk through the form below.

The Power of Unassuming Brands (a lesson from Signal P&G)

The Signal P&G event brought together brands we see in the news almost daily -- from Twitter and Facebook to Coca-Cola and more. But the brands on Procter & Gamble's dais getting less media attention, or perhaps less positive media attention, were more interesting that day. Presentations from Amazon, AOL and Nokia taught me to reconsider the power of unassuming brands.

These companies are not startups or unknowns. But news coverage can suggest that new brands may "kill" more established brands. Stories with only one clear winner, atop a pile of competitors, make for shareable content. It's Mashable pr0n -- a syndrome of oversimplification I've ranted about before. But as these stories distract our attention, several unassuming brands have quietly become pervasive and have a much bigger story to tell. 

The Mighty Amazon
After Amazon launched in 1995, a then client suggested the site was a ponzi scheme. Not only was he wrong, he was one of the first of many Amazon naysayers. But for most of us, we've come to know Amazon as one of the only Internet mall concepts from the dot com era that came to fruition. Signal P&G reminded of some interesting Amazon facts and I've since seen more in the news.

• 80% better Amazon app store monetization for developers compared to iOS (TechCrunch)
• 54% of tablets run Amazon's version of Android to Google's 46% (All Things D)
• 10% of Amazon’s 2011 sales were Kindle readers, Kindle books; Kindle book sales outnumber hardback book sales (All Things D/NYTimes)
• 1% of ALL Internet traffic taps into Amazon’s Cloud (WIRED)

With more than 170 million active customers, keep in mind that's users actually spending money, Amzaon has the scale and ability to personalize the shopping experience. The end result gets users to spend and brands to advertise. Amazon taps into more than its fair share of the daily deals phenomenon that's estimated to generate $7 million every day. In addition to AmazonLocal, it owns LivingSocial. Amazon also leverages its personalization technology to create MyHabit.com. This “private sale” site and mobile app offers brand-specific promotions – tailored to each user.

Amazon Drives Offline Sales for Crest
It's not surprising P&G has experienced great success selling its consumer packaged goods (CPG) through Amazon. CPG is Amazon's fastest growing category -- making up four percent of Amazon’s 2011 sales. A Crest White Strips campaign gave the brand a 26 percent lift in its Amazon sales and even had an impact on offline sales. P&G's Amazon-based campaign increased offline sales an additional eight percent, or $1 million according to Lisa Utzschneider, Amazon's Global VP of Ad Sales .

And if the above all seem like random facts, consider this quote from Forrester Research's Sucharita Mulpuru "Amazon is beating Walmart in price." That six-word metric is reason enough why this brand should not be underestimated.

UPDATE: The New York Times has an article since this was published about how Amazon's moving into Fashion as well. And I forgot that Amazon also owns Zappos. Wow.

AOL’s Content Marketing Play
As the internet expands, consumers are actually using fewer brands, according to AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. This gives brands a new significance as AOL builds out what it feels will be the premier information brand.

"It’s unlikely a consumer will make a purchase decision, large or small, that is not influenced somehow by content," said Armstrong. "Consider the impact of always-on, mobile sites like Yelp. AOL’s ability to be a constant like Yelp gives it significant influence in helping consumers and brands through content."

Several of its recent aquisitions have made for dramatic news  between Huffington Post, Techcrunch and Endgadget alone. But these acquisitions are helping them build out their offering and fuels their mission to help more brands publish.

AOL gets local and personal
Successful or not, Patch and About.me are two other AOL projects that may be more telling of its future. Patch has been lambasted by old and new media. But Armstrong notes it is established in more than 850 towns nationwide. And each location costs about $150,ooo to run annually -- a cost unheard of for traditional news outlets. This local play could prove successful in the long term.

About.Me is elegant in its simplicity. This free splash page serves up your most relevant content, with free analytics. It's become a big people-watching site. And its new mobile app will allow you to be notified when your About.me friends are nearby offline. This might sound like stalking. But the bigger point to be made is AOL's wading into geo-location.

Armstrong is oft-mentioned in the media for all of the above AOL business moves. He is very focused, noting that AOL is focused on building things that help people live better lives. He warns others of the danger behind simply chasing the shiny new. "Cool is a disease. Utility is the antidote."

This focus is one reason I think AOL's story has yet to be written. As it completes its transition from access to content, there are a lot of interesting opportunities across paid, owned and earned media.

Nokia Life & Emerging Markets
While some are noting that "mobile is the most pervasive technology ever invented," there are 3.2 billion people on Earth without a mobile phone. Nokia's senior vp of mobile services, Dieter May, discussed how the brand is connecting and engaging "the next billion."

You'd never confuse Nokia for TOMS Shoes, but as Nokia enters emerging markets in China, India and Indonesia, it's partnering with Unicef to extend access to healthcare and other basic life needs through its $20-$100 handsets. Through Nokia Life the brand is bringing these customers a platform to address the gaps in critical, hyperlocal information.

Think Ecosystem
CNET's Brian Cooley kicked the day off discussing "the next big thing." When looking at various gadgets out there, CNET is always asked to predict the next big thing, but also who will win the race for gadget supremacy. CNET looks first for a product's digital ecosystem to determine how successful it might be in the future.

A digital ecosystem includes the device, a service, apps, as well as an operating system. Google has one. Apple has one. Verizon and Samsung have them. Amazon and Nokia do too.

All of these companies can provide its consumer with media that is in sync no matter where they use it, when they use it or even which device they use to access it. A digital ecosystem can make or break a gadget's success in the future. All that said, Cooley notes that even in a post-pc era, the PC will not go away. It simply won't be the center of attention. Cooley points to the connected car as the next frontier for the next big thing as we look to our cars' digital technology to communiicate, navigate, inform and entertain. 

"That's no moon."
Star Wars indirectly provides two examples of how we can make assumptions and by revisting these assumptions we can learn much more. When Yoda was first introduced, no one thought he could possibly be a Jedi warrior. As the story progresses, Yoda makes it clear that size doesn't matter. Even earlier in the saga, what was first assumed to be a small moon was actually the Death Star.

Sci-Fi aside, we should always remember t0 "shake the disease" and look for the bigger story.

 

 

The NOW Revolution: Seven Social Imperatives for Business

"The NOW Revolution" written by Jay Baer and Amber Naslund has received reviews from the likes of DuctTape Marketing’s John Jantsch, Chris Brogan and Seth Godin. It outlines how you can retool your organization to make real-time business work for you rather than against you.

"You Say You Want a Revolution..."
I got a copy of the book at SXSW earlier this year and really enjoyed it. It covers seven shifts that will help you make your company faster, smarter, and more social. The book includes a lot of bonus material (videos, pdfs, podcasts and links) accessible through Microsoft Tags located throughout the book.

Full case studies in each of the shifts, chronicle success stories from Moosejaw, ThinkGeek,Autodesk, Sweet Leaf Tea, Taylor Guitars, Boingo and Martell Homebuilders. The book also contains examples from 50 additional companies, most of them small and medium-sized businesses.

That's a lot of content.

Shift Happens
As their web site notes, "the book presents seven shifts that businesses need to make to adapt to the speed, expectations, and immediacy of the social web. It’s the operational guide to building and organizing a socially-equipped business, from people to process."

The shifts discussed in the book include:

1. Engineer a New Bedrock: Without a consistent, powerful corporate culture you can’t win in real-time. -- I'll add that regardless of how we start working with clients on social media, we usually wind up focusing on internal operations before the launch.
2. Find Talent You Can Trust: Moving fast requires empowering employees to make quick, smart decisions. That impacts HR and hiring. A lot. -- This also gets back to culture. If departments like IT, HR, Customer Service, Legal and Marketing can't talk to each other readily and easily, it's going to be a tough road to journey down.
3. Organize Your Armies: How social media and social participation are organized and managed internally. -- Process is critical to ease any issues folks might have in getting started.
4. Answer the New Telephone: The art, methods, and pay-offs of meaningful social listening. -- When passionate customers interact directly with brands for the first time, it has a big impact.
5. Emphasize Response-Ability: Responding to customer inquiries on the social Web, but also moving beyond that to creating your own stories and conversations. -- If a business has identified its Social Brand, it ensures content created will resonate with customers and start conversation.
6. Build a Fire Extinguisher: How to find, judge, and solve a social media crisis. -- As much as things change, they seem to stay the same. Companies still do not prepare proactively for communication crisis...online or offline.
7. Make a Calculator: The many ways you can measure social media, and how to select and utilize the most appropriate metrics for your company. -- This usually starts with the initial planning process. Instead of focusing on what (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or another social platform), focus on why. Why are you engaging in social media? Is it connected to business goals? Success metrics up front make it much easier to measure success once the program is launched.

Jay Baer on "The NOW Revolution"
On August 24th, Jay Baer will be in Cincinnati to discuss "The NOW Revolution" at Cincinnati Social Media's monthly meeting. It'll be great to learn more about his perspective behind the book and what he's learned since it was published. Fifth Third Bank is the event sponsor. If you're interested in attending the event, registration is online at Eventbrite.

Program or Be Programmed

Right now, I'm reading media futurist Douglas Rushkoff's latest book: "Program or Be Programmed."

Normally I'd do my established book report post on it once I'm done. But he does a better job presenting the concepts. And I'm not sure I could do it justice in a single post. It's such a great read however that I present you with two points from the book.

Social Media -- Lacking Up To 93 Percent of Human Communication
"According to best estimates, only seven percent of human communication occurs on the verbal level. Pitch, volume and other vocal tone account for 38 percent and body movements such as gestures and facial expression account for a whopping 55 percent. As we have all experienced, the way a person makes eye contact can mean a whole lot more to us than whatever he is saying."

Keep the above in mind when we talk about the difference between creating engaging content vs. just broadcasting. Broadcasting mindset assumes the job is done once the content has been distributed. Engagement understands content starts the conversation. Distributing it is, in many ways, just the beginning. And the above research reminds us why this is the case.

History Can Help Decode The Future (Again)
Rushkoff of course jumps in to the discussion of social media. In a very concise way he reminds us that historically the Internet has always been social -- even during its .gov Arpanet days.

"The history of the Internet can probably be best understood as a social medium repeatedly shaking off attempts to turn it into something else. >snip< Our digital networks are biased toward social connections -- toward contact. Any efforts to redefine or hijack those considerations for profit end up compromising the integrity of the network itself and compromising the real promise of contact." 

Take It Offline
Even if we don't think in marketing silos, far too often we neglect to consider the consumer's offline experience in relation to her online experience. So even if we break out of the silos we can fall into when we're "distributing messages," we need to remember "the real promise of contact." And, to be clear, I'm telling this to myself as much as I am to you. This is not finger-wagging pontification from high atop Mt. Typepad.

Cross-posted to my work blog. Image back story can be found here.

Lessons from “The Future of Non-Profits” | BOOK REPORT | 05.17.11

Open publication - Free publishing - More authors

Randall Moss asked me to review “The Future of Non-Profits” and I’m glad he did. While it’s specific to non-profits, some of the content can be applied to other organizations. In fact, the book is a practical guide with several resources to get readers started with innovation in their own organizations.

My abbreviated review for his promotional efforts:

It’s a must-read for anyone looking to go beyond the status quo and instigate sustainable change in an organization. Randall Moss and David Neff translate decades of hard-earned experience into an action-oriented book. The rapid rate of change brought by digital technology has rendered the word innovation a broadly-defined cliché. “The Future of Non-Profits” reclaims meaning for this word.

The book is organized into three sections to help readers build out a process around innovation within their own organizations:

• definitions and strategies,
• the three pillars of innovation (awareness, structure and staffing) and
• implementation and future considerations, including the future of fundraising and communications.

Throughout these sections it reinforces some important points that apply to more than just non-profits.

Innovation’s Not Just for R&D Labs: This isn’t news, but it’s important. Innovation doesn’t need to be cordoned off in a special location, away from the rest of the company. And it doesn’t have to equate to inventing the next QR Code or writing music that hasn’t been invented.

The Process of Innovation: Following a well-defined process can lead to more incremental innovations. This can have a greater impact on an organization over time and this approach can make innovation a sustainable process.

Entrepreneurs & Selling In To Your Organization: To me this is what gives the book some sharp teeth. It’s a realistic review of who you’ll need on your team to succeed, how to recruit them and how to innovate within the organization vs. innovating despite the organization.

Lead with Examples: The book serves up several cases throughout to show how much fundraising has changed. With Goodwill International on Twitter, American Cancer Society fundraising on Second Life and Susan G. Komen’s “Race For the Cure” attracting half a million “likes” on Facebook, even well-known non-profits are regularly changing their approach.

Advocacy, Action, Donation
While the above examples lend themselves to fundraising, organizations should evaluate whether or not social gaming, Twitter, Flickr, geotagging and even mobile apps might help their cause.

Change? Her Name is Constant
“Change is a constant” was first uttered in 535 BC by Heraclitus. Nearly 1,500 years later, this snowball keeps rolling down the slope, seemingly gaining speed.

As a result, innovation is no longer a nice to have. To live in a state of constant iteration and still GTD, books like “The Future of Non-Profits” need to rise to the top of your to do list.

2011 Trend: Changing State of Work

Gyro:HSR (my former employer) created a video to kick off their study of consumers experiencing the impact of technology as it eliminates the 9-5(ish) walls around their professional lives.

"I'm in @work State of Mind" 
With apologies to Mr. Joel, I think this trend has been brewing since 1997 when Daniel Pink chronicled "Free Agent Nation" in Fast Company magazine. The free agent workforce altered the conventional workplace.

In addition to changing roles, management styles are also changing and employees are responding more positively to intrinsic rewards than the traditional, extrinsic reward model. This topic is covered in Drive, once again by Daniel Pink.

Time Shifting 2.0?
The video above suggests that "despite all our rage we're still just rat's in a cage" -- or perhaps a wifi tether. Instead of having more leisure time, the technology is creating more work for consumers.

But I think there are exceptions to this rule. Some consumers, including many profiled in "Free Agent Nation" and Drive, choose the ability to dive in and out of work as warranted. In return, these consumers have the flexibility in when and where they work. It's a form of time shifting for corporate America. The work simply is no longer kept to a day tight compartment.

I'm not being naive when I use the term 9 to 5 and day tight compartment. But I do think work was already spilling outside of those boundaries before my iPhone brought it to me via its Retina display. 

This is an important distinction. As screenagers get older, an @work state of mind will become a seamless part of the multiscreen experience they're becoming known for now. And there will be give and take so they won't feel like work is increasing at the expense of leisure.

Social Media: It's Messy
This @work state of mind is definitely another facet of the "social media is messy" discussion. Facebook alone is forcing the separation of work and play issue as many consumers see their professional and personal lives overlapping online -- at many levels. Part of that is a privacy discussion perhaps. But it's interesting from a "business anthropology" standpoint.

As GyroHSR's Segal notes, the technology is definitely a primary driver. “The proliferation of network communications and hand-held devices has turned work from a place into a state of mind." It's another
consideration brands must take when engaging with brand participants.

In fact, 2011 will be one big year of convergence. MUCH more on that in my next post. :-)

Age of Conversation 3: It's Time to Get Busy

Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan's "Age of Conversation" project is about to publish a third book. "AOC3: It's Time to Get Busy" could be available as early as next month.

I'm proud to note I participated in this edition of the series. "From pitch to participate – a new model for social media relations" is my 400-word contribution. It joins 99 other submissions from the amazing line up of folks you see below. The book's authors are a great mix of leading social thinkers, marketers & creatives -- new and familiar voices.

All proceeds from the sale of the "Age of Conversation" books go to charity. Expect more news here as the book is published.

Adam Joseph	Priyanka Sachar	Mark Earls
Cory Coley-Christakos	Stefan Erschwendner	Paul Hebert
Jeff De Cagna	Thomas Clifford	Phil Gerbyshak
Jon Burg	Toby Bloomberg	Shambhu Neil Vineberg
Joseph Jaffe	Uwe Hook	Steve Roesler
Michael E. Rubin	anibal casso	Steve Woodruff
Steve Sponder	Becky Carroll	Tim Tyler
Chris Wilson	Beth Harte	Tinu Abayomi-Paul
Dan Schawbel	Carol Bodensteiner	Trey Pennington
David Weinfeld	Dan Sitter	Vanessa DiMauro
Ed Brenegar	David Zinger	Brett T. T. Macfarlane
Efrain Mendicuti	Deb Brown	Brian Reich
Gaurav Mishra	Dennis Deery	C.B. Whittemore
Gordon Whitehead	Heather Rast	Cam Beck
Hajj E. Flemings	Joan Endicott	Cathryn Hrudicka
Jeroen Verkroost	Karen D. Swim	Christopher Morris
Joe Pulizzi	Leah Otto	Corentin Monot
Karalee Evans	Leigh Durst	David Berkowitz
Kevin Jessop	Lesley Lambert	Duane Brown
Peter Korchnak	Mark Price	Dustin Jacobsen
Piet Wulleman	Mike Maddaloni	Ernie Mosteller
Scott Townsend	Nick Burcher	Frank Stiefler
Steve Olenski	Rich Nadworny	John Rosen
Tim Jackson	Suzanne Hull	Len Kendall
Amber Naslund	Wayne Buckhanan	Mark McGuinness
Caroline Melberg	Andy Drish	Oleksandr Skorokhod
Claire Grinton	Angela Maiers	Paul Williams
Gary Cohen	Armando Alves	Sam Ismail
Gautam Ramdurai	B.J. Smith	Tamera Kremer
Eaon Pritchard	Brendan Tripp	Adelino de Almeida
Jacob Morgan	Casey Hibbard	Andy Hunter
Julian Cole	Debra Helwig	Anjali Ramachandran
Jye Smith	Drew McLellan	Craig Wilson
Karin Hermans	Emily Reed	David Petherick
Katie Harris	Gavin Heaton	Dennis Price
Mark Levy	George Jenkins	Doug Mitchell
Mark W. Schaefer	Helge Tenno	Douglas Hanna
Marshall Sponder	James Stevens	Ian Lurie
Ryan Hanser	Jenny Meade	Jeff Larche
Sacha Tueni and Katherine Maher	David Svet	Jessica Hagy
Simon Payn	Joanne Austin-Olsen	Mark Avnet
Stanley Johnson	Marilyn Pratt	Mark Hancock
Steve Kellogg	Michelle Beckham-Corbin	Michelle Chmielewski
Amy Mengel	Veronique Rabuteau	Peter Komendowski
Andrea Vascellari	Timothy L Johnson	Phil Osborne
Beth Wampler	Amy Jussel	Rick Liebling
Eric Brody	Arun Rajagopal	Dr Letitia Wright
Hugh de Winton	David Koopmans	Aki Spicer
Jeff Wallace	Don Frederiksen	Charles Sipe
Katie McIntyre	James G Lindberg & Sandra Renshaw	David Reich
Lynae Johnson	Jasmin Tragas	Deborah Chaddock Brown
Mike O'Toole	Jeanne Dininni	Iqbal Mohammed
Morriss M. Partee	Katie Chatfield	Jeff Cutler
Pete Jones	Riku Vassinen	Jeff Garrison
Kevin Dugan	Tiphereth Gloria	Mike Sansone
Lori Magno	Valerie Simon	Nettie Hartsock
Mark Goren		Peter Salvitti

Ignore Everybody | BOOK REPORT | 08.25.09

If I had to sum up Hugh MacLeod’s first book as a Twitter post, it would be “to thine own (creative) self be true.”

MacLeod sums it up a bit differently in his final chapter: “Work hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Create your own luck. Be nice. Be polite.”

Not Your Father’s Business Book
MacLeod’s 40-chapter creative manifesto is a quick, inspiring read -- peppered with salty language.

This is only worth mentioning due to the rare cussing in business books. But in fact it reinforces a point the book makes about “drawing a line between what you are willing to do and what you are not willing to do” and the cost of commercial success.

How do you maintain the authority to draw that line? This answer involves one of my favorite parts of the book, “the sex and cash theory.” Creative folks have a job to pay the bills and a job that is sexy and their true passion.

Another interesting piece from the book discusses how once your creative idea starts to take root and get momentum people join your cause. Do they understand the idea and agree with it or do they just want to share in the momentum? If it’s the latter your cause could derail. I'll note that hangers on like to steer the train.

Ignore Everybody and 39 other Keys to Creativity
Both of the above examples make a point that this book is applicable to a wide swath of folks that are creative, consider themselves creative and want to be (more) creative. There’s some good stuff in this book and worth picking up a copy.

Pay It Forward
This book landed in my hands thanks to the generosity of David E. Bowman. So I thought it only fair to also pass it along in the hopes we can keep it travelling. I’m sending it North to Colin McKay, also known as Canuckflack.

Meanwhile at The Bad Pitch Blog…

While Summer Hours are in effect, Richard Laermer and I are getting ready to do a Bad Pitch blog teleseminar to help folks with their media relations skills.

The pitches seem to be getting worse vs. getting better as they become the story. Personally I’m blaming the misuse of tools vs. the tools themselves.

Learn more about Bad Pitch Night School (during the day) at Crappy PR.

We have 10 free scholarships we’re giving out to some folks between jobs as well as some students (who I guess are before jobs). And every single registrant gets a free copy of the “Full Frontal PR” e-book. So it’s a pretty good deal.

If you’re interested, make sure you register in time for the Wednesday, June 29^th event. It’s from 1-2pm edt. And I should probably note you can follow the Bad Pitch blog on Twitter. Cause all the cool kids are doing it. Well, the older kids anyway.

Satisfied Customer Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000 | BOOK REPORT | 01.03.09

Pete Blackshaw is a tireless evangelist detailing the power shift between company and consumer.

In the early 90s, Blackshaw began tapping into new technologies to increase the level of consumer engagement while working in the California legislature. From there he began to see the shift that inspired him to found Planet Feedback in 1999.

In his book, “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000,” Blackshaw offers left-brained insight into doing more than simply reacting to the power of word or mouth, the changing consumer and the quickly evolving social media landscape.

Conversation Must Be Earned
What I enjoyed most about this book is that Blackshaw makes it clear that there are no short cuts to being transparent, authentic and having a solid product and customer support system.

“Business is no longer in control. The relationship between a company and empowered consumers must be built on two-way communication and mutual respect.”

WOM How-To Manual
The book outlines several tools readers can use to organize themselves for this new relationship with the customer.

Credibility Quadrant: This tool serves as a gut check, telling companies if they’re prepared to actively participate in social media.

Indexed Searches: Blackshaw walks readers through creating indexed searches on several sites to track conversations around relevant keywords and issues.

Troubleshooting Playbook: Are you prepared to defend and protect your brand in a time of crisis? Blackshaw briefly outlines the steps to do so, including listening, identifying an issue and responding to it.

Know thy Customer
One of my favorite ideas Blackshaw provides is fleshing out customer profiles to determine if they are an online influencer. Threadless does a great job of this. Threadless knows I’m not spending a ton of money on their t-shirts…not as much as I would like anyway. But they also know I have an online presence. Done gracefully, companies could create expanded customer profiles and rely on influencers to help spread the word about important brand news or issues. Any company with e-commerce capabilities could easily create these profiles in short order and help inspire word of mouth about their brand.

Bottom Line
This book is designed to help marketers get what they’ve wanted all these years -- a better relationship with their customers. Pete Blackshaw’s left brain approach to the fuzzy, “2.0 social realm” makes for a helpful read for anyone trying to connect social and metrics.

050905.wom_n uploaded by Tom Fishburne
tags | public relations | PR | advertising | marketing | consumer-generated media | brand | Pete Blackshaw