There has been no shortage of commentary on the ethics and relevance of WikiLeaks’ recent dump of politically embarrassing diplomatic cables and its threat to target Corporate America next.
To which I say, who cares?
Now don’t get me wrong. This is without a doubt a serious matter that warrants grave consideration by anyone with secrets, or a brand, to protect. But philosophical discussion around the “ethics” and “relevance” of such unauthorized disclosures is missing the point.
Bernie Charland at Public Relations Rogue wrote a great post last week about why WikiLeaks’ actions have “little in common with the ethos of Web 2.0, and it certainly doesn’t represent the best of social media.” He concludes his post with the valid point that the question to consider isn’t whether WikiLeaks can make this kind of information public, but whether it should.
However, I contend that the real crux of the matter is that, barring some heavy-handed government or court intervention, WikiLeaks will. And even if the Powers That Be were able to shut WikiLeaks down tomorrow, the path has been laid for others to follow. WikiLeaks, like Napster, will be paid that greatest of compliments – others will attempt to duplicate, or even improve upon, its model for disrupting the status quo.
Which means that for anyone who is sensitive about how they are perceived by the public, partners, associates and other stakeholders, the best defence is a proactive, rather than reactive one.
Here at inmedia, we regularly preach the merits of being engaged with the online community as a means to build brand awareness, engage with customers, and keep tabs on what is being said about your products and services and those of your competitors. (See Alex’s Part 1 and Part 2 on the subject from the perspective of the B2B revenue cycle.)
For everyone out there who remains leery, skeptical or scornful of social media, I have only one thing to say. WikiLeaks demonstrates that the decision whether or not to engage with the online community may be made for you by a third party who is external to your organization, a third party who may not be acting with your best interests in mind. In essence, Web 2.0 and social media are of vital importance to you whether you want them to be or not.
It therefore behooves any brand to have in place a strategy for crisis communications, a key part of which is building a vibrant online community that allows for interactive engagement with key stakeholder groups. Far too few organizations, however, have taken this proactive step.
In an article last week, E.B. Boyd at Fast Company cited a Harris Interactive poll in which only nine percent of respondents said they have crisis protocols in place.
Boyd spoke to several crisis communications experts who agreed that disclosures of the WikiLeaks sort are more likely to hit an organization’s reputation rather than reveal confidential corporate information. However, this can be just as damaging. Boyd pointed to the example of Bank of America, rumored to be on the radar as WikiLeaks’ first Corporate America target. Just the rumor of this hitting mainstream media was enough to cut three percent from the bank’s stock price in a single day.
At one time, the best defence against seeing anything embarrassing about yourself or your organization in print, on TV, or on the radio was to live by this simple rule of thumb – if you don’t want it out there, don’t write it down and don’t say it. “Burn the tapes!” But today, with disgruntled employees able to so easily hit “send” on a damning email, or walk out the door with a whole encyclopedia of embarrassments on a thumb drive that can suddenly appear on a Facebook page, this is no longer enough. You have to accept that dirty laundry of one sort or another is going to get out there, sooner or later. Just because your organization or brand isn’t big enough to warrant the dubious honor of a WikiLeak, that doesn’t mean there isn’t someone else out there, empowered by Web 2.0, with the means and the intent to do some serious damage.
In today’s Web 2.0 world, you can no longer rely on simply keeping the leak in the dike plugged with your finger. You have to develop a strategy for crisis communications that levers all of the tools at your disposal, including social media, against that inevitable day when the dike breaks.
Some people have called me the Grinch because I wait until December before I start getting all Christmassy. I don’t buy a tree, string lights, buy presents, play Christmas music, eat pumpkin pie or drink eggnog until the 12th month dawns. I’m sorry if I sound like a downer, but Christmas decorations look depressing when they droop outside in November rain and hearing songs like, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year,” and, “Have a holly jolly Christmas,” playing in shopping malls as early as September drives me crazy. (It’s a short drive, I know). I’m not saying that I don’t like Christmas. In fact, I love Christmas. I just think that everything has its time and place and getting fanatic about our biggest holiday before its time has come dilutes its marvel and meaning. It’s curious how the one-day Christian holiday and the gathering of friends and family became an excuse to produce lame Christmas albums and go on three-month-long shopping marathons.
However, my Grinchy heart grew three sizes yesterday as December 1 chimed in the time to be festive and trumpet my Christmas spirit. I’m an arts and crafts nut with an assiduous sweet tooth so my beau suggested we build a gingerbread village as a merry display for our dining room table. We ate candy and built, licked icing glue from our fingers and designed for hours, until we created the vision you see alongside.
Naturally, the creative process of building this gingerbread village got my mind churning. I thought to myself time and time again, “Wow, building this gingerbread village is so similar to building an online community!” Here’s why:
Patience and practice equal perfection
As I said, this gingerbread village took us hours to create. We considered what candy would be used for the rooftops, skating rink, pathway and ground; where they would go and in what combination. Each piece had to be held in place for a number of minutes to dry.
Building an online community through social media takes a lot more time than just a few minutes. It can take months and even years. You have to put a lot of thought and consideration into each person with whom you connect, how you will engage them and how you will strengthen your relationship to them. This process is ongoing, and so requires a great deal of patience. Connections can grow slowly when you are new to social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, but if you put in the time and social effort, you will grow a good community. The key is to never give up.
Real is always better
We used dark and white chocolate almond bark from a local chocolatier to build the pathway and rock gardens. All the candy was selected to be as fresh as possible. Sadly, we didn’t have the resources at hand to bake our own gingerbread, but it’s something I hope to do next year, because real is always better.
It is important to remember this while you build your communities. Discover your own voice and be loyal to it to show others that you are a real human being. People are naturally attracted to others who are genuinely interested in the conversation so be personable and express real life experiences and opinions that bring value to the subject matter.
The best bring together a mixed bag of colourful and fun flavours
We used 14 different kinds of candy to bring this gingerbread village to life, including liquorish, gummies, multicoloured and multiflavoured chewy and rock candies, crystallized white, red and green sugar, and dark and white chocolate. Yum!
When socializing in online networks, always keep an open mind and open invitation to people with various perspectives, opinions and backgrounds in order to grow a dynamic community. Diverse voices drive great conversations as they can offer perspectives others may never have considered otherwise. As in any social situation, you are bound to cross paths with a bad apple. While criticism is vital for personal and professional growth, harsh language and personal attacks should never be tolerated. Keep your community clean and fun by packing it with constructive people.
They are both gifts to be shared
I’d likely end up very ill or in hospital if I tried to eat this whole gingerbread village alone, so I plan to share it with company later in the month.
In social media, you will be most successful if you share intelligence, advice and experiences with others in a reciprocal manner. Talking solely about yourself is not social. Instead, ask others their opinions on certain issues to drive discussions. Acknowledge others when they have accomplished something and share information about happenings in your marketplace or in your community. You will have a much easier time growing your community when others see that you are sharing the space.
Those are my observations. Do you have any other ideas, or perhaps gingerbread tales of your own?
The latest missive from Gawker Media’s Nick Denton has brought all kinds of potential blog post topics to the front of my mind, which I’ll attempt to cover in one post. In his long piece about the hows and whys of the changes coming to the company’s online properties in 2011, he touches on the following topics: scoops still matter, the role of modern media as an aggregator, the importance of being well-rounded, the rise of video, constraints and benefits of editorial calendars, and real estate lessons that online properties are adopting from their older brother, television.
It’s a fascinating read and speaks not only to Gawker’s response to the ever-shifting realities of media production and consumption, but also to some larger issues that should be compelling to B2B marketers as they search for ways to create and leave an impression in today’s fast-paced media marketplace.
Scoops matter
This is true in the publishing world, in terms of being the first to broadcast a breaking story, and also for marketers looking to edge out the competition in being first to market with a new product. One of our clients, Touch Bionics, was first to market a fully articulating bionic hand with its i-LIMB Hand in 2007, conscious of the fact that its competition was also planning a launch and that being number two was not a viable option. So successful was the i-LIMB Hand media launch that Touch Bionics’ competitor cancelled its plans.
The role of modern media as an aggregator
There was a brilliantly funny Tweet a few months ago (from whom I sadly cannot recall or I would reference them here) that said Huffington Post planned on starting a print edition that would consist of clippings from other newspapers taped together. While cheeky, this does raise a point about the media outlet as content aggregator, a model that many publishers are increasingly adopting based on the mercurial success of Huffington Post, deemed to have the 38th highest traffic volume of all US-based sites. Marketers can tap into this shift by building out effective social media programs and also by offering well-rounded content to the media.
The importance of being well-rounded
In a world where social media is wildly popular, the news cycle is infinitely shorter than it was even a year ago. That’s where the media’s role as an aggregator comes into play most effectively; rather than spending time crafting their own take on every story they want to cover, savvy outlets have an editorial mix that contains both brief, perhaps rebroadcast, news from disparate sources alongside more in-depth, exclusive content generated by the outlet itself.
If marketers want to tap into the myriad media opportunities that exist with target outlets, they need to provide the media with the proper materials in order to cover them. This means not only effective background materials, but also photos, videos, links to your owned online media properties, your social media coordinates, and a steady stream of content – bylined articles, customer case studies, surveys, and other outbound news that ranges in size and scope – so that the media can cover you when and where appropriate.
The rise of video
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a moving picture in today’s multimedia media climate is surely worth much more.
Here are some great examples of how our clients Xsilva and Touch Bionics are using video assets to their great advantage:
LightSpeed Mobile – Meet Your Customer
ProDigits: the world’s first bionic finger
Constraints and benefits of editorial calendars
Forward planning was essential and easy to stick to with print-only properties in years gone by. With online media, it’s less important and more difficult to stick to a planned coverage agenda. One of the primary advantages that modern media has over its predecessors is its ability to react immediately, to publish news instantly without having to wait for ink to dry on paper. This immediacy has made the news cycle almost non-existent, but intelligent outlets recognize the need to develop a brand for themselves defined by the scope and depth of their coverage, the topics that they cover, the journalistic integrity of the editorial team, and other choices that outlets make.
Advertisers can rely on these plans to ensure that their paid space is complemented by editorial that’s covering the same topic areas. Media relations consultants can pitch editors on coverage that fits within the target outlet’s editorial plans. Because you have many arrows in your marketing quiver, the effective practitioner can provide the right materials in the right format at the right time, regardless of if it’s paid or earned.
Real estate lessons
There is almost infinite real estate online, which subsequently lowers the value of the space. As Denton said on the matter, “There is no future in low-end web advertising, at least not for a media company with any aspirations.”
Marketers need to carve out effective real estate on the marketing channels of their choosing. This may mean owned channels, product placement, sponsorship programs, or other marketing vehicles that are new to your marketing mix. Are these activities impacting your bottom line? There’s only one way to tell: measure them.
Now more than ever, it’s integral that marketing programs are reaching the right eyeballs. With endless analytics mechanisms for online media, marketers can effectively measure and evaluate the elements of their programs. Benchmark before you begin, and evaluate regularly to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your marketing investment.
There are many people out there “doing Twitter” for business which is encouraging other people to “do Twitter” for business too. As Twitter is still relatively new, a lot of these people don’t have the slightest clue of what they should really do to grow a community that is engaged around their brands. To get some help, they turn to a snake oil marketer who sells them a “secret formula for Twitter success.” The package includes an automation system equipped with full spamming capabilities, auto-follow and sure-fire steps for shameless self-promotion. They are instructed to blast hyperbolic, unsolicited promotional material, use @Reply and Direct Messages to spam their following and otherwise demonstrate to the Twittersphere that they are, beyond any doubt, anti-social robots.
Want to get people to click the “unfollow” button fast? Want a short-term, low-interest Twitter following? How about a very bad reputation with little chance of recovery? Follow these simple unsteps from the snake oil marketer.
1. Be an anti-social robot spammer
Nothing screams, “I’m anti-social” like an automated Direct Message. If you’re really keen on putting off your followers, construct an automated Direct Message like, “have a Rockstar Day, drink Rockstar,” or “check out my Facebook marketing page.” These are both real messages sent to me by followers that resulted in instant unfollows with no chance of refollowing. For an extra layer of spam jam, you could also send untargeted DM’s of links to your products and services.
2. Show people how much you don’t care
If you really want to limit your chances of socializing, chose an avatar that says, “I’m a weirdo.” If you’re using a picture of your face, make sure it looks tired, crooked and uninterested. Having the eyes half closed or the mouth frozen in mid-sentence can go a long way in ranking you at the top of the anti-social list.If you’re using a business logo, stretch it till it’s fuzzy and then crop it poorly to make it seem like you don’t know what you’re doing, and therefore by default, what you’re talking about. Also, always use the default Twitter background. Using services such as Themeleon are a waste of time.
Build up a really bad reputation for your brand by Retweeting the same poorly-crafted automated messages on a time schedule. If you’re Tweeting a sponsored link, be sure to not tell anybody as to increase the chances of them clicking on it and bouncing back from the site. After all, nothing says, “I’m a thought-leader who cares about your business” more than sharing generic information and leading your followers to spammy or unsecure sites.
3. Tout your own horn like you’re a one-person marching band
Talking solely about yourself is repulsive in any social situation, so what better way is there to turn off your Twitter following than to shamelessly talk about yourself? Talking to people about their interests doesn’t sell your products and services, right? Neither do pointing out or promoting interesting advancements and achievements of other businesses and individuals in your marketplace or community. So why bother? Your marketing dollars should be spent wisely on packing your Twitterstream with automated messages about your own business’s achievements. Every nice Tweet written about you should also be Retweeted so it shows up in your Twitterstream so you can trick your followers into thinking you’re popular.
When you talk about yourself, don’t ask questions or offer advice. Only talk about your products and services. If you absolutely must share something personal, make sure you take up space in the Twitterstream with something boring like the weather in your city, what you had for breakfast or a generic greeting like “good morning Twitterverse!” Personable messages take time and engaging your following is never worth the ROI. If you come across some good information from another source, Retweet it without giving credit. The person will never know you stole their material anyways.
4. Ignore people if they reach out to you
If someone reaches out to your business on Twitter about a problem with your products or services, you should ignore them and pretend it never happened. If you further the discussion on Twitter, others will know that you acknowledge that your business is having problems. If you ignore it, people will stop talking about it completely. If the regular person who answered Twitter messages is away sick or on holiday, it offers you justification to ignore it until he or she gets back. If you are forced to respond, it is wise to spend a few days choosing the exact words to craft the perfect answer to the problem. Say something like, “we are looking into it,” or “call our toll-free business number for service,” or “visit our website for answers.” Never say you are sorry because you will admit fault. Never offer a discount or a refund because you will lose money.
Of course, as I said at the beginning of the post, this is advice from the snake oil marketer, not inmedia. Here, we advise our clients to do the exact opposite, to reach out to their followers, build communities and engage them daily with interesting information from their marketplace, other Twitter users (with credit), and only occasionally from their own businesses. However, businesses are really following the snake oil marketer’s advice! I see it every day and am repulsed by it, which is why I felt it necessary to write this post. I’ll write up another about what business should really do if they want to be successful on Twitter at a later date.
My colleague Linda turned me onto an excellent PR blog called the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog where I now spend a considerable amount of time reading up on news, tips and opinions about our industry. Yesterday, while scrolling through the feed, I stumbled upon some astonishing news that LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner shared with the publication about his networking company. According to Weiner, LinkedIn “now has 85 million users – and the latest one million signed up within the last nine days.”
Holy Shnikes Batman! LinkedIn is growing…and fast!
Every second, LinkedIn adds a new user with about half of all new accounts being created outside North America. If you haven’t yet created a company profile for your business on LinkedIn, you’d better do it right now, or your competitors will beat you to the potential customers in your marketplace.
Setting up a company profile is relatively simple, and your business will reap multiple rewards ranging from improved customer relations to better SEO ranking and heightened brand awareness. The trick is putting in the time to do it right. The best way to promote your company on LinkedIn is by using all the tools available and regularly participating in active discussion forums on the platform.
Here at inmedia, we’ve now helped a few clients get properly set up on LinkedIn. Here’s a quick summary of our best-practices approach to doing so.
1. Be professional
Because LinkedIn is excellent for SEO, it is likely that your company profile will receive noticeably increased web traffic within the forum, through search engines and through your company website, if you chose to link to your company profile through a LinkedIn widget. For these reasons, it is imperative that your profile looks professional. We counsel our clients to keep the following factors in mind:
Company overview: Spend time brainstorming and writing your company overview to appeal to your intended LinkedIn audience. Your “about us” section from your website can be used as a good starting point but because LinkedIn is a social site, you should also consider using this space to explain your company from a different vantage point, namely the customer’s. While consistency and basic facts are important, you should hone in on why the person reading your profile should care about your products and services. Be personal and inviting as well as professional in your language use. Also note that there is a 200 minimum and 2,000 maximum character limit.
Company logo: Include one next to your company overview to help people recognize and remember your business. I’ve personally seen a number logos on company profiles that appear stretched and off-colour. You should use a picture-editing program to refine your logo before publishing it on your profile.
2. Research competitive specialties
Many LinkedIn users search for information by keyword. To improve your business’s results, your company profile should include well-researched and competitive specialties that reflect your business’s offerings. For example, if your business is in the manufacturing sector, include specialties that are specific to the type of manufacturing your business does, instead of simply listing “manufacturing,” a generic term that will put your business up against every other manufacturing business on LinkedIn. You should also note that although LinkedIn offers 20 spaces for specialties, there is a 256-character limit for the total number of specialties listed. Researching and developing such a list is a time-consuming undertaking that our clients have been happy to have us do for them.
3. Use LinkedIn aggregated data
LinkedIn can pull data about your business from all around the site, including key statistics, job listings and links to the profiles of all current and former employees, new hires and recent promotions. LinkedIn also analyzes businesses and the connections employees have on the network. For example, it will automatically calculate your business’s median age, top schools that most of your business’s employees attended, and other businesses to which it is well connected.
It is a good idea to include all aggregated information provided by LinkedIn on your company profile to encourage people to connect with you to ask about job opportunities, your business and industry information, among other inquiries. As your reputation grows on LinkedIn, more individuals will be inclined to engage with your business in Groups and Answers, discussed later in this post.
4. Make use of the new Products & Services feature
Earlier this month, LinkedIn unveiled the new Products & Services feature for company profiles to give members “rich, credible insights into how any given product (or service) is perceived by their fellow professionals.” Through this feature, professionals can make recommendations about your business’s products and services, which are showcased on your company profile. Each time a LinkedIn member endorses your products or services, their recommendation becomes visible to all of their connections and could spread virally. These recommendations can help promote your business and build its credibility.
6. Include the “Mentioned in the News” section
Mentions of your business in the news should be shared on the company profile to keep people informed of advancements and achievements. Sharing these stories of success will promote your business’s reputation as an industry leader and encourage people to connect with you for discussion and business opportunities. It is best to keep these headlines current and from third-party sources and ensure that there are no repeats.
7. Follow other companies
There is ample opportunity for your business to follow and be followed by partners, suppliers and customers on LinkedIn. Connecting with companies through following and being followed is beneficial to your business because it helps build rapport between industry members and shows others that you value community building.
8. Participate in Groups and Answers
Answers are active conversations on the platform about a particular issue. A question is posed and then users can respond and participate in the discussion. Asking and answering questions are good ways for you to attract professionals to your company profile, establish a thought-leadership position for your business and also keep a finger on the pulse of the industry.
Groups are also active conversations on the platform about particular issues. Professionals can ask questions, make statements or post content to drive discussions. Starting and participating in discussions are great ways to attract professionals to your company profile, engage with your marketplace and build an active network on the platform.
There are multiple reasons why getting your business on LinkedIn is important, now more than ever. What are your best practices for B2B companies interesting in getting onto LinkedIn?
