Digital Influence Mapping Project

The 11 Skills of the Public Relations Practitioner of the Future

The Army has their Soldier of the Future. Why shouldn't the communications (aka public relations) discipline have it's own model for the expert of the future? As marketing and communications continue to merge and change (and the post-industrial, corporate organizational forces that drove them apart continue to fade), as technology injects innovation and uncertainty into our lives, and the demands of increasingly global clients get more and more complex, today's PR professionals must evolve.

It's more than learning the significance of Twitter vs. Friend Feed. It's more than learning that long tail bloggers have different expectations & habits than journalists.

There is a full field of knowledge (things people "know") and skills (things people can "do") that must change to make PR pros relevant going into the next period of change. It still starts with the core attributes of The Trusted Advisor - that model defined by David Maister that remains as relevant today as when he first published it.

Now, the Communications professional must master knowedge in a number of areas and a new set of skills inclusive of new personal behaviors. (I don't want to get hung up in nomenclature but the term "communications" may be a more forgiving and forward thinking term than "public relations." We tend to think of them as synonyms but the latter comes with a lot of earned and unearned reputation 'baggage')

Knowledge

• Communications Strategy & Planning
• Integrated Marketing including Digital Marketing & Word of Mouth Marketing
• Basics of Paid Media Planning & Buying
• Digital Influence
• Change Management
• Marcom Measurement Standards
• Basic Psychology
• Best Practice Research Approaches
• New Media Relations
• Creative & User Experience Design that Activates

Skills

1. Create an integrated marketing and communications strategy
2. Deploy live 'listening posts' online and offline
3. Design and deploy an advanced search engine optimization program
4. Plan and run a new media relations program inclusive of head-of-the-tail and long tail "media"
5. Identify & engage with influencers online and offline
6. Manage communities
7. Integrate new technologies into their own lives
8. Model measurement and performance metrics including new "engagement" metrics
9. Run quick pilot programs  and evaluate on-the-fly
10. Train staff and clients continuously
11. (What am I leaving out)?

Clearly this is an incomplete list. What else should be on here?

(thanks to Force of Operations for the awesome illustration)

Our government is too big not to get social media

There is an interesting conversation going on within our 360° Digital Influence team blog sparked by a post from Brian Giesen regarding the death of Web 1.0 for government. The question of whether our government gets social media or fundamental issues around the Internet is a false question. There is no monolithic "government." There is a diverse collection of people across different agencies and departments, most of who are trying anything they can do their jobs better. That includes exploring and adopting social media. I don't find the institutional inertia inside government agencies any thicker than many corporations.

There is lots of evidence that individuals throughout government are exploring and becoming expert with how to use social media productively. While there is plenty of evidence that others are struggling. In such a big ecosystem like "government" that is completely understandable.

Technology is complicated

Today's Washington Post Business section covers the hearings yesterday garding Internet privacy in relation to data mining and ad targeting. The story was in the print edition and I cannot find it online but the intersting points were:

• one Congressman citing the use of the term "cookies" and feeling the need to learn a new dictionary
• the general sense that the discusison aqbout technology, data and privacy in realtion to Internet advertising was too complex to really understand within the scope of the session

But the campaigns lead the way

Both parties are using social media to the fullest. That's common knowledge. It's not just the 2 big candidates but plenty of the others who run every year that are deep into the tools, communities and methodologies of social media and just good use of the Web.

• Obama for America
• John McCain for President
• Josh Hallet on local campaign sites
• Jerry Weinstein at The Huffington Post on the Personal Democracy Forum

And then they get elected

Look at Robert Scoble's trip to the Hill this past month. he found plenty of folks who "get it" including Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. See his video collection here.

A Unique Way to Get the WOM Manual Volume II

Dave Balter and I serve on the board of WOMMA. He runs a company called BzzAgent which you have probably heard of if you are in the marketing business (or if you are a BzzAgent). We actually have a partnership with BzzAgent because we believe in the value of their business for our clients and have run several very successful agent-based word of mouth campaigns.

But back to Dave. Before I knew him, I read his first book, Grapevine: The New Art of Word of Mouth Marketing. And while I knew he was using the book to make a case for his company, it was a really smart assessment of the power of WOM and his experiences making BzzAgent work. It remains a solid business book.

Dave has a new book - The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II. I read it this weekend in my backyard. And I can heartily endorse it. I will tell you why in a second so you can be your own judge.

But before I do, I want to give you the opportunity to download the pdf of the entire book for free by CLICKING HERE.

Of course you can buy the self-published book via Amazon where for $45 you will also get a signed piece of artwork. While I enjoy Seth B. Minkin's illustration (awesome Monkey!), I am more interested in more people reading the book. Here's why:

1. Dave is a practitioner, not a pundit. He speaks from deploying WOM programs via BzzAgent and examining programs from our WOM colleagues around the world. He offers insight from his professional experience ( while also being a human being about it thus the references to Weezer and "the Dude")

2. He offers practical knowledge like why post-purchase is the best time to share and that the third-person stories following a product experience become essential first-person narratives (Chapter 4).

3. He acknowledges the importance of measurement and offers a model. His first few paragraphs in Chapter 5 were channeling the exact points I have been making with clients throughout the year: study after study proves the overall strength of WOM, Brand marketers need a way to valuate it and compare to other marketing choices, and that we in the WOM business are being held to a higher standard of measurment than our advertising brothers and sisters. He goes on to propose a model which I plan to challenge in a later post but it is well worth our consideration. 

4. The book starts with recent insights and then goes back to cover some basics. This makes it instantly relevant to experienced WOM practitioners and those just starting their exploration of WOM.

5. There are lots of real world examples and not just the big guys - iPhone and TIVO. Brands like American Express and Lacoste and a myriad of pop culture examples abound to make relevant points.

6. Yes, the book supports the choices Dave has made with his business, BzzAgent, but what I like about his accounts is they remain relevant to much of the larger arena of WOM. 

7. We will recommend this book to all of our colleagues within Ogilvy and we don't take the use of their time lightly.

Pass it along.

Learning from Product Design

I have always been a fan of product design. While I have spent a lot of my professional career in design - graphic design, user experience design, televsion design - I have never worked in traditonal product design. I admire Ideo and have had a chance to work with them via my client Snap-on. I used to follow frog design back in the day. Now I am becoming a fan of Adaptive Path.

Subject to Change is the "Adaptive Path" book written by Peter Merholz, Brandon Schauer, David Verba and Todd Wilkens. They cover a lot of their experiences and methods for product and service design. It's a good read. Part of the time I felt they were corroborating what I already believed. Part of the time they demonstrate a clear POV on develop products and services for clients that is insightful and fresh.

Social Media Engagement is like "Product" Design

One reason I focus on product design (I put "product" in quotes because it is the trade term but as you will see in my post, it is a misleading term) is that the discipline shares some best practices with what I do now with social media programs. There are three things in Subject to Change that stand out and are worth mentioning.

Empathy

The Adaptive Path guys (APgs) spend a lot of time talking about best ways - some new, some old - for understanding people. They stress the importance of empathy and they introduce research methods that can lead to spreading empathy for people (who use services and products) throughout the organization. One way they define empathy is "an understanding of a person or group's subjective experience by sharing that experience vicariously." While I know that the APgs are trying to be very professional - and I agree with them - I cannot help but want to shout - "It's not enough for companies to practice empathy; they should love their customers and want to know them personally." Anyhow, that's just the social media nut job in me. But the world would have a lot better products and services if companies made empathy a priority.

Behaviors, Motivations and Meanings

I am a  champion of usable design. Sounds terrible when I think about it. "Usable design" sounds like such a low bar. When I use it, I mean focusing on being of-use and offering a streamlined user experience. It implies focusing on tasks - what does the user want to accomplish. Just the term "user" says it all. APgs champion a new way which is not so new. It stresses understanding behaviors, motivations and meanings beyond simple tasks. They talk about people, not users. Their field research methods support this.  While APgs are suggesting this is an evolution for interactive and product designers, this is one area where I think the best brand marketers have a leg up. Our agency and many of our clients have long had ethnogarphers and held a deep value behind understanding behaviors. We long to understand the emotional drivers of our fellows by knowing what they do and where they find meaning.

Stop Designing "Products"

There is a huge interest amongst marketers to think about traditional products like services. In APgs case, they use examples like the iPod/ITunes service and the early Kodak film system (camera + development services). Any company ought to be looking at how to expand their view of their product to a potential service. That will be more difficult for simple consumer packaged goods (i.e. toilet paper). But with digital marketing and social media many, if not any, brands can think about being "of-service" in their marketing of their products. Listen to what your customers are saying and observe what they are doing. Find some way that you can enhance their lives that stems from the barnd. If you make Tupperware, help potluck supper enthusiasts. If you make computers for students offer people a companion program from Stephen Covey. If you offer a weight loss product, build your customers a way to track and reward their progress.And build a community of customers who add value to the overall customer experience. Spend more energy on that than on old-school advertising.   In short - design services not products; and market products likee services.

You should pick up Subject to Change. And you could do worse than to start thinking like a "product" designer.

NetVibes for Marketers

Michael Cohen from Netvibes presented the basics of the customizable interface for the Netvibes service. He is talking to a room full of CRM marketers for a major CPG (consumer packaged goods) in Barcelona. They all want to know how they can brand widegts and pages within the service and then count the hell out of everything. CRM folks are data geeks, data junkies, Ninjas of ROI.

So netvibes remains a small enterprise - 39 employees in Paris - with a deceptively prolific developer core - currently there are over 120,000 widgets created by more than 700 developers. They have 60 million pages created but then comes the kicker that they are trying to remedy: most users are not registered and rely on cookies-only to maintain page-state. They recently released 'Ginger' which prompts you to upgrade (and register). But as an avid Netvibes fan and user, I have't upgraded yet, myself. (Ginger offers a bit of a social network that allows people to "push" changes to their subscribed users - think Facebook.)

Brands can work 2 ways: Premium Universes
There are two ways that brands can "use' Netvibes. The first is to create  a "premium universe" - a branded page that collects widgets together in a private-labeled user experience. If you were Marshalls (disclosure: client of Ogilvy), you might assemble a bunch of bargain hunter widgets - store locator map, Web site homepage, trendspotter blog feeds and more. Anything with an RSS feed or HTML can be embedded in a widget. You market that as a custom url to your customers as an added service (and Google food).

Michael showed examples where Figaro and Tagged have embedded NetVibes customized 'start pages" in their services. He, of course, then demonstrated our client's branded start page. The moment of truth happens when the brand realizes that the user can combine their brand with any other widget content from the library (competing branded content, non complimentary content, etc...).

Widgets
The other way to make use of Netvibes is to create widgets and place them in their library (dollars for premium placement).  1000 brands have created widgets. they come in 76 languages from 69 countries. In this mode, you are leveraging (I said the "L" word) Netvibes user base which they don't know enough about to satisfy even the least disciplined marketer (never mind the CRM folks). For the few that are registered, they know age, gender and town. They could do more but they respect their users privacy.

They have a very versatile approach to widget compatibility (not in the OpenSocial sense). Netvibes Widget Platform (Universal Widget API - UWA) makes widget sportable across OS, device and browser platforms.

Brands track number of downloads and can use their own tracking (like a special Feeburner feed). Netvibes is working on reporting "canceling" or dropping the widget. They have their own CPC-like model = "Cost per installation" (CPI).

He showed examples from NYTimes and CBS (CSI Video widget).

Michael had some good one-liners:

• "The user is your best friend to distribute the brand" - speaking to letting users spread your widget
• "The brand as a service provider" - this is the new mantra from marketers who know that product brands have to think differently now to build stronger relationships with theihr customers. they have to think like service providers.
• "Really Sexy Syndication" - they are enthusiastic about RSS

I love Netvibes

Netvibes has put togther a very useful platform for brands. On the widget side of their business, until they convert more users to registered users, they will attract brands looking to reach the great unwashed (young tech males?). The premium universe offering is a great user experience but relys on the brands existing marketing strategies to drive awareness and usage. Also, it is at the end o fthe day a supercool portal concept. Brands have been trying to capture the start page of their customers for years (most rightly gave up). How many people need a widgetized portal from their favorite soap brand? Still for the right product and service, it is a great solution (slam dunk for any major media company).

Social Networks Change Behavior

A Washington Post story covers a new study by Nicholas Christakis of Harvard Medical School and James Fowler at the University of California at San Diego published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine tracking the pattern of smoking - actually quitting smoking - through a social network. They are not refering to an online social network but rather to the more common offline network we all participate in - in this case one whose core focal point is geographic.

You can get the WaPo article here in its entirety.

Here are the interesting parts:

• Over the course of 30 years, the number of smokers in the network dropped from 45% to 21%
• Closer relationships (family, co-workers in small companies, etc..) had more influence and impact
• Yet a single person's quitting seemed to have an effect at least through 3 degrees of separation

There are two assumptions the article reports that I question:

1. The drop in smoking was probably the effect of a shift in 'social norms.'
No doubt. And 'social norms' have become a common lever in social marketing circles (behavior change). We hear it a lot from clients in the government trying to affect change. It has always been around but seems to have risen to the surface of many campaigns via the messaging - e.g. "most people form a driving contract with their teenagers...."

Think about smoking. I quit early in my twenties. When someone quits in your 'circle' you talk about it. It does not remain a secret. People ask what's up, how are you doing with it, how long has it been. The 'quitter' explains their irritability, the different programs they are trying, how long it's been. There is tons of conversation and word of mouth. The researchers previous study focused on obesity. While impolite to mention a ballooning weight, it is also visually obvious. Talking about it, if even in more hushed tones, is inevitable.

I would love to know how many conversations happened between network 'members' about smoking. What was the role of word of mouth?

2. The remaining smokers ended up on the fringes of society. The illustration "proves" this point. I have no doubt that the role of smokers in society has dramatically changed in 30 years. In fact in a recent post, I reported someone's observation that they had become the last true counterculture. They cluster outside office buildings in the scorching heat or bone-chilling cold in small groups to pound back a cigarette.

But are they really the outcasts the article and study suggest? What if you layer in all of the other social networks they may belong to: movie lovers, scifi enthusiasts, wine afficianados, Harley owners? The geographicly rooted social network is one dimension of a "n" dimension of affinity groups we all belong to formally or informally. While the smokers may become isolated in the original network, they may lead vibrant, connected lives across other social networks to which they 'belong.'

Using Social Networks for Social Marketing

The implications of the study on social marketers' use of social media and social networks is great. Can behavior change experts embrace the use of new digital networks to accelerate the spread of social norms and word of mouth? They will need to let go of some control - a lot of control - to do so but we may just find a way to produce behavior change in something under thirty years.

The report confirms the usefulness of engaging influential groups within a network:

"Moreover, medical and public health interventions to encourage people to quit smoking might be more cost-effective than initially supposed, since health improvements in one person might spread to others. Finally, the isolation of smokers within social networks suggests that blanket policy approaches (e.g., advertising and taxation) may be usefully supplemented by interventions targeting small groups."

Roll Up Your Sleeves

If you are interested in how social marketers will begin to use social media (don't get them confused), you shoudl check out Nedra Weinrich, is in town on June 2th to hold her 2.5 day Social Marketing University. This is more than Social Marketing 101. Nedra is a leader in defining how to harness digital innovations and social media for behavior change (social marketing). You can sign up for the regular course Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar on June 4th.

Her blog is Spare Change

The Open Room from Singapore

We have a great Digital Influence team in Singapore. Smart people working with some of the best brands in the world. The team launched a blog a couple of months back and they also launched an idea called the Open Room. It's a meeting place for those neck deep in social media and marketers. Not too much structure - just enough to have a conversation or a meet up.

They have posted a terrific video with sound bites from noteworthy digital leaders from SG:

Are Social Media-based Programs Scalable?

There is a general perception that advertising is thoroughly scalable and that public relations is not. But how about social media-based word of mouth programs?

You can develop a $5m, $10m and $100m ad program. You will get increasing "returns" for your investment. Reach and frequency can both go up. There are limits but they are pretty out there. It is predictive and incremental. The media relations side of PR can only be dialed up so much before traditional media shuts down on additional coverage for the same brand & message. Now, there is a lot more to public relations that just media relations. The value of public relations goes beyond (yet includes) short term marketing goals to include enduring brand reputation. It seems that PR's role in supporting short term sales such as a new product launch is more limited than the scalable "burst" of awareness available via paid advertising. PR's impact on reputation is almost infinitely scalable. But we are now talking about word of mouth and social media-based word of mouth.

Scalable: Reach

At WOM University, we held a roundtable discussion on the scalability of WOM programs. Keep in mind, my position that most social media-based programs are ultimately WOM programs. The table's focus fell on both online and offline programs. Walter Carl of Northeastern University and Chat Threads presided over the table. He introduce the group to his measurement model which, while complicated, suggests a method for understanding overall performance and then being able to dial it up or down accordingly. Walter modeled out his generational pass-along effect which I will call the 'multiplier effect.' A recent Fast Company article on NING rechristened this a "viral loop." I am not sure that new definition adds anything to our understanding. The multiplier effect tells us how many people we will reach and convert into "relayers" once we give Gen '0' something to talk about. Walter can match back G0 and G1, for instance, to verify that G0 actually passed along their story to 6, 8, or 12 people. It is the same logic he used to support BzzAgent's impact and make it meaningful to the media planners of the world (who rely on scalable "channels").

It's great stuff but a little complex. It speaks to the "reach" capacity of a WOM program. I need to simplify the issue to make it useful in my daily life. If there were predictive models for the multiplier effect, that might help.

Scalable: Frequency vs. Multiple Voices

Walter's model is a great way to understand the reach of a WOM program. The problem is that it remains very complex and requires a self-reporting procedure itself needing an incentive to motivate participants ("Tell us who you talked to and you might win an iPhone or we'll give $5 to charity or...").

The best value of a social media-based WOM program is scaling through time combined with the slower growth of more relevant reach. "More relevant reach" is a loaded phrase. I am suggesting that one's 'social graph', is a more powerful channel than the audience of a particular media property (TV channel, show, magazine, newspaper, etc...). I also assume that when I hear something from a colleague, friend, or "stranger with expertise," it sinks in without the same need of message frequency that we expect with advertising (i.e. need to hear something 3-5 times for it to be memorable, never mind actionable). My client, Gerry, recommended a reasonably high-end coffee maker a few weeks back. I Will eventually buy that coffee maker without any other input save for some model-browsing on the Web.

There are plenty of purchases or decisions that I need to make where the number of 'promoters' matter. On most book purchases, I will scan the reviewers to make sure there are more positive reviews than negative. I scan the negative comments quickly to see if the complaints resonate. But I don't let a few negative comments dissuade me from purchase. There is a name for this behavior which I don't remember. I'll call it a simple 'disaster-check.'

It takes fewer positive voices to drive me to purchase consideration and even purchase than the number of ad impressions it takes to persuade me. In fact, beyond direct-response offers, no advertising really gets me to the same deep level of consideration. This begins to speak to WOMs place in the "funnel" - the deeper end of the purchase/advocacy decision.

If I spend $100K more on my WOMM program, what do I get?

Classic marketer question. Will you get more reach? Will you get more brand/product advocates? Will you get a deeper bond with a select group of enthusiast influencers? And the kicker: will it sell more product?

The answer to all questions is yes, yes, yes and yes. The problem is that I need 30 minutes of your time to explain how. If you intuitively believe in the strengths of WOM and the sales impact of a great Net Promoter Score, you will give me that 30 minutes. If all you care about is a proxy metric like site traffic (i.e. cpg brand marketers online), than you will glaze over right after I tell you this is a different measure than traditional advertising.

You can use Walter's model to answer the $100K question. But I have to ask is that model practical and itself, scalable?

We need simplicity based upon reasonable and shared assumptions. How do you show that WOM is scalable?

Relevant Links:

• Walter Carl's Post on "Communication Value"
• WOMMAs Measurement Books
• Jeremiah's Measurement Tag (for good measurement resources)
• Rachel Happe's Long list of Metrics

The Learning, Teaching, Doing Continuum

In marketing, communications and the integration of social media in each, there are practitioners and there are pundits. There are practitioners who are in a constant state of growth from learning and teaching. There are also analysts who fall somewhere in between. They are also in the learning-teaching practice as they try to make useful sense of what is happening in the market.

I was reminded of this recently by a simple post from Seth Godin on How to Read a Business Book. I aspire to read lots of books - business, marketing, fiction and the occaisional left-field of my interests. I cannot read or consume them all as swiftly as I would like and have a considerable backlog. (Reading "Leading for Growth" by Ray Davis/Umpqua Bank now.) But Seth's post reminds me that me drive to "consume" them may not be the best use of the time. How will I pass along what I learn from the reading? How will I find the useful, actionable gems available in almost every book (or any life experience)?

He suggests that I dive into the next book in a different way:

"1. Decide, before you start, that you’re going to change three things about what you do all day at work. Then, as you’re reading, find the three things and do it. The goal of the reading, then, isn’t to persuade you to change, it’s to help you choose what to change.

2. If you’re going to invest a valuable asset (like time), go ahead and make it productive. Use a postit or two, or some index cards or a highlighter. Not to write down stuff so you can forget it later, but to create marching orders....

3. It’s not about you, it’s about the next person. The single best use of a business book is to help someone else. Sharing what you read, handing the book to a person who needs it... pushing those around you to get in sync and to take action..."

Read with the intent to get something out of it - something you can pass along to be of service to your peers. There is a discipline in living in a constant state of growth and learning. I have found that teaching is part of that discipline, as is actually "doing." Even our team - 360° Digital Influence, the social media, word of mouth team - has adopted a constant learn/teach/do discipline to be as sharp as possible about what we do for clients. We have developed a curriculum for new recruits and clients that pass along the best practices that we have learned from actually planning and implementing word of mouth marketing. The process of actually building that curriculum which everybody on the team has participated in helps us all learn as we are forced to communicate information and experience.

We don't pretend to know everything.We do believe that living in a culture of learn/teach/do makes us more valuable to our clients (and to each other). Seth's approach to book reading captures that spirit beautifully.

The Insiders Guide to Using Community for Marketing

We were at the Community2.0 conference in Las Vegas. Many of us are brands or marketers. We want to engage with or build community to meet some marketing goal - itself designed around a business goal. We may want more loyal customers, a way to activate brand advocates, build brand reputation and value, and even sell products and services.

For marketers at a community conference, we needed to talk about real-world practices where we have engaged with communities to get business done. We need to go beyond community 101. We accepted the folllowing:

• we need to serve the authentic needs of community members
• our solution is not simply shoe-horning display advertising into community spaces
• activating and stewarding community takes a new expertise

I had four experts on our panel and another 50 in the room  Each understands a marketer’s perspective.

Amy Dalton, Senior Director of Marketing, Topix, LLC.
Peter Friedman, Chairman and CEO, LiveWorld, Inc.
Aaron Strout, Vice President, New Media, Mzinga
Dave Carter, Founder, and CTO, Awareness, Inc.

Our session the Insider’s Guide for Marketers using “Community”  - we wanted to hear what each has learned from developing or running communities with marketers. And we got great experiences for the community of experts throughout the room (there remains a great Tweme here)

Insider’s Guide for Marketers using “Community”

1. Avoid registration as it becomes a barrier to entry that slows down or can choke the community.
2. Make the right choice about partnering vs. creating features for that community. Topix tried to create classifieds for their community when it turned out to be more efficient to partner.
3. Don't try too hard to organize the chaos. Rather use it to your advantage. The message here is don't try to over control the community.
4. It's a myth that communities don't like advertisers or advertising. If it's done right  they not only tolerate it but they actually like it.
5. Seek and embrace criticism don't simply allow it.
6. Invite them to co-create as they become "owners" and ambassadors
7. Use Twitter (there was a solid core of us at the conference "covering" our experience there via #c20 Tweme)
8. Embrace as many points of enthusiasm as possible. Wherever people are expressing themselves - the core community, Facebook groups, Twitter memes - then embrace that activity somehow.
9. Create community around brand-relevant topics that you find are already relevant to people (vs. communities directly around a product brand)
10. Know who you are inviting to dinner and actively seek them out. If you want a thoughtful PBS-like crowd then design for them and go find them.
11. Don't get lost in developing features. Spend your time getting people to express themselves and becoming engaged in dialogue.
12. Know which KPIs matter. Start by deciding which metrics from the community will indicate success and progress - there are no relevant standards.
13. Build your own ROI model. Use Charlene Li's ROI of Blogging for reference.
14. Use studies that demonstrate the business value of community members (e.g. - better customers, more likely to advocate, lifetime value, etc...)

It was a lively discussion. These points are not a complete guide by any means. They are the practical insights of a few, great experts teased out in a great collaborative session at Community 2.0.

Useful Links:

B2B Marketers Fail The Community Marketing Test
Forrester Report: Online Community Best Practices

Web Community Forum