Getting Started With Social Media

PRSA Southeastern New England Chapter Steve Quigley, APR

Summer 2009

“At Hyatt, we’ve chosen to employ Twitter in a guest-centered way.” 

“Through HyattConcierge, our skilled guest service professionals will be able to respond to guests’ questions, needs and concerns, any time, any place, and by any digital means on Twitter - before, during and after their hotel stays.” 

Hyatt Hotels CEOMark Hoplamazian

May 18, 2009

May 20, 2009

General Electric deployed a Tweet Squad this month. Modeled on Best Buy's Geek Squad, it is made up of 10 fresh-faced employees who help GE's boomers and Gen-Xers become fluent social networkers.

Social Media Is A Love - Hate Relationship

• “Every day it seems there's yet another social networking scandal breaking out...

• … like the viral sensation of the woman who tweeted: "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work."

Or the Ketchum public-relations exec who said of client FedEx's hometown: "I would die if I had to live here!"

We’ll Discuss Six Social Media Starting Points Tonight

1. RSS

2. Blogs

3. Social Networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter

4. Photo Sharing: Flickr

5. Social Bookmarks: Del.icio.us, Digg

6. Wikis

But First, Let’s Step Back And Look At The Forest

(Before We Study The Trees)

Good News: This Stuff Really Is New

In 1990, Sir Tim Berners-Lee “invented” the World Wide Web. (Sorry Al.)

This is my business card. It has all the information about me

you need.

“Your brand isn’t what you say it is.

It’s what Google says it is.”Chris Andersen, The Long Tail

Our Ground Is Shifting

From Broadcast To Narrowcast

From Top-Down To Bottom-Up

From Command and Control

To Our Control

From Messages To Conversation

From Relying On Authority

To Relying On People Like Me

“Disintermediation”

Producers

The Web Is Undermining Intermediaries

“Middle Men”

Consumers

Web 2.0 is Social

• Consumers Have More Control

• “Digital Natives” vs. “Digital Immigrants”

• Peer-to-Peer

• Inbound vs. Outbound (“Push vs. Pull”)

A Working Definition

Social Media: Any online technology or practice that people use to share content, opinions, insights, experiences, perspectives and media.

Soon, the world’s most respected and valued brands may be those least “controlled” by their owners.

- Council of PR Firms White Paper The Evolving Role of Public Relations in the Age of Social Media

“The public relations industry – agencies

and corporate communicators – must

determine that the golden opportunity to

lead on the new media front has arrived.”

- Council of PR Firms White Paper The Evolving Role of Public Relations in the Age of Social

Media

Trust Is Shifting Edelman’s Annual Trust Barometer

“Who do you trust for information that’s important to you?” …

Increasingly, we reply, “People like me.”

“Flipping The Funnel”(Seth Godin)

• Turn strangers into friends.• Turn friends into customers.• And then... do the most important job:

Turn your customers into salespeople.

Three Things I Hope This Might Mean For Public Relations Practitioners

1. We’ll rediscover the power of listening.

2. We’ll rediscover our real voices.

3. We’ll guide our organizations (and ourselves) toward greater authenticity and empathy.

Okay, Back To The Trees…

1) How To Drink From A Hydrant

Three Little Letters Might Help Us

(Really Simple Syndication)

• “RSS is the grease that lubricates the groundswell.”

• Yet, as of 2007, only 8% of online Americans (knowingly) used RSS feeds at least monthly. - Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

• RSS In Plain English

2) Blogs. Where To Start?

Blogs: Jump In

• Technorati

• Google Blog Search

• AdAge Power 150

• Blog Rolls

• Tips from your Twitter followers

“The Internet has made public relations public again, after years of almost exclusive focus on media. Blogs, online new releases, and other forms of Web content let organizations communicate directly with buyers.”

- The New Rules of Marketing & PR

by David Meerman Scott

“Robert Scoble, single-handedly at first, has gien the EVEIL EMPIRE a “Human Face”…thanks to his blog.”

-Tom Peters

3) Social Networks: Facebook

• Launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg

(Yes, yet another Harvard dropout Billionaire)

• Estimated Over 200 Million Members

• Surpassed MySpace in April 2008

• Harley-Davidson’s Facebook group has 157,737 fans.

• Their Facebook campaign has helped grow the Harley Owners Group to 1.2 million members

• Link: http://www.facebook.com/s.php?init=q&q=Harley+Davidson&ref=ts&sid=13a1ca101812fb328b380a7c57739dc9#/harley-davidson?v=info&viewas=547817524

4) Social Networks: LinkedIn

“Facebook for professionals”

All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn.

LinkedIn Login

5) Social Networks:

• Fasted growing social network (Some describe Twitter as a microblog.)

• Asks one question: “What are you doing?”

• 140 character limit (plus links)

I went in thinking Twitter was a free way to push our message out.“ Big mistake. We learned to listen. We started winning once we let people decide on their own about our services."

- Amy Worley, H&R Block

BusinessWeek…

“…Until social media came along it was not economically feasible to listen to a global base of customers.

Blogging began to fix that. But it remained pretty much a dynamic of, "I talk. I pick the topics, and a few of you can respond."

Tony Hsieh

• Name Zappos.com CEO -Tony • Web http://www.zappos... • Bio www.zappos.com

blogs.zappos.com twitter.zappos.com

• 410,266 Following • 631,035 Followers

Twitter As Early Warning Customer Service System

• Richard@dell

• TheHomeDepot

• JetBlue

• Comcast

Let’s Take A Look…

• http://twitter.com/home

• http://search.twitter.com/

• TweetDeck

6) Flickr

The key is tagging.

You might have to give up your day job.

http://www.flickr.com/

7) Del.icio.us

• Social Bookmarking(“Folksonomy” vs. “Taxonomy”)

• Freedom From Our Desktop• They’re Social – And Shared

My Del.icio.us Loginhttp://delicious.com/stevequigley

8) Digg

• “Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users.”

• “You won’t find editors at Digg — we’re here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.”

“Join The Conversation”

• Users submit articles, images, or videos and submit them to the crowd.

• “We’re here to promote that conversation and provide tools for our community to discuss the topics that they’re passionate about…”

• Digg Login

9) Wikis

The Hawaiian Word For Quick

A Wiki According To Wikipedia(The 8th Most Popular Site in the World)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

More Wikis….

• Over 22% of online American adults say they use Wikipedia at least monthly.

• So Wikipedia pages typically appear within the top few results on Web searches.

Here’s A Relaxed Overview Of The Impact Of Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuk

WineLibraryTV

Social MediaThanks To CommonCraft

• http://www.commoncraft.com/socialmedia

The Social Web Is For…

Sharinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4

Ford CEO steps into TwitterApril 15 2009

CEO Alan Mulally is participating in a Twitter-based Q&A from 1:00 to 1:30pm EST today. The foray into Twitter by the company's top executive is part of Ford's ongoing social media strategy to better connect with consumers at a time when car manufacturers are struggling globally.