Before the Internet, before online chat rooms or social media sites, when we died we left behind some old letters, photo albums and perhaps a will leaving our valuables to family and friends. Today it is possible to leave behind much more. Recent articles have examined digital legacies, specifically what happens to our emails, photos, saved documents, downloads (e.g., music, movies, games), social media sites, etc. when we die? If they are part of the World Wide Web are they “property” that can be passed on to family or friends? A Social Times article by Megan O’Neill (2012) stated that:
“On average we will share 415 pieces of content on Facebook each year; we’ll spend an average of about 23 minutes a day on Twitter, tweeting a total of around 15,795 tweets; we’ll check in 563 times on Foursquare, upload 196 hours of video on YouTube, and send countless emails. But have you ever stopped to think about what happens to all that content when you die?”
Sites like legacylocker.com and help individuals create “digital wills” that give family and/or friends access to your digital assets. In addition, should you want to utilize your social media sites to “have the last word” you can use sites like deadsocial.org or ifidie.net. These sites allow you to save and time out messages to post automatically to your social media pages for years after you die. You can record messages and choose “trustees” who can verify your death thereby activating your messages. Thus, you can use social media to continue communicating with your loved ones.
But what if your family and friends want to mourn you? What if they have things they want to say to you? Can social media help them grieve?
A social media mourning story…
On January 1, 2011, 20-year-old Wisconsin native, Allison Kasten, was killed in an auto accident. Within a few hours her twin sister, Becca, posted the news of her death on Allison’s Facebook page. Disbelieving family and friends thought this was a joke, until Allison’s stepmom posted on Facebook verifying the truth to the claim. Within hours Allison’s Facebook page was filled with messages – many people recounting their favorite “Allie” memories. Within days it was impossible to see what Allison’s final Facebook post was (it was a message saying how much she loved living in the United States) as family and friends had completely filled her timeline. Over six years later, people are still filling Allison’s Facebook page with messages. Many members of her family and her friends still “communicate” with Allison via Facebook with messages like “I miss you” and “Happy Easter Allie.”
Allie Kasten is my cousin. I was one of the people who didn’t think Becca’s post could possibly be true. I couldn’t wrap my head around her death and what was going on with her Facebook page. As a mass communication researcher I coped the only way I knew how, by exploring what was happening.
My social media mourning research
I teamed up with colleagues Sara Magee, Ellada Gamreklidze, and Jennifer Kowalewski to examine how and why people were using social media sites like Facebook to grieve. How were they communicating with others about the death? How were they communicating with a global audience about death? How were they communicating with the deceased? What began in 2011 as a look at individual deaths and social networking sites led us to a full exploration of what we are calling social media mourning.
My TedxLSU talk explored the beginning stages of our research.
Our research on a social media mourning model has been published by OMEGA: The Journal of Death and Dying. We welcome your feedback about our model. Please feel free to contact me at jensenmoore@ou.edu.
This semester student in my PR Research course have been researching creation of a social media policy for LSU. They have done focus groups and surveys to gauge audience attitudes, interest and desire for a LSU social media policy as well as completed content analyses of social media policies for corporations, university and sports teams. The line between guidelines for good social media behaviors and what should be rules enforced in a social media policy has blurred.
So let me clarify. Policies are enforceable. They are rules that must be followed by a social media user. If you don’t follow the rules you can have posts removed, accounts closed or face other consequences. Check out these policies suggested as examples on Mashable.
Guidelines are tips about what you should do online (ex, like use keywords in blog posts). The CDC put together some impressive tips and best practices in their guidelines.
With that said, I have assembled my own Top 15 Social Media Guidelines for students. In the spirit of Pirates of the Caribbean these “are more general guidelines than actual rules.”
Be branded – Develop a professional & branded online presence (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blog, professional email address).
Be involved – Follow, listen, retweet, comment, answer questions.
Be a storyteller – But understand you cannot control the narrative (that means you too, Lance Armstrong).
Be private – Assume everything you publish is public.
Be found – Use keywords.
Be accurate – Don’t post unverified information.
Be mindful – Watch what/who you follow because employers are watching too.
Be professional – Don’t remove source from RTs and shares, but do remove @#!* words.
Be cautious – If you don’t want your grandma to see it (or ask about it) don’t show it.
Be responsible – Don’t use a “handle” or hide your identity in order to say things you would not say in person.
Be legal – Use “fair use” images (i.e., free to use or share).
Be ethical – Do not post confidential or proprietary information about an organization you are working for.
Be grammatically correct – Review posts for content, spelling, AP style errors before hitting send/post.
Be accountable – Own and correct your mistakes.
Be smart – Don’t do it in class!
This last one is a freebie — I got it from the UCSF social media guidelines and think it sums up just about everything that should be a RULE.
“Be respectful. Refrain from posting material that is profane, libelous, obscene, threatening, abusive, harassing, hateful, defamatory or embarrassing to another person or entity.”
Public relations students — be prepared to explain what you do to everyone. I mean it. EVERYONE. Your significant other, your co-workers, your family, your friends, even your boss. I recently had lunch with a former student who told me that even though she’s been working for an organization for two years she still has to tell everyone what she does on a weekly basis.
Not surprising then that public relations was recently ranked number 7 on a list of the most confusing professions behind actuaries, data scientists and sociologists. The LinkedIn study showed that 42 percent of parents couldn’t describe the jobs of their public relations children. Even seasoned PR practitioners have a hard time defining what they do. In 2012 members of PRSA were asked to tell the organization what the “new” definition should encompass. The modern definition that came from that campaign was,
“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”
Well that certainly clears it up, doesn’t it?
Image from gograph.com
Let me give it to you in a nutshell — public relations is a management function that makes you (your organization, brand, your product, your service) look good.
image from keepingyourbalance.net
Allow me to explain.
We manage your image
Public relations practitioners help create opinions, change opinions or enforce opinions about your organization. In some cases we help establish you as an authority in your field. Want your public to view you as trustworthy, dependable or competent? Our expertise in reputation management helps do that. In other cases we help you show the public your organization’s essence, identity, personality and voice. Public relations also helps you differentiate your brand from your competition. Either way, we are dealing with managing your image.
We manage your crises
Public relations practitioners anticipate outside threats and help your organization react properly in times of crises. Pre-crisis we scan the environment for potential threats, we provide media training to your spokesperson and create crisis plans. During a crisis public relations practitioners help contain and counteract issues as well as provide timely updates to the media and public. We help you show concern and compassion. We help you avoid speculation and the dreaded “no comment” — or the even more dreaded “I’d like my life back.” Post-crisis we help with recovery and reputation management.
We manage your publics
Public relations practitioners listen and engage with your publics in ways that benefit both your organization and your publics (mutually beneficial relationships). Many times we shift between communicating with different publics — making sure each public gets the correct message — all in the same day. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard time communicating necessary information to my husband, my kids and my students in the same day. Here is a partial list of the publics we work with on your behalf:
media outlets
customers/clients
employees
stockholders/investors
suppliers/enterprises/financial institutions
unions/trade associations
contributors/donors/volunteers
legislators/regulators
community activists
competitors (Bates, D., 2002)
We manage your communications
Public relations practitioners work to create planned, organized activities and clear, consistent communications that provide your themes and messages to each of your publics. To do that we have to manage relationships with paid media outlets as well as your “personas” on your owned media. We also have to script your in-person and internal messages. Don’t even get me started on all the different types of communication we need to know how to create (press releases, media kits, tweets, posts, blogs, fundraising letters, etc.) or all the types of tools we need to know as we’ll be here all day. Let’s just settle for some of the multiple communication channels we utilize when reminding/reinforcing the public about your brand’s image. Listed here are just a few:
advertising
marketing
traditional media
interactive media
events
publicity stunts
social responsibility programs
sponsorships
internal communications
in-person communications
Public Relations makes you look good
Public relations helps your organization put it’s best foot forward. We counsel, problem solve, position and manage your reputation, your relationships, your communications and your activities. Public relations helps you look GOOD. Well, unless you are this guy. There’s no amount of PR that can help him.
Adolf Hitler waxwork image courtesy of reveriewit on flickr.
I was recently asked by several students and colleagues about a blog I posted last October about reasons why I won’t be a reference. Since that time I have been a reference for about 50 students for everything from law school admissions, to scholarships, to internships, to Master’s programs, to awards. As you can see, I have a lot of students whom I will gladly be a reference for as they:
Received above average grades in my class;
Were professional;
Had a relationship with me where I knew them by face/name; and
Had a skill set that reflected well on me, my department and my school.
However, in the past year I have maybe heard from a handful of those 50 students. So today I am posting about what I call, “After the Reference” etiquette.
Say “thank you” by referring professors back
Most professors have these wonderful things called tenure files that we are expected to fill with items about our teaching, research and service. Thank you notes from students regarding how we helped them get an award, scholarship, internship, job, etc. help our case for tenure. It shows that we were active in helping them achieve their goals. In essence, we recommended you now you should recommend us.
Photo courtesy of creative commons, flickr.
Let your references know what happened
The referred-referee relationship doesn’t end after I write you a letter or talk to someone on the phone. Like I said, of the 50 students I have written recommendations for I have heard back from about five. That means I have no idea if the other 45 won the award, got the scholarship, entered into a Master’s program, earned a job, etc. For all I know those 45 students could be camped out on their parents’ couches, watching MTV and eating junk food all day. I’d like to think that because they were such good students this is not the case — but that means they need to let me know what they are up to.
Why should you let us know? Professors like to brag about their students. We like to tell others about how wonderful you are. We like to know if you are still searching so we can have you at the front of our minds when we hear about cool job openings. Sometimes we need to know what skills of yours we should be talking about (especially if you are applying for different types of positions). We also like to know if our recommendation helped you (it helps us know what to write in the future).
Stay in touch with your references
You move, I move, everyone moves. Failing to stay in touch with your references means that when you need them they may no longer be there for you. For example, say you get a job after graduation and it just isn’t the right one for you. There is no one at your current position who you want as a reference for a new “cooler” job you are applying for. You want to go back and use the same references you had prior to your job. Problem is, you didn’t stay in touch with them. They have no idea where you are, what you have been doing, etc. Since you haven’t been in touch they may not even remember you (it happens, after all professors have to learn about 100 new names/faces each semester). So what are you going to do about references now?
Photo courtesy of creative commons, wikimedia.
This is probably the most important of the three tips — stay in touch with your references. Tips on how to stay in touch include Facebook, Twitter and email. I even have former students who send me Christmas cards (love those). You never know when you will need your references again, by staying in touch with them you will have easy access to them.
One last thing — References always matter
Finally, there is this myth out there that once you are hired your references no longer matter. This post discusses just one reason why that isn’t true (probation periods). Another is that whatever job you are going into — it’s a small world. Someone you know, knows someone you used to know, knows someone who is your reference. If you haven’t kept in touch with a reference that person may no longer be “promoting” you. As Dr. Danny Shipka always said, “it’s about stewardship.”
According to the Institute of Public Relations, 70% of the PR workforce is made up of women. This means that most cases of “inappropriate” behaviors that I hear about involve females. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard of male PR professionals being harrassed too — it’s just that most victims have been women. Regardless, when the PR workforce puts their cell phone numbers on everything they send out you can see where the opportunities for deviant behavior exists.
One of the things they don’t teach you in your public relations courses is how to deal with stalkers. This isn’t to say that PR practitioners are celebrites (in fact, most PR people will tell you they prefer NOT to be in front of the camera, but prefer working “behind the scenes”), however, they do develop a “following” of sorts.
We teach our PR students to be accessible to the media and their publics at all times. Often, this means putting their cell phone numbers on news releases sent to reporters, social media releases posted on websites and on business cards handed out to anyone they network with. This accessibility can often result in the wrong kind of attention -usually in the form of blocked number harrassing phone calls, hang ups or heavy breathers.
Despite what the media and movies tell us, stalkers are not cool.
Image from InspiredShit
So this post will address a few things that PR professionals can do to deal with “stalker-y” types who get ahold of their cell numbers.
*57 Call Trace
This is a feature provided by your telephone company. If you begin getting you can report it directly to the authorities using *57. Keep in mind that *57 only works from a landline. If the person is calling your cell phone then you can call your cell phone service provider and have them put a trace on your phone. Both options result in the number being reported to local law enforcement.
Blocking Private Calls
This is a service provided (usually for a fee) from your phone company. This makes it so that any anonymous or private phone numbers will not be sent to your phone.
Reverse Phone Lookup
Want to find out who is calling you? Do a reverse phone number look-up. This only works if the caller’s number is shown (with no caller name) on your phone — it won’t worked for private or blocked calls. This video from Chris Rempel discusses how to do a reverse phone lookup.
Get the Low-Down on Your Stalker
Afraid your stalker is trying to take the step from harrassing phone calls to getting to know you personally? I’ve had a few people who knew “a bit too much about me” when introduced. As in, more than what is printed on my resume or website. This spooked the heck out of me. Turned out, this person had been calling my phone and hanging up for months, had asked friends about me and had taken the next step by meeting me and introducing himself.
Want to become more informed about your stalker? This lovely site, Spokeo.com, can help you find out more about him/her (for a small fee). It can tell you your stalker’s age, gender, address, email, occupation, neighborhood, income, education, ethnicity, photos, social profiles, etc. It can also tell you their online shopping behaviors, magazines they purchase, movies they rent, etc. This information can be used to identify a stalker. Simply drop into conversation recent movies you have watched and see if they match….
Tech Revenge
Finally, if you want to give your stalker a taste of his/her own medicine, might I suggest a little thing I call “tech revenge.” Put your stalker’s phone number on blast on your own social media. Recently I received phone calls in the middle of the night from an unidentified number. I put the number on a Twitter post using the hashtag #techrevenge. Several people re-tweeted it and some even called it themselves. Nothing like pranking a stalker:)
The elevator in my building says it can hold 15 people. It is a little 5×7 Otis that goes up only 5 floors (counting the ground level). Each time I ride it I wonder how 15 people could possibly fit in it. The dimension of the elevator and the dimensions of people just don’t add up. Would we have to carry people? Stack them on top of each other? There is absolutely no way that 15 people should ever be in that elevator together. There’s the key, SHOULD.
At lot of times we think about what we can do (or want to do) instead of what we should do. I think this is what a lot of the current debate about which person/department in an organization should control social media comes down to. Here are my suggestions for what you should do.
Figure out which department tells the best story about your organization
Rick Alcantara ‘s article and That Company’s blog suggest that everyone – marketing, customer service, sales, risk management, public relations, HR, IT and graphic design – should control social media. But that sounds a lot like the idiom “too many cooks spoil the stew.” When everyone is involved in the messages then: 1) who is responsible for the message, and 2) is one, coherent story being told?
Now, if HR or IT can tell the best story about your organization then they should control social media. Steve Davies gives good reasons that marketing or advertising should not be in charge of social media – mainly that social media are about connecting to and relating to people (NOT selling products or services). Overall, as Elizabeth Sosnow suggests, the public relations department is going to be the best at telling your story, providing content and connecting with your audiences.
Figure out what your organization’s social media policies are (and adhere to them)
Not having a social media policy means that anyone who works for you can tweet about your organization. Gini Dietrich recently wrote about the Applebees social media debacle and pointed out that they should not only have a social media policy for their staff to follow (as well as the person monitoring their Twitter accounts) that they should also behave as they expect others within their employ to behave. Note the hypocrisy pointed out when it is later shown they violated their own “rules” by posting a receipt with a customer name on it.
Figure out backups for controlling your social media
One thing your organization should NEVER do — leave the passwords with only one person (especially when that person is not a full-time employee and/or is likely to be fired). For example, look at the recent HMV firings that played out over Twitter. That the Marketing Director didn’t know the passwords or how to shut down the accounts is ridiculous. Always have someone at the top who knows not only the passwords, but how to use the social media of your organization. It is never acceptable to be this irresponsible.
In sum, there are several things you should do with social media. The first is decide who should tell your story. The second, decide what the rules are for who can tell your story and what they are allowed to say. Third, establish a chain of command for your social media including password access and social-media know how. Each of these will go a long way in helping your organization’s brand.
Sounds like the beginning of a joke doesn’t it? I wish it was. I wish it went something like this…. Which one gets the most online friends/followers the fastest? The (I wish) answer: None, because none of them exist.
Unfortunately they all do exist and if we want to be online we have to deal with them every day. Here I break down some of the realities we must face every time we log on.
Racists
Following the 2012 presidential election, many people took to Twitter to use horrible, nasty and hateful language to attack re-elected President Obama. Jezebel did a slideshow of the disgusting comments here. WARNING: These tweets are really obscene.
Published by The Atlantic, Jay Rosen
The graphic here shows where the majority of racist tweets came from. Have to say I am really proud of the light yellow states for having some class. Also quite proud of jezebel for later tracking down the high schoolers using Twitter to post racist comments and contacting their schools. You can read how they did it here. Unfortunately we can’t do anything about the ignorant adults who posted racist comments or those who don’t have the courage to use their real names/photos on Twitter.
Internet Trolls
Internet trolls are individuals who have nothing better to do with their time than post inflammatory statements on blogs, chat rooms, social media sites, etc. to get a rise out of people. Basically, whatever you think, feel or do they will post the opposite to see if they can get you to respond to them. Trolls are usually anonymous hecklers — and though some sites require posters to provide email addresses and names, trolls subvert this by providing fake information.
Cyberbullying is using technology (computers, cell phones, etc.) to make fun of, pick on or harass someone. For example, there is this nifty little game going around Facebook called To Be Honest (TBH) where minors post things to one another like: TBH, I liked your hair today. Innocent enough, right? Well it has recently evolved into To Be Brutally Honest (TBBH) where minors post rude/insulting/bullying comments to one another.
Check out how tweens and teens are cyberbullying one another in this graphic. Note that this is cyberbullying that occurred in the last 30 days.
And here’s how those same tweens and teens responded when asked if they had been a cyberbully in the last 30 days.
Virtual Presence and Online Anonymity
What is allowing people to behave this way? Virtual presence. As you can see from this site, virtual presence is supposed to allow you to act online the way you would in real life. In reality, virtual presence is making many people feel like they can be whoever they want, say whatever they want and do whatever they want online because unlike real life they don’t have to “face” people and there are no consequences. So people are creating their own virtual identities and behaving however they want. They can use avatars, fake photos or clip art for their image and create a screen name to disguise themselves.
Another trick to disguising yourself online is munging. Originally, munging was a way to hide your email address from spambots. Now, however, it is being used by people who don’t want you to know who they are so that they can say whatever they want. I have recently been the victim of a “munger” who likes to send me harassing emails.
The Internet and social media offer users a lot of opportunities for free speech, socializing and producing. They should not offer people the chance to be horrible to others without consequences. In a perfect world if you produce something you should be responsible for it. That includes putting your real name/face to it.
Now that social media is firmly entrenched in the everyday life of PR, Chapter 5 of “Measure What Matters,” is all about monitoring your social media profile constantly and keeping on top of it basically around the clock to stay in tune with the current.
The concept of “now” has been redefined to include nights, weekends, holidays, you name it; brand monitoring must be a daily process, if not hourly. “There’s no shortage of examples of how quickly reputations can be made or destroyed in today’s social media environment” (Paine 71).
With users acting as the media, editors and reviewers (69), PR and marketing must adapt to new methods of communication on a smaller scale but to the right people if much more valuable than reaching millions of faceless eyeballs with old methods of advertising (73). This also means a new way of quantifying success. “We must change from pitching to listening, and from measuring eyeballs to measuring engagement (74).
Helene Blowers points out that old methods of measuring success can no longer be relied upon and new measuring sticks are usage and influence. “Just because your traditional Website stats may be trending down, it doesn’t mean that your digital usage is down… they may do it through other channels, such as mobile app or Facebook” (Blowers, 2012).
Paine identifies four new rules for PR and social media monitoring:
You’re Not in Control—and Never Have Been
There Is No Market for Your Message
It’s about Reaching the Right Eyeballs, Not All the Eyeballs
It’s Worse to Not Be Talked about at All
Paine goes on to identify two worlds of social media profile monitoring: measuring what you can control and measuring what you can’t control. Both Paine and Blowers concede that what is really important and a key component to things you can control is engagement.
Levels of user engagement identified by Paine include:
Lurking
Casual
Active
Committed
Loyalist
Web analytics systems like Google Analytics, WebTrends and Omniture are recommended by Paine to measure engagement.
However, Paine admits there’s far more things you cannot control. “The new environment is so vast that even the largest budgets can’t truly dominate the conversation…The best you can hope for is to learn from those conversations, make improvements, and maybe influence them” (84).
Chapters 6 and 8:
The innovation of social media brings several benefits to companies and business. It allows them to “get feedback from our customers and marketplace” (Paine, p. 99). Chapter Six outlines the differences in listening to customers and listening to the marketplace. The first step in listening to the marketplace is to set up any web analytics program. By using the analytics program, one can search keywords to see if they are collecting results necessary for their business. “Make sure you have set up alerts for all your competitors’ names and brands in addition to the general terms describing you r product or market areas” (Paine, p. 100). The next steps are to review and track the results to see what is relevant and irrelevant to the search. At this step companies and business are also able to see mentions of the services and products. Next, one should pay attention to those mentions that mostly matter to their company. “Channels, outlets, and writers who get the most comments are usually more influential, and so you should pay particular attention to them” (Paine, p. 101). The next steps call for companies to weight the mentions and find out what the market thinks about their competition and them. By doing so, companies give them self an advantage over their competition to improve their own products.
To listen to customers, companies need to probe into and evaluate customers’ conversations. By evaluating conversations, companies will have the opportunity to gain “insight into people’s relationship” with their brand (Paine, p. 103). Meesh and Mia, a company licensed to sell university-related clothing items, listens to its customers via social media. Meesh and Mia listens to consumers by simply using its social media to ask the consumers what they think of its brand. “Customers on Meesh & Mia’s Facebook or Twitter pages will find requests for feedback on product categories so the company can learn, for example what branded items they want to see more of” (Aquino, p. 1).
Chapter Eight expounds on the need for companies and businesses to move from targeting traditional influencers, to targeting communities. Those communities are composed of consumers that have strong interest in one’s brand and narrow topics. “Whether it’s small farmers, fans of a particular product, or parents of children with a specific disease, there’s now a group for it. And that group has members and the members have friends and all of them can influence your market and your market share” (Paine, p. 124). Instead of individuals being seen as influencers, communities are now the new influencers. These communities influence others that may not be as informed or engaged with one’s brand. To build communities, companies should search blogs that mention their marketplace, and evaluate if those blogs are important.
Next, companies should measure the relationships they have with the influencers of their marketplace. “Periodically assessing the health of your relationships with them is absolutely critical, because understanding what they think about you is just as important as understanding what they write about you” (Paine, p. 128). In an article written by Marisa Peacock, she speaks of a new discovery platform that helps companies to target influencers. “Sometimes the hardest part of content management is not tracking it, but targeting it to the appropriate audience. Thanks to a new content discovery platform called Outbrain, companies can find and acquire an audience for their content. By using personalized links at the bottom of online articles, such as ‘Recommended Reading’ or ‘You Might Also Like,’ Outbrain is able to grow an audience by distributing your content on other sites, where people are looking for something new to discover” (Peacock, p. 1). Paine offers five steps for one to measure their relationships with influencers:
Define goal
Define audience
Define benchmark
Define key performance indicators
Select measurement tool
Chapter 9:
The “Measure” reading starts out by saying, “Al business in a democratic society begins with public permission and exists by public approval.” –Arthur Page. That being said, whatever public approval an organization has at a given time can be quickly removed. Likewise, it can certainly grow.
Because news travels faster today than ever, it’s critical to understand, measure and improve your relationships with your local community. Paine refers to community as “our neighbors.” Neighbors are no longer just those within a tight, local circle, rather, this includes an organizations “internal communities of customers, vendors and partners, as well as external advocates, nongovernmental organizations and any other community with which you have a relationship.” (Paine, 72).
How do good or bad relationships influence your organization? Paine put it succinctly when she said, “the short answer is that you ignore your communities at your peril.” (Paine, 72). She used Amazon as an example of the negatives associated with ignoring customers. Amazon ignored its Kindle community of users and led to loss of trust. On the flip side of that, Paine used the positive example involving SeaWorld when PETA attacked them after a trainer was killed by a Shamu. Because of SeaWorld’s positive involvement with its community, “PETA voices were quickly drowned out by SeaWorld fans.” (72)
The last question is who and what is most important to measure? That depends, but the fact is that millions of bloggers and Twitterers out there, negative stories can no longer be contained as was possible years ago. Measuring relationships with just customers is a great start, but organizations must take into account potential crises when non-existent relationships are thrust into existence by virtue of a negative or newsworthy incident. Organizations are no longer in control of their message.
There are seven steps an organization can use to measure relationships with its communities and neighbors:
1. Agree upon solid measurable goals that are tied to the bottom line:
2. Define your publics:
3. Who or what are your benchmarks?
4. Set your audience priorities: Who and what is most important to measure?
5. Choose your measurement tools
-Relationship surveys
-Local media analysis is critical
6. Analyze the data
7. (Taken from Chapter 3) Turn your data into action
A great, detailed example of measuring relationships and navigating social media is a presentation by Beth Harte of Harte Marketing & Communications.
Bottom line, it may seem irrelevant, but establishing, embracing and maintaining a good relationship with as many publics as possible can help an organization ensure success. Taking the data from the aforementioned measurement tools can shape the organization. Ignoring the data and ignoring how others see the organization can be a negative consequence of failing to measure relationships.
BLOG POST LEADERS: Jason Newton, Dionell McNeal, Lisa Charles
Paine, K. (2011). Measure What Matters: Online Tools for Understanding Customers, Social Media, Engagement and Key Relationships. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
In chapters five and six of Antony Young’s Brand Media Strategy, Young outlines strategies and techniques that are helpful for reaching consumers in today’s world.
The customer base for a company looking to push their brand can’t be viewed strictly as customers or rather, consumers anymore. Young explains that, “Communication should be about focusing on people rather than consumers… They’re not a number on a spreadsheet” (Young, p. 65). This approach, from consumers to people, has come about because of the shift from mass media to the digital age, where people exercise greater control over their media content selection and access. In an effort to “focus on people rather than consumers,” many companies have begun using Storybook, a facebook app that allows individuals to share their personal experiences with a product or brand directly with the company that made those experiences possible. According to Mashable, companies who use storybook are able to create deeper, more meaningful connections with their consumers while keeping the conversation focused on their brand(s).
When people are able to access content in such a non-linear fashion, marketers and communication strategists must take greater care in understanding who exactly is consuming what content and for what reasons. Companies must gain insight into the behaviors, wants, needs, and impulses of the consumer. Insight must now take precedence over analysis. Instead of trying to target a giant audience for a message, communications strategists must now consider how they can influence the brand perception of small groups of people. One example Young talks about is “microtrends.” Microtrends “can be created by as few as three million people, or about 1 percent of the US population. Even if that group doesn’t grow, it can still have enormous impact on society,” (Young, 72).
In chapter six, Young discusses the power of conversation and its effects on consumer brands. Young notes that word of mouth advocacy for brands and products is the most influential marketing technique today and that there are three aspects to it.
1. Word of mouth instills confidence: “Many recommendations come from people you know, which reduces the emotional risk of following a recommendation,” (Young, p. 88).
2. A personal stake: Nothing creates loyalty like advocacy.
3. Increased perceived value.
Another strength related to word of mouth is that it raises awareness of the brand or product. Young notes how much power word of mouth wields by noting, “a stunning 3.3 billion word-of-mouth brand impressions take place in the United States each day,” (Young, p. 91).
Chapter Seven
Chapter 7 highlights the importance (and difficulty) of integration. Before we begin talking about integration, take a second to check out this video:
Notice how each “instrument” is responsible for a different aspect of the song. If any one element disappeared, the song would be less full, less rich, and less engaging. They are all playing the same song, but they are each responsible for a different sound within that song. This is how integration should work. Just as Stomp is made up of different people playing different patterns on different instruments, so too a successful integrated campaign is utilizing different people communicating different messages on different media. The overarching “song” of an integrated campaign comes from the CCI or the Central Communicating Idea.
The CCI is the general message you are trying to communicate to all your consumers. Each medium may get the message across in a different way, but the message is the same. This is not to say that each element is identical—in other words, taking a successful television campaign and converting it to a radio ad and a print ad. If each Stomp instrument played the exact same rhythm, the cadence would be overwhelmingly loud, but not nearly as complex, interesting, or compelling. Loudness may sound like a good idea to some clients—after all, isn’t the whole point to get people to listen about your product?—but you should try to view your campaign as your consumers will. And people usually don’t like to be yelled at. Instead, use the CCI to act as an anchor or a musical score that integrates the Brand Media Strategy across multiple, harmonizing, media channels.
In years past, most marketing strategists developed the creative idea first and then developed the media plans. Once the client approved it, the agency would develop other executions of the idea. Don Draper would be proud.
Digital was usually added as an afterthought, through another agency and another manager. Surprisingly, this way of doing things was being advocated by scholars as recently as 2006. In their article on Online Marketing Communication (OMC), Jensen & Jepsen (no, not our Jensen, she wouldn’t be so aggravating. Besides, that’s her first name, not her last name. But we digress) argued marketers should continue to treat online communication as a completely separate entity from the more “traditional” media. This argument runs counter to that of Young in Brand Media Strategy. If you’re marketing elements are playing different songs, the results wind up something like this.
In today’s world, it is more effective to discover how we might connect with our target audience and how we might use each individual medium before we decide what our message is going to be. In other words, it makes more sense for media and creative to have a partnering relationship rather than a linear one. This allows the consumer to have the best experience possible, which in turn allows your campaign to be as successful as possible.
GROUNDSWELL
Chapters Five & Six
In Chapters 5 and 6 of Groundswell, Li and Bernoff discuss how your customer base is the driving force behind your brand. The discourse between a company and their customers is essential to effective branding. As the authors say, “Your brand is whatever your customers say it is” (p. 78). The best ways to listen to your customers is through internet searches. Li and Bernoff advise Googling the company name with the words “sucks” or awesome” behind it (p. 80). This tactic will probably be the most effective due to the various blogs and discussion boards that will appear. Li and Bernoff discuss various ways companies can listen to the groundswell. Some of these ways include: save money for research, manage PR crisis, generate new product and marketing ideas, and find out what your brand really stands for (p. 93).
It is not enough for a company to solely be an effective listener. There must be a two- way communication flow. To talk with the groundswell, Li and Bernoff suggest several things, including: post a viral video, engage in social networks and user-generated content sites, join the blogosphere, and create a community (p.103). According to Li and Bernoff, “communities are cheap to create—you can create one for free at grouply.com, for example—but to create an effective community, you must constantly support and maintain it” (p.123).
Chapter Ten
In Chapter 10, Li and Bernoff discuss the importance of Twitter. It can function as a typical social media site, or it can be a place for customer support. “But when it comes to Twitter, you need to know that once your company starts to connect, people will expect the company to listen and respond, not just broadcast” (p.201). Talking, energizing, and embracing Twitter is essential if it is to be used to its maximum effectiveness. As the authors point out, it is a simple tool, but it can be used in a myriad of fashions.
Martin et al. point out in their article, people experience “greater self-reported emotional arousal for recently formed brand relationships, as well as decreased emotional arousal and increased inclusion of close brands over time.” This stresses the importance of the relationship that your customers have with your brand. Without listening to them, it is impossible to know what they want, and the likelihood of a relationship forming is not high.
Jensen, M.B. & Jepsen, A.L. (2006). Online marketing communications: Need for a new typology for IMC? Journal of Website Promotion, 2(1), 19-35.
Li, Charlene and Josh Bernoff (2011). Groundswell.
Martin, R., Castano, R, Zaichkowsky, J., & Bechara, A. (2012). How we relate to brands: Psychological and neurophysiological insights into consumer-brand relationships. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 22(1), 128-142.
Stomp–Stomp Out Loud [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu15Ou-jKM0
There is a wide-spread anxiety amongst companies called the groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome. People affected by this are typically nervous about moving forward in social media. Symptoms include but are not limited to:
Strong, and in some cases obsessive, interest in the blogosphere and in online doings at sites like Facebook and YouTube. Repeated forwarding of articles on said topics to fellow sufferers.
Excessive salivation upon hearing much-repeated stories of corporations that have developed partnerships with social networking sites, started online communities, or otherwise managed to get held up as winners in news reports and at marketing conferences.
Anxiety at the thought of actually participating in social technologies, balanced by similar anxiety at the thought of missing out (Li 66).
Fortunately there is cure for this syndrome called the POST method. “POST” is the foundation of groundswell thinking – a systematic framework for assembling your plan.” (Li 67). POST stands for people, objective, strategy, and technology (Li 67). The POST method asks very important questions for each step.
People. “What are your customers ready for?” It is important to evaluate how to involve your customers based on what they’re already doing.
Objective. “What are your goals?” There are five primary objectives that companies need to consider, such as listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing. Entering groundswell with a specific objective is a great start for a company’s strategy.
Strategy. “How do you want relationships with your customers to change?” Answering this question helps you measure desired changes for your plan.
Technology. “What applications should you build?” Examples include blogs, wikis, and social networks (Li 67-69).
With your strategy, it is also important to think about the consequences of your plan. “If you find your initiatives floundering or changing direction frequently, you need to reexamine your choice of objectives.” (Li 74). This is especially imperative if your customers engage unexpectedly, but by using the POST method, you can quickly diagnose and fix any problems.
Both the Groundswell and Brand Media chapters put great emphasis on researching a target audience. Joining the world of multi media is a growing and ever-changing environment that needs to be monitored and studied by companies that are wishing to become serious players within the Groundswell. Antony Young, explores two major reasons for why campaigns fail. He states, “First, there is not a clear understanding of the goals or the key performance indicators at the outset of the campaign. Second, there is no process for consistently evaluating progress, and so campaigns lack sufficient focus and consistency” (Young 50).
An example of a successful campaign that was brought up in Brand Media Strategy is that of President Obama. Obama’s goal and audience was to reach out to a younger demographic and get undecided voters to “join” the cause. What we found to be intriguing about his campaign was how it used Twitter as a way to communicate with the public. What differs between Obamas use of Twitter and that of Hillary Clinton throughout the campaign was that Obama followed those that were following him as a way to actively engage and receive feedback from those he was reaching out to.
(Langde)
An article titled How Obama Really Did It summarizes the kind of campaign Obama ran by quoting Andrew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, a website covering the intersection of politics and technology. He says, “The campaign, consciously or unconsciously, became much more of a media operation than simply a presidential campaign, because they recognized that by putting their message out onto these various platforms, their supporters would spread it for them” (Talbot 5). Some such strategies included posting Obamas speeches on YouTube or linking them to followers’ own videos. By doing this many went viral.
“Today’s leaders must embrace social media for three reasons. First, they provide a low-cost platform on which to build your personal brand, communicating who you are both within and outside your company. Second, they allow you to engage rapidly and simultaneously with peers, employees, customers, and the broader public, especially younger generations, in the same transparent and direct way they expect from everyone in their lives. Third, they give you an opportunity to learn from instant information and unvarnished feedback.” (Dutta 3)
What is significant about all this is the fact that Obama had a very specific goal before the start of his multi media ventures, and his campaign took an active role in listening to the people, which is also described by Li as a great strategy plan in Groundswell.
In Chapter 10 of Brand Media Strategy, Young mentioned that “paid search adds value in several levels” (Young 180). Alec Brownstein used paid search to help land himself a job. He had one clear objective and used a cost-effective and creative technique to capture the attention of some of the top creative directors in New York City. Here is an interesting video on how he used the POST method.
Dutta, S. (2010 November). What’s Your Personal Social Media Strategy? Harvard Business Review, page 1-6. Retrieved from