Archive for September, 2009

300 people gathered in Los Angeles to find out more about using Twitter for business, entertainment, comedy and music, The panel on how brands can effectively use Twitter featured Starbucks, Kogi BBQ and E Online. It was moderated by Guy Kawasaki who quizzed the speakers about their business strategies, how tweets for the brand, how to gather and interact with followers and some of their favorite tools.

Starbucks started their Twitter account just over a year ago and they now have almost 300,000 followers. Described as freshly brewed tweets, the content is written by Brad Nelson, who started as a barista when he was in high school. He’s been with Starbucks for ten years and has seen the business from store level to headquarters, so he feels he is the right person to tweet for the company.

In his interview with Nelson for his book Twitterville, Shel Israel asks Brad about why Starbucks chose to use theri corporate name rather than his name. And he says that even though it makes good brand sense, getting to know Brad changed his perception of the Starbucks tweeter. The need for personal interaction was debated by the panel, but one aspect that remains a thorny issue is that if you do make it very personal, what happens when that person leaves or moves to another position?

Mari Smith has some excellent advice for PR practitioners grappling with Twitter and social media issues.

In an earlier interview with Planned Legacy.org, Mari said:

“The number one reason people fail in social marketing is because they don’t have a strategy. That’s the biggest challenge. Some people will just jump in and set up accounts all over the place on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, YouTube etc. and they’ve got a blog going and feeds and widgets up the wazoo and then it’s like, “Okay, now I ‘m all confused and I don’t know what to do.”

Related Links:  Download a new whitepaper – 10 Step Social Media Marketing Strategy

Journalists across all kinds of media are under pressure to produce more stories faster – and, wherever possible, stories that break news.   European Digital Journalism survey.

They’ve had to adapt to even more channels, such as Twitter, as well as continuing to produce news and features for print, online, video and audio formats.

When preparing your story think about what the journalist might need.  Help them save time and get the story up fast by:

• Having an analyst or third party organization on hand to back up your claims
• Reference blogs or customer forums that could substantiate the story
• Hone the release for the social media environment
• Include  links to relevant websites, blogs and Twitter feeds

Professor Dr Ansgar Zerfass of the University of Leipzig has some advice for PR practitioners in his comment on the   survey.

The crisis is turning the media landscape upside down.  It’s time for a new mindset in PR – move from print to video, stimulate stakeholders to produce authentic content, help the media to survive as a trustworhty entity rather than striving for the quick win.

If there is one take away from this survey it’s that PR practitioners need to learn digital skills. Here’s some advice from Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Online Video Marketing in an hour a day.

While there might be room for discussion about who should own social media outreach, reputation management is one part of it that falls squarely within the PR sphere.

“The PR industry has been transformed by social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook. A single consumer can now have an impact on the stock price of a Fortune 500 company, which is not something to be taken lightly,” says Alecia O’Brien, dna13’s Director of Marketing.

dna13 just released a white paper with a list of the top 10 qualities to look for in a reputation management and media monitoring platform, including “real-time alerts,” “reporting and analysis,” and a “flexible architecture for media content integration.”  The white paper is available to download for free from the dna13 website (www.dna13.com) and dna13 blog.

dna13 is also keen to get feedback from PR practitioners on social media best practices -they’re looking for tips and other insightful information on different ways that you use social media tools to manage your company’s reputation. Email these snippets directly to PRSocialMediaTips@gmail.com.  You might be featured in future whitepapers and PR industry trade journal articles.

Related link: Proactive Report - Online Reputation Management. Strategies to protect and enhance your brand online

One of the biggest trends in 2009 is the shift to real-time content online, sometimes referred to as Now Media.

And when you say real-time web or the instant news cycle, most people think of Twitter.

“The Real-Time Web is much more than Twitter,” says Richard McManus of ReadWriteWeb in a series about the top 5 web trends in 2009. “It has changed the products and strategies of almost every major Internet company in 2009.”

Twitter has been a large part of it and Twitter search has changed the speed with which people gather information.

The old news cycle has been well and truly trampled in the rush to real-time information. There have been a few high profile news events that showed up in Twitter well before the mainstream media got their content out online – never mind in print.

The US Airways plane in the Hudson was a case in point. Janis Krums, who happened to be on the scene, took a picture just minutes after the event and posted it to Twitter. “There’s a plane in the Hudson,” tweeted Krum. “I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”

“Social media tools like Twitter -– which allows users to tap out 140-character status updates — have changed how breaking news events are recorded and covered,” says the Wall St Journal.

“We’ll get used to the fact that we can now connect, publish and collaborate in real time from mobile devices anywhere in the world that there is signal. This awareness will become widespread and more interestingly, smart uses of its potential will continue to emerge. New things are coming. We don’t know the half of it yet,” writes Laura Fitton (Pistachio).

And the first comment on that blog post states: “I haven’t even watched the news yet… I got everything I needed from Twitter.”

Journalists and bloggers have seen the value of real-time news and content.  You can find them on sites like Media on Twitter and Muckrack.com.

Media Relations is not what it used to be. People find their information and news in new places.  And they find it fast.  In the real-time web, delayed news and information just isn’t good enough.

Journalist and bloggers are watching the real-time news stream for stories and ‘citizen journalists’ on the scene at breaking news stories.  Go over these lists of journalists and bloggers on Twitter and see if anyone on your list of media contacts is there.

It’s just one more reason to be in these real-time conversations and to watch what is being said about your company, your brand and the generic phrases that describe your industry.  Add Twitter search to your Google searches. Keep an eye on the devloment of RSS Cloud so you can make your corporate news available in  real-time too.

Today the media relations race goes to the swift.

Related Links:

Real-time Web Primer from ReadWriteWeb

Rebooting the RSS Cloud Dave Winer

Image Credit:  Dave Parker