Flack's Revenge

The Rise of the Influencer in Online PR

As I said in a recent post, online or social media PR presents a kind of  topsy turvy world (see All Online PR is Local).

In addition to the examples I pointed out - the rise in perceived value of online coverage and the lessening of importance of geography or media brands - the emergence and rapid rise of social networks over the past couple of years has significant implications for online marketing.  Where Google had been the über media brand (see my post A Publication of One), social networks and micro blogs (especially Twitter) are changing the nature of influence. 

Suddenly these destinations are emerging as major drivers of traffic and builders of link equity, and it is not just the Google search engine results page that reigns supreme.

In line with these trends we are seeing the rise of the online influencer.  Not too long ago the audiences that we wanted to connect with were passive readers, viewers and listeners.  Further, to reach these audiences we needed to first persuade the media that our stories were newsworthy.

Flash forward to the present.  Blogs, wikis and social networks now enable new ways of communicating, and have spawned new communities and influencers.  Consumers are becoming increasingly vocal through various types of social media.

Journalists are building their personal brands (some, reluctantly so, see the NY Times article Putting Yourself out There on  a Shelf to Buy) as traditional media retrenches.  The blogosphere and Twitter have spawned new and important voices.

These changes are having a profound impact on how people get their information and make decisions. 

What do these changes mean for the tech PR professional?  I'll be exploring this topic more in the coming days

Twitter and Facebook as Attention Labs

Social networking and micro-blogging offer are an immediacy that cannot be rivaled by blogs.   E.g., Twitter forces you to frame your thoughts in 140 characters or less.  It is all about NOW.  Similarly, your Facebook status needs to be updated pretty regularly for anyone to care.

Tweets are much more ephemeral than blog posts.  You need to find a way to pay attention or you will miss them (tools like TweetDeck and Twhirl can help you manage Twitter streams). And, unlike blogs, repeating thoughts verbatim - your own, or of others via retweets - is not frowned upon.

With Facebook updates and Twitter you know very quickly if your missives strike a nerve or not.

It can be a real rush, to post an update and have it resonate across your networks and see what people respond to.

On the other hand, perhaps they are not responding.  You may have too few followers and need to work on building your networks.  Or, maybe you are not posting things that are interesting, or writing in a way that grabs attention. 

On that last point, it helps to think in terms of headline writing, or writing subject lines for emails that draw responses, and applying some of the same principles (see my post Writing Headlines that POP!)

You can also watch what others are posting and responding to and take note.   What tweets grab your attention?  Which ones drive hordes of replies and retweets?  What Facebook updates cause many to write on the person's wall?

That is why these forums are great labs for attention, and for sharpening your skills.   If you are in the communications business, as I am, it is good to study these things.

One quick anecdote, I had an amusing exchange with my sister on Facebook.  She poked fun at one of my updates, and then my sister in-law chimed in.  I replied through wall-to-wall exchanges that I would change my status because the whole thing was getting irritating.

My sister chimed in "don't change, we love the gregarious Bob!"  I honestly had no idea how many people were watching my Facebook updates or wall.  So I was a little surprised when people I ran into in different walks of life shortly thereafter - family, friends, colleagues - started calling me Gregarious Bob.

Eerie and wild, this world of blogging, micro-blogging social networking.  It is a little like being a kid in a candy store if you work in communications.  

All Online PR is local

Social media presents traditional PR folks with a topsy turvy kind of world.

Web hits used to be dismissed as cheap and less impressive than "real ink" on a printed page.  Similarly, local media results were often looked down upon when compared with national and international coverage.

These days it is the Web hit that many prefer.   It is not just the publication that counts of course, but getting into Google's index, and living there for future reference.   At the same time, coverage in local publications can often be the drivers of online conversations outside the area and rise to the surface for certain search terms.

I thought of this while reading an article in the Sunday NY Times (These Days, No Reporting Behind a Nation's Back) which covered the changing nature of the foreign correspondent's audience:

It is a momentous, overlooked shift in the world: Foreign correspondents no longer cover one place for the exclusive benefit of readers somewhere else.  In the Internet age, we cover each place for the benefit of all places...

Also, targeting your audiences takes on a different meaning in the online world.   E.g., during a new business pitch last week the client talked about the importance of the channel to their sales efforts.

In tech PR, communicating with the channel used to mean campaigns and content tailored for and targeted to the publications that are read by system integrators, distributors and VARs.  There aren't many of these left. 

I pointed out that today it all comes together online.  You don't necessarily need special materials or campaigns targeted to the channel.  We can now communicate directly with a range of audiences over the Web, including the channel.  Sure, you can do a channel announcement and send it out, but channel folks can also of course have access to other materials about you - materials you generate or otherwise.

So getting through to resellers takes on a different shape.  It can mean optimizing your content for placement in search engines and social media based on the tech key words that the resellers care about, the vendors and trends they are following, and by making sure you are publishing materials that hit the hot buttons of your channel.

This brings up another important point.

Since the Web can be a great big meat grinder for all your content, it is important to periodically take the pulse of your brand in terms of how people might see it online.

I'll be blogging more about this topic in the coming days.

The Changing Nature of Web Influence

I have been thinking for some time that the Social Web is driving some pretty radical changes in how we consider and measure Web influence. 

At a basic level, I think we need to distinguish between traditional measures of Web reach and activity and measures that connote authority.  Apart from measurement, it is clear that the nature of influence is changing.   This should be a big deal for you, especially if you are in tech PR .   You are late to the game if you are only waking up to this now as the tech crowd were early adopters in social media and continue to push the envelope.

Blogs, micro blogs and social networks have spawned new communities and influencers.  The technology user is becoming increasingly vocal through various types of social media.  These changes are having a profound effect on how people get their information and make decisions.

Just this week, we learned a number of things:

On Micro Persuasion, Steve Rubel blogged that Twitter search traffic is poised to eclipse Google blog search traffic.  He includes some nice charts and data and said:

The search engine landscape is quietly under going a major revolution. There are two major forces at work here: our growing hunger for real-time information and the coming convergence of search and social networking. The latter adds a much needed layer of trust to traditional search that helps us qualify sources.

Earlier this week my good friend and Handshake 2.0 blogger Anne Giles Clelland pointed out the Washington Post article (TechCrunch/Brian Solis byline), which posed the question: Are Blogs Losing their Authority to the Statusphere?  It discusses the waning influence of blogs (as measured by Technorati, for example) and discusses why this might be:

It goes back to the definition of authority. Links from blogs are no longer the only measurable game in town. Potentially valuable linkbacks are increasingly shared in micro communities and social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed and they are detouring attention and time away from formal blog responses.

Finally, on the Between the Lines ZDnet blog, Sam Diaz posted the results of a poll about the implications that the growth of Facebook and Twitter referrals compared to Google has for marketing dollars, and wrote:

Armed with data from Hitwise, a Web analysis firm, Advertising Age noted that Facebook is starting to generate more traffic than Google search for some larger Web sites - a shift that could impact the distribution of marketing dollars and campaigns as the “social Web” continues to disrupt more traditional Web surfing habits... companies large and small - and the marketing/advertising/PR firms that represent them - should take note. It’s no longer enough to just have a Web site and expect that potential customers will find you. The companies that participate in social media and understand how it’s changed the way people communicate, interact and share information with each other are the companies that will form long-lasting relationships with customers.

Clearly, seismic shifts in Web influence are taking place and PR folks and marketers need to understand what this means and plan accordingly.

The New Transparency: When Communications Worlds Collide

 

They say we are supposed to have "naked conversations" with the marketplace.  Just let it all hang out.   Use blogs and an army of communicators to channel the wonderful aspects of your company.

 

This is what we call transparency, and putting a human face on the affair we call The Enterprise.

 

It is what this day and age of social media has handed us; the current state of things for better or worse.  Not necessarily good or bad in its own right, the new realities present both threats and opportunities.  Those who realize this and are smart will take advantage of the opportunities and mitigate the threats.

 

Where does this leave the people charged with defending The Enterprise and communicating its messages?  Does it expose fault lines and aggravate the tensions that have existed between the legal and PR sides?  

 

Social media savvy PR folks who want to go along for the ride need to do so with the full knowledge that they might be jeopardizing their corporate patrons in the process.   Legal folks charged with protecting The Enterprise and keeping it viable are probably not getting too caught up with or concerned about naked conversations.

 

I have decried prepared statements and PR Speak.  Lately I have begun to realize that in the real world sometimes both are necessary.  As much we are all being encouraged to blog, micro-blog and share our lives on social networks, the elephant in the room is the understanding that there are things we'd all rather not share.

 

Trade secrets, for starters, are of course off limits, just ask Apple and their lawyers.

 
Some have suggested staying away from anything that you would not want your friends, family current or potential employers to see.

As another example, some have proposed Micro PR - pitching out in the open, e.g.via Twitter - as a way to use transparency to reduce pitch spam.  Is this really a realistic model?  What is the gainsay in offering the same access to information that everyone else has?

 

Don't those who have rightfully earned the badge of influencer also deserve the right to private conversations and sometimes a heads up about privileged information?

 

There needs to be balance between naked conversations and private ones, the savvy PR people will understand the value of their information and what the market for it is - who should be most interested - and take it to these people, and not necessarily offer it up hat in hand in the public square.

From Pimping Data Centers to Tidying This Old Glass House: New Language in Tech Marketing

Last week the Sunday NY Times Real Estate section ran a story Adjectives get Evicted, which described how the language is changing in real estate based on the economic climate:

Not only are there fewer buyers today, but they are more apt to have a yard sale attitude, demanding sharp discounts on top of reduced prices... The new propriety frowns at luxury, lifestyle and the fetishistic focus on designer brands... Instead, brokers say they are trying to recast their listings in terns of responsible spending, comfort, and most especially, value.

CFO Magazine covered the fact that it is now a buyer's market in IT, in the article Have they Got a Deal for You.

So perhaps we can draw an analogy between what is happening is housing (and more broadly, the economy) and the state of marketing related to the glass house, or data center and other IT technologies. 

I blogged last November (A New Mood in Tech PR) that tech marketers need to revise their messages in line with the tenor of the day.

Tricking out lavish new data centers is out, making the most out of your current IT assets, in.

The focus is no longer on pushing the envelope, it is now on protecting what you have and cutting costs.

Protecting data and applications is Job 1, ambitious development projects with no immediate benefit are out.

Power saving and green is in.

Soft benefits are out, and so are nice-to-haves that might seem extravagant like scalability and speed for the sake of scalability and speed.

As we move from the data center to the front office, news articles have been looking askance at Web 2.0 plays that have no apparent business model or hard benefits for enterprise users.  Now is a great time for companies in this space to be focusing on cases that do show hard benefits like increased sales and customer satisfaction, and emphasizing these attributes in their messages. 

Goodbye To a Master of Attention and Story Telling

He launched his career based on advice from a high school teacher.

He pioneered innovative techniques for delivering information and capturing attention.  He was a master at crafting stories that hit home with people.   He devised a novel method and format for delivering his stories.

People programmed their electronic devices to follow his musings, and eagerly consumed his wireless missives.  Over time he became a source of information that we valued and his "traffic" grew tremendously.

Was this some Internet pioneer?  A Web 2.0 Savant?

No, in this case the electronic devices were radios.  The "traffic" was listeners, and over the years many people got to know and love this person's gravelly voice.

His staccato delivery and novel story format - in which he presented interesting facts about a famous personality and only revealed the actual name at the end - compelled people to stop whatever else they were doing and listen until he delivered his surprise ending.

This person I am talking about of course is radio pioneer Paul Harvey, who we unfortunately lost over the weekend, after a long and stellar career.

And now you know the rest of the story!

Goodbye, Paul, we will miss you.