More Good stuff on Social Media PR

I spotted several excellent posts over the past day or so.  Business Pundit blogged about Understanding the Stochastic Success of Social Media Tactics (Sounds kind of geeky, I remember the term "Stochastic Processes" from my years in engineering school).

At any rate, the post echoes some of the things I said about the challenges of predicting hits and the success of viral campaigns in my post Welcome to the New, User generated Non Stop Media Whipsaw (although I came at  the topic from the angle of emergent behaviors). 

It takes the idea a step further by offering specific recommendations about how to plan and budget for social media campaigns, and what kind of results (or likely lack thereof) to expect.

 

Greg Verdino outlines some basic ideas for using social media tools and engaging online communities in his post SMPR to the power of 7 squared.  There is even a downloadable, annotated presentation in PDF format, 7 Principles for Successful Influencer Outreach. 

 

Lest I be accused of being PR myopic, I reference a post below that takes the journalist's perspective:  On MediaShift IdeaLab, Jay Rosen's post Thirteen Beat Reporters to Build Social Networks documents an interesting experiment:

My idea was to run parallel experiments to see whether "beat reporting with a social network" is a viable pro-am method in journalism-- or just an attractive concept.

I said I was trying to recruit at least 12 beat reporters and get their editors on board with a simple proposition...

Maybe a beat reporter could do a way better job if there was a "live" social network connected to the beat, made up of people who know the territory the beat covers, and want the reporting on that beat to be better.

I felt the only way to find out was to try it for a year, with different beats in different locales and different editorial settings. Now I'm back to announce that twelve beat reporters--and their editors, plus the bosses above them--have agreed to do just that.

He lists the journalists, and their publications and their beats, and continues:

You can follow their progress over the coming year at beatblogging.org, the compendium site that is also launching today. David Cohn of NewAssignment.Net will edit it.

It sounds like an interesting approach, and just goes to show that journalists  like the rest of us - regardless of profession - are gravitating to social networks.  I'll be writing more on this tomorrow.

Comments

[Jay Rosen]

Thanks for the mention, Bob.

The part that might be most interesting from a PR point of view:

Keith Reed, staff writer for the Enquirer, is moving to Cincinnati from the Boston Globe to cover Procter & Gamble, a local powerhouse and one of the largest consumer products companies in the world. He’s going to build the social network approach in from the start of his beat, and also use the network to introduce himself to Cincinnati. “P & G’s reach in this region is broad and deep,” writes business editor Carolyn Pione. “Their business hits our economy on many levels, from vendor relationships to shareholders, former employees who are now entrepreneurs, retirees volunteering in the community, spin-off industries and community development organizations.”

I do wonder if the Flacks's at P & G, or the agency they use, have even noticed this yet; and if they have, whether they understand it.

[Bob Geller]

Thanks for commenting Jay.
Agreed, the PR field has been regrettably slow to wake up to the changing nature of the media and communications, and most of our focus when this does get our attention seems to be on reaching bloggers.

It will be real interesting to watch your project as it unfolds.