By Deanna Ferrari
In the world of online consumer engagement, it’s no question that it’s easy to get people talking and even excited about your brand when you’ve got something different or interesting to say. Take the recent explosion of the very popular Old Spice YouTube videos where its spokesperson, “Old Spice Guy,” answered questions directly per its audience. In fact, Old Spice was so successful that its sales went up 107 percent in July 2010.
How did the 71-year-old company do it? Thousands of followers? Maybe. Celebrities posing questions to Old Spice Guy? Absolutely. But those were just pieces of the concept called “social currency” that jolted Old Spice to the top of the trending topics faster than you could say “mansmells.”
According to a recent Fast Company article, social currency is “the extent to which people share the brand and/or information about the brand as part of their everyday social lives at work or at home made up of six key dimensions or “levers” — utility; affiliation; identity; conversation; advocacy; and information.”
It seems somewhat easy to track the social currency impact on a huge consumer brand like Old Spice or the recent unveiling of the 2011 Ford Explorer. But what about small, niche business-to-business companies that sell a specific product or service to a specific group of people? How do they determine social currency?
You can be a B2B company and use social media to not only appeal to your target audience, but the masses. Take Regency Global Transportation, a WordWrite client. Regency, a Pittsburgh-based first-class ground transportation company, aims to be the transportation company of choice for corporate clients. A typical Regency client uses the company for all of its ground transportation across the United States. Regency used the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh in fall 2009 to unveil its Twitter identity. The company knew its 40-plus chauffeurs would be driving six of the international delegations and would have first-hand knowledge of traffic conditions caused by the overwhelming security considerations for the summit. This public service opportunity to deliver real-time traffic tweets to help the Pittsburgh community learn of security-caused traffic situations near the downtown G-20 meeting site, and on major arteries leading to the airport and other G-20 venues, was the perfect opportunity to incorporate a social media presence measured by social currency.
Not only was the transportation company tweeting traffic updates, but also offering its online audience a first-hand look at restricted areas in the city. The drivers had access to our then-new president’s colleagues from delegations all over the world right there in Regency vehicles. Of course, Regency did not reveal any confidential information, but this information was intriguing enough to start a quick following and lead to a conversation, which fits into its own niche version of social currency.
While Regency Global Transportation may not be Old Spice with a plethora of YouTube videos and its own catch phrases, that also wasn’t what its goal was with social media. The B2B brand identified advocates, put out the right information and identified the right types of conversations. And that’s what matters most for B2B companies to have a success in social currency. Also, to quote Old Spice Guy, “I’m on a horse.”
(Image copyright Old Spice.)
Social media tool of the month is a regular feature on the WordWrite Storytelling Blog that appears monthly.
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Deanna Ferrari is a senior account executive for WordWrite Communications
July 29 2010 | Business to Business and Communications and social media | Add a Comment »
By Jason Snyder
The most basic tenet I learned as an undergraduate studying journalism was to get the facts, right down to spelling names correctly, as in S-h-e-r-r-o-d.
In the last several days as we’ve watched the Shirley Sherrod case unfold, we’ve seen the mainstream media, in a rush not to be the last reporting the story, miss some of the facts. In making a speech to the NAACP, Sherrod, a USDA employee, recounted a time in her past that seemed to implicate her as racist. But as the speech went on to reveal, her complete story was one of self-revelation when she realized that the important thing was to help the poor. Some media outlets based their story only on an edited video they saw.
Though Andrew Breitbart, who originally posted the video of Sherrod’s speech, is a well-known conservative blogger, should his word have been taken as Gospel? No. Like some news organizations did, the full context of the speech should have first been reviewed before running with the story.
We look to the media for credibility, and most of the time we get it. But in this day of citizen journalism and an exploding online world with split-second deadlines, fact checking and credibility are more important than ever. As we’ve just seen, video can be edited to support a particular position, and anybody with a computer and WordPress can write a blog.
In helping our clients tell their stories, we often work with the mainstream media. We take that strategy because of the credibility that comes along with having an independent third-party (a journalist) validate our client’s story as news. We also look to new media — bloggers, LinkedIn and Facebook, to name a few — to help tell stories as well. This new world of new media offers many great opportunities, as long as they’re leveraged strategically and appropriately. A lesson in the Sherrod case is that the new media is not always synonymous with the mainstream media.
It’s our responsibility as PR professionals to help journalists get all the facts, whether in a run-away online crisis similar to the Sherrod case or in proactively helping our clients tell their great, untold stories. Part of that responsibility includes monitoring both the traditional and online media to ensure that the full context is being provided and the facts are straight.
In the spirit of living what I preach, I’d appreciate a fact-check here. If you see anything questionable or any context missing from this blog post, please let me know. Just as important, what do you think? Do you disagree or have more to add?
Jason Snyder is vice president of WordWrite Communications.
July 23 2010 | Communications and Media and Public Relations and social media | Add a Comment »
By Paul Furiga
After 30 years in journalism and public relations, I’ve had my fair share of exposure to crisis situations. Some would argue that one person’s news is another person’s crisis. Others might suggest that news is just another word for crisis.
Regardless of your definition of crisis or news, one secret I have learned from covering and later managing crises for my clients is that, like Bill Murray in the film, Groundhog Day, some truths about crisis communications are repeated over and over again, but no one seems to learn from them. We’re seeing this yet again with the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So let’s just call these The Crisis Rules Everyone Should Know But No One Remembers. Trust me. Print this off. Bookmark it. It’ll come in handy. Sooner or later, you or someone you work with will be in a true, full-blown crisis. And having this handy will help you address the very first of the Rules, which is:
1. More than 95 percent of all crises can be predicted in advance. Think about that for a moment. Numerous scholarly studies and plenty of anecdotal evidence from recent events bears this out. Isn’t an oil spill perhaps the most likely crisis scenario that could happen to BP? And yet the company wasn’t adequately prepared to deal with it? Carry the logic out and measure the preparedness of your own organization or those you work with: If you’re not prepared for an outbreak of illness in a school, food poisoning in a restaurant, defects in a manufactured product, then how good can your crisis preparation be?
2. Crisis planning should be done on a “sunny day,” not when you’re under cloud cover with a flood descending upon you. It’s logical: If you can predict, to a better than 95 percent degree of certainty, what sort of crisis might befall you, then why wouldn’t you plan to deal with it on a “sunny day,” when you aren’t distracted by gales of water cascading down on you? You don’t drive without auto insurance, most businesses wouldn’t open their doors without some form of insurance, tax or legal advice, yet so few plan for a potential crisis that violation of this rule is most like my Groundhog Day analogy.
3. There are only four types of crises. This is not rocket science. Again, think about it. There are man-made crises (BP) and there are natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina). Then there are natural disasters made worse by man (Hurricane Katrina, perhaps, with the failure of the levees) and man-made disasters made worse by nature (we may unfortunately see this one in the Gulf of Mexico if we have any massive hurricanes that propel the oil-stained currents of the Gulf in new directions).
4. Crisis communications is about transparency, not control. This is a rule so often violated that it stuns the imagination. If it wasn’t a crisis, you could control it! So if it’s a crisis, then . . . you can’t control it! Duh! Again, think about the BP spill. If the oil giant had said “we don’t know” or “we’re working on it” a few more times early on in the situation, how would that have improved the situation for the company in terms of public perception? Instead, officials made declarative statements that later proved to be wrong. That made them look like liars. It doesn’t matter if they were being truthful and were just wrong because of events beyond their control or if they indeed did lie. The point is, it looks like they lied. In the same vein, if the company had immediately turned on the live feed of the oil gusher while being open about what they knew and what they could do, would that really have worsened the public’s view of them? Case study after case study of successful crisis communication shows it would have improved the situation. Which leads to my last Rule,
5. When you can’t communicate content, communicate process. This is just as fundamental, and as important, as being transparent. If the BP folks didn’t know what they could achieve and when (because frankly, while a spill is somewhat predictable in the oil business, this kind of spill has never happened before), then why not let people know how you will address the process rather than promising you will cap the well by a specific date, or making some other statement that it later turns out you could not back up? Research in human psychology and crisis case studies have shown that even when us humans don’t know where we are going, if we have confidence in the process, our heart rates drop, physical stress is reduced and emotional upset is calmed. Yet far too many organizations, when in crisis mode, prefer to say “no comment” rather than focus on the one thing they absolutely can influence in a crisis, and that’s how well they communicate what they are doing to end the situation.
Are these the only crisis rules in the world? Of course not — and I’d love for you to add to the list. After three decades in and around local, national and international crises as part of my life’s work, these are five that have most benefited my clients in our crisis counseling work. When a crisis finds you — or an organization you work with — may you be so prepared as to have this list (or your own) close at hand so you can manage through the situation with the best results.
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Paul Furiga is president and CEO of WordWrite Communications.
July 02 2010 | crisis communications | Add a Comment »
By Deanna Ferrari
One of WordWrite’s clients, KIT Solutions, recently attended an annual industry conference, which was a great opportunity to showcase KIT’s services to prospects. As an exhibitor, KIT was able to demonstrate its cloud computing services. KIT’s executives brought a few computers for the demonstrations, but KIT’s president did something that made the process even better. He brought his iPad. This way, Xiaoyan Zhang could show prospects KIT’s services if the computers were occupied, and he had a way to show these services outside of the exhibit area. No opportunities were missed in making connections with the right people at the conference because there was always this useful tool handy that had all the information Xiaoyan needed right at his fingertips.
It is no surprise social media has changed the way business leaders do their jobs. They tweet rather than call and use Facebook pages as an outlet to communicate with their audiences. We still carry laptops and smart phones (at all hours of the day sometimes), but with the iPad, Apple has introduced to what may be a new, perhaps even better tool that might just be essential for the modern business leader.
In business today, a lot of work happens from behind our desks. But sometimes, that desk moves. We could be between meetings at a coffee shop or traveling for a client event. This is where the iPad becomes essential. First, it’s functional. Rather than having a heavy, bulky laptop in our bag, we can carry the lightweight and thin iPad, saving space and a future backache. I’ve also heard good things about its battery life, so even if it’s not fully charged it’s still ready to go. Not to mention, it comes in a variety of size options holding up to 64 GB of storage.
But what about the nitty gritty of why an iPad is essential to business? No, an iPad can’t replace a server farm (now THAT would be “magical,” Apple); but it can be a better replacement for traditional communication methods. My KIT example gives one picture of how business professionals would gain the most out of this tool. Trade shows and conferences are a place to showcase products, services, or make connections. If you’re set up at a booth, that’s one thing – you can open up your laptop. But if you’re moving around, slipping an iPad out of your bag and bringing up a recent announcement from your website to show a prospect is seamless. They could even place an order for your product right there if your iPad picks up a WiFi signal, or it’s equipped with 3G. Also, you can easily update your social networks — there’s no need to carry anything else with you.
Not at a conference? There are endless applications business leaders can use with an iPad. One example from our industry is an app is from PR Newswire, which allows users direct access to breaking news from many of the world’s leading brands and organizations that issue text and multimedia press releases and information over PR Newswire. The app provides a gateway for users to share content via e-mail and social media. According to PR Newswire, its app also “lets users interact with PR Newswire’s @ProfNet and @PRNewswire Twitter feeds, and subscribers of PR Newswire’s expert network, ProfNet, can use the app to access fast-breaking queries from reporters seeking article sources and expert commentary.”
Today’s business pro has to be faster and more savvy than ever. The window to transact business is getting smaller as social media continues to grow, so having a tool that can make the most of instant communication opportunities is essential in changing the game.
Social media tool of the month is a regular feature on the WordWrite Storytelling Blog that appears monthly.
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Deanna Ferrari is a senior account executive for WordWrite Communications
June 30 2010 | Business Growth and Business to Business and Communications and social media | Add a Comment »
By Jason Snyder
I recently listened to a group of health care public relations professionals discuss their social media efforts. Several organizations they represented had already stepped into the social media realm. Others still had not, which is not surprising considering that only one in six hospitals has a social media presence, according to Ed Bennett, director of Web strategy at the University of Maryland Medical Center, and one of the industry’s experts on social media.
Some concerns about jumping into social media are industry specific. The big one that comes to mind is HIPAA, which was designed to protect patients from disclosure of protected health information. You don’t have to look too far to see serious consequences when patient confidentiality is breached via social media. Other concerns were more typical of organizations approaching social media cautiously: how do I find time to engage in social media given all of my other responsibilities, how do I monitor what others are saying about us, how do I respond to a negative post?
These are all legitimate concerns, but the biggest concern among organizations not participating in the social media conversation is just that: not participating in the conversation. If you are not part of the conversation, someone else may be telling your story. That means you’re missing a golden opportunity to positively engage with your stakeholders. Or, worse, only part of the story is being told and you’re not there to tell your side. You undoubtedly have great stories to tell. This is your opportunity to tell them directly to those who need and want to hear them.
There are several health systems that have built excellent “digital front doors,” which is really what your Internet presence represents. The Cleveland Clinic has a great Facebook page where you can find facts about the organization linking back to the system’s web site, videos that tell patient stories and a wall where potential patients are asking questions of the clinic – and getting timely answers.
The Mayo Clinic uses its Twitter presence to complement other communication efforts it has under way. It promotes its physicians appearances on radio shows, for example, taking questions via tweets. It’s also facilitated chats about health-related topics, again engaging consumers through a question-and-answer format on Twitter.
It does take a commitment to succeed in the social media realm. But you avoid the conversation at your peril. Many of our clients have already taken steps toward building a strong social media presence. We advise those who haven’t that it’s not an all-or-none proposition. What’s right for one may not necessarily be right for all. And it’s not necessary to take a headfirst plunge. There’s nothing wrong with slowly dipping your toe into social media, as long as you’re starting to get wet.
There are resources – free and otherwise – that can support the social media regimen of posting, monitoring and responding. But nothing replaces the human resource. How is your organization balancing the demands of social media? If you’re still not sure about joining the conversation, what are your considerations? Let us know — we’d love to hear your social media experiences.
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Jason Snyder is vice president of WordWrite Communications.
June 18 2010 | Business Growth and Communications and Healthcare and Public Relations and Storytelling and social media | 2 Comments »
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