We recently conducted a series of polls on LinkedIn to determine how professionals read news.  You can download the full report here.  The key findings showed that while news sites continued to dominate, search engines and aggregators were a major source of news.  On the mobile side, news specific mobile applications (such as the WSJ app on the iPhone) were even more important than a mobile web browser.    Our bottom line finding, based on these polls and third part research such as Hitwise’s list of top news web sites (which found both news sites and search engines in the top ten), is that major news sites along with search engines and aggregators still need to lead the way in distributing information.  Social media then provides a measurement of how well the news was received as well as an amplification effect.  Key findings included the following:

No social media decision should be led with tool selection. Companies need to first consider their corporate objectives, then determine where their customers, partners and competitors are, and also consider how such use of tools ties to the corporate culture

This was based on the results of companies taking a survey on their agency’s performance.  The quote was, in part, the result of companies not seeing their agencies as looking at the broader universe of media to make sure they were targeting the right places for he audience (and not just what is hot…like Twitter).

Agencies should be focused on working with a company to determine what their desired reputation is, determine the business actions that need to be taken to deserve that reputation, and then effectively communicate both the strategic reputation goals of the company  and the business actions that back up those goals.   Only in the last part should social media tools be considered (and used if research says its the right way to go.

But maybe the agencies are doing the right job.  The ZDNet writer has now posted a survey for agencies.  I took it and am looking forward to seeing the results.  You can find it at http://blogs.zdnet.com/feeds/?p=605.

While I’m out there every day talking about the importance of social media, I’m doing so by first discussing how to determine if and how your company needs to engage in social media activities.  The world is more complex than simply saying you must do it.  Just as not every company needs to be engaging broadcast media, not every company needs to engage in social media. 

A core example is using social media to listen to the customer.  Easily said but not always clear how to implement.  Apple vs. Dell is a high profile case in point. 

Apple is not known for designing products based on customer feedback; they are good at designing what they believe customers will love.  And while they do talk to and listen to blogs, they do not seem to rely on them to make business changes.  In fact, they’ve sued blogs that leaked secrets (something many other companies are wary of doing) and loud blog complaints often fall on deaf ears (e.g., battery replacement issues).

Dell, on the other hand, had a worsening reputation for PC design, quality and customer service.  They’ve been using social media, blog outreach and other forms of social media driven customer communications to gain a reputation as a company that is listening to customers and improving based on what they hear.  So instead of simply coming our with product and process improvements (a la Apple), they are showing how they listen first and will then, hopefully, execute.

Two companies, same industry, similar customer base, very different approaches.    Bottom line: always seriously consider and pursue a social media strategy but first make sure it’s the right one for your company.

For those that haven’t read about it, AT&T announced something that has been available for years (I’ve been a sim-only subscriber since it was Omnipoint in 1997).  But they announced it as a new service that requires a two-year contract (the contract part was then retracted).  It was the press angle – this is a new service – that led to a lot of technology media and enthusiasts to laugh in their articles and blogs.

And it’s not the first time.  Last year, USA Today wrote a rather large story on AT&T opening it’s network.   Again, AT&T’s network was always open by definition (they use a technology that doesn’t restrict what phone you can use).  That time, the technology crowd not only looked at AT&T funny, but USA Today as well.  Check it out here and here.

Reputation Cost with a core public and reporters

The potential reputation cost? Credibility with reporters who will now have to double check everything they hear from AT&T.  And the reputation cost for consumers? The early adopter consumers, who are also some of the most influential word of mouth consumers, will have a skepticism alert go off when they hear about a deal from AT&T. 

What they  should have done – announced it was being supported but always open (and years ahead of Verizon in that sense)

What should they have done? Instead of saying open networks or sim-only service was new, say it is now official policy that will be supported by marketing and customer service.  Perhaps this would have cost them some press in the short run (but maybe not as even support for their open network is a first), but it would have also killed the negative backlash.   Now, every time they mention these open network offerings they risk being targeted by the same media and blogs that caught them during the announcement.  In the long run, they likely would have gotten more attention with a far more positive tone. 

Who’s on AT&T’s staff or focus group?

One other suggestion is for AT&T marketing and PR to make sure they either have enthusiasts on staff or as an ongoing focus group.  That can help them catch these mistakes and better position these offerings for the market.

Here are some links to read through how it played out.

Sim deal announced here at phonemag.com and at Engadget.

Mistake caught (retraction of 2-year contract requirement) http://gigaom.com/2008/01/22/att-says-sim-contract-fiasco-a-mistake/

Again Oops – http://mobhappy.com/blog1/2008/01/22/at-no-need-for-a-contract/

This is more of a shift of focus than a switch.  Since the Web exploded, communications professionals – from PR to advertising – have been focused on driving to traffic to destinations.  This was true whether it was for informational purposes (such as in PR or branding programs) or for sales.   This is like focusing marketing on getting people to go to a store just to learn about the product instead of teaching them through the magazines they read and the TV shows they watch.  It can be a lot of effort for relatively little return. 

Now efforts are shifting to distributing branded or messaging carrying content.  The focus is moving to getting information to all the appropriate places where consumers congregate.  Go where the consumers are, put information in the context that they, and the community in which they congregate, naturally appreciate. 

The three main drivers of this shift – social networking, Web video video and personal portals like Netvibes of My Yahoo that are driven by RSS feed – have gained an enormous amount of momentum the last few years.  However, marketers have only experimented with these sites and remained focus on driving traffic to proprietary sites. 

Ad budgets will focus on driving traffic to third part sites.  We already see micro-versions of this with Facebook ads driving users to branded Facebook pages.  Next we might see a Yahoo based ad driving a user to a branded video channel on Heavy.com or section of Dailymotion (disclosure: a client).

But a careful balance will have to be sought.  Advertisers will still want to capture that traffic and not simply invest to build up traffic to someone else site.  I would not be surprised to see some third party sites make it easier for advertisers to register users on those sites.

A study by Simmons found that consumers are 47% more engaged by online TV viewing than by watching on a TV set.  You can read the article to learn more about the study itself but I think the article needs some context as it is comparing apples to oranges – in other words, you can’t compare television to online video…at least just yet.  When I watch an ad on Hulu it’s one ad per show, one break, and often has high relevance to the content I’m watching.    When I watch an ad on Heavy, Break.com or Dailymotion (disclosure: Dailymotion is a client), fewer ads are often directly relevant to the content, increasing engagement.  In other words, TV has lousy engagement but broad reach.  Video can have terrific engagement, but lousy reach.  

However, this is all likely to change.  Online video can afford the experimentation at this early growth stage.  Television, being a more mature and far broader audience medium (as of today) has to be more conservative – mistakes due to experimentation made on TV will be of a far larger scale than mistakes online.

At some point, the lessons learned online make their way to television due to innovation in technology and advertising formats.  Until then, it’s worth keeping in mind the differences both in their capabilities and uses while also looking at how we may see online lessons make their way to television.

All this is about the future, not the present.  While a lot of people watch online video, it’s only a fraction of those watching TV (essentially, everyone).  So if you’re looking to reach those demographics watching online video the above points are critical.  Otherwise, it’s going to be a bit longer before online video marketing has the same reach as television based marketing.  Of course, at that point we may be watching all that content on our television.

Go online and search for baby safety products and what will you see?  A lot of ads for the sale of baby good products and a few for information on those products.  According to the data, people are more likely to 1) search when they are about to purchase products; and 2) click on the information links as opposed to the sales oriented links.

Marketing and public relations teams interested in leveraging this behavior should be conducting a few checks on their search engine strategy:

1. Is information oriented content being optimized in a way that complements the sales oriented information (good)? Or is the sales oriented information taking the priority (bad)?
2. Are keyword advertisements being placed for both information as well as sales oriented literature?  The Comscore information indicates people may be more likely to click on the information ad over the sales ad.
3. Is the information content being looked at from purely a marketing point of view (usually meaning mostly company literature)?  Or is it being looked at from a public relations point of view (third party testimony, links to other third party blogs, discussion groups etc)?
4. Are media results being leveraged in terms of reprints and links appearing on the site?  This can raise the value of media results exponentially over the value of the initial placement (as more people can view it through your site than might have seen it on the publication date).

This is just a few starting points but asking these questions should highlight if and how a company is either capturing or missing those many eyeballs (and lucrative ones, according to Comscore) looking for pre-purchase product information.

I’ve been testing out flyers and here’s what I found:

1. They have the potential of targeting very specific interest groups.  Right now, you can either target everyone or university campuses.  If they take the university targeting capability and expand it to any Facegroup group, it would allow professionals to identify groups of individuals with appropriate interest, and post flyers (communicate messages) to those groups.
2. General flyers or flyers targeted to other groups can be used to build membership in new groups.  Direct to audience communications programs, such as ambassador programs, can form groups in Facebook then use Flyers to recruit (right now you can just invite people in).  Here is a group for mobile gadget users that I’m testing now: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5852073717
3. If Facebook’s approach takes off, then maybe other social networks will implement similar tools, making it easier for communications professionals to identify specific audiences and deliver messages only to those audiences.

Take a test drive at http://www.facebook.com/flyers.php.  This is the basic version.  There is also a new pay-per-click version.

And please feel free to contact me with any questions at cohen AT fortexgroup.com

The many different types of audiences, forms of social media and various online outreach programs are commonly grouped into three categories: formal influentials, activisit consumers, the general audience.

In all the cases below, the public relations and communications professionals reaching these audiences share several critical areas of knowledge and expertise: knowledge of online communications features (e.g., mobile blogging), an understanding of how to communicate with others online, and a belief in transparency and conversation.

Formal Influentials

Formal influentials are the people whose job it is to get  information out to the public, whether it is a business, government or consumer public.  These influentials are commonly traditional reporters now publishing online, professional bloggers, and industry analysts. 

Reaching this audience is primarily a a job of public relations professionals.  It is becoming more common for media relations experts, people whose job it is to know how to work with journalists and analysts, to upgrade their skills in order to communicate with these influentials online.

Acitivist Consumers

Activist consumers are like formal influentials with day jobs.  It is not unusual for activist consumers to have similar expertise and even comparable audiences to the first category.  For example, an activist consumer technology blogger with an engineering expertise and several thousand readers a day.    More commonly, these are those friends and family members that tend to dive deeper into a particular topic – from consumer technology to gardening to politics.  They read or maintain blogs on particular topics, post comments and participate in online forums.

This audience can, and should, be reached by both public relations and marketing executives.  On the public relations side, what I call social media relations experts reach out to this influential audiences.  These experts are professionals that know the rules of social media, understand how to communicate online and are often former or current formal influentials, usually bloggers, themselves.   On the marketing front, this audience is often reached through highly targeted sponsorships, events and viral campaigns. 

Consumers/General Audiences

And then there is everyone else.  Although “social” media has a high profile these days, the average consumer simply digests information online from traditional news sites and the most popular blogs and, when needed, forums.  They communicate via email, social networks and mobile services mainly around social needs.  

While they are influenced both by formal influentials and activist consumers, they are still more broadly reached through formal influencers – mass media.  They are also reachable through online advertising (e.g., pay per click and sponsorships) as well as viral marketing campaigns.  The most comprehensive public relations and communications programs use all techniques – from activist consumers to mass media to viral marketing – to reach this audience.

1) For public relatoins executives, this is a post we should put into program proposals.  Google ads are a great way to deliver public relations messages to targeted audiences (in this case, people interested in health care issues).  However, most of the ads sales are sales focused messages.   Here we have Google’s ad division reminding corporate communications departments that the Google ad network is a terrific online message distribution tool.  I believe it is, but don’t see enough media industry executives backing up that notion.  It’s good to see Google point out that PPC ads are not simply for measuring ad-sales click through rates.  Here’s what Lauren wrote:

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?

We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.

2 Lauren gave us a perfect exmaple of why executives must pay attention to the corporate messages.  In this case, the advertising executive should know that their job is to advocate for Google as a way to deliver messages, not to advocate for the message itself.   The message Lauren posted would have been more effective if it was about the effectiveness of Google’s network for reaching a broad audience concerned with health care issues.  Instead, the message was Google is an effective network for companies interested in maintaining the status quo of the American health system (and possibly that Google has a strong anti-national healthcare stance).  As it seems Lauren found out, she has every right to provide her opinion on Sicko as an individual, but when speaking for the company, as anyone does when writing on a company blog, her job is, in fact, to communicate the corporate message (do no evil…so be careful around any movie that has a central message of providing healthcare for everyone).   It is what any public executive is hired to do. 

3. In general, this blog is a great example of using blogs for B2B marketing.  It’s a running dialogue on how companies in the health industry can most effectively use the Google ad network.  If I’m a health marketing executive, this is one I would watch.  Another good example is Google’s packaged goods blog at http://google-cpg.blogspot.com/) which most recently discusses the advantage of buying radio ads through Google  (I love it as I find Google’s ad buying portal very easy to use and would recommend it for clients needing to make local radio buys).

For those of you interested in reading more about what Lauren wrote, here are some links of interest:

http://searchengineland.com/070701-193852.php

http://www.thebloggingjournalist.com/2007/07/googles-lauren-.html

http://blog.insiderchatter.com/2007/07/02/why-google-health-is-sick-o-2-trillion-medical-target/

http://www.articlesnatch.com/blog/2007/07/02/google-health-ads-blog-backs-off-sicko/ 

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/google-takes-on-michael-moore/

Update:

Google’s marketing executive clarifies Google’s more populist friendly health message.