| Posted on Dec 20.10 |
PR+MKTG Camp East Key Insight I: Building Trust in 140 Characters
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I wanted to share 5 key insights from PR+MKTG Camp™ East held this past fall.
The conference brought together marketing and PR professionals from leading brands and agencies in cities from Boston and New York to Philadelphia and Miami.
Its focus was integrated engagement and how marketing and PR can align more effectively with sales and customer service to better manage the message, build the brand, and measure the results.
Continuing the spirit of previous camps held in Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Seattle, PR+MKTG Camp East was a forum to share ideas and discover solutions.
Todays insight:
I. Building Trust in 140 Characters: Message Consistency in the Social Media Age
Message consistency has long been a central tenet of reputation management and brand building; it’s also a direct benefit when an organization’s communications and engagement strategies are in alignment.
But is consistency desirable or even possible in today’s social media environment? That question was a
key point of discussion in PR+MKTG Camp East’s industry panel discussion on health care, engagement and transparency featuring Digitas Health’s Carly Kuper, AstraZeneca’s Gigi Peterkin (now at Edelman), the Alzheimer’s Association’s Harriet Hennigan, and Lemonade Life’s Allison Blass.
The Case for Message Consistency
For advocates of message discipline, consistency eliminates confusion, conflicting signals and potential legal complications – especially in the case of a regulated industry. It keeps everyone on the same page and reduces the chances that employees – or those to whom the messages or campaigns are directed — will misinterpret the company’s mission.
Message consistency engenders trust; it breeds familiarity. Seeing the same message in multiple places – on websites, blogs, Google search results, Twitter, Facebook, and in legacy print and other media – reinforces brand recognition and raises consumer comfort levels.
The Case against Message Consistency
Alternatively, there are social media advocates who dismiss the value of message consistency on several counts.
Corporate Speak: Consumers want authenticity. Message consistency leads to pat responses, sterile language and corporate speak; As Allison Blass, Lemonade Life Blogger and PR+MKTG Camp East Speaker asked in regards to drug company marketing, “The information patients get online is limited and dry. How will this really affect my life? How will it change the way I live? I need constant feedback from people experiencing something similar.”
Media Saturation: Consumers are simply tuning out messaging. As Matt Rosenhaft, Social Gastronomy Founder and PR+MKTG Camp East Speaker said, “Messaging is so cheap that we overwhelmed with messages. People don’t believe in it anymore. No one is paying attention to out press release or tweets.”
Multiple Information Sources: Users consume a media-rich diet from multiple sources and multiple perspectives from nearly anywhere in the world. Marketing and PR can’t contain how and where consumers receive and retransmit their messaging.
Ownership: Message consistency is a form of ownership. It’s tough to “own” the brand and message when it rests increasingly in the hands of customers who will share it and repurpose it.
The Personal Dimension: Multiple employees (perhaps even some no longer with the company) can set up accounts on different social media or other sites that bridge both personal and professional personas – making consistency more challenging.
The overlap of professional and personal in the connected world can add an extra layer of authenticity to your messaging. It can help brands reach a wider, richer network of users. But maintaining clear boundaries is difficult for companies to enforce and underscores the importance of internal controls, standards and practices.
Finding a Middle Ground
In today’s communications environment, social media puts more of the message into the hands of the customer, but it does not eliminate marketing’s and PR’s ability to deliver consistency.
The challenge, of course, is developing authentic messaging that others feel compelled to pass along, and then leveraging a network or channel where they will propagate it for you. There must be a reason to share it; it has to be relevant, insightful or funny and must be appropriate for the particular channel.
Self-serving or duplicitous messages will inevitably fail either by being ignored or becoming the source of ridicule or an online firestorm.
What we need is a new definition of consistency to fit a new way of communicating; and we are going to have to work harder to deliver it.
Consistency is less about repetitive language and more about the message behind the words. It’s also about managing the channels where we transmit the message or where consumers choose to engage with our brands.
In terms of the message, today’s marketing and PR professionals need to ask: Does the message empower the market to act? Does it evoke trust? How will it mature over the course of a campaign? Does it encourage independent conversation?
In terms of the specific channel, we need to ask: Is it something others will want link to, comment on or about in blogs, retweet or share on Facebook? Will word of mouth, critical analysis or discussion be maintained? Have we taken into account in the planning and production phases for online video especially when viewer comments can be easily attached, and forwarded or emailed – increasing the likelihood that the message can gain greater viral strength?
In general, message consistency corresponds to its authenticity – the more authentic your messaging, the more likely consumers will perceive its value and trust the messenger.
| Posted on Nov 05.10 |
Bricolage, Intellectual Nudity, and Other Collaboration Insights
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Implementing an effective collaboration strategy was the focus of Rhonda Lowry’s discussion this past week at the TAG Enterprise 2.0 Society monthly meeting in Atlanta.
Rhonda is vice president of social media technologies at Turner Broadcasting System and plays a critical role in helping the network embrace new technologies and implement change.
Here are some insights she shared:
1. Networks Connect Humans – In fostering successful collaboration, it can’t just be about tools and technology; relationships still matter. Consider the concept of gifting. It’s a central tenet of collaboration and a driving force in social media. In a collaborative culture, the goal is sharing information to benefit the recipient and not what you will get in return.
2. Bricolage – Successful collaboration is based on the invention of resources from available material to make new things i.e. making the most of what you’ve got, not starting from scratch. It also means working within your existing corporate culture and understanding your organization’s social dynamics. Is your organization based on command and control or is it comfortable with decentralized authority? How much of a gap is there between technical and human skills? What kind of premium does your company place on relationship building? Your answers will impact how you build a collaborative social enterprise strategy.
3. Intellectual Nudity – Quoting Ephraim Freed “Effective Social Intranet Users are Intellectual Nudists.” Collaboration succeeds in an environment where employees are open, transparent and willing to embrace new ways of communicating. That of course is not an easy task in a tightly managed, siloed corporate culture. And not everyone is a nudist. Organizations must find ways for nudists and non nudists to coexist – which underscores the whole notion that networks are about connecting people not tools.
4. Rewards – Everyone thrives on rewards. But in a collaborative culture, rewards are rarely financial or based on the task at hand. The reward (and motivation) to participate must be intrinsic or inner focused for those willing to share.
5. Storms – And of course there are perfect storms, where external events and internal developments come together to transform an organization. Consider the marriage of Facebook, CNN.com and President Obama’s Inauguration. It was a phenomenal success for CNN as viewer reactions became a central part of the story. Or a picture of a squirrel on a hot day in Seattle that helped launch iReport and change the way CNN thinks about and delivers the news.
Added bonuses:
For slides related to her talk, check out this previous deck on SlideShare.
Two books Rhonda recommends checking out:
The Starfish and the Spider by by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom
Drive by Daniel Pink
| Posted on Oct 26.10 |
BRAVO Marketing SVP Ellen Stone to Keynote PR+MKTG Camp East
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BRAVO’s Ellen Stone is the keynote speaker at PR+MKTG Camp East this Thursday. Ellen will be discussing Bravo Media’s marketing strategy and the importance of integration across an organization. In her job as senior vice president of marketing, she oversees the development of all brand strategy, creative, consumer, advertising, ad sales, digital and licensing/merchandising marketing for the network. She also serves as a member of Bravo’s senior management team shaping the network’s overall strategy.
Question 1: How is your role at BRAVO evolved as a result of social media?
Ellen: The Bravo brand is built on Buzz Marketing — driving the conversation with our highly affluent, influential and tech-savvy audience. We are very focused on the dialogue and continuing to build a deeper level of engagement with our consumers.
Over the years, our efforts in this area have intensified through partnerships with Twitter, Facebook, Groupon and Foursquare but also within our own wheelhouse. Last year, we created the BRAVO talk bubble – the first social media event in television that aggregated fans’ tweets and facebook posts while featuring our own Bravo celebrities, aka Bravolebrities, under one umbrella across multiple screens– we like to think of it as a real-time social water cooler event.
Question 2: How are you using social media to stay current and relevant with your audience?
Ellen: We are able to constantly gauge our audiences reactions to our programming and fans by closely monitoring their posts and tweets as well as starting conversations with them through polls and contests to understand where the brand sits in the world while engaging them even deeper into a Bravo conversation.
For example, we created an entire social media initiative to help launch our new creative competition series, Top Chef Just Desserts, proclaiming National desserts day on September 15th and giving out FREE desserts in 20 markets. Our consumers were notified by Facebook as to the participating bakeries and shops. In addition we had three TC Just Desserts trucks in NY, LA and Chicago giving out free desserts. We tweeted the locations and times of the truck stops to the fans immediately prior to their arrival with great viral pass along. The day was a great success and we had our best premiere of one of Bravo’s food shows ever. We will also use social media to generate excitement and awareness around our new fashion competition, The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection which premieres on November 9th, leveraging our amazing friend base on Facebook as well as our Twitter followers to start the conversation around the new show.
Question 3 : How is BRAVO breaking down traditional silos of programming, sales and marketing to help advertisers reach their target audience?
Ellen: For Bravo, engaging our audience by providing unique, interesting content that our audience wants is our core objective and social media helps us deliver this content in innovative ways. To do this we try to break down the silos by working across departments to ensure we have the content, message and delivery mechanism that provides a consistent and cohesive Bravo voice. We have always been very collaborative at Bravo with a clear understanding of our brand and our audience. I believe our success in the area of social media has much to do with this brand philosophy.
Question 4: As the keynote speaker at PR+MKTG Camp East, what advice can your offer companies about the benefits of integrating your social media engagement strategy?
Ellen: Social media can be an all-consuming, 24-7 initiative. Therefore, you really need to evaluate your goals and objectives to understand how social media can benefit your business and, of course, your audience. At Bravo, we build conversations, therefore, we look to encompass multiple social media tools to create scale and buzz. Of course, we always pay close attention to the buzz as we build this connection to the consumer. When we see something bubbling up, we evaluate and act quickly. Since once the moment has passed, in the world of social media — its like it never existed.
Question 5: What is your favorite show on Bravo?
Ellen: There are so many to pick from but right now my favorite is Top Chef Just Desserts — love the characters, drama and cooking skills — its been a great season. Also, can’t wait for The Fashion Show: Ultimate Collection which premieres on November 9th. Our new host, IMAN, is amazing and the fashions are brilliant. Also, love anything Bethenny does. She’s funny, and riveting.
| Posted on Oct 25.10 |
Integrating Your Engagement Strategy Workbook: Chapter 1
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Attendees to this Thursday’s PR+MKTG Camp East in midtown New York will get a workbook to help them build an integrated social media engagement strategy. It includes chapters with questions on assessing your current performance, creating a vision, executing a strategy and measuring results.
I have attached the first chapter to give you a sense of the types discussions we plan to have with leading brands and agencies. Integration is critical in helping PR an marketing professionals work more effectively with sales, customer service and community moderation teams to reach their target customers and key influencers. The challenges are particularly acute given that we are now using the same channels and engaging with the same audiences.
You can still register for the final spots. I hope you can make it, but even if you can’t I hope you fid this workbook useful and please give me your feedback.
| Posted on Oct 25.10 |
Integrating Engagement: A Weekly Review for PR and MKTG Pros
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This week’s featured posts on who should lead your company’s social media and alignment efforts and how to do it tees up nicely with discussions we will hold at PR+MKTG Camp East in New York City this Thursday, Oct 28. They extend the discussion about what works and doesn’t that Kristin English and I have been exploring for a while.
Founder of The CMO CLUB (@thecmoclub)Peter Krainik writes in Forbes Magazine about the need for alignment between PR and marketing. We’ve heard this time and time again, but the statistics presented in this post from a survey by The CMO Club and Hill and Knowlton show that it’s just not happening. Krainik highlights several important points including “PR and Corporate Communications is not about media and bloggers, it’s about product/service, customer service and responsiveness excellence.”
He also suggests it should be CMOs who take the lead role in customer service. A few weeks ago, we featured a post by Dr. Natalie Petouhoff who wrote that customer service department should take the lead.
Another important point Krainik makes is if we’re serious about alignment, we should be writing joint objectives, reviews and performance measures. How does this fit with Dr. Petauhoff’s concerns regarding which objectives are most important?
Who should be in charge of customer service interactions? What’s your perspective on having joint objectives, reviews and performance measures?
Who should lead is a popular question in many areas of social enterprise, collaboration and engagement. Dion Hinchcliffe (@dhinchcliffe) breaks down the various elements of this discussion in his post – Who should be in charge of Enterprise 2.0?
He explores the challenges of implementation and if we really need a dedicated corporate level leader for collaboration activities. The conclusion comes down to spreading out the responsibilities throughout the four main levels of leadership, senior management, middle management, senior staff and emergent leadership.
Where does PR and marketing fit within this structure? From Hinchcliffe’s post, it seems like we are within the middle management and senior staff levels. While it’s useful to identify those charged with collaboration within the larger structure, do we need further delineation? PR and marketing functions frequently overlap and more specific structures may provide a clearer picture of everyone’s expectations.
What do you think? Do these structures work or do we need further clarification?
One response to Dion Hinchcliffe’s post is Larry Hawes (@lehawes) piece entitled You Are Your Organization’s Chief Collaboration Officer. Hawes posits it should not be one person, but rather a Collaboration Board charged with the governance of collaboration. These individuals would evaluate and prescribe tools, policies and best practices.
The question for PR and marketing professionals is how to ensure they are represented on this board. Another question is what other departments are crucial to collaboration. Hawes’ main point is that collaboration is everyone’s responsibility. This argument makes sense because without each individual participating, collaboration doesn’t function properly. PR and marketing departments know these principles already and can be ready to lead efforts for more collaboration.
Do you think these collaboration boards could work?
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