In the past three months I've noticed the interest in social media continues to grow in Australia. The references to Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have increased in mainstream media stories and every communications-related conference now has the almost obligatory social media panel discussion.
Whereas twelve months ago many people were skeptical about the new media, now those same people want to know more about it and how it can help their business.
Social media is certainly an attractive addition to conventional marketing and PR. And given time it may even replace more traditional practices in some areas. But before you join the ranks of the passing social media parade, please take the time to think throughwhat you want to achieve and how best to incorporate the new media into your operations in a planned and sustained way. Suitable objectives for introducing social media into your communications mix could be:
To find out what people are saying online about you and your brand.
To correct misunderstandings in on-line conversations and confront errors of fact .
To manage your brand's online reputation.
To contribute to online communities that share your interests or to form or support such communities.
To use social media to proactively share information with individuals and communities online.
To contain or reduce the costs of conventional communications.
Undoubtedly there are many other reasons. The point is don't just launch into the new digital spaces because it is topical, trendy or because others are joining the parade.
Before you commit money, time and effort into the new media clearly and specifically articulate your communications objectives and have solid ideas on how you want social media to work for your organisation.
Australians are increasingly interested in social media.
Maybe it was President Obama's social media efforts during the recent US Presidential election campaign that has stirred our interest. Maybe after hovering on the fringes of mainstream communications for the past two or three years, social media has moved beyond something for teenagers in bedrooms to a point where it has emerged as a legitimate player in the PR and marketing mix. Or with the economy in poor shape, decision makers may be finding the low cost of digital media channels is simply too appealing to ignore.
So if you work for a government agency, a large organisation or a not for profit, now is the time to decide if your organisation will move into the social media space and to scope out how to do this in a disciplined and sustained way. Here are some considerations to make that transition as effective and as least disruptive as possible:
Decide Firstly make a strategic decision about whether using social media platforms will actually improve communications with the people you need to reach. If they will, take conscious steps to slowly blend the new digital tools into your promotional mix. If for whatever reason you decide against moving into the new media space (eg your audiences may not be on-line) at least take steps to monitor the blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook and similar sites to learn what is being said about your organisation and its issues. And if necessary be prepared to act quickly to protect your organisation's reputation on-line.
Policy Develop a social media policy. This will not only provide guidance to staff but it will become a necessary security blanket for managers and others still nervous about venturing into the online world. A simple document should clearly spell out what is to be gained by using social media, under what circumstances it will be used, by whom, legal, copyright, privacy and other considerations and how to respond to online criticism.
Competence Build digital competence within your team. Make one person responsible for managing online conversations. Ensure they know the core business and the communications intent of those on the top floor as well as the issues faced by those on the factory floor. Start out using one platform (such as blogging) and then bring other social media platforms into play as your organisation becomes more and more comfortable.
Integrate Integrate your online and other efforts. Avoid a worst case scenario where staff responsible for online engagement do not talk to those responsible for traditional outreach such as media relations, events etc. These types of barriers lead to mangled messages and missed opportunities.
Measurement As with other marketing and PR efforts, measure your digital program as thoroughly as you can. Some social media applications suit some circumstances but are not effective in others. You can waste a lot of time, money and effort if you select the wrong tool.
My sense is that social media will be the "flavour of the mouth and flavour of the month" among Australia's communicators and corporates within 12 months. Everybody will be talking about it as it moves from today's early adopters in the Twitter stream to government agencies, not for profits and businesses in the mainstream.
So now is the time to start thinking through these and other issues.
This weekend I'm in Melbourne helping to judge the 2009 Gold Quill entries from the Asia Pacific Region.
The International Association of Business Communicators sponsors the Gold Quills which recognise excellence in communications. This weekend the judging (which is the first level of assessment) will focus on around 80 entries from PR, marketing and other communicators from India, Australia, New Zealand, China, Thailand and the Philippines.
Successful entries from this weekend's judging go through to final review in San Francisco later in the year. The 2009 Gold Quill winners are announced in June 2009.
I'm looking forward to the judging experience. It's always informative to see how organisations in other cultural climates are getting their message to the people they to reach.
We are living through a perilous economic period with lots of talk about budget cuts and job losses. It is a troubling time for communicators facing cuts in their PR budgets and job losses. If you are a corporate, government or not for profit communicator invariably your marketing and PR efforts are under sustained and serious challenge.
It would be nice to able to apply a marketing template and come up with an answer for the future. But we are in unprecedented times. We can only determine the way forward by reviewing the lessons of the past, understanding the changing environment we find ourselves in and applying all our skills, experience and intuition to the current situation. And of course we will all need a little luck.
Let me share some personal thoughts as you set out on the road ahead.
Firstly strip away all the high blown definitions of marketing and PR. Marketing and PR is about talking to your customers, clients or community and helping them meet their needs. Whether you are in a down time or a boom time you can only achieve real results through having a continuing conversation with these people.
Cease the conversation and you cease the relationship.
So rule #1 in difficult circumstances is keep the conversation going. US studies dating back to the 1970s show companies that continue to market during tough periods increase their sales not only during the downturn but for up to two years afterwards.
When people slash marketing budgets they are effectively abandoning the conversation with the people that matter most. They leave behind a vacuum which organisations with more active communications often step in and fill.
Marketing in tough times is akin to the effort required by cyclists in the annual Tour de France road race. At the start every competitor is fresh and ready to win. But as the race enters its mountainous stretches, the individual who puts in the greatest and most sustained uphill effort often sets himself up to win the race.
But while you should continue to communicate it can never be a blind effort. Now more than ever is the time to be strategic and to move forward with serious and sustained intent. This means:
Marketing to a simple, well thought plan and not acting on impulse or being paralyzed by fear.
Keeping whatever marketing and PR efforts you can in-house. Only bring in outside expertise for absolutely essential tasks you cannot do yourself. Now is the time to skill up your team in those PR and marketing jobs which in better times you may have outsourced.
Replacing high cost marketing activities with more accountable options such as structured word of mouth marketing, referral and alliance marketing, direct mail and communicating through digital media. These may be less glamorous than glitzy events, glossy publications and the glories of TV advertising but in the end they are likely to prove more sustainable and will certainly be less expensive.
Measuring all your outreach efforts so you can accurately calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each marketing tool you use. Starting now you need hard data to make conscious, well thought out decisions about where your effort and money (now both in short supply) should go.
And above all recognise that consumers, citizens and communities are in the process of redefining their concepts of value. Smaller wallets and lighter purses may mean they hold off longer on new purchases and they are more prone to negotiate. But when they do decide to act, they will be looking for a balance of price, reliability, performance and a sense of safety and confidence in the goods and services they purchase.
So if your marketing has gone missing in action during the recession, there's little hope of convincing them you are the one to meet these fundamental needs.
Without doubt organisations will need guts and persistence to hold their marketing nerve and continue to communicate. But the quality and level of your marketing now could well determine if your organisation makes it to the other side of this recession.
Never assume any communications task is easy. Invariably it won't be.
Never assume those you work with know what you are doing. They don't. Unless you specifically tell them.
Never assume those beyond your organisation have received your information and understood it. Chances are they haven't.
Recently I had a humbling experience.
At the end of a meeting with two key supporters of a particular program, they asked where this program fitted "in the grand scheme of things" and requested simpler explanations of the program that could be passed on to their members. Simple requests but startling statements. I had been dealing with these organisations since 2003. For six years I assumed because I knew, they knew.
PR-wise it was embarrassing. In building our relationships with these key groups, it seems we overlooked three fundamental PR tenets.
Always keep key people in organisations that support your program fully informed. In particular make special efforts to let them what is happening in times of significant change. Even if you can't reveal the full story tell them as much as you can.
Write your publications and produce your multimedia for others ... not for yourself. Sometimes we becomes so obsessed with how we want our information presented and what senior management will finally approve, we forget to ask if our intended audiences will actually understand our material.
And always follow up to see if your material hits the mark. I have worked with organisations where the energy involved in just getting "things out of the door" (often because of cumbersome approval processes) leaves the communications team too exhausted to check their information is received, understood and acted upon.
For organisations with a monopoly on services, funding or information, push down communications might still work. But even then I think those days are numbered.
If like most of us, your organisation competes for the limited time and attention of citizens, consumers or communities, you need to continually engage your audiences with easy to understand and updated information. Or run the real risk of being among the thousands of PR and marketing messages people discard each day.
Is this basic? Yes it is? And I can see some communicators thinking these observations are wasting valuable blog space. But no matter how good we think our PR is, from time to time it's good to challenge ourselves to never assume anything when you communicate with others.
"PR2.0 New Media, New Tools, New Audiences" by Deirdre Breakenridge
Is this evolution or revolution?
Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, Twitter, Slideshare and a host of other social media tools are changing the way we communicate.And doing so rapidly.
Which leaves PR professionals looking similar to 19th century pioneers.We’re leaving the familiar world of brochures, media releases and other one way tools to travel the plains in search of the promised land of digital communications.We don’t know how long the journey will be or where we will finally settle.But as communicators we instinctively know there’s no turning back because things will never again be the same.
And for those who continue to doubt, look at Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign. It firmly put the seal of legitimacy on new media as a mass medium.
Her book PR2.0 is a valuable reference for communicators who need to understand new media, how to use it and how to integrate what we’re doing now with what we may be doing in the future.It offers a balanced view of social media but settles on a firm conclusion.New media’s ability for us to go one on one with our audiences means we live in the most exciting of PR times.
Most books on the subject either deal in generalities or descend into tech babble. This book does neither.It is written by a PR person for PR people and covers the things we need to know for our campaigns and projects.It starts with sections on digital research, monitoring and evaluation before dealing with new tools and applications such as social media releases, RSS feeds, blogs, video and audio.
Every chapter has blessedly simple explanations of the new technologies and features interviews with companies using it to good effect.Each concludes with a bullet point summary which is handy when so much rich information is presented.
The later chapters deal with planning for PR.2.O with valuable case studies showing how companies are using social media tools right now to get results.You could easily develop a template from these examples.
PR2.0 is a must-have reference for PR people.Get it, read it and keep it handy besides your desk or in your briefcase. It’s more than a book.It is a road map to the next PR destination.
Watch out for these three marketing issues in the coming year.
Act and communicate green. People automatically expect organisations to be environmentally conscious. It's now the entry level standard for successful community relationships.
Go high tech to hire staff and to engage people you need to reach. Social media is free, easy to use so why not get on board and begin to use it in 2009.
Times may be tough but think long term and resist the panic urge to slash your marketing budget. Hopefully your organisation will be around long after this financial meltdown so keep talking to your clients and your community.
Thanks to all of you who contributed ideas to our call for low budget PR ideas for not for profits facing tough times. We got a great response through Facebook, email, in conversations over coffee and of course through this blog.
We have put together a 19 page PDF report which brings together all these great suggestions.
I'll be sending it out to those contributors for whom I have contact details.
Email bobcraw@webone.com.au if you would like a copy and put the word Report in the subject line of your email.
Again thanks for your thoughts and good luck to the marketing efforts of all community groups in the coming year.
The financial crisis means the year ahead looks fairly bleak.
So spare a thought for not for profit groups that may struggle financially but still have to communicate with their communities. They will need to market themselves even more to attract volunteers, promote their services and raise funds.
So what are the low cost PR tools and tactics they can use? I'd like to compile at list and circulate it to the groups you and I both know who would welcome practical PR tips for the challenging times ahead.
I'll share a consolidated list with anyone who leaves a comment on this post.
Here's my six ways to stretch a PR budget in tough economic times:
Freshen up, recycle and reuse communications activities that have worked in the past.
Skill up your team to do as much of your media and marketing as possible.
If necessary bring in a mentor to help develop additional skills and build in-house capacity.
Continually measure your marketing to see where your dollars should be going.
Build in word of mouth marketing into your communications. It's the oldest, most reliable and least expensive of all the tools and tactics available to you.
People are increasingly online so ealy in 2009 experiment with new digital tools (Facebook, Youtube, blogs etc) to reach them at minimal cost.
Got your own cost saving ideas? Share with others by leaving a comment.
This week we are in Detroit at the annual conference of the Public Relations Society of America. The conference, attended by around 3000 PR professionals, is a great opportunity to learn about developments in communications around the world.
This year's hot conference topic is social media and in later posts we'll be reporting on how communicators are blending new media into their communications planning.
A recent edition of the Canadian podcast Inside PR contains useful tips on how to improve your PR writing. Scroll down and listen to Inside PR #122 of Wednesday 30 July 2008.
From time to time we do work for social services and community groups. So a recently released US report on not for profit marketing caught our eye.
The State of Nonprofit Marketing: A Report On Priorities, Spending, Measurement and The Challenges Ahead, produced by LipmanHearne and the American Marketing Association (AMA), contains fascinating insights. Australian not for profits will recognise many similarities in the American findings.
Building awareness, generating revenue, branding and acquiring and keeping members were key marketing objectives for US not for profits.
Public relations, community relations and customer and member relations are considered the most effective strategies to build awareness and visibility.
“Being mentioned in the media is priceless, because it gains nonprofit organizations attention as well as third-party endorsement of their work."
Word of mouth marketing is important for donors, government agencies and other key audiences. The Report notes these groups need specific evidence from not for profits on how they are making an impact.
It seems that US not for profits find measuring their marketing efforts a tough ask:
The most measured marketing activity is events followed by revenue raising.
But evaluating the effectiveness of websites, media coverage and print advertising is not particularly well handled.
42% of organisations surveyed had only one person doing their marketing and even then the marketing area often shares responsibilities with other parts of the organisation.
And the biggest future challenges for US not for profits?
Building awareness/visibility.
Revenue generation.
Positioning/branding.
Sound familiar? And not just for community sector. We think many businesses would recognise these challenges.
The environmental alarm clock just went off and it's five minutes to midnight.
On Friday 4 July Professor Ross Garnautreleased his 537 page report about global climate change and its impact on Australia. It pulls no punches. Early economic modeling shows that unless we take action now, by 2100:
Around 4.8 per cent will be wiped off Australia’s projected GDP.
Projected household consumption will drop by 5.4 per cent.
Real wages will decline by 7.8 per cent.
If we sit on our hands now the quality of life for our kids, grandkids and other Australians will be considerably worse than our current lifestyles.
The report poses special challenges for Australia's communicators. As the nation's story tellers, from this point onwards, more of us are likely to be called upon to use our communications skills to:
Help the man and woman in the street make sense of the claims and counter claims on what should be done in the next few years and beyond.
Help people understand their role in finding solutions. (This year's Earth Hour is a good example of telling people how they can become involved).
Explain simply the complexities of the tough measures Australia must take to mitigate against the effects of climate change.
Accurately communicate the impacts of these measures on whole industries, whole communities right down to individuals.
If the tobacco industry is an example, some in the PR community may be called upon by clients and others to fight rearguard actions to preserve sectional interests. They may be asked to sow doubt and confusion by communicating that change is unnecessary or the adjustment is too harsh. Mnay more may be tasked to green wash their organisations ie to promote token changes done more for good PR than sustainable posterity.
As a group I hope Australia's communicators put the global and national interest ahead of client and organisational self interest.
A recent international report shows PR agencies around the world enjoyed boom times in 2007, clocking up their best ever financial performances.
It’s all symptomatic of the rise and rise of communicators who are increasingly critical in the fortunes of governments, political parties, businesses, not for profits and just about every other type of other organization.
They may not know how it works, but managers at all levels now instinctively recognize the value of PR. And the more astute ones understand that without good PR, corporate or personal reputations can be end up in the trash.
Apart from (long overdue) management recognition, the boom times are also here because communicators now have more tools than ever to connect with customers, clients and citizens. Web2.0 technologies have given us the chance to engage with the people we need to reach, without going through traditional gatekeepers or self appointed mediators.
Despite all the hype no-one really knows where the world of on-line communications is heading. Just when we come to grips with one application, others spring up. Which means communicators are entering pioneer territory and the way ahead is likely to be uncharted, unfamiliar and often uncomfortable.
I hope we take a key lesson from the 1990s when the Internet really began to emerge. Then, most PR areas didn’t understand it, so almost by default, it became the property of the IT department. The “techos” quickly captured the new technology and from that point on people, who knew little about communicating, owned history’s most powerful communications tool.
In today’s organisations communicators must understand, use and promote the use of Web 2.0 or risk the fate of the monks in the Middle Ages. Then monks in cloistered monasteries labored for years to produce Europe’s manuscripts. In 1440 when German inventor Johannes Gutenberg invented his wooden printing press, a generation of monks likely looked at each other and said “this printing press won’t work… can’t understand it… not for us”.
Fast forward to today. Many printing presses … few monks!
Lately we have run into some fairly dispirited communicators frustrated by their senior management's lack of attention to their ideas. I sympathize.
I know how trying it can be to get people to recognise the value of your media or marketing suggestions. Worse still is when they readily adopt the same ideas from a consultant "earning big bucks", treat them like heavenly revelations and implement them.
So how can you get your boss to recognise the value of what you're suggesting?
Sometimes it's sad but true. The communicators "selling the organisation, don't sell themselves". So don't just be tolerated- be valued. Continually talk up the value your communications brings.
When you submit your annual budget are you asking people to commit to an act of blind faith? Forecast the results and benefits you plan to deliver.
Most professional PR and marketing services run on a billable time basis. Clearly show how you spend your time and how your investment of effort brings results.
It's easy to typecast communicators as left brain, artsy types far removed from the real world. Learn to speak the language of management - outcomes and objectives, deliverables, targets, milestones, prospects and sales.
Managers are busy people. They want to see things at a glance. Use graphs, graphics and tables to visually present information.
Benchmark with the best. Ask senior management which organizations they admire and then find out why those organisations communicate effectively. If in fact they do things better, learn from them. When you introduce new ideas tell those on the top floor, where these fresh insights come from and how others have made them work.
Measure everything you can lay your hands on. Measuring your communications is the only way to show progress. (Check out Angela Sinickas' free resources on communications measurement).
Report early ... report often. Regularly send one page reports upstairs about what you are doing. Don't write a history book so keep reporting short, sharp and concise. Finish each report with a "where to next" section in dot point form.
When things succeed, collect and circulate testimonials to profile your achievements.
"Comma jockeys and font fiends" talk tactics. Top communicators talk strategy. Continually remind people who they are trying to reach, what they are trying to say, the results they are trying to achieve and how your proposals will get them there.
Sometimes convincing people within your organisation can be tougher than convincing your external audiences. But taking the time to engage management can be a career building step.
When running campaigns, sometimes clients insist in seeing their issue reported in a particular magazine or newspaper. This type of "top down" direction is great because it can really focus your media efforts.
But the big "but" is does that publication reach the target audience? Or is not merely reflecting the CEO's personal preferences. In other words landing a story in a particualr publication might be more about vanity than real value.
If your goal is to simply reach the largest number of Australians, the recent Roy Morgan Readership Survey for the year ending March 2008, is a good guide to where to direct your media relations efforts.
Right now the top three newspapers by circulation in Australia are:
The Sunday Telegraph (NSW)
The Sunday Herald Sun (VIC)
The Sunday Mail (QLD)
And the top three magazines by readership are:
Australian Women's Weekly
Woman's day
New Idea
Whether your media efforts are dictated by volume or vanity, don't forget that media coverage is valuable only if it helps you reach the people you need to talk to.
Roy Morgan figures as reported in the 30 May 2008 edition of AdNews
Monaghan argued social media provided local governments with valuable, yet largely unexploited, communication opportunities given it:
Is fast and cost effective (around $5000 should get an organisation set up to produce video, blogs, podcasts, wikis and other media)
Allows councils to directly engage people 24/7 in a more appealing way than plain text communications
Is becoming increasingly important as more people move on-line
But Monaghan pointed out it will not be all plain sailing for councils:
Many CEOs did not support or understand social media and some feared using it meant "losing control" of their information. As if theyever had control once information left council chambers.
PR staff sometimes lack skills to make best use of the new tools
IT departments are often not supportive
Access and equity issues come into play when not everyone has computers
He recommended local governments watch what others are doing in the social media space, experiment and gradually integrate the new media into their outreach efforts.
Today I presented at the Local Government Web Network Conference in Sydney on using new digital media platforms in government communications.
