On PR 2.0 and killing version numbers

In our network, we also have a global PR agency. Recently,we have been working more closely with them, and it’s been a great experience that has given me insights about a totally different way to work on brands. In this collaboration, I’ve come to notice the changes that are going on in the PR world too. Obviously, the fact that everything has changed for traditional marketing communication because people have been empowered by digital technologies has also arrived in the PR world. In fact, the say they knew it before the old traditional agencies even started thinking about changing their ways.

And some of that is true. If we look at Al Ries’ book “The fall of advertising, the rise of PR” which was authored around 2000, we can see that the trend was there for many to see. And it is true, that in the type of brand work PR agencies do, they have always focused on the more immediate human opinion and context in which they can positively influence brand opinion. But the thing is: it’s not that PR agencies were rising by because their work got better, or their approach drastically different. Isn’t it more likely that traditional agencies, which were the main mass media opinion shapers for brands started sucking? Or to be fair: ad agencies were conveniently repressing the fact that mass media started bleeding its effectiveness to digital channels and 1:1 and social media interactions.

What will be interesting for me to observe is: will PR agencies make some of the mistakes that ad agencies made? Like: “Hey, here’s an idea, we’ll just start an interactive agency that can adapt our stuff online,” or will they be less prone to the “channel-adaptation” mistake? I think they might. Why? Well, since the PR guy’s job is to influence opinion of people in a way that is different to regular mass media communication (the staple of the ad agency), it has always been about word-of-mouth, even before the web. Think about it: if, on one side, you have an expert of influencer opinion and how to use it to influence others, and, on the other side, an expert on creating single-minded propositions for mass media: who has an advantage in a landscape where single-minded messages are being fragmented, spoofed, barely measureable, and generally ineffective and where everyone can have an opinion, influence product design, brands and author about everything on a free blog? Yes, it’s definitely the PR guy, not the ad guy. So this is where they have the leg up, but I think they’ve had this advantage rather unconsciously. Now that the web is mainstream, even traditional PR (even if it was more modern than the traditional ad business by design), has to think about PR 2.0 just like advertising has to think about advertising 2.0. And they do, and they might want to break some of the negative PR stereotypes as they go along.

Okay, you say, but digital agencies obviously knew before. Yes they did, and if we again look at Al Ries’ book, you will notice it doesn’t even go into any detail of the potential of how digital channels are changing peoples’ behavior. And here is my point: while some PR agencies had started working closer to the context of the people in order to influence human behavior than traditional ad agencies, most of them still did it in a traditional channel mindset. The reevaluation of what a traditional ad agency has to do, or if in fact, it is still advertising it needs to create, is also taking place consciously in the PR world now. In fact, the question is: if the word “advertising agency” is passé, is “public relations” also a bit yesteryear?

The funny thing is, as the process of redefining the ad agency and the PR agency is underway, look at the schools of thought out there on this topic:

• Markets are conversations, not messages
• it’s about listening not talking
• Engage people on their level, not as abstract consumers, insulting their intelligence
• and so on and so on…

Doesn’t that sound all too familiar? Isn’t everyone saying the same thing?

Yeah, again, nothing new to anyone who worked in a digital agency, in, say 1995. The only difference is: now everyone is talking about it and it’s mainstream, oh, and bandwidth is better. This is good, mind you, but it also let’s me beg EVERYONE who works in this industry, whether they are in ad agencies, PR agencies, media agencies, digital agencies and even marketing people: don’t we all say the same thing, no matter who said it first, or who put out the best “integrated” campaign? Can’t we just decide that communication is a people business, not a brand business and that therefore everything we do should start with people, not brands, or products or categories or marketing toolkits?

And for chrissakes, can’t we stop putting version numbers on our respective displines (advertising 2.0, web2.0, PR2.0 and media 2.0) just because we want to tell everyone that we finally got the fact that people are in control?

Acts, not ads!

PS: I will be off on a vacation, so there will be no posts for a while.. Cheers.

Stating the obvious: Online Social Media generate awareness, influences opinion.

Okay, sometimes I have to repeat stuff I’ve already said before, even if it is the equivalent of stating the obvious. I do this usually when I find a study with an air of scienctific credibility that supports something that is being talked about, but lacks the digits.

In this case, I stumbled upon an article in Adweek which states that a new study was release proving that some of the most desirable consumers use the opinions of others from blogs, and social media applications to make their purchasing decisions. In fact, 74% of people polled do this. Of course this means that the brand message and promise seems to be becoming less important than what other people say about the brand and customer experience they have had. Which in turn means, that mass media advertising is becoming less important. Thanks for the statistics, but as I said, it’s still a “duh-moment.”

Still, I like it when marketing people are quoted with something that is a Heureka moment to them. Here it is:

“This study indicates that there is a growing group of highly desirable consumers using social media to research companies,” said Ganim Nora Barnes, a senior fellow at SNCR, in a statement. This demo includes adults 25-55 with a college education, making over $100,000 a year. “These most savvy and sought-after consumers will not support companies with poor customer care reputations, and they will talk about all of this openly with others via multiple online vehicles. This research should serve as a wake-up call to companies: listen, respond, and improve.”

Yeah. Stop making advertising to generate awareness if you cannot listen, respond and improve. Otherwise you will get grilled and served with a slice of lemon on a nice “ineffective traditional advertising sampler platter.”

Facebook Decline

First signs of a decline in social networking interest is becoming aparent, according to this Financial Times Article

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/490e8502-e40e-11dc-8799-0000779fd2ac.html 

Updated Shareaholic Tool out for Firefox

Social bookmarking tool Shareaholic has just launched its latest release, which now supports Tumblr, Mixx, Simpy, and FriendFeed. Additionally, Shareaholic is now compatible with Firefox 3+. We mentioned Shareaholic a few months back when the site first launched. It works as a Firefox browser extension that lets you submit items to various social bookmarking tools across the web. It’s tools like these, that work with Firefox, that make it more difficult for social browser Flock to gain significant market share.

via Mashable

Anyone still convinced Silver Surfers don’t create content?

Reputation Defender

Doing some research, we found a site called reputationdefender.com. The concept is very simple: as more and more of people’s lives are becoming transparent as they sign-up to a plethora of social networking sites, write blogs, comments on other blogs and give opinions on products and services or describe their experience, the question is: does it damage my reputation? What can people construe about me that could ultimately be bad for me?

In comes reputationdefender.com which will scour the Internet for you and inform you about your visibility and “destroy” things you don’t want. I am not sure how they go about that aspect, but it’s an interesting idea. Also, the site allows you to protect your privacy against direct marketing and telemarketing, as well as your child.

Network Value Test

As a form of promotion for its social networking platform, XING introduced the network value test, which gives you a number in Euros on what your network value (money you could make in the next 10 years based on your network) is. It also compares you to the average and top 10 percentile of network values other people have. It is an interesting idea to try to affix a numerical number to your networking behavior, size of network, frequency of exchange etc. However, it is not quite transparent (at first sight, anyway) of how this is calculated, or even what it actually means.

Also, what is really strange, is that you have to re-enter all the information, although it could be read right out of your Xing profile, which would limit the number of errors and increase accuracy. Also, changing just a few variables really does make a real difference, which leads you to wonder how accurate you entered your data, or how to understand the questions given. Try it out and see for yourself.

Nowpublic.com

So I finally had some to time to sign up for a nowpublic.com account. Nowpublic is a promising social media tool where people create news from around the world, can upload video, photos, or just text from any mobile or stationary device. I am still figuring it out, but what I find very interesting how it connects to your blog via their “highlight” tool. The highlight tool basically lets you comment on things you find on the web, automatically proposes tags, and connects your entry to nowpublic.com to your own blog, thereby actually driving traffic to your own site. Pretty smart way to popularize the concept in the blogosphere. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Facebook Case Studies

An interesting slideshow from Charlene Li from Forrester. For all those who were looking for cases when convincing or keeping clients from doing something on Facebook.