my 2 cents

Is there a future for email?

We all know how essential email has become for business.  Whether for good or bad, it enables us to be connected to work 24/7.  9 to 5 office hours, in most cases, are a thing of the past.

But is email itself destined to become obsolete as a person-to-person communication tool?  Facebook and other sites have instant messaging. Texting is the tool of choice for teens and 20-somethings.  For them, it seems, email just isn't fast enough. And other social media platforms like LinkedIn have their own messaging tools.

A recent survey of high school and college students showed 44 percent think email has a place and will remain a viable tool.  Many of them are now primarily texters, but they seem to recognize that email is the more commonly-used communication tool for business -- the world they know they will be entering within a few years.

Even teens do check their email, even if they rarely use it for outgoing messages.  The study shows 95 percent who follow a brand on Facebook frequently check their email for messages or coupons and other special offers from the brands they follow.

So it looks like email is not on its way to becoming the fax or snail mail of tomorrow.  Not for a while, anyway.

Gen Y: It's all about being connected

Today's young people are apt to be more technologically savvy than their parents.  These days, that means so much more than being able to program the VCR and getting the digital clock to stop flashing 12:00 ... 12:00 ... 12:00. 

Technology today for young people means being able to manipulate mobile devices so they can be constantly in touch with friends.  It's about knowing what "important" celebrities are up to and what they're saying, and knowing 24/7 exactly where friends are, thanks to GPS locators and FourSquare. 

Almost all of the 100 million Gen Y-ers are on Facebook -- 94 percent to be precise, according to a September survey by Ypulse.  The most popular way for the Gen Y crew to communicate is via texting, even, unfortunately, while driving at 60 mph.  Fifty-five percent stay in touch via texting.  Facebook is the primary form of communication for 24 percent, ahead of talking by landline, cell or VoIP, at 10 percent.  Only 1 percent of Gen Y-ers use email as their primary form of communication.

It seems that talking is disappearing among the younger crowd.  Even when they're together -- hanging out at a party, at a music venue, in school (on the sly) -- they're texting rather than talking to each other face to face.

Although they're spending more time writing to communicate, I don't think the written shorthand of texting and Twitter is doing much to elevate the art of writing. 

What will these changes in how we communicate mean for marketers and public relations pros in the not-too-distant future?  OMG, will news releases look more like Twitter tweets, drastically abbreviated and punctuated by hashtags?

Marketers are experimenting with commercial text messages, but unless they've been given permission by the intended recipients, those efforts may be seen as spam.  And I wonder how the next generation of PR people will try to communicate with their media targets.  How effective can a 3-line text message be to sell a complex story idea?

It will be a challenge, especially if the Gen Y-ers who become reporters, producers or bloggers only look at text messages or Facebook updates.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who's blogging?

With Twitter and Facebook getting all the attention these days, are people still blogging? 

A lot of us, according to a study reported in a recent research brief from the Center for Media Research.  

Blogging is still a younger person's phenomenon, with more than 53 percent of bloggers in the 21 - 35 age group.  Teens comprise 20 percent, and the 36 - 50 group makes up just under 20 percent.  My age group, the 51-plus, is only seven percent.

The report notes that many of the 21 - 35 group grew up during the "blogging revolution" that took off around seven years ago. 

Men and women are evenly split as bloggers, with women outnumbering men by about a percent.

California has the biggest number of bloggers in North America, followed by New York, Ontario, Colorado and Texas.  The U.S. has, by far, the biggest percentage of bloggers, at 29 percent.  Next is the U.K. (6.7 percent), Japan (five percent), Brazil (4.7 percent) and Canada (3.9 percent).

The study found similar breakdowns in the Twitter universe, except U.S. tweeters are much more active than tweeters in other nations. 

Here in the U.S., we account for more than half of the tweets worldwide.  I suppose that shouldn't be surprising, in this land of fast food, fast news and now, fast talk. 

Social Media -- Marketing or Public Relations?

There's an ongoing debate in public relations and marketing circles over which discipline -- PR or marketing -- should manage or control the social media presence for an organization or brand.

Public relations seems to be winning not only the debate but the battle itself.

A study recently issued by USC's Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism shows twice as many organizations are putting budgetary control of social media relations into the hands of their PR department than those that have given budget responsibility to their marketing department.  The ratio is even higher -- 2-1/2 to one -- when you compare whether strategic control over social media is in the hands of PR or marketing.

Jerry Swerling of Annenberg says the reason is that social media "entail dialogue rather than monologue... which is just the opposite of the highly-controlled world of marketing." 

I don't see it quite that way.

For a marketing-driven organization -- one that relies on selling a product or a service for its very existence -- social media relations, like the broader public relations, must tie-in closely with the marketing positioning and messages. 

I think in most cases, PR people are better equipped to develop and manage a social media presence, but they cannot and should not be doing it in a vacuum.  PR and social media activities should support or enhance or personalize the marketing messages. 

Social media is a more free-form open forum than traditional advertising venues, so it must be handled a bit differently.  Messages in SM may not be effective, in some cases, if they are too blatantly sales-oriented.  But ultimately, they should support the "what" and "why" of an organization. 

Yes, the dialogue can sometimes be a tricky field through which to maneuver.  Since the medium can give equal voice to the Chief Marketing Officer and to a satisfied or a disgruntled customer, there are risks.  But the rewards can be tremendous in terms of customer loyalty and support.

I recommend organizations establish a dotted-line relationship, where PR is responsible for strategy and implementation of social media activities, but marketing has open access to what is happening and can quickly become more deeply involved as the need arises, whether it is to help fend off a possible crisis or take advantage of an unanticipated opportunity.  I see this approach working well with one of our clients, where we talk constantly to both the marketing and public relations people.

Social media seems to be unlike anything we've seen before.  It's like an ocean, whose currents are not always visible until they're about to whip you around.  Planning simply can't anticipate every change that the fluids may take, from a ripple to a tsunami. Constant monitoring and a genuine involved presence can help you steer in the best direction as changes take place. 

In the end, however, it's largely about conversation... just with a big, unseen and often unknown group of participants.

PR people, with direct involvement and support from marketing, are, in my opinion, best-equipped to steer the ship that sails this conversational ocean.

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A personal footnote:  This is my 400th post at my 2 cents.  Thanks for coming along for the ride.

 

I thought so...

When Twitter seemed to explode on the scene a year ago, I took a look, just to see what all the hype was about.  After a few days, I thought to myself, "Either it's a wasteland of inane chatter, or maybe I just don't get it."

A few months later, after seeing several of my blogging friends spending less time blogging and more time on Twitter, I figured I ought to give it another try.  Some bloggers who I follow and respect were all but calling Twitter the next best thing since sliced bread... or since, well, blogging.

I started following a bunch of people,including some journalists I know or would like to know.  I installed Tweetdeck on my computers.  I updated my Twitter profile.  I was ready to go.

What happened?  Even more inane chatter, except now from even more sources.  Some of the journalists I decided to follow, hoping to perhaps get insight into stories they're working on or info they'd like to receive from a p.r. person, seemed to be writing more about what bar or restaurant they're at or what they had for dessert.  And some of my blogger friends, who write with insight about marketing and social media issues, are tweeting about movies they saw or providing a running dialogue (or monologue) on what they're watching on TV. at the moment.

Enough!  Please.

I'm not saying Twitter is bad or a waste.  It doesn't do much for me, personally or businesswise...at least at the moment.  I still check Twitter a couple of times a day.  Tweets have pointed me to some interesting posts and articles.  But I have to wade through so much chatter to find the good stuff.  There's just not enough time.  I complained about it to one friend, who simply told me to unfollow them if I didn't like the chatter.

A study ,mentioned in this week's Mediaweek, said 58% of Twitter account holders rarely or never send or receive tweets.  Twenty percent do several times a month; 11 percent several times a week, seven percent every day or nearly every day, and only two percent are doing it several times a day.  Those are the people with thousands of tweets logged and often thousands of followers. That two percent may be the ones jamming Tweetdom with so much clutter.

So I feel a bit redeemed when I read results of a study that found more than 40% of Twitter tweets are "babble." (Not my word. That's how it was reported online by BBC News.)

Market research firm Pear Analytics looked at the Twitter stream every 30 minutes for six hours a day over the course of a week.  They took 2,000 messages at random and categorized them into six groups:

      News

      Spam

      Self-promotion

      Pointless babble

      Conversational

      Messages having pass-along value

Pointless babble took first place, accounting for 40.5% of the messages analyzed.  Conversational accounted for 37.5%.  Those with pass-along value were 8.7%.  Self-promotion and spam were 5.9 and 3.8 percent respectively.

Ryan Kelly, founder of Pear Analytics, was quoted saying, "It will be interesting to see if Twitter takes a heavier role in news, or (will it) continue to be a source for people to share their current activities that have little to do with everyone else."

I hope it will change over time. More marketers are experimenting with Twitter, and I know there are some serious and helpful dialogues going on.  It just seems, now at least, that they're few and far between.

In the meanwhile, I'll keep trying.  And I'll probably keep complaining, too.  So bear with me, you heavy tweeters.

Authenticity of Public Relations

There's a great discussion going on over at Beth Harte's blog.  (Beth is the new gal over at MarketingProfs, although she's hardly a new voice to those of us in the marketing corner of the blogosphere.)

The issue Beth raised, which has brought tons of great comments: Has public relations ever been truly authentic?  Beth asks the question from a base of knowledge -- she's worked in marketing communications and she teaches and lectures about p.r.

With the development of social media, "authenticity" in communications has become somewhat of a buzzword.  When I first began blogging 2-1/2 years ago, there seemed to be many discussions about the idea of authenticity in conversation (another popular buzzword).  Conversation in marketing was between the marketer and its publics and, with the new tools of Web 2.0, there was no longer any excuse for that conversation to be simply a one-way street going from marketer to customers.  Web 2.0 made it possible to be truly a two-way dialogue.

My essay in the groundbreaking collaborative book "Age of Conversation" discussed how Web 2.0 simply brings us back to the way business used to be conducted ages ago before the advent of mass media.  Sellers did business directly with their customers, one on one, so there was that two-way dialogue.  And there was no question of authenticity, because you saw and spoke directly with and shook hands with your vendor or your buyer.

Then, not quite 100 years ago, someone (supposedly Ivy Lee for Ma Bell) had the idea to feed controlled information to the press.  He became the first p.r. man.  He spoke on behalf of his clients, often putting words in clients' mouths through reporters.  That's what he was paid to do.

Was that authentic?  Should the CEO of AT&T and Standard Oil and the tobacco companies and countless smaller manufacturers and marketers speak for themselves or, instead, have hired guns to do the talking for them?

Those same questions are now popping up in the dialogue Beth started.  Some are saying that today's tools for communication demand that communications be "authentic" and that public relations people shouldn't be speaking for the CEO, but instead should be identified for who they are.  Others, including some who obviously work in corporate p.r. departments, are saying most top execs are too busy doing their own work to spend time actually writing their own blogs or Twitter updates. And as one commenter points out, p.r. people get to know, over time, the thinking, positions and even manner of speaking (or writing) of their clients or top executives.  The words those p.r. people write or speak can often be considered those of the exec they represent.

Traditional media have been working with p.r. people for decades.  Reporters (and their readers) know the quotes in the news releases they get are not necessarily the exact words of the person who is being quoted.  Some reporters will clarify that by writing "according to a company news release... or a company spokesperson."  The key here is that the words and thoughts, whether directly from the executive being quoted, do represent the company position.  They've been cleared, vetted, approved, etc.

Social media and the frequency and immediacy of updates might call for a different set of rules.  Actually, the new set of rules might be expected by others using social media.  Blogs, Facebook, Twitter are seen by many as more personal -- extensions of the author, a sharing of thoughts and ideas and, unfortunately in the case of Twitter, details of every little thing we are doing or thinking.

The early users of social media have been, for the most part, authentic and have built an atmopshere -- whether real and justified or not -- of authenticity.  It is expected that you are who you say you are -- not a ghostwriter or a shill for someone or something else.  Some who have been too blatantly commercial have been criticized or even demonized by some of the purists.

My take on all of this in these still early days of this new and developing form of communication?

Public relations has a role to play in social media.  If it's done well, it doesn't have to be less than authentic.  PR people have been speaking on behalf of their employers for a long long time.  Many do it well; some do it terribly.

Just as reporters have come to know which p.r. people they can trust, participants in the social media world will learn which bloggers, Twitterers and whatever else comes along can be trusted to be honest and accurate representers of the companies or organizations they are writing for.

There will be some cheaters and some bad apples along the way, just as in any crowd.  Over time, most will be discovered and either outed or ignored.

That's the cool thing about social media.  Each of us controls what we see or read.  It's not the old days when we were essentally held hostage by the programmers at three networks.  We now have immense power in our TV/cable remotes and infintely more in our keyboards or touchpads.

Paying for Twitter followers

I'm far from an expert on Twitter, but I have been playing with it and watching it for a few months.  If you want to increase the number of followers, which is important for some people, there seem to be a few ways to do so.

Unlike blogging, it doesn't always seem to be about quality of content, but more about frequency -- just being out there.  That seems to lead to a lot of inane chatter about what you just had for breakfast or what song or TV show you happen to have on while you're tweeting.

While I've complained about that inane chatter, I do understand that Twitter can and should be different things for different people.  For some, it's like having a bunch of friends a few keyboard (or phone touchpad) strokes away, to chat about a film or news event.  For others, it's about sharing information and pointing others to articles that they think might be of interest.  And for others, it's about discussing professional issues in whatever business they're in.

All well and good.  I'm learning to filter out the chatter from my "follow" list, so I can focus on getting what I really want from Twitter.

As I'm sure happens with many others who use Twitter, I get messages telling me so & so is now following me.  I take a look to see who that person is and what they tweet about, so I can decide if I want to follow them.  When I see someone is following hundreds or thousands of people and they have relatively few updates, I've learned that's often someone looking to sell something. 

The latest thing I've been seeing is sites that promise to instantly gain you thousands of followers.  Spend $85 and you'll quickly get 1,000 new followers, a recent one from across the Pacific promised me.

Why would I want to pay for followers?  I'm not trying to impress anyone with numbers.  But I suppose some people are.  Paying for followers, though, is like gaming the system.  Or like a politician buying votes.  Not fair, not right.

Check out an interesting post from an advertising guy in Las Vegas, Rich Becker, which I happened across via a tweet from my friend Valeria Maltoni at Conversation Agent.

Communications Revolution

A world-changing communications revolution began on this date 165 years ago.  I'd venture to say it had a greater impact on the world at the time than the introduction of Twitter in today's world.

In 1844, Samuel F. B. Morse successfully sent a message by wire from Washington to Baltimore using a series of long and short electrical impulses -- dots and dashes -- that became known as the Morse Code.  His dots and dashes comprised the alphabet and enabled words and numbers and other symbols to be sent by telegraph wherever copper wire could stretch.  Before the advent of wireless, or radio, telegraph cables were strung nationwide and even under the oceans, making virtually instant communications possible.  No longer did it take days or weeks for news to travel from place to place.

........

_ _ / _ . _ _     .. _ _ _     _ ._ . / . / _ . / _ / ...

.......

By the mid-1930s, Western Union was sending more than 230 million telegrams a year, using Morse Code as the language.

The telephone marked the eventual end of the line for the telegram, and the internet and email sealed its fate.  Western Union sent its last telegram in 2006.

Morse Code still lives on, though.  Some commercial ships still use it for communications.  Ham radio operators still communicate with it as well.

I learned Morse Code when I was in Boy Scouts.  And then, as a teenager, I used it to talk with people literally around the world when I was a ham radio operator.  Although my equipment had the capability to transmit by voice, I enjoyed the challenge of communicating by Morse Code.

I still remember Morse Code, even though I haven't used it for almost 40 years.  Now if only I could remember my high school Spanish as well.

Sorry, but I'm not all a'Twitter

I wrote this post more than a week ago, but hesitated putting it up.  I know some of my readers and online friends swear by Twitter.  Many are blogging less frequently because they're tweeting instead.

It must be working for them, but...  I just don't get it.

Mike Shields, who covers digital media at Mediaweek, reported several days ago about a study by Nielsen Online that shows a 40% retention rate for new Twitter users.  Actually, Shields wrote... "just a 40% return rate."  The story compared Twitter to "similarly over-hyped Second Life from a few years ago.

Other media, especially mainstream media, jumped all over the study and we started seeing stories in the papers and on TV and radio about the weakness of Twitter, like a fad that's run its course.

Not surprisingly, the media seem to have overplayed this story.  And the comparison to Second Life is not entirely fair.  Second Life spurred a lot of talk and anticipation, and many of us took a look and even signed up and chose avatars for ourselves, so we'd be represented in the virtual world.  And then, it sort of dropped out of sight.

Twitter is different.  First of all, it's not as complex as Second Life.  You put up mini-posts and respond to others -- it's quick and easy and it can be done in a few seconds from your cell phone as you're walking to work or entering the movie theater or waiting in line at the supermarket.

I think some of that quickness and ease of Twittering is what, to me, is also driving some people away from it.  A lot of the drop-off seems to be from people who, responding to the hype from celebs like Oprah and Ashton Kutcher, signed up out of curiousity or because they figured it's a way to get closer to the famous people who say they Twitter.  Maybe their expectations were unrealistically high, but when they saw they weren't really having meaningful dialogues or getting intimate with Oprah, Ashton or Britney, they let their Twitter activity slide.

I can only judge Twitter from my own, admittedly limited, experience so far.  Some friends I respect swear by Twitter.  They tell me it enables them to discuss issues, comment on breaking news and get instant feedback.  Some say it helps them keep up on the latest news.

I'm afraid I haven't seen those benefits yet. I'm not saying I never will, but so far I just don't see it as a worthwhile use of my increasingly dwindling free time.  I admit -- it could be me.  Maybe I'm going to the wrong feeds or not following the right people or groups.

I have, however, seen the benefits of having some of my blog posts mentioned on Twitter.  Some Tweets, from people I don't know, linked to a couple of my posts and I saw traffic jump significantly  for several days. And I've followed links when I've seen Tweets suggesting I take a look at something.  So I do realize that it can be great for building traffic for a blog or other site.

But most of what I've seen out there on Twitter there so far has been rather inane.  I don't really need to know that you're on the way to the bakery or that you've just ordered Chinese take-out or that you're in the drug store or the bathroom now.  (These are all real Tweets I've seen from supposedly business Twitterers.)  It's too much information, in an already overloaded information age. 

I even took a look at some Twitterers recommended by Adweek's TweetFreaks site.  More inane stuff, and surprisingly, it was coming from some people whose blogs I do read and find interesting and insightful.  But many of their random thoughts just add to the clutter of information and chatter we find ourselves struggling to keep up with.

I won't be one of those Twitter dropouts.  I'll keep trying to find my place out there.  An online friend whose blog is up there among the top marketing blogs told me (via an email) that it took him about six months to figure how to best utilize Twitter, and he agreed that there's lots of chatter that's pointless or inane.  Another online friend told me several months ago when he began Twittering that he sees his blog as professional communication and his Twittering as social -- like hanging out and shooting the breeze with friends.

So I'll keep at it, but I doubt if I'll be responding to or adding to inane stuff about what you (or I) are doing at this precise instant.  I won't be Tweeting to say I'm about to watch "CBS Sunday Morning" now, or that I'll soon be taking my dog to the woods for a walk.  Do you really need to know that?

But I will be watching and contributing when I think I have something meaningful to add.  For now, I'll continue to focus on my blog and what others are saying on their blogs, where the comments aren't so fast and random and where, hopefully, the thoughts behind the writing is more thoughtful.

(If I offended any Twitters, I apologize.  I'm only calling it like I see it.)

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Be careful what you say (and where you say it)

Some poor public relations exec, a VP at a major international PR firm, was flying into Memphis to meet with a client.  He had a lapse of judgment as he Twittered how he hated Memphis.  Actually, he wrote "True confession but I'm in one of those towns where I'd scratch my head and say 'I'd rather die than live here.'"

A bit harsh for any town, but that's his opinion and he has a right to it.

But how dumb to post it on Twitter where it becomes public.

People from the client (FedEx) saw his Tweet (or should it be twit?) and were outraged, sending emails to the agency and anyone else who might listen, including this one that's been showing up on some blogs and made it onto widely-read Gawker.com...

Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays ____ annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry.

It's easy to get caught in a situation like this, since Twitter is about friendly dialogue (and also, often inane chatter about what you're about to have for dinner or that you  just fed your cat).  But what you write is going out there in public, and Mr. Big Agency Guy should have had a bit more sense and sensitivity.  Oops.

I got caught up in an awkward email faux pas a while back.  I had written to a friend some negative comments about the behavior of a mutual acquaintance.  Months later, my friend used that old email for my email adrress, hitting reply and then sending me a new message.  But my old correspondence was still there, way down below.  And she also sent it to someone else, who happened to be good friends of the person I had criticized.  How embarrassed was I when the person I had criticized three months earlier forwarded me my original email and asked why, if I had a problem hadn't I gone to her directly.  Good point and I learned a valuable lesson.

If you don't want your comments made public, even by accident, don't write them down anywhere online.

As a public relations person, I've told many people to be careful what they say when talking to reporters.  "Off the record" is a dangerous thing, because some reporters feel nothing they are told in an interview is off the record.  Many years ago, I had set an interview for a client's director of sales with a bright, young and very pretty reporter at Women's Wear Daily.  All went very well and as things were wrapping up, my client and the reporter started talking about non-business things -- where are you from, how long have you been with the paper, where'd you go to school, etc.  Clearly, my client was smitten by this pretty woman, who was using her charms to distract him.

Seeing he was now at ease, she said she had heard a rumor that the company was about to launch a new line of products that would put it into a different category.  I knew they were working on it, but it was supposed to be secret.  But the client, under the reporter's spell, spilled the goods before I could stop him.

The news of the new product line made the front page of WWD the following Monday, and the director of sales came within inches of losing his job. 

A good example of the need to be careful what you say and where you say it ... online or off.

Update March 16th --  MarketingProfs' newsletter "Get to the Point" talks about this post and offers their own take on it.  Click here to see that post.  (Thanks Ann.)