So PR Week is having this little competition........so go vote for Voce!

Hyku isn't nominated since I stopped PR blogging a while back :-)

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Jackie Huba finally wrote about something that's been bothering me for the past few weeks. Somehow, my name/e-mail ended up on a list at Vocus, so now 90% of all the unsolicited e-mail pitches I get are from Vocus clients. How do I know this? Well at the bottom of these e-mails is the standard 'unsubscribe' link. That link takes me back to a site run by Vocus.

Jakie took the time to contact Vocus and asked them some questions when they never responded via e-mail.

Four times in four months I used the contact info on the Vocus website (info@vocus.com) to ask for full removal. No reply to any email. Finally, I called Vocus' main number and asked to speak with someone. Julie returned my call 30 minutes later and promised to remove my name from their system. It seemed like a good time to ask Julie about Vocus' practices:

How do bloggers get added to the database? Vocus monitors top blogs in certain categories then adds their contact information to the database. Without permission, I asked? Yes, she said. Most bloggers are OK with that, she said. How does she know if they don't ask first?

Why couldn't I opt out entirely? We're working on that, she said, and promised to investigate why no one responded to my four emails.
Julie also said a client could have copied my email address from the system and might continue to send me emails. Lovely.

What's sad is that Vocus is a sponsor of NewComm Forum. Hopefully a number of attendees will stop by their booth and ask them to stop this practice. While you're at it, Vocus, please remove me from your list :-)

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One of the questions I am now often asked is, "So how are you liking agency life?" So far, I love it. Sure, I enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of being on my own, but there was one big drawback, I can't scale. Or perhaps to use the trendy term, limited personal bandwidth. You have to make a decision, do I want to continue working on small-to-medium sized projects, or go bigger?

I'm fortunate that at Voce I get to work with companies like Sony, Yahoo, eBay and another big name soon to be announced. The simple fact of the matter is a single, sole-practioner can't help a major organization run a large social media program on a day-to-day basis, we're talking 20-30 hours a week minumum. I guess you could, but it would be your only client, or would limit what else you can do on your own.

You need to have a team. We're fortunate to have a number of smart people on staff that can all work together.

A colleague that operates on their own recently asked me about a growth plan for their services. One of their goals was to work with enterprise firms on internal collaboration. I said I hated to be the bearer of bad news, but I just didn't see a firm with 10,000+ employees turning to a 1-person shop for a project of that nature.

There is plenty of room/business for internal education though. I spent plenty of time under the 'Hyku' banner conducting workshops for firms, but those engagements are often limited in time/scope.

I wanted more.

Yes it was a tough decision, but I'm glad I made it.

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Some companies are loved, others are hated. That general perception carries over to media coverage and public discussions of their mistakes. At the recent PRSA International Conference panel on ethics in Philly my colleague Rick Murray pointed out this double-standard when it comes to Wal-Mart and Target. People generally hate Wal-Mart and love Target.

Granted, Wal-Mart has made a few social media mistakes and has been raked over the coals for it, but how about Target?

Recently Kaye Sweetser posted about a situation with Target's Rounders program and one of her students. You can read the entire post to get all the details.

In short, Target instructed their Rounders to keep their relationship with Target a secret. When one of her students questioned this on Target's Facebook wall the thread was removed.

Was there a mass outcry over this? Not really. A front page article on the New York Times? Nope. Why? A double standard? What do you think?

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This post has been simmering for a while, but I just can't take it anymore. I was driven over the edge by a few things:

1. Todd's post of the state of 'practices' by some firms.
2. David's follow-up to that
3. Recent conference statements/events

Rant start//

Many times recently I've been sitting in conferences listening to 'experts' talk about various subjects. I've always said my definition of expert, especially when it comes to social media, is loosely defined as 'a few years ahead of you on the learning curve'. It's funny though that these experts were asking 'what is social media?' just a short time ago.

I sit in these conference session and I try not to be a Dave Winer and call out all the bullshit and look like an ass, but it has to stop. Some of us have been using Twitter to make our snarky comments, but the rest of the audience just sits and soaks up this knowledge. They don't know any better.

The other day at Executing Social Media conference in Atlanta, Paull Young reports that a speaker advocated that corporations edit their Wikipedia entries and insert links. Nice.

At the same conference a speaker used most of their time to pitch their product and subscriptions to their newsletter. Classy.

I've joked about making up simple little 'Bullshit' signs that we can hold up as a silent protest. Perhaps the speakers would see these and change course.

What to do? Ask your next social media 'expert' for some recent client projects they've developed. They don't have any? They've just been 'consulting' Nice.

Yes, you can still provide clients with a baseline of education without having much of a project base to draw from, but until you've actually run a social media campaign/project you just don't know it all. I'm not saying I know it all, it's a relative scale. If I say something you think is BS in a speech, call me on it, question it. Let's talk about it.

In the end the level of 'expert' and 'conference speaker/keynote' needs to be examined.

Rant over//

So what do we do? Start to publicly name the folks spewing BS and blatantly pitching audiences under the veil of an 'expert speaking'?

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If you are my age, then you know where the last part of that title comes from (inconceivable!). If not, ask around :-)

What does the word conversation mean to you and to your company?

We say the word conversation quite a bit in the social media world. But like some words, when you say it over and over, it sometimes loses all meaning.....sort of like social media. When I started my breakout session at the PRSA International Conference last week I joked with the audience was probably sick and tired of the term 'social media'. They had to be, they had been in sessions for three days hearing it over and over again.

Back to the word conversation though. I think when I say it and hopefully when some of the organizations I work with say it, they mean they want a two way dialogue. Both sides learn something from each other. There is a give and take.

Unfortunately conversation is also becoming a strategy, a marketing plan.

Politicians also use the word conversation. They say, "We need to sit down and have a conversation about that issue." I don't know about you, but when I hear that from a politician I usually think, "I am going to speak with you to give you the appearance that I actually care what you have to say, but in reality I am just going to use this opportunity to force my ideas upon you." Not my idea of conversation.

Are politicians and corporations giving conversation a bad name?

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One of the things I'll be doing at the PRSA International Conference is looking at the various conversational monitoring services in the exhibit hall. There are a number of firms that all 'say' they can automate the monitoring of blogs (social media) and provide metrics, tonality, sentiment analysis, etc. It should be noted that a number of these services cost a pretty good amount of $$$.

What's interesting about the search is the I have long said (as have many of the colleagues in this industry that I know/trust/respect) that the free tools and a trained staffer can do the same thing. Plus there is that community context thing :-)

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From the South to the North. I'm now in Philadelphia for the PRSA International Conference till Tuesday. I'll be helping Kami and a few others with some conference blogging, but I'm mostly handling some photos (big surprise). I arrived late in the day, so I was able to catch the end of K.D. Paine's session and the Social Media panel with Rob, Peter, Lee and Nicco (below). My photoset will be here, the PRSA photo group is here.

Tonight is the blogger dinner. More to come. I plan to post a wrap-up from the UGA Connect conference soon.

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In my previous post I put forth an analogy to illustrate a point. I do that quite a bit in training sessions. I'm constantly comparing online/social media situations to things we see in everyday life. Analogies help those just learning about social media find a relationship to what they're used to. (Big Social Media Consultant Secret: Many of rules you use in personal interaction offline, apply online :-) pass that along.)

Conversational monitoring, blog monitoring, persistent keyword searches...whatever you call them are a standard item in any social media toolkit, but what do you do with the results? As in what is actionable? What is important and needs immediate response, and what can wait? None of the paid services offer this function (that I've seen). You need to be involved with the community to know the impact.

Here's another analogy:

Imagine you're at a coffee shop and you overhear somebody talking about a subject/client in a positive/negative way. What are your options?

A. If it's your local coffee shop and you've lived in that community for a number of years chances are you might know the person or the subject very well. You would know that person's standing in the community. Are they like E.F. Hutton? When they talk do others listen? Or are they the village idiot? In this case you could start up a conversation in a natural manner, or introduce yourself. Chances are the other person knows you, or at least has 'seen you around'.

Once you start that conversation the discussion is wide open. Maybe you state your case, perhaps you change their mind, or at least get them to see your side of the issue. The point is you know all the social intricacies of the situation. You know that talking to one person will take care of the issue, and that person will talk to you.

or...

B. You're on a trip far from home and the 'local' coffee shop is somewhere you've never been before. You're the 'stranger' sitting by themselves in the corner, the locals are asking, "Who's that?" How did you get here? Some search dropped you here.

When that person across the room talks, you have no idea who they are and what their standing in the community is. You have no idea what the impact of their statements are. How do you approach them and introduce yourself? We've been in situations like this before. Introductions like that can be awkward to say the least.

Talking to that person might actually make the situation worse. You just don't know.

Spend a week in the coffee shop though, and your situation changes.

If you've been doing your homework and have built a presence in a particular community, we can add an Option C:

C. It's your local coffee shop and you've lived in that community for a number of years. Somebody has a problem/comment. Rather than saying something to a group of folks, they come directly to you first. Perhaps it's a genuine issue, or it's a simple misperception. However, a few quick, private words between friends takes care of everything.

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Today at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum I moderated a panel on B2B blogging. When you get a room full of marketers the conversation will sometimes turn to SEO and of course ROI. Mix the two and you have a lively conversation.

Yes we all know that Google loves blogs, but if your only reason for blogging is SEO, then you're going to fail. Back in early 2006 I posted about a newspaper that wanted to start community blogging. I told them if the reasons were revenue or page views that things would fail. The primary purpose has to be conversation and community. If you do those two things right (and have your blog properly configured) then SEO and all the other benefits should follow.

During the panel today the analogy I used was this:

If your fiance asks you why you love him/her and want to spend the rest of your life with them you shouldn't say:

A. I'm looking for increased ROI thru shared living expenses.
B. You have a great network of (hot) friends, and partnering with you allows me to position myself favorably with them.

It should first and foremost be about love and compassion (with your fiance).

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Green is the new black, or at least the new way to get press. In my area, politicians are all jumping on the 'green' bandwagon. They're announcing 'green' summits and panels to study this new concept :-)

To take advantage of all the hype surrounding buzzwords I'm going to launch a new program, here's the pitch:

Buzzcorp is launching a one-of-a-kind green, Web 2.0-based campaign to feature consumer generated videos uploaded to their blog via YouTube and Facebook which will be judged via Twitter and Digg by MySpace users from around the globe using OLPCs provided to third world countries which are powered by ethanol and recycled carpet fibers. Supplemental judging will be completed by SMS via iPhone by Halo 3 players using SecondLife to organize an unconference about DRM in iTunes. Celebrity judges will be Britney Spears, OJ Simpson, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barry Bonds. The winner will receive a new Toyota Prius and be adopted by Angelina Jolie.

The natural evolution of this would be to look at Yahoo's top searches each day and then write a press release using all those words. Here are today's top searches:

Now, go write a pitch that uses all of them. I'm interested in seeing how you can connect Marcel Marceau, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the UAW.

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I've recently started to blog over at MarketingProfs DailyFix. This is the first post and is cross-posted. I am going to try to avoid cross-posting in the future though.

Seth Godin recently talked about a SEO firm that promises to move negative reviews down the page on Google. Rather than spending money to fix the original problem, firms will spend money on making the criticism go away. (sarcasm) Smart (/sarcasm)

Earlier this year I asked, are you willing to take from your pr/marketing budget to fix a problem in another department? A great case in point was the recent Spirit Airlines dust-up. For a quick refresher:

- Alex has customer service issue with Spirit Airlines
- Alex blogs about it
- Other people comment, sharing their customer service horror stories
- Google ranks post #3 for "Spirit Airlines" search
- Even more people comment, sharing more horror stories
- Aviation Week blogs about it
- Traditional media picks up the story
- Rinse & repeat

If you read through the blogs posts, Alex's issue revolves around the customer support line. From his experience it just doesn't work. Many of the people who commented on his post shared the same view.

When I was interviewed by the media for the story about Spirit Airlines I was asked, "What would be your counsel? How can they make peace with the bloggers?" My response:

Well there is what I would tell them they should do, and then there is what they will do, which are two entirely different things.

What they should do.....It seems that the majority of their issues are related to their customer support line, they should fix that problem first. Fix the customer support lines and then go back to the bloggers and say, 'We're sorry for the issues you encountered. It seems that we had some problems with our customer support lines and we heard that from you and the other commenters. We've fixed those issues by increasing our staff at our major call centers. We'd love to have you fly with us again and if you ever need to call our customer service line again the level of service will be much better.'

Of course they won't do that. Each time something like this comes up again their communications depart will apologize. But we all know that it's a hollow apology since they really don't plan on fixing the problem.

I know budgets are really tight at a low-cost airlines, but at what point does the time and effort spent dealing with PR issues related to this (not to mention the lost sales) outweigh the cost to fix it?

I often hear old-school PR practitioners complaining that all this 'blog stuff' is negative. It depends on where you're sitting of course. Social media is great for shining a light on the broken parts of your business. You can take the exposure of faults as a negative, or as an opportunity to fix things and make your products/services better. Which will you do?

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In the previous post I talked about how corporations that are creating social media programs inherently need to rely upon the individuals involved with those initiatives. But what about the individuals? Quoting from the previous post:

On the flip side, what about an individual that becomes associated with a brand. In some cases they're not an individual, they're the company's blogger. I've seen it happen at conferences, "Oh hey, John....you're X's blogger?" They're always introduced as John, X's Blogger, never just John. It's like without that qualifier at the end they wouldn't be anybody.

What happens when they want to move on but the corporate brand overshadows their own?

It's a double-edged sword. The major brand is what has put them in a position to possibly move on to other opportunities, but that brand can also obscure them.

Sometimes you also get lost in the crowd at large corporations. Would you want to hire the PR person that 'oversaw' the blog or the person that actually wrote the blog? Executives taking too much credit for their staff's work is nothing new.

What do you do if you're the company blogger and want to establish your own identity? In smaller circles this is easy since the majority of the people you interact with via the blog will hopefully know you. It's a natural effect of the blog and the interaction between individuals. In many cases that might be all you need. If you're looking to move on, often it's the folks in the small circle that are your best resources.

Recently Jeremiah talked about his career blog, or a blog that moved with him from job to job. It's part personal, it's part professional. Striking the balance is the challenge though.

In my case, I'm fortunate because my name and brand, Hyku, are somewhat synonymous. But then again I work for myself :-)

A number of 'corporate blogging' friends I know also have personal blogs. Some are open about this, as in it's easy to find them and the connection. A few others like to keep thing separate and on the DL. It's only their friends that know the address. However, we all know that keeping something hidden in plain sight doesn't always work.

One little issue is the simple Google search of their name. Many times the corporate blog will be the first result. The only way to gain control of that is to get out there and start blogging/linking, etc. Taking on too much of a personal presence could cause tension at work though.

Facebook might be the solution. A number of corporate bloggers I know are my friends on Facebook, it's a great way to network.

Getting back to the question, what should/can a corporate blogger do to establish their identity?

First off, own your name, create a basic site/blog that is your personal brand. What you do there is open for debate, but it's important that friends know how to locate/interact with you outside the corporation you work for.

What else should one do? Comments?

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One of the elements crucial to corporate social media initiatives are the individuals who blog for organizations. Often these individuals become somewhat official spokespersons for the organization, but that's what they're supposed to be correct? It's the humanization thing. What are the downsides though?

Recently I was on a teleconference panel with a few organizations. One of the panelists talked about all the major social media initiatives that were handled by a member of their staff, let's call them John. John had become their spokesperson. Previously they never had one. The relationships that John built within communities online (and offline) were invaluable to the organization. During the Q&A, the questions mostly focussed on technology issues and we ran out of time before I could ask, "What happens when John leaves?" From the earlier discussion it would seem that if they left their entire community outreach efforts would vanish and so would a portion of sales.

Another issue related to business blogging is ego and internal politics. In some cases a junior staffer suddenly becomes an invaluable asset, sometimes that goes to your head. However, most of the corporate bloggers I know firmly have their egos in check, but it could be an issue. When Robert Scoble worked at Microsoft one of the questions that often came up was what do others in the company think of his profile? Here was a person that recently joined the company and suddenly is mentioned in the same breath as Gates and Ballmer. There were probably quite a few folks that said to themselves, who is this guy? I've been here a decade....etc.

Then of course Robert left Redmond and some folks foolishly asked, "What will Microsoft do?" I think Microsoft is doing just fine. Along the same lines, does anybody remember Cooper/Katz? (if you do, you somewhat date yourself in the PR blogging world.)

In Scoble's case, PodTech knew one of the things they were getting with Robert was his celebrity/followers. There is attention/publicity that comes with that, and to some degree that can be of value. You could compare this to pro sports before free agency. Often the star player would remain with one team for their entire careers, today that's a rarity. In the gadget blogging world the editors/writers seem to change teams quite a bit.

It will be interesting to see how situations like this play out in the coming years. Could you imagine a Ford press release: "Ford hires former GM Chairman Bob Lutz to launch new F-150 Fanatics blog!"

But let's go back to my initial example, if/when that person at a small operation leaves there would be huge consequences. That person is a communication channel and that suddenly disappears. It is possible to move on, but since much of the community is built upon relationships with an individual, you can't easily swap people out. That's been standard operating procedure for companies though. If it's a faceless corporation, then you can swap out the 'faces' as much as you want :-)

On the flip side, what about an individual that becomes associated with a brand. In some cases they're not an individual, they're the company's blogger. I've seen it happen at conferences, "Oh hey, John....you're X's blogger?" They're always introduced as John, X's Blogger, never just John. It's like without that qualifier at the end they wouldn't be anybody.

What happens when they want to move on but the corporate brand overshadows their own? Part two coming soon.

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This is a neat milestone. Marcomblog is a collaborative blog written by 'industry' folks for students at Auburn University. Yesterday one of the former students has joined the contributor list. Auburn professor Robert French introduces a post from Mary Metcalf, a recent Auburn grad who now works for Edelman in Chicago:

The first post in Marcomblog happened on Saturday, November 13, 2004. We’ll celebrate our third anniversary in just a few months. That’s a long time ago. Many students have passed through my classes and participated in our social media activities. So, I had this funny idea. Hundreds of those students have graduated and gone on to careers in public relations and marketing communications. Why not hear from one of them? I asked Mary Kneeland (MK) if she would write a post reflecting on the transition from student to practitioner. Here it is.

Yes it's been a bit too long since I posted something to Marcomblog, need to get back in that habit.

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Recently Brian Oberkirch posted about the anonymous editing of corporate Wikipedia articles. There was some spirited discussion in the comments among some good friends. However, the major issue was anonymous edits. My general view is that if you're stupid enough to try something like that, then you're stupid enough not to cover your tracks...and will be caught.

But what about claimed edits? The Talk/Discussion channel is there for a reason, but what if there is no talk? Can a corporation start it?

There is of course a reason I am asking. I have a situation with a corporate client (who shall remain nameless for now). Their current entry has almost nothing on it. They want to edit it, but want to do it in the right way. But what is the right way?

Like I said before there is no discussion about this entry, so they can't really go to the 'community' and present their case.

Here is what I have proposed:

- I'll post something about the situation and see what some colleagues think (done)
- Post an item in the Discussion thread outlining who they are and the edits they propose
- Allow the discussion to take place for a set period of time, take in suggestions (if any)
- With community approval post their edit
- Welcome community edits of their entry

The sticking point is that third item...we don't expect their to be much discussion (might be wrong there). I want to be clear that during the entire process they'll be open about who they are and the edits they're making.

What are your thoughts?

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In my local area there was a certain PR person that would always e-mail me press releases for my hyperlocal site. You know, the standard mass e-mail to everybody with the release copy/pasted in the e-mail.

This person recently switched jobs. One problem.

The other day I received a release about a local bank but it had come from a medical firm. I thought...that's strange, I really don't see the connection between the two. Then I made the connection. This person was sending press releases for their new job while still working for the old one. Not really a good idea.

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Marijean has a good post-BlogHer item on blogger relations.

As BlogHer started I noted a marked increase in the number of PR folks in the audience. They were there no doubt to 'reach' this highly coveted 'segment'. However during many of the sessions the vibe was very clear, the majority of them resent PR/marketing folks and their intrusions. And they're just that, intrusions. Marijean talks about the relationship aspect necessary for anything to work.

I point back to my earlier post about my rule of blogger relations: Send Something of Interest to Somebody You Know. I also touched on this topic a bit in my 'jaded view' post.

The other thing is that a blogger relationship is based on more than a link or a basic piece of information. What I mean by this is sending a blogger a link to 'check out' or a press release is one of the worst things you can do. When I engage in blogger relations I rarely send anything, I ask. If the blogger has written about a subject or expressed interest in the topic I ask if there is anything else I can assist them with.

There is a big difference between saying, "Here is our latest press release." and "How can I help you?"

A number of other folks also blogged about the relationship with PR and the momosphere.

It's sad that so many PR people don't do things right. All we can hope is that more people in the profession realize that it's about relationships and not pitches or target audiences, etc.

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Savannah's Creative Coast Initiative have relaunched their blog. The Savannah area is an amazing place. I've been able to make a number of trips to the area for work and pleasure in the past few years. If I was single and wasn't tied to Florida I would seriously consider Savannah as a place to live.

Here is a bit about the Creative Coast Initiative:

The Creative Coast Initiative (TCCi) is a non-profit organization that attracts, nurtures, and promotes brain-based business in Savannah. Our job is to make it easy for you to get in, get setup, get connected and be successful in this cool coastal city. We’re all about relationships. We’re a public/private partnership created by city, county and technology leaders in 2003. We are chartered by the Savannah Economic Development Authority (SEDA), the City of Savannah, the Chatham County Commission and closely allied with a whole host of other organizations.

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With today's celebrity obsessed culture/media I have a new sure-fire crisis communication plan for corporations, yell, "Hey look, there's Paris Hilton!"

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I've been working with social media for almost four years. The majority of the time my work involves either pr practitioners or journalists. While I enjoy what I do and the interactions I have, in this time I have become a bit jaded with certain aspects of PR and media's view of blogging.

Today, Steve Rubel talks about the era of PR as participation and not pitching. I agree with this. It's about relationships and interactions. It's about knowing the people you're talking to and knowing what you're talking about. Two commodities that seem to be lacking in many interactions online.

Now on to my jaded view. A few weeks ago when Phil Gomes and I were on a panel at Media Relations Summit, he made a statement that I've been repeating quite a bit recently:

If you're a PR professional and you complain about blogs being inaccurate or wrong...and you're not doing anything to fix it, then you don't have the right to complain.

This topic came up again at the Airports Council International-North America's marketing and communications conference I spoke at on Monday. A few communicators complained about blogs in general. I asked if they had made any attempt to correct the information. They hadn't.

The other issue is blogger relations, or building relationships with blogs. Many PR folks act like it's something completely foreign to them, they have no idea how to do it. I always say, it's the same tactics and strategies they've used with building relationships with reporters/media. Unfortunately, for too many folks the extent of their relationship is looking up a name in Bacons.

To drive home this point I use this anecdote:

What you're saying is that you can't find sources and build relationships with them? So if you moved to a new town and started work for a new company, would you go to your boss and say, "Wow, I don't know any of the media here or have any idea what trade publications cover our industry. It's going to be impossible for me to build relationships and get your information out there."

The issue with blogger relations is finding the right blogs. Well if you're part of the community all you have to do is ask. If I was new to the triathlon scene, I would find somebody I knew that was a triathlete and say, "Hey what web sites, magazines, etc do you read?" Then I'd start from there.

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Shel Holtz furthers the discussion on ghost-blogging, or the act of writing blog posts for somebody else. I agree with Shel that for the most part it's not a good idea.

My problem is simple: Blogs aren’t just another business communication channel. In fact, blogs were created and popularized by people who were fed up with traditional business communication channels. They had had enough of fabricated quotes in press releases and speeches read by executives but written by professional speech writers. These people wanted authentic conversations with real human beings.

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Wow, I write one thing about Star Wars and I'm already receiving unsolicited press releases for Star Wars related news.

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Ah yes the corporate press release (or statement). A document that is carefully worded to not offend anyone or put an organization at legal risk. In some cases a paragraph sees so many revisions and passes by so many lawyers that the price-per-word must be higher than the per-capita income of many third-world countries. One of the original 95 theses of the Cluetrain promised us that:

In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

In the case of a disagreement or debate on a sensitive topic:

They Write: We don't want to rush to judgement

We Read: We're not changing our minds.

They Write: We respect their opinion.

We Read: They're idiots.

They Write: The best course of action is to step back, let all parties have their say, and then build a consensus.

We Read: We're going to stall for time so we can continue to spin our position while dis-crediting our opposition under the false pretense that we care what they have to say.

They Write: It has been brought to our attention.

We Read: It's been all over the internet for weeks, but we just noticed it.

They Write: Our internal investigation has revealed.

We Read: We had a corporate-wide cover-your-ass session.

They Write: We're currently exploring all our options.

We Read: We have no idea what we're going to do.

They Write: We're re-stating our earnings.

We Read: We got caught.

They Write: We're preparing a statement

We Read: We have dozens of lawyers writing a paragraph that will hopefully deflect all blame and absolve us from any wrong-doing.

They Write: Our general counsel assures me...

We Read: The general counsel is pushing me to the wolves while he escapes to Brazil.

They Write: ...that we will prevail

We Read: We're screwed.

They Write: We're working with the proper regulatory agencies at this time.

We Read: We're really screwed and have tuned to bribes, blackmail, etc.

They Write: He has left to pursue other interests.

We Read: He was fired.

They Write: I'm genuinely excited about the opportunities available to me.

We Read: Wow, I have no job, what am I going to do?

They Write: We wish him the best.

We Read: Our lawyers are waiting to revoke his severance should he violate his NDA.

They Write: Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

We Read: We're so desperate that we overpaid.

or We Read: We got such a deal, but we don't want to crush the ego's of the previous owners once everybody realizes they left money on the table.

They Write: It will allow our best minds to work together.....

We Read: The best minds are already packing their bags and leaving to work together on a new startup.....

They Write: ....for the long-term health of the company

We Read: ....they'll end up buying/crushing us in a few years.

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Over at Marketing Profs, Lewis Green talks about the benefits of chamber memberships for business development. I agree with many of the points Lewis puts forth, with the caveat that your business fits a local model to some degree.

While I am a member of my local chamber, I know that I won't be getting many clients from my local market. It's just the nature of my current business. My major clients are based in: Florida, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Seattle and Silicon Valley. I joined my chamber to support the local business environment and community.

However, many years ago (1996-2002) when I owned a locally-focussed web design firm, the local chambers were indeed a huge part of my marketing mix.

So how does this relate to social media? When I talk to pr/marcom folks I often use the analogy of a chamber with social media. Here are a few highlights:

- Starting a blog, like joining a chamber is the first step, but it's only an entry. You need to put something in to your blog/membership to get something out. Bob Gernert of the Winter Haven Chamber says membership is like a health club. Joining is easy, but you need to actually go and exercise to see any benefit.

- Build relationships first before pitching/advertising. Imagine if you joined a chamber, went to the first social function and grabbed the microphone and shouted, "Hey my name is Stan and I sell car insurance, everybody needs to talk to me now!" I think the majority of the membership would look at you and say, "Who is that jerk?" That initial faux-pas will be hard to overcome, everybody will always remember you as being that jerk who sells insurance.

- At chamber social events introduce yourself to other folks, make the purpose of the conversation to learn about others, not to pitch your product. At some point in the conversation the other person will say, "What do you do?" Use that opportunity to say a little about yourself. If they're interested in your product/service they'll ask a bit more. Now you'll know who they are, what they do and how your product/service could benefit them.

- Learning about who you are talking to will avoid a number of embarrassing situations. Back when I had my web firm I can remember a few instances when a new over-zealous web firm would appear in the local market. At a chamber event one of their salespeople would come up and start talking to me, they wouldn't ask what I did, they just wanted to tell me about what they did and how my business could benefit from a new web site. I would let them talk for a few minutes before mentioning that I actually had a web site and was pretty sure it was built by somebody that knew what they were doing.

- It's conversation and relationships not advertising. When you think back to a recent event you attended what do you remember, the sponsor of the event or the conversations you had? For me it's mostly the conversations. At too many 'sponsored' events there is usually that awkward moment when the sponsor gets up on stage and gives a hurried, in-effective pitch to people who just had their conversation/lunch/dinner interrupted. That's not really the impression you want to leave with people.

- It's a long-term play. Sure there will be times you'll walk away from a chamber event with a solid lead, but it's the long-term relationships that pay off. I can't tell you how many times I would meet somebody and they would say, "Yeah we just had our web site built by X." No problem, in 2-3 years they'll need an update and guess who they always turned to? :-)

In the end, when I look at my years of chamber memberships I don't think about the business value, but more the relationships built and friends I have gained.

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B.L. Ochman blogs about receiving a Nikon D80 camera as part of a blogger relations program lead by MWW Group.

I had lunch with Tom Biro in New York last week and he clued me in on the program, very cool on Nikon's part. Quite a few friends and bloggers that I read will be getting a test-drive of the Nikon D80. Who? Gotta keep a secret :-)

Of course I am a Nikon fan for life since they helped me out in a pinch last year. I ended up purchasing a D80 last year and have loved the camera. It allows me to take shots like this:

Update: Gigglechick has also received a camera.

Update 2: Mike Manuel received one as well and has some photos of the packaging.

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A former client is now with the communications department at Virginia Tech. Obviously with the news today I went to check out the site. The school has wisely switched to a low-bandwidth version in this time of crisis.

Thoughts and prayers to all those involved.

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The topic of sending bad pitches to bloggers is not new. There is a blog about it and even and handy-dandy button for it. However, Steven Noble brings up something I never thought of. If you're 'working' the blogs then you are probably monitoring and pitching them. This might cause an interesting situation:

That's right. You're own bad pitch will appear in the social media monitoring report that you will have to prepare for and deliver to your client. And then you have to explain it. Ouch.

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Here's a hypothetical situation based upon a recent experience I had with a client. Let's say you're the director of marketing or communications with a large organization. Each year you spend a considerable amount of money on your Advertising/PR efforts.

However, the number one issue you face daily is customer service. In other words, you know your advertising will bring them in, but customer service will push them out. In PR, the majority of your issues center on customer service problems. It might be a general workforce problem or a lack of proper training, but it's that customer experience thing that's killing you.

Now the big question. Would you be willing to give up 30-40% of your budget, and perhaps your staff, to fix the customer service problem? Are you willing to fix the problem, with your budget?

To many of us that work within the social media world the answer seems obvious, but when you start dealing with organizations and internal politics you sometimes get answers like: "That's their problem, my job is X." or "Then you'd be cutting my budget."

Unfortunately it's not your budget or their problem, it's everybody's problem. And if you don't help them fix their problem, then all of you will have much bigger things to worry about.

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The latest issue of Wired has a cover story by Clive Thompson about the See-Through CEO, or how blogs are transforming how CEOs and businesses work. The one pull-quote that speaks volumes is this one:

Google is not a search engine. It's a reputation management system. By enhancing transparency, companies can manage their images as never before.

While a newspaper story or crisis might make a slight blip on the radar, it's the long-term search results that will always stay.

Recently a friend had some bad news written about his company in the newspaper. I suggested that they blog about the situation, provide their version of the story. Why? Because a few months or years from now somebody will say, "Hey you remember when X did Y back in Z?"

A quick Google search will help refresh everyone's memory. What will turn up? The original newspaper article? With many newspapers putting content behind pay walls it will probably be a blog talking about the story. If the company blogs the story, what will most likely show up first a few months/years from now will be their post.

In many ways you're writing your own history. Yes this can be abused, but the blogosphere has a great system of checks and balances. They're called comments and links. If you try to BS or 'cover' a story you'll be outed. Stick with the truth.

In the end, who is telling your story? Is it the media or a blogger. Why not tell it yourself?

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Constantin posts that Paull Young has joined Converseon. As a student, Paull made a name for himself in the PR-blogging world and was a sought after hire. (Other students are you paying attention?)

Congrats to Paull and good catch on the part of Converseon.

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I'm a bit late to this discussion, but here are my two cents.

Dee Rambeau ended his blogging adventure with a well thought-out and well written missive about the cons of the blogging world. I won't debate Dee on this issue, Allan Jenkins has already done a great job of this.

One of Dee's comments on Allan's post says:

I think if you read some of the students' comments, you'll find that they were aching for a contrary opinion. The koolaid was getting a little too sweet!

If you want to find a true debate about the issue (or any issue) for that matter you need to talk with both sides. In the blogosphere though, it's usually one side doing most of the talking.

I agree with some of Dee's points and always whole-hearted say, blogging is not for everyone, and dealing with many corporate clients tells me it's not right for many corporations. Would it be a benefit, perhaps, but going back to a post a wrote before, it's more of a culture shift than a communication tool.

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In a great post, Mike Manuel provides the chronology of the 90-second news cycle we now live in:

+1 second to hit publish

+2 seconds for a blog to refresh

+3 seconds for feed readers to update

+4 seconds to email, link, tag, rank, or rate a blog post

+5 seconds for readers to form an opinion and/or leave a comment

+1 minute for Technorati to register a server ping, crawl and index a blog post

+8 seconds for alerts, watchlists and saved searches to propagate

+4 seconds for a blog post to plateau, amplify or disappear

+2 seconds for this cycle to repeat from the beginning

+1 second to realize the world's changing...

In a 24-hour news cycle there are total of 960 unique, 90-second news cycles.

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The St. Augustine Lighthouse in where else...St. Augustine, FL is now blogging. I've worked with them in laying the groundwork for this project. They're taking the first steps and have some interesting plans for the coming months. The blog allows them to cover a number of topics, from the historical to the ghostly to all things Fresnel.

The lighthouse gang is fortunate since they have an attraction that is frequently photographed and shared via Flickr. To join the party, they'll also be using Flickr.

One of the driving forces within the organization has been Rick Cain. If you're a lighthouse nut be sure to follow his blog and all the others.

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From Jeff Jarvis:

The newspaper industry is spending $75 million to argue that it’s not screwed. How much better it would be to spend $75 million on innovation so, indeed, it won’t be screwed.

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Where have we heard this story before.....run 'hip' new ad during the Super Bowl then let people 'discover' (then call-out) your fake blog that goes along with it. Remember the Lincoln Fry blog from McDonalds?

In this case the commercial hasn't even run yet, but AdPulp's David Burn has discovered a possible fake blog from GM for their Robot 2407. Below is the GOTO ROBOT blog written by ROBOT 2407. (Susan's comment below is correct....it was very late last night when I wrote this...so perhaps character blog would be a better description)

Comments are not enabled on the blog, and it seems funny that the 'ROBOT' posts at exactly 6:00 PM each day.

ROBOT 2407 even has a YouTube account. Looking at his profile you see he likes Kraftwerk.

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Toby Bloomberg wonders if social media is tipping in Atlanta? There are a number of events coming up in the next few weeks that deal with all things social. Is it tipping/growing? Toby, the majority of my time outside of Florida is spent in Atlanta :-)

Is it the mecca? Not sure. I think the folks from ConvergeSouth and Greensboro, NC might argue that. Or perhaps Rex Hammock and all the bloggers in Nashville.

One of the comments on Toby's post points out that Atlanta is 2-3 years late as usual. This isn't always a bad thing. It all depends on your audience. If I am a tech firm in Atlanta trying to reach a broader market then yes I might be late to the game, however for local audiences much of this is new. Should it surprise anybody that the biggest blogger in the area is the local media? At last count the Atlanta Journal Constitution has 59 blogs.

Still, social media has existed for some time in the area. I remember coming up for a Atlanta Media Bloggers meeting back in the summer of 2005. Who was the first blogger I knew from Atlanta? Toby, followed closely by Jeneane.

It has been interesting to watch the growth though.

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This is a tough call, because it depends on what you do for a living. The three best *paid* events I went to last year were:

- New Communications Forum
- Gnomedex
- BlogHer

I make the distinction of paid events since there is a bit more of an investment in going to a paid event rather than a local un-conference-type event.

For the past few months I have told anybody I work with in PR that they need to go to New Communications Forum this year. The event is being held March 7-9 in Las Vegas at the Venetian.

All the sessions are great and feature some of the most well-known folks in the PR/social media movement (including some guy named Josh). Like any conference though, the best interaction is during the breaks and dinners...with such a great line-up of folks on hand it's hard not to get something out of it.

The only downside? Deciding between some really great sessions that end up being scheduled opposite of each other.

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I just led a quick impromptu session on blog basics for some of the BlogSavannah attendees. Drew, the event organizer quickly got feedback that some of the attendees were here to start their blog learning and wanted a basic overview, i.e. definition of terms, the culture, etc.

It was a great, quick session. With many questions. I always get amped by a group wanting to learn.

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