I'm a web strategist and aspiring know-it-all with a passion for all things digital. I've worked in PR, advertising and not-for profit industries, and now I run a creative agency. These are the things I think about, and am sometimes compelled to write. More...

Open source branding

Jun 28 2006

This week’s BrandWeek has a thought-provoking feature on what they refer to as “open source branding.” The basis of the article is on empowering brand advocates by putting the brand in their hands – through consumer-generated media and generally taking marketing advice from your own consumers.

Of course, they mention the first failures of CGM campaigns – the Chevy Tahoe “build your own commercial” site that resulted in numerous satirical ads condemning the Tahoe’s less-than-environmentally-friendly fuel consumption.

Some of the best quotes from the article pretty much sum up what a go-get’em marketing person needs to know before delving into this space:

“When you flip the funnel, you turn it into a megaphone for your happiest customers.” – Seth Godin

“Consumer-generated ads make sense for some brands and not for others… if you don’t have an insight to back up your idea, you’ll fall flat on your face.” – Noah Brier, Senior Writer at Renegade Marketing

“It’s a mind shift from going out and deciding what people want and then giving it to them.” – Steven Addis, Addis Group

I like the idea of open source branding, though I do agree that it won’t work as well for everyone as it did for companies like Fluevog or Jones Soda. But get customers involved in your brand messaging, and they’ll certainly react more positively than just shoving your message down their throats.

Revelation #1

Jun 28 2006

Being heavily involved in the arts for most of my career, I always enjoy going to the theatre. I find that sometimes I can be watching a play and glean something from one of the lines that, while totally unrelated to what’s going on on stage, makes something I’ve been thinking about make perfect sense. That’s the power of theatre.

For the past week, I spent nearly every night at the Ottawa Fringe Festival, taking in plays, talking to actors and drinking too much at the beer tent. One show in particular – a performance poet called Jem Rolls from the UK – probably left the most lasting impression on me. He said:

I decided to think about why the world is the way it is. And I spent hours, just laying on the floor, thinking, determined to come up with an answer. I thought about it for days and days until I came to the conclusion – the world is the way it is because the people who are run the world are paid too much. So I went and told all my friends at the pub this, and they paused for about 10 seconds, and said "Jem – we all already knew that." And I realized that I did too… but with all the thinking, I’d forgotten.

All this is to say that I came to a revelation last night that quite possibly be one of those epiphanies that had already occured to everyone else – nonetheless, here it is:

Dealing with social media PR does not mean giving up control over your message. It means giving up the illusion of control over your message. As soon as someone with an internet connection decides to talk about your brand, you’ve lost control. Admitting that you have no control from the outset means that you have to take a different path to mitigate bad PR: giving your customers something they WANT to talk positively about.

Again, I’m pretty sure I knew this already, but when it came to me, it still blew my mind a little.

Highly Effective Blogs

Jun 27 2006

Steve Rubel points to a study by UMass identifying the traits of successful business blogs. Anyone starting a business blog should read this before even registering their domain name.

(Via: Micropersuasion)

Joining the conversation

Jun 25 2006

“Joining the conversation” is a phrase that is often echoed in Web 2.0 and social media circles. Even now, a lot of PR professionals and clients are unsure of the benefit of entering this mysterious conversation, and don’t see the necessity.

The reality is that if your product is worth talking about, good or bad, it will be talked about. This is nothing new – word of mouth has destroyed a lot of products in its day. The Ford Pinto, despite their attempts to cover up the fact that they would explode in rear-impact collisions, was forced out of the market by people talking about it. This took almost two years – in the new information economy, a story like this would make it around the world a dozen times in less than a week.

In general, there are two kinds of things being said about your products or your company on the Web. In most cases, the buzz is either negative or glowing. It’s rare that a blogger would go to the trouble to say “I bought X today, and it was not bad.”

So how do you respond when the buzz turns against you? Join the conversation. Negative buzz is one of two things – accurate or flawed. It’s important that both of these things are addressed quickly before that buzz gets out of control.

If the negative comments are factual, in the case that a product is flawed, a policy is unjust, or a mistake has been made on the part of your company, the best way to address it is to acknowledge that fact, and explain what steps are being made to correct it. This is very similar to a crisis PR approach, though the goal of this exercise is to fix the problem before crisis arises.

Kryptonite Locks are a perfect example of blog buzz destroying a product. When it came to light that these top-of-the-line locks could be picked with a bic pen, it was all over the Web, yet Kryptonite never responded with anything other than the same old line that “Kryptonite locks are the best.” Had they become a part of that conversation and explained what they were doing to fix this problem, and how they would compensate customers who had a flawed lock, they could have looked great. Instead, their stock plummeted, along with their reputation.

The main difference between blogs and the media is a lack of accountability on the part of blogs. Opinions are fair game in a way that newspaper columnists could only dream of. As a result, there are many unique opinions, and many, many flawed opinions.

When you’re hit with a negative and factually inaccurate buzz, it’s especially important to act quickly before another blogger sees it and reprints it as gospel. Simply by commenting on a blogger’s post or contacting them directly, you show not only that you care about what your customers are saying and how they are experiencing the product, but you’re also helping other bloggers who might be having the same problem, and preventing a mass negative buzz in the process.

Caveat publicitor

Jun 24 2006

Companies have begun to catch wind of this thing called social media and online PR. Apparently, they’ve heard, instead of trying to pitch newspaper reporters on your products and spending millions of dollars on paid media, you can get your customers to talk about your product or your company online.

They’re not really sure what it is, but they know they want it. The problem is, like any other medium, social media PR is not for everyone.

Putting your message in the hands of your customer means letting go of control. Not every company is willing or able to do that. I’ve worked with these companies – ones who wanted bloggers to sign image release waivers, who wanted language changed on personal websites because it didn’t match their marketing materials. These are the companies that will not only not succeed, but they will damage their brand as a result of trying.

Social media PR has a lot of possibilities, but requires a major change in communications philosophy for all but the most progressive and nimble of companies. Putting your message in the hands of bloggers means being able to say to bloggers “we just want your opinions to be public, whether they are positive or negative.” It means letting go of the need for absolute control of the message, and to become a part of the conversation.

If you or your client can’t accept that, then social media PR is probably not the best tactic to consider. Traditional companies should stick to traditional media. Those who are willing to progress will be the new conversation, while the rest will be doomed to live by press release alone.

An introduction

Jun 23 2006

This blog is about public relations, about social media, about where business-to-consumer communication is moving, and about how we as PR professionals can be a part of a major social shift rather than just a spectator in the arena. But more than any of these, this site is a way for me personally to wrap my head around these changes.

I recently went for with a former colleague of mine to talk about online and social media PR, and I realized that I had a lot of unrelated thoughts written on invisible sticky notes in my head. As the nature of my job ends with me being a lone PR wolf in my organization, it is sometimes difficult to organize my thoughts and the thoughts of others that pour through my RSS reader every day into a cohesive philosophy, which is something that I think PR pros all over the world are searching for now.

Not surprisingly, friends and acquaintances often find talking about blogs and social media tiresome, so I now turn to the most obvious way to discuss the changing nature of social media for insight, validation and that ever-so-sought-after conversation.

I’m going to make a lot of assertions here – and a lot of them are going to be wrong. I urge you to challenge me on these assertions, to become part of the conversation. The purpose of this site is not for me to preach from a pulpit (though for the purposes of the metaphor, I am the one with the pointy hat and sceptre) but rather to encourage collaboration, conversation and cooperation to arrive at a best practice for online public relations.

If you’re a blogger or a practictioner of online public relations, please feel free to introduce yourself. Email me at newpr@ryananderson.ca, or leave a comment here.

The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, etc.

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