REICH COMMUNICATIONS

A Sad Commentary

 

No, this isn’t a post about the current state of politics and the presidential campaign, although that IS a sad commentary on our society. This is about a survey, reported in MediaPost’s Social Media Daily that shows we prefer to stay in touch via social media rather than with face-to-face communication.

We’ve all seen scenes like this – a group of young people sitting silently around a restaurant table – all looking down at their cellphones. In recent years, that scenario has changed so that it’s not only young people, but people of all ages – including us boomers – guilty of texting rather than talking.

The survey of some 12,000 people worldwide found that 68 percent prefer to communicate with others online rather than face-to-face.  So, as MediaPost writer Erik Sass posits in his story, social media is making us anti-social.

I can understand – and I’m guilty of – the preference to stay in touch with some people online rather than in person. And that can extend to online versus contact via a phone call. Often, when I have a quick question, it’s faster to send an email. Call on the phone and you have to go through the “hi, how are you” stuff. With email, here’s what I need to know or what I want to tell you, perhaps ended with a “regards” or “hope all is well.” And that's it.

If it’s more than a quick question or if it’s something in business where there needs to be some real-time back & forth to spur creativity or consensus, face-to-face or at least ear-to-ear is best. 

Social media, especially Facebook, can be great for keeping up with distant friends and relatives. But for the real inside scoop, with real emotion and real empathy, it’s hard to replace face-to-face or ear-to-ear. 

Online, even ALL CAPS or cute emoticons just can’t convey real feelings or more subtle undertones. And there are risks to online communication.  Think about how many times have you’ve seen a poorly-worded email or post give a wrong impression to the reader, maybe creating a problem where one hadn’t existed?

Social media has its place in our lives, for sure. But it can’t – or shouldn’t – replace direct face-to-face or ear-to-ear communications. What a boring and sterile world that would be.

Is email losing ground in the workplace?

 

 

Huffington Post is working on a story that asks if email is losing ground as a communications tool in business. I don't know what the reporter will find, but I don't see any tools now readily available that could replace it soon. It seems to be the preferred way for people to communicate in business, for a variety of reasons.

Email enables you to communicate at your convenience...no worry about time zones, business hours, workday vs weekend. Got something to say or to ask at 11 at night? Email away. You might have a response waiting in your inbox when you wake up, if not sooner. An email can be as long or as short as you want. No limits like 140 characters on Twitter. And you don't have to go through the time-consuming niceties of the "hello, how are you?" that come with a phone call. Face-to-face meetings and phone calls can be tricky to arrange and more time-consuming than an email or text.

Texting is more immediate, but I think texting etiquette would caution against sending a work text in the middle of the night. Texting seems to demand immediate attention, which could be seen as an intrusion, while an email can easily sit quietly in an inbox for hours until the intended recipient gets around to checking email and opening yours.

Facebook, LinkedIn, other social media don't seem to have an urgency to them. Most often they're used for personal things and random chatter.

There is certainly a risk in the one-way written communication, though. The recipient of an email can totally miss tone, humor, sarcasm, anger or frustration that the human voice can communicate, and the results can be devastating.

A recent survey, reported by Adweek, shows that most millennials (85 percent of them) prefer to meet or communicate in person with co-workers. Tied for the second preferred form of communication are phone calls and emails. (And we thought the Millennials are only about social media.)

So while other forms of communication may gain in popularity, I still see email and good ol' phone calls leading the way in how we communicate in business. But let's see what Huff Post has to say about it. I'll be watching for their story.

Any thoughts on this?

Text Overload

I saw a news report this morning that said the typical teen sends and receives some 3,800 texts every month.  3,800 texts!!

But when you break it down, what seems like an enormous number starts to feel a bit more reasonable -- about 126 texts a day.  That's still a lot, but not outrageous.  It's in the range of how many emails I get on a typical work day.

I remember back several years ago, when I got a new cellphone that had texting capabilities.  Why would I ever want to text, I thought at the time.  Then I saw how helpful texting could be.  I was meeting a friend after work at a music club downtown, and she was late.  I happened to glance at my phone and I noticed I had a text message.  Up to this point, the only texts I ever received were from AT&T Wireless giving me an update on my cellular account and from one other friend who had been trying to prod me into the 21st century.  But here was a text from my friend saying she was in the cab and would be there in 5 minutes.

Amazing!  I didn't have email capability on that old phone, and even if I did, I might not have been checking emails.  But the text popped up on the screen, giving me the information I needed.

I gradually began texting, at first mostly in reply to someone else's texts to me.  But now I'm a bonafide texter (never when behind  the wheel, of course) and texts are my primary means of communication with some people.  If I call or email my son, it could take 3 - 4 days or more to get a response.  Send him a text and I almost always get a prompt repsonse.  It's the same with many other people I know.

In a client meeting last week, I got a text.  Turns out, it was from the person sitting across the table from me, sending me a private comment on the discussion taking place in front of us. 

So now, although I'm a long long way from the teen average of 126 texts a day, I get several texts daily.  Thankfully, I'm still quite a distance from text overload.

 

The Conversation Continues

I'm proud to say I've been a part of the first three editions of The Age of Conversation.  It's a series of crowd-sourced books on marketing and how it's impacted by social media and other communications with customers.  The first edition is believed to have been the first crowd-sourced book done via the internet, and the authors had all come together as a result of their blogging about marketing.  The three editions have included chapters contributed by 400 authors from 16 countries, and the proceeds of more than $50,000 have supported worthwhile international children's charities.

My friends Drew McClellan in Des Moines and Gavin Heaton in Australia (happy birthday, Gavin) have been the hard-working editors behind this project, and they're crazy enough to want to do it again.  They're looking for people who might want to submit 400-word essays to The Age of Conversation 4.

The essays will be grouped into “sections” to provide a sense of cohesion to the topics covered. This year’s sections are:

Secrets – what is a secret, what is your secret and what are the limits of privacy in the Age of Conversation?
Transparency – what does it mean for a business to be transparent? How do you go about making your brand or business transparent? And what happens if transparency fails?
Authenticity – what does it mean to humanize a brand? What happens when business gets personal and how does so-called “authenticity” impact you on a personal and professional level?
Unexpected Consequences – anything from a painful lesson learned to an unexpected cross the globe friendship. Share your journey in this Age of Conversation.
How Do I … – share your tips and tricks on social media. What do you do well and how do you achieve the outcomes you want?

If you'd like to get involved, go to Drew's site for more information and a link to the contributing authors' site.  You, too, can be a co-author in the next Age of Conversation.

 

 

 

 

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.

......

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.