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The Future of Social Media: Here, There & Everywhere

  By Roger Friedensen | May 10, 2012 - 4:59 pm | Uncategorized
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“Breathe, breathe in the air,
Don’t be afraid to care.”
– Pink Floyd 

Twitter: The Beta Version

“I believe that in the future, social media will be like air – it will be anywhere and everywhere we want and need it to be.” – Charlene Li, one of the most influential voices in technology, in The Washington Times.

Assuming we take this analogy at face(book) value, we seem to be evolving into a society – or, perhaps more accurately, species – that cannot live without social media. There is no doubt there will be cynics, curmudgeons and just plain cranky-ites among us will consider that assessment heresy, but the fact of the matter is this: we are a tribal species, we know we are a tribal species and we like being a tribal species. Anything that helps us strengthen our ties to fellow members of the tribe, be it smoke signals, secret handshakes, handwritten letters, telephones or Pinterest is going to survive. It will evolve, of course (witness the changes we’ve seen in the telephone over the past 100 years), but the fact is communications channels that help us connect will survive because they help US survive.

My advice to individuals and tribes of individuals (you know, like a Fortune 500 company, local dry cleaners or a marketing public relations firm..): take a deep breath and jump into the grown-up end of the pool for fun – and profit.

QR Codes Offer PR Pros New Options

  By Roger Friedensen | November 3, 2010 - 2:03 pm | Uncategorized
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Yes, it actually does make sense


 

“Tell me more, tell me more!”
– “Grease”

 

Thanks to a good friend of ours, Chuck Norman, APR, of SA Cherokee here in the Triangle, we saw this brief from PRSA’s Tactics publication. What a terrific idea that is as powerful as it is innovative. While a large portion of the public does not – and likely will not – use QR technology regularly (half probably don’t know what it is), this tool offers unique value to those who do understand how to use it. Clearly, a driving force here is the continued growth of smartphones (heck, let’s just call ‘em what they are: hand-held computers that just happen to make phone calls, too) that make QR as easy as, well, pushing a button.

And while this article focuses on the use of QR in media relations and marketing, we can envision applying this technology in a host of public relations areas, including employee communications, investor relations and crisis communications. The key here is that we’re able to point stakeholders to a treasure trove of information online through an exceptionally simple – and easy-to-use – interface.

We’ll certain be including this technology in our recommendations to our clients and hope more and more of them will see the benefits of being in the Early Adopter Club.

Tagged: QRpublic relationsPRmarketingSA CherokeePRSATacticscrisis communicationsmedia relationsemployee communications

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An Old Dog Who Can Still Teach us a Trick or Two

  By Roger Friedensen | May 27, 2010 - 2:15 pm | Uncategorized
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“He said, ‘My name’s the teacher, that is what I call myself,
And I have a lesson that I must impart to you,
It’s an old expression, but I must insist it’s true.”
– Jethro Tull

A man and his Apple

While Apple CEO Steve Jobs has rarely been known for openness and accessibility, this story in Wired proves that not only can old dogs learn new tricks, they sometimes can set the pace for other dogs in the neighborhood

Over the past few months, Jobs — who is notorious for being tight-lipped and rarely responding to media calls — has decided to reach out and touch someone.  Or, to be more accurate, reach out and touch someones who are special.

Breaking with his monk-like tradition of letting others do the talking, Jobs has been sending personal e-mails to customers, reporters and others in a “return” to one-to-one communication from the top.  As helpful as mass-distribution channels such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs can be in getting the word out, Jobs knows that the most effective communication is based on one-to-one communication, even when that communication is pounded out on the keyboard of a MacBook Pro (we’re assuming here, of course, that Jobs is not typing his messages on a ThinkPad . . .).

What’s the lesson here?  Simple.  Jobs is relying here on one of the most fundamental tenets of Marketing 101: identify and connect with key opinion leaders who can help carry your message — credibly — to the masses.  Just as Everett Rogers wrote some 50 years ago in his seminal book, The Diffusion of Innovation, the strategic use of thought leaders to spread your message can not only speed up the process by which an innovation (like an iPad) is adopted, it can often help reshape your reputation and build a powerful network of influencers upon which you can rely in the future.

Perhaps this new-found openness on Jobs’ part was tied solely to the launch of his newest baby, the iPad.  Or maybe not.  Maybe he’s found religion in the wake of his health struggles over the past few years.  Either way, Jobs is once again leading the pack and demonstrating that the best CEOs remember that their success — and the success of their companies — begins and ends with individuals who are treated as such.

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The Lawyers are Coming, the Lawyers are Coming

  By Roger Friedensen | April 26, 2010 - 2:23 pm | Uncategorized
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“Beware of the sharks that swim on the land.”
– Jimmy Buffet

Oh the shark bites with his teeth bared, and he keeps them pearly white.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger reports that insurers have begun to sell liability policies to businesses for lawsuits arising from social media initiatives.  Is this something with which consulting firms and their clients should be concerned?

Witness this passage from the article:

In the meantime, companies need to think about protecting themselves from potentially devastating lawsuits, said Edward Klaris, an expert in media law who teaches at Columbia University.

“Any company that is involved in social media may well want to get traditional errors and omissions insurance, and they would not have had to do so in the past,” said Klaris.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for this to become part of general liability coverage (if it ever does) as well as how long until public relations, marketing, advertising and social media firms seek such coverage on a broad scale.

We’d be interested in hearing how many of you who manage agencies have purchased such coverage or have begun to include specific language in your contracts regarding social media.  Are lawsuits arising from social media campaigns significantly different than from traditional media, marketing or advertising campaigns?  We’re not sure it’s absolutely necessary as most master agreements and liability policies cover issues related to work product, but insurance companies tend more often than not to be ahead of the curve on such matters (especially when it comes to future forecasting), and they rarely make bad bets.

Either way, this is something every organization — be they consultants or not — should begin to study.

Turn off the Fire Hoses

  By Roger Friedensen | April 20, 2010 - 2:27 pm | Uncategorized
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“Too much of anything is too much for me.”
– Pete Townshend

Glub, glub, glub

It’s time to turn off the fire hoses, folks.

While it’s true that content matters, too much of anything is just plain too much. And Web sites overflowing with useless information streams, trivial data, redundant details and outdated resources are not only annoying to visit (though you be certain they won’t be visited again), they are also detrimental to health and reputations of their owners.

This article from Fast Company highlights the growing importance of smart, strategic content management, especially for consumer-facing organizations.

As public relations strategists, we’ve focused for years on the need to boil our clients’ information down to digestible morsels. Successful communications require that messages contain only the information that’s needed by the audience and little else. This need to focus on the audience’s needs and preferences is critically important in online communications. In short, if everything’s important, then nothing’s important.

The movement towards adopting comprehensive content strategies for organizations’ digital presence is most welcome and long overdue. Marketing and public relations professionals who want to serve their clients and organizations successfully would do well to learn about and incorporate such knowledge into their work.

As Kristin Halvorson writes in Content Strategy for the Web, “Treat content like a critical business asset. It is one.”