Why is Social Media Not Public Relations Today?

I've got questions.

Over the past year, dozens of tech companies in Silicon Valley like Cisco, McAfee, SAP and VMware  hired me as a social media consultant.  I got contracts with their product marketing or global marketing groups, not their public relations department.

My first question is, "Hey, I'm a PR man working at a PR firm.  Why isn't this contract with the PR department?"

Many of my Silicon Valley marketing friends asked me a very similar question, "Should the responsibility for social media be handled by PR or product marketing?"

Friends at Google, HP, and Oracle asked me this question and until today, I always said, "social media should fall under PR."

Then, my friend, a bigshot in PR at HP, challenged me.  He suggested that I look at marketing services as either customer marketing or influencer marketing.

I looked through a year's worth of social media service contracts and categorized activities as either customer marketing or influencer marketing.

Excluding monitoring and strategy development, more than 70 percent of social media services bought in 2009 were for customer marketing.  My work on blogs, Twitter and Facebook was primarily designed to first attract and then communicate with customers.

"Aha," I thought.

Influencer marketing, getting people from the community to create unique content for us, was only a minor part of the services sold in 2009.  The activities to make information go viral are still very much in development.  Since Page One focuses on B2B social media, our 2009 clients were primarily interested in publishing their marketing information on sites they controlled.  This meant that we got paid to manage Facebook Fan Pages, blogs, and Twitter and filled these channels with information that was directed at the customer.

However, there appears to be big changes in 2010.  Already, our clients are asking for more activities that create interaction and target influencers for content creation.  Recent contracts have balanced customer marketing and influencer marketing at roughly 50 percent for each type of activity.
Perhaps by the end of 2010, we'll see influencer marketing comprise the majority of social media activities.  If this happens, I expect that I'll see more contracts with the PR departments of Silicon Valley companies.

ITMemos, a New and Free Resource for Buzz Campaigns

ITMemos is a new free service that provides information on technology awards, speaking opportunities and editorial opportunities.  Although there are many other services out there, ITMemos is free, supported by ITDatabase, a research tool for tech industry marketing and PR professionals.  Over the years, I've used a number of PR tools and services to track awards and speaking opportunities.  I've found all of them lacking.  ITMemos is a nice, concise listing of events and opportunities that is both useful and free.  In addition to the web site, ITMemos also offers a free bulletin service that automatically sends you updates by email.

Social Media Listening Software

Here's a nice summary of 26 tools used for social media listening.  At Page One, we're paying for Radian6, eCairne, and Sysomos.  However, I often find myself turning to Google search first.  It's fast and the search box is right in my toolbar.  In the last project we did for SAP Business Objects, my colleague Susan also relied on manual searches within forums and sites like Facebook.  One of our clients is using Cymfony and having some problems getting it to produce the types of reports that are useful for social media.

Related to monitoring is response and interaction with the online community.  Recently, I've been going back to the basic PR approach of finding a small number of highly influential people in the social media space and focusing interactions with these people. 

If anyone has experience with social media listening tools, please send me your experiences or leave a comment below this post.

Facebook Privacy Settings - Four Easy Steps

Facebook campaign management can be improved with effective use of privacy controls.  It is important to control the flow of information to different groups of people.  

Unfortunately, Facebook privacy settings are buried behind several layers of menus.  The default privacy settings expose information to Friends and Friends of Friends.  This often results in mildly embarrassing or marginally private information being shared with people you know only through work.  To avoid this, most people limit the information they publish on Facebook, ultimately limiting the value of social networking with friends and close business associates.

Marketers that manage Facebook Groups are faced with the additional problem of posting company information to a Group Wall that is then broadcast to all their friends.

Privacy settings can restrict information access to individuals or to groups of people. 

Here are the four steps:

1) In the upper right corner of your browser, look for the Settings menu.  It is to the right of your name, to the left of the Search box.  When you mouse-over the Settings menu, Privacy Settings will appear.


2) A new page for Privacy Settings will appear.  Select Profile Information.

3) You will see a range of settings for different types of information.  Click on the menu with a picture of a lock on it.  The default settings are Everyone, Friends of Friends, and Only Friends.  You need to select Custom.


4) A pop-up window will appear that says, "Custom Privacy," at the top of the window.  In the lower box, there is an option Hide from These people.  Instead of adding people individually, it is better to restrict a group of people.   To group people together, you need to add them to a Friend List. 

Self Publishing

There are two faces of social media: 1) self publishing and 2) viral distribution.  For most campaigns, the self publishing component is easier to get results for than the viral distribution component.  People create free games, videos, blogs, or software, give the information or digital media away for free and hope that it goes viral.  Usually, self publishing campaigns get limited results, generating a few hundred views per corporate blog entry or a few hundred views to a video.  Sometimes a game, a YouTube video, or an application will go big.  Sometimes, a self publishing idea really goes viral.

Publishing Linux software was a doozy of an idea that went big in the 1990s.  Although some people might not see the connection between open source, social media, and self publishing, to me it is clear.  There is a strong connection in philosophy and business models.  The initial model for Linux businesses was a publishing model, not a software development model.  The initial Linux businesses were CD ROM publishers that sold square plastic cases filled with CDs that contained software that they downloaded from the Internet.

I was thinking back to the mid 1990s when the Internet was just starting to go mainstream and open source software was a new concept.  Back in those days, Bob Young was just a normal guy and didn't have the huge sums of money he would later earn as CEO of Red Hat.  In 1993, Bob started a company selling software on CDs.  In 1994 Bob started Linux Journal with Phil Hughes, which was a pretty crude publication in it's first incarnation.  By 1995 Bob had cut a deal with Marc Ewing to sell the Red Hat Linux distribution, a a set of open source software that included Linux and was packaged in a nice, easy to use format with a nice installer for all the software.  Bob and Marc created Red Hat Software, which did an IPO in 1999 and made Bob rich.

Sometime around 2002, Bob Young founded Lulu, the leader in self published books.  Bob and most of the other open source people from that era never really pursued businesses like Facebook or Zynga.  The strategy and technology behind viral distribution of information was developed by the next generation of technology entrepreneurs.

However, the model of self publishing, whether it is software, books, music, or video, is still being pursued by the original visionaries 15 years later. 

Social Media Job Opening in San Francisco

Social Media Account Manager – San Francisco

Page One PR is a Silicon Valley public relations and social media firm that caters to the B2B industry. We are currently looking to add an account manager to our Social Media Team in our San Francisco office.

We are looking for a brilliant, enthusiastic and highly motivated individual who wants an opportunity to impact companies’ business decisions with social media. The ideal candidate would be able to manage social media accounts (large and small), keep the accounts and grow them over time.

Job Requirements:

• 3-5 years experience in marketing, public relations, advertising or related communications field;
• Account management experience and strong track record of retaining accounts with outstanding results;
• Ability to successfully manage large tech accounts such as Cisco, SAP and VMware as well as smaller start-ups;
• Experience designing and implementing social media campaigns and a proficient understanding of social media techniques and strategy;
• Exceptional organization, writing and verbal communication skills;
• Ability to contribute individually, and lead, manage or participate in cross-functional teams;
• Ability to grow account retainer sizes;
• Four-year university degree.

At Page One we’re corporate, but collaborative and laid-back. People at Page One come from all walks of life. We like that mix and we look for initiative, intelligence, humor, integrity, creativity, risk taking, fearlessness, management skills and a track record of success.

Since Page One’s culture is all about great people doing great things, we reward our employees with exceptional pay, matching 401K and 20 days of paid time off from your first day on the job.

• 20 PTO days (even in your first year)
• 11 paid company holidays
• Medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependants
• Matching 401K
• Long- and short-term disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Flexible spending account

The salary for this job is up to $70,000 annually, depending on experience.

If you are interested in a career as a Social Media Account Manager at Page One, email a resume and a cover letter outlining your account management and social media experience to Shelly Milam at socialmediajobs@pageonepr.com.

Learn more about us: http://www.pageonepr.com
Follow us on Twitter: @pageonepr
Become our fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pageonepr
Read our blog: http://www.pageonepr.com/blog/

Getting Rid of Farmville and Games Updates from Facebook

The rise of social gaming has created a problem with spam on Facebook News Feed and Notifications.    The News Feed are the posts on the front of your Home page when you first log into Facebook.  The Notifications appear in the lower right-hand corner of your browser.

It is easy to turn off the incoming News Feed and Notifications for specific applications like Mafia Wars and Farmville.

For the News Feed, put your mouse over the post.  A button called, Hide, will appear in the upper right-hand corner of the text box.  When you click on this button, it will give you the option of hiding all future news from the application on your feed.

You can also hide Notifications from these applications.  If you mouse-over the Notification, you an "x" will appear to the right of the notice.  You can click on this "x" to block future notifications from the application.

Another option is to use Facebook Purity, a script for your browser that will remove all messages posted by applications.

Tips to Deal with the Daily Deluge

I often feel that I'm a 40-something year old guy trying to sprint after 20-something year old social media gurus in the office.  The word, "overwhelmed," frequently comes out of my mouth on a daily basis.  I don't feel that bad because I talk to many marketers in Silicon Valley that look even worse than me when explaining their daily deluge.  Fortunately, I'm able to use technology and tricks I've learned from the young members of the tribe to keep up with the massive flow of information I face every day.  I even have a bit of fun in the process.  You can have fun too.

There's a simple rule to manage a large flow of information.

Find and on focus on the most important things.

Today, I'm using HootSuite to manage streams of information from these five sources:

1. Twitter
2. Twitter Lists
   
3. Facebook News
4. Facebook Pages
   
5. LinkedIn

Twitter and Twitter Lists are in different categorizes because the high volume of noise on a Twitter Following (who you subscribe to) stream usually makes incoming Twitter posts unmanageable.  There are too many posts to read.  Too many posts are not relevant to what I'm looking for.

There are two methods to deal with incoming Tweets gone wild:

1. keyword searches; 
2. pools of people.  

Many Twitter tools, including HootSuite, can group incoming posts into columns based on automated keyword searches such as "product name."  If you focus on the results of automated keyword searches, you'll be able to spot the most important Tweets easily.  To be effective, you must use automated the searches with a tool like HootSuite.  The other key to successful keyword searching is to pick the right keywords.  I strongly suggest that you adjust the keywords over a period of months.  Every week or so, look at the search terms and edit them.  It's more work initially, but it will make you more effective and efficient on a daily basis as you deal with the deluge.

Automated keyword searching needs to be supplemented with Twitter groups.  These need to be created manually.  Again, there is more work required up front.  For this reason, most people won't set up Twitter Lists and will fall victim to the daily deluge.  If you need to use Twitter for your marketing job, don't be a information flood victim.  Become a savvy user of Twitter Lists, both private and public, to group people.  Twitter Lists are an official Twitter feature.  I have a private Twitter List for people in my company.  I have another smaller list for people in my group.  Another private list monitors client activities.

HootSuite manages information based on columns and tabs.  There can be multiple columns within each tab.  I have different tabs for different groups of information.  My incoming Facebook and LinkedIn information is displayed in separate columns. 

I can also write my outgoing messages from a central location and post the messages to either Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn from different accounts, including multiple accounts for the same channel.  I have multiple Twitter accounts for work, surfing, and personal updates.

If people have questions, comments or tips on how to deal with the daily deluge of information, send them to me.