Creative Concepts

Your social media presence is only as useful as the change it triggers in your business. To that end, here are 3 recent case studies we’ve found, along with the lessons explained (or implied) by each:

• The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) called in its bloggers to head off a potential PR disaster stemming from one blogger’s (misinformation-driven?) post about her baby being seized during airport screening.  (Lesson: Companies large and small are realizing that web-driven PR fires need to be addressed immediately.)
• Michael Bissell gives a blow-by-blow account of how an offhanded web comment resulted in LinkedIn considering a change to the way they process information.  (Lesson: Consumers, speak up; you never know who’s listening.)
• Network Solutions assigned one employee to manage a wave of customer dissatisfaction on Twitter.  The result?  A flip from 58% negative commentary to 18%, and several positive blog mentions of individual outreach.  (Lesson: Even a small effort toward improving your customers’ experience can help turn the tide of dissatisfaction.)

In each example, companies are proving that engaging dissatisfied (or downright angry) customers directly can mitigate the potential PR damage caused by consumer aggravation.  And while those concerns are normally specific to a time, place and incident, the goodwill engendered by such outreach is a long-standing example that reminds customers at large how much your company does care about their experience — and it shows them that you’re not afraid to use the same tools they do to ensure that their needs are met.

In a recent post for Social Media Today (SMT), Tactical Transparency author Shel Holtz makes the case that traditional PR can still be just as effective of a marketing resource as the hot new grassroots options like “trusted peers” and word-of-mouth.  The catch?  In Shel’s view, traditional PR needs to start operating a little more… non-traditionally.

Holtz advocates newly-popular concepts like acting transparently, forsaking astroturfed messaging, etc.  Common sense, really.  It should go without saying that PR agencies ought to engage people in ways the people themselves find meaningful, rather than using new tools to reinforce old, erroneous and ineffective messages.  And yet… why have Holtz and countless others had to go out of their way to say it?

The popularity — and, in some ways, the mere existence — of books like Holtz & John C. Havens’s Tactical Transparency and Chris Brogan & Julien Smith’s Trust Agents would seem to signal that audiences now crave a return to authenticity in media.  But how did the practice — or the perception — of PR ever stray so far from these principles to begin with?  Why is social media heralded as an antidote to unsavory, top-down control of a company’s messaging?  And how have common sense observations about the need for honesty become so resonant?

It’s flattering to believe that social media is somehow immune from the excesses (or improprieties) that have become associated with the black hats of PR.  But that’s a false sense of entitlement.  If we’re all smart, the next stage of social media’s integration into mainstream messaging will focus less on how new messages are spread and more on what those messages are actually saying in the first place.

The recent increase in conversations about the pros and cons of blogola — AKA the “grey area” practice of bloggers getting paid by sponsors to write blog posts about those sponsors — highlights the issue at the heart of social media: trust.

Blogs exploded in popularity due to ease of use, but it was the growth of an audience that led each blogger to feel that his or her blog was valid.  Yet the mere existence of an audience is enough for some people to believe that audience is aching to be marketed to.  This has inspired bloggers around the world to consider using their newfound clout to suggest how their audiences should spend their dollars — preferably at a profit to the bloggers themselves.

Which is fine, as long as those suggestions are independent opinions.  No one is advocating that bloggers starve.

But when a sponsor pays a blogger to positively review that sponsor’s products and services AND when that blogger fails to mention that they’re being paid to do so, that author risks losing their credibility. No one likes being misled, even over something as simple as which dish soap or bubble gum their favorite blogger claims to use daily.  What bloggers lack in credentials, they make up for in the implied trust of their readership; actions that erode that trust will drain all credibility from that blogger’s reputation over time — and acquiring a reputation in the blogosphere is a hard-won goal that’s worth protecting.

Marketers: Bloggers — and their audiences — are valuable resources who deserve to be respected, not manipulated.  You wouldn’t expect a mainstream magazine or TV news outlet to run your commercial as a news story, so don’t provide bloggers with an opportunity to sabotage their (and your) reputations.

Bloggers: respect your audiences (and yourselves) enough to be forthright about your sponsorships. Your audience wants you to succeed; they just don’t appreciate being lied to in the process.

I say this blog entry is Part 2 because this is really a continuation from my previous blog on how not to use the internet to find a job.  Here is the story:  Heather finally found the previous blog entry and the  following then occurred: 

1. there was an anonymous comment made which was posted at the same time Heather emailed me personally (which lead me to believe that it was actually Heather posting the comment based on tone and timing).
2. Heather stated her case or fought her battle via email instead of on the blog.
3. Heather then sent me an additional email asking for me to take her name off the previous blog entry. 

For the sake of argument, let’s replace Heather now with Company A  but still use Heather’s actions to demonstrate how a company should not approach social media.

First, you must know that any content you put up on a blog, a social network, video or more is now public domain.  You as a company are now subject to scrutiny and people can now voice their opinions, positive or negative, about your product or service.  Always think about how you want your customers to perceive your company…are you a solid company that your customers can rely on?  Do you provide entertainment for your customers?  Who is your target audience and what is their voice?  These are a few questions to ask yourself when you think about posting your content along with your company messaging/branding.

Second, let’s say your company has a blog, you posted your content and another blogger criticized you either for your message or your product or service.  Never, never, never work in stealth mode and leave an anonymous comment.  Anyone who has any kind of experience can track down who left a comment via ISP or sheer deduction like I did.  If you as a company leave an anonymous comment, all credibility is lost and you now look like the guilty party who has done something wrong. 

Having said all of this, use the comment section of the blog to state your case.  If a blogger has something negative to say about a service, for example, use the comment section to thank them for their insights and address the problem.  This allows you, in a public forum, to redeem your company.  You want to show everyone interested that you care and will resolve the problem quickly.  By sending an email to the blogger, you are only addressing that one indivdual (vs. all who read their blog) and can only hope that the blogger will say something positive or even mention your company at all.  If you take action in the comments section, you can be proactive and control your messaging.

And finally, asking a blogger to take your company name off of their blog shows your lack of experience in the blogosphere and shows you are doing the old corporate thing by trying to hide in times of trouble.  The internet tracks everything.  Even if a blogger took your company name off of their blog, you could still find a previous entry on other blogs who may have quoted the original entry and of course through RSS feeds.

So, lessons learned on how to blog for any company:

1. Always be aware that once you put out your message, it is on the internet to stay.
2. Welcome criticism and learn from it!
3. Transparency is key for surviving all social media efforts.  Always let everyone know who you are and what company you represent.
4. If a blogger makes a comment, positive or negative, repsond on their blog…the same goes for Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and all other social media sites.
5. Never ask for your company name to be taken off a site.  Your company will be destined for more scrutiny and more comments or another negative blog entry!

Happy Blogging!

A big thanks to Debbie Weil for including Bigelow Tea’s blog on her very extensive and well thought out list of corporate blogs, see more here.

I had a photographer that I lost touch with.  I had another photographer who decided to step away from her business.  I needed a photographer to take pictures of my family….and of course it couldn’t be just any photographer. 

In true social/internet networking fashion, I found a site called SuzySaid.  It is all the rage in Fairfield.  Why?  Because they report on everything that is local and the content is top notch.  I liked them so much I signed up for their email blasts.  I began to trust their content and well Suzy whoever she is (I have heard that it is a bunch of very talented women behind the homepage ).  Because I trust Suzy, I pushed a client their way to advertise (I don’t like advertising and rarely suggest this road but again, I trust and value SuzySaid).  They handled my client so well that I thought all advertisers on the website must be top notch.  Because of all of these experiences, I began to trust everyone and anyone associated with SuzySaid (did I tell you about the 2 amazing restaurants I went to because of SuzySaid restaurant reviews?).  Having said all of this, I saw regular advertisements for a photographer.  The combination of her great photos, she was a regular on SuzySaid, and she had a blog that was updated regularly made me hire her immediately via email, no quesitons asked.

Guess what?  I wasn’t wrong about her, Char from Wink Photography was professional and amazing at caputuring the essence of my family.  Guess what?  SuzySaid has done it again!

Ahhhh, the power of the internet!

For some great pictures of the family, go here.