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5 Elements of Social Media Storytelling

Dan Greenfield — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:00:09 +0000

Obama Social Media Strategist Dan Siroker speaking at SoCon10

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to talk about social media storytelling at Kennesaw State University. I was there for SoCon10, and it was great reconnecting with Dave Felfoldi, Bert Dumars, Toby Bloomberg, James Andrews, Carol Flammer and several others from Atlanta’s social media community. And congrats to Leonard Witt and the Center for Sustainable Journalism for pulling together the great day of talks and workshops on social media.

My workshop broke social media storytelling into some of its basic elements. It’s a topic we will explore in greater depth in the first session of PR+MKTG Camp Seattle, which is only a month away.

Storytelling is a core competency of any PR professional. Good stories drive coverage, generate awareness and build relationships. But today’s storytellers need more than a good pitch and a receptive reporter. And a good press release needs to be more than a compelling lede and reasoned argument.

We work in an environment that is nonlinear, operates independently of news cycles, uses multiple authors and resides on a variety of platforms.

By viewing social media as another form of storytelling, we can be more effective in mastering the tools that are redefining our relationships and reshaping our stories.

Five Elements of Social Media Storytelling

1. Disintermediation

Disintermediation is giving the user or the consumer direct access to information that otherwise would require a mediator. In days gone by, that mediator was the reporter or industry analyst; today we go directly to the end user. The New York Times said it best:

“Gone are the days when snaring attention…meant mentions in print and on television, or even spotlights on technology Web sites and blogs. Now PR gurus court influential voices on the social Web to endorse new companies, Web sites or gadgets – a transformation that analysts and practitioners say is likely to permanently change PR’s role in the business world.”

Journalists still clearly matter. I am quoting the NY Times. But today PR professionals no longer have to solely rely on journalistic filters to validate us. The challenge of course is identifying these “influentials,” gauging their influence and understanding their rules of engagement.

2. Word of Mouth

In the social media word, links, tweets, retweets, viral marketing and other forms of word of mouth are critical in rapidly reaching large numbers of influentials. They can be more powerful than a well placed, stand alone story in a national paper. The challenge here is tapping the right individuals to activate their network of followers, friends and connections. And in the case of viral marketing, success may require leaving your brand’s comfort zone – infusing humor and the off beat to drive word of mouth. Think about the Will It Blend? campaign by Blendtec. They took a big risk with the brand, but reaped even bigger rewards.

3. Messaging and Key Search Words

Both messaging and key search words are critical to telling their story, but they pose one of the greatest challenges to PR professionals. Messaging is generally a core responsibility of PR. It’s about repetition and consistency, control and limited flexibility over time. Messaging is often driven top down from executives whose perception of their company is often different than their customers.

Conversely, key words generally fall in marketing’s camp and are about constant testing, experimentation, and access to feedback loops that allow for new ways to present the brand. They are generally generated top up reflecting the way people search for the products we sell.

Unfortunately, PR and marketing often fail to align messaging and key words, which limits the power of both. We fail to track the effectiveness of our messaging in search results. Consequently, our messaging may be less effective in reaching and influencing our customers. By paying greater attention to key word/messaging alignment, we are also better positioned to minimize the technical jargon and the corporate speak that we are so accustomed to using.

4. Storytelling as Content Creation

Thinking broadly, our stories are essentially content. PR is not only about telling stories for others to access; it’s also about customers sharing our stories across their networks. By posting reports, surveys, graphics, pictures and video, we are giving customers the story elements they need carry our message and tell our stories for us in their own way.

5. Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing is almost the flip side of disintermediation. It’s all about customers coming to us with their stories, brand experiences and suggestions. Companies like Starbucks and Dell are successfully soliciting ideas from their customers – using them to not only tell stories for us, but creating story lines we may never have anticipated.

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Clearly, social media storytelling challenges our assumptions about news and narrative as well as message and messenger. But I don’t want overstate social media’s role. Mainstream journalism is not dead and still can exert tremendous influence on online traffic.

To share your ideas on storytelling and how to use social media more effectively to do, go to the PR Camp Facebook page or Linkedin Group.

Let me get back to you.

Key Takeaways from PR Camp New York – Number 2

Dan Greenfield — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:33:42 +0000

On November 20, 2009, more than 100 PR and marketing professionals participated at the New York debut of PR Camp New York at the 92 Street Y in Tribeca. The goal of the one-day event was to share experiences, address problems and identify strategies to tackle social media issues that are facing PR and marketing professionals.

Here is the second of five key takeaways from the day’s discussions:

2. Social Media is Storytelling

It’s true that social media is blurring traditional boundaries and responsibilities. But put PR and marketing professionals in the same room, and it is clear that legitimate differences in expertise and perspective persist.

At its heart, PR is still about storytelling and relationship building. But where once there was a single messenger with a controlled message, we are now confronted with new ways to tell our story. Traditional press releases with a beginning, middle and end are just one tool in a communications arsenal. They are not going away, but we now must contend with blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. And there are plenty of other smaller or more narrow focus Social Networks or sub-nets (Twitter Lists) to consider for targeting the message.

The most successful practioners understand social media storytelling is not linear, is independent of news cycles, has multiple authors and resides on a variety of platforms. What we lose in control, we gain in distribution and engagement.

Consider Facebook. The average Facebook user has about 130 friends. Multiply those friends by the number of fans on your brand page, and you have dramatically increased the potential reach and power of your story. These friends are your network of potential storytellers. Their comments, videos and pictures are part of your story. The goal is to use these story elements in concert to advance your message and understand that your story will go in directions that you never intended.

Let me get back to you.

Is Social Media Transformational? Thoughts from UGA Connect 2009

Dan Greenfield — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:52:12 +0000

Is social media transformational? That was the topic of my panel discussion this past weekend at University of Georgia’s Connect 2009: Integrating Social Media and Traditional PR.

I was joined by Aaron De Lucia senior vice president of Porter Novelli, Austin and Melanie James – University of Newcastle (Australia) who joined via Skype from her home.

And thanks to Professor Karen Russell for inviting me to participate. It was also great to connect with Jeremy Pepper, Toby Bloomberg and Bert Dumars.

Jeremy Pepper and Toby Bloomberg

Now I can make a strong case supporting the contention that social media is forcing PR to undergo transformational change. Consider:

- From a technical perspective, the social tools we are using gives us greater reach at a lower cost.

- From a human resources management perspective, it shifts the balance of power giving younger professionals a leg up on their older counterparts who are less familiar and less comfortable with social media. It decentralizes authority and makes everyone in the the organization a spokesperson.

- From a business development perspective, it is enabling PR professionals to cultivate vice presidents of corporate communications and marketing to be clients.

- From a job function perspective, it is moving us away from media relations and more into customers relations. Or put another way, it is disintermediating journalists as the vehicle to deliver and validate our news. We now can go directly to the user, and the user increasingly comes directly to us.

- From a message perspective, we are more comfortable with negative comments going public and more able to admit mistakes, when it doesn’t go against legal or HR. More information is transparent, though proprietary information is still subject to non-disclosure mandates.

But Is It?

But professor James isn’t quite so sure. Her comments on the panel suggests that social media adds only another layer of work to what we are doing with traditional media. As she pointed out, PR professionals spend a lot of time:

* deciding whether social media should be part of your program or campaign
* defending whatever decision you’ve made
* implementing the social media aspect of your activities
* evaluating what if any impact it’s had

So what exactly is so transformational?

And now to contradict myself, I can the make case that social media only reinforces our core competency — relationship building. Now non-experts and fans have joined reporters and industry analysts as our target audience.

And fundamentally, it is just as difficult to demonstrate bottom line impact. Even as social media becomes another revenue source for agencies, in many ways we are still a cost center. And some may argue that over time, we will just allocate fewer resources to traditional media so the top line growth is debatable.

So where do you come out in the debate? Now the conference was held at the University of Georgia, so the answer may be academic, but the truth is, regardless of your perspective, social media is becoming more central to what PR does. I think social media is giving PR an opportunity to play a great role in the overall marketing, customer experience mix. But whether you buy into the hype and hyperbole, one part of our job has not fundamentally changed: deliver value to our clients.

Let me get back to you.