Communicators Must Adapt Slowly or Perish Quickly

 I have just finished Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure by British author Tim Harford.

A well written and highly engaging book, Adapt questions why organisations and individuals fail to change as their circumstances shift. It debunks conventional wisdom that leaders with big visions and authorities and experts armed with data can chart a successful way forward for the rest of us.  

Life it seems is too complicated and inter-connected to rely on giant leaps forward to bring lasting solutions. We just need to look at the range of current world issues to see the truth in this - the Afghanistan War, Climate Change, the Global Financial Crisis, #Hackgate in the UK etc. There are no simple strategies for any of these issues and if ever there were silver bullets, we fired them off long ago.

Adapt suggests we learn from how species of life have evolved over millions of years.  Change has been gradual with slow and steady adaptation and continuous experimentation. Obviously we have not got the luxury of waiting that long but what we should do is take baby steps rather giant strides and learn from the failures which will invariably confront us. 

Although not specifically written for PR and marketing professionals, Adapt holds valuable insights for communicators.  Perhaps we can earn success by following the advice of early Communist-era engineer, Peter Palchinsky.  After studying in Russia and abroad, Palchinsky determined the best way to innovate and change is to:

• Continually seek out new ideas and try new things.
• Introduce scaled change so when new ideas fail - as they often will - our organisations will survive.
• Learn from mistakes and continually and consciously adjust and improve.

It is difficult to change the communications patterns of large or well entrenched organisations. Often they are entrapped within their status quo.  When they try big changes and fall short,  those who fear innovation and draw comfort from the familiar are exonerated.  But not to change as the world turns, puts us on a pathway to perish.

The value of this book is to offer up a framework to try new things, progressively learn and build from our mistakes and settle for gradual, sustained improvement over spectacular advances that too often end in costly failure.

The Needle Has Barely Moved For Social Media

This Friday we finished the last of our pro bono, not for profit workshops for 2011. Again it has been a privilege working with local charities and community groups sharing ideas on improving their marketing efforts. 

Despite the fact well known and successful organisations attended, it became apparent that few have ventured in the social media space when it came to marketing.  In the seven years we have run these workshops it seems the needle has barely moved when it comes to local not for profits using social media. We know the financial costs of the new technologies are small, so perhaps the organisational barriers are just too big to scale. 

I am a social media advocate but that doesn't mean everyone is an enthusiast.  That's why I feel not for profits should consider the following issues before deciding if the world of Web2.0  should be part of their marketing futures:

• Are your clients, staff, volunteers and others you wish to engage using these new platforms?  If not and now, should you? 

• There are no gatekeepers in social media and people freely share information and opinions  without restraint.  In cyberspace they can comment on anything, including how your organization performs.  If you want to succeed in this freewheeling universe you must engage in, not try to control, the conversation with your on-line audience.  If your communications style is traditional and based on command and control it may be just too unsettling to embrace social media.  Can you handle the participation and democracy of the new communications as well as its technologies?

• Social media is a space of informal conversation.  There is no room for insider talk, corporate speak or jargon.  Sure, never dumb down your information but the nature of social media means it must be uncomplicated to be effective. Are you ready to be simple?

•  Measurement is easy with social media.  People leave behind digital footprints as they upload content or visit digital spaces.  Their conversations and level of engagement can be tracked and recorded.  Are you prepared to measure the quality of your social media relationships?  While people may follow you or become a fan or a connection, can you translate their on-line support into the real world where their involvement may be critical? 

• New social media tools hit the market at a bewildering rate. Most not for profits would be better off choosing social networking platforms that have already gained community traction before experimenting with new applications.  What platforms should you invest in and what do you let pass by?

• In new media, like traditional media, it takes time, effort and persistence to succeed. Do you have the time, effort and energy to try, operationalise and integrate new ways of communicating  into your marketing?   

Finally , is your organisation risk averse? If you feel uncomfortable or nervous about things beyond your control, then social media may not be a good marketing option at this point in your organizational journey.  

7 Steps To Promoting Your Event Through Social Media

Here's seven ways to get social media working for you when it comes to promoting your event:

• Set up your social media infrastructure by opening accounts on popular platforms such as Facebook,Twitter, YouTube and Linked-in. Also search for and open accounts in chat rooms, forums and other niche digital areas where potential audiences for your event gather online.

• Monitor the conversations on these platforms to identify the opinion shapers, what content is carried, what topics are popular and how people express themselves. Generally six to eight week monitoring period is sufficient to get a good understanding of how a site really works.

• Provide advice on your upcoming event plus educational content on the issue it is associated with. Do this through your own social media accounts, post information to others that support you as well as any forums and links you share with others.

• Contribute information about your event on a regular basis while avoiding the perception of either dominating the conversation or appearing boring. Change the wording of your updates so content arrives fresh every time it is posted. 

•  Be prepared to answer questions about the content you post or additional event information people may request.

•  Link all your digital accounts so information posted to one platform automatically migrates to others. In most cases this simply involves checking the account settings sections of your Facebook, Twitter or other accounts.

Above all successful promotion means keeping the conversation going, sharing your thoughts and being open to feedback. 

Credit to the Cvent authors of the recently released Event Marketing 2.0 e-book.

5 Reasons To Use Social Media For Events

What are the benefits in using social media to promote events?

• People on social media platforms can network before, during and after the event and build a richer personal experience.

• Planners can share educational content on their issue in the lead up to an event on social media platforms. And after the event this content remains as an online library.

•  You can get feedback on the planning and execution of your event to make future activities even better.

• You can crowd source for creative ideas from friends and followers to find that 'wow' factor that makes your event different and engaging. 

• Social media platforms provide another and cheaper way to reach people beyond advertising, fliers etc. Word of mouth through social media platforms can potentially reach anyone anywhere.

Credit to the Cvent authors of the recently released Event Marketing 2.0 e-book.

Science Of Twitter and Facebook Updates

Last week the US PR podcast "On The Record" interviewed Dan Zarrella of Hubspot about the science of timing Facebook and Twitter updates. 

Zarrella has studied when people are most effective on these platforms by drawing on data from two years of quantitative research.Although his material mostly covers US data, it reveals interesting insights, particularly about Twitter.  It seems:

•You stand a better chance of getting your content retweeted, if you tweet later in the day or on a Friday.

•To get click throughs, Thursday and Friday are popular days to sprinkle links in your tweets. 

•When tweeting your own content, it's OK to tweet the same information multiple times. For example tweet once in the morning, in the afternoon and then again in the evening. This exposes your message to the greatest number of people, many of whom may miss your original tweet. However the trick is to change the wording of each tweet over the course of the day so, although information is the same, each post appears slightly different.

Zarrella's Facebook insights are also interesting:

•Avoid posting too often to Facebook because feeds tend to stay around a lot longer on this platform than Twitter and you can annoy people by updating too frequently. Twitter users tend to have more followers than Facebook friends so Facebook posts come through an account at a slower rate and are visible longer. 

•People who post once every other day seem to attract more friends. 

•When brands publish on weekends they tend to get more "likes" because apparently there is less competition from other brands as business updates slow over the weekend. 

•Videos tend to work much better on Facebook because they are easier to watch than on Twitter. 

It would be interesting to see Australian stats on the how's and when's of engaging others on-line.

Credit to Eric Schwartzman and Dan Zarrella.