Six Social Media Trends for 2011

This short Harvard Business Review blogpost on social media trends in the coming year is worth read.

Making the Right First Impression

Two recent events confirmed for me the essentials of making the right first impression.

This week I had poor experiences with an advertising sales rep and a car salesman on first meeting. Both came on abruptly almost aggressively in their desire to do business.

They forgot consumers do not like to be rushed particularly when buying a new type of product for the first time or an expensive item. In their minds buyers always believe their decision making process takes the shortest route from interest to purchase.

And that route can be blocked when the seller comes on so strongly the buyer becomes uncomfortable. This may be head slapping basic stuff but it is sometimes forgotten.

The takeaway: always make a good first impression on first contact and then work from there.

Social Media Helps Share War Stories

I was recently interviewed on the US podcast The Marketing Edge.

The Marketing Edge is among the Internet's longest running marketing and public relations podcasts. It is hosted by Albert Maruggi, a communicator with 25 years experience in  marketing and PR in America's business, technology, health and public affairs sectors.  Albert is also a frequent speaker and conducts workshop sessions on new media.

We talked about using social media to share stories of the wartime  sacrifices of previous generations.  This comes from work I'm currently involved in with the Australian War Memorial in Australia's capital, Canberra. 

Listen here to the 18 minute interview or download it from ITunes.

Burson-Marsteller Study: Message Gap Analysis

Burson-Marsteller Study: Message Gap Analysis

This recent study quantifies the gap between the messages a company sends out and the messages  mainstream media and bloggers pick up on and report.

Get Management Support for Your PR Change

PR and marketing plans often fail because communicators do not sufficiently engage the boss in what they are doing.  Put simply:  fail to win senior management buy-in and watch your PR proposal die. Often times persuading the boss is the toughest part in the whole communications process.

Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin's new book Repositioning: marketing in an era of competition, change and crisis suggests the communications barriers between the top floor where funds are allocated and the shop floor where ideas are born often involve:

• Cows: Never underestimate how tough it will be to get management sign-off  on  a new proposal that threatens someone else's favourite cow or worse still their cash cow. Future opportunities are often slaughtered on the altar of today's practices. 

• Bad decisions:  People are reluctant to embrace new ideas that cause them embarrassment about decisions they have made in the past.

• Egos:  Always factor in egos. The person in charge may regard an initiative as a threat to their authority or status.  They may either try to kill it or perhaps as bad to modify and brand it as their own.  Trout and Steve Rivkin point out this ploy can be like changing a cake recipe.  The cake may end up looking the same but it sure does not taste the same. 

Both authors have come up with strategies to help you convince the boss and the board, all no doubt won from years of dealing with senior managers.

• The world has changed:  Include a section on how the world has changed upfront in your proposal.  This acknowledges previous decisions and past poor performance were  based on the best  information available at the time but now things are different.  It avoids directly confronting past mistakes, lack of action or earlier decisions that were just plain bad.

• Educate  the boss:  Never, ever assume management knows about marketing, PR or communications or the latest trends.  Bring in an outside expert to advise them, give them a suitable book to read or arrange for them to meet someone from a successful (non-competing) organisation they admire.

• Analogy:  Use the power of analogy to draw a comparison with others.  XYZ Company passed on trying something similar and look what happened to them. Given people are often motivated by loss rather than gain introduce a note of caution or alarm into the comparison.  However always end with of course they may not happen to us but...

• Implement slowly:  Start slowly, pilot programs, use trials and always announce your victories.

Please share your ideas on persuading CEOs to support your PR or marketing initiatives.  

(Source Repositioning Pages 180 - 188)