Oasis covers the Boomer Generation classic: The Who’s My Generation
The next generation of PR and marketing: Natan, Jennifer, Aditi, Zontee
Go into any agency or corporate marketing or PR department, and you will see the balance of power shifting. The New York Times still matters, but more and more, Generation Y is using social media to reshape how we do our jobs.
As I have posted before, this generation consumes information differently. It’s more apt to rely on its network of friends than traditional news sources, prefers Facebook to Twitter, assumes everything it sees is marketing and views social media as a personal expression of themselves.
In short, they use social media very differently from the way Baby Boomers and Generation X do.
And even more importantly, in fewer than 10 years, this generation numbering 92 million will become the largest generation in the U.S. workforce. [source: Aon Consulting]
Exploring social media along the generational divide is the focus of one of the sessions at the upcoming PR Camp New York. Four very junior PR and marketing professionals and students will pair off with seasoned counterparts to discuss how they are using social media and what the different generations can learn from each other.
The goal is to use these generational differences to improve communications and performance in the workplace.
Looking for insights into the mind of Generation Y, I asked the four young professionals who are serving as co-moderators to share their perspective on social media.
- Natan Edelsburg is currently majoring in Media, Culture and Communication at NYU and wants to pursue a career in digital marketing.
- Aditi Mehta is a recent college graduate and currently works as an account executive in the client services department for a digital marketing agency called Epsilon.
- Jennifer Kohanim currently works at Fleishman-Hillard, specifically in the digital practice group–working with clients including AT&T and Tommy Hilfiger.
- Zontee Hou is the marketing content editor for Lion Brand Yarn Company.
How do Gen Yers approach social media differently than Boomers and Gen Xers?
The Generation Y anthem: Now Generation by the Black Eyed Peas
Natan Edelsburg: We’re the Now Generation, to quote the Black Eyed Peas. What rock n’ roll was for the Boomers and Gen Xers, social media is for us.
The main difference is that when something new comes out, we like to dive right into it. We want to be part of the new trend, we want to manipulate and mold the new trend, and we want to help develop the newest and coolest forms of media/communication…Boomers and Gen Xers tend to be scared or skeptical about social media.
Jennifer Kohanim: I say I approach social media with far less anxiety than a Boomer and a Gen Xer. In other words, I’m fairly confident that I can figure out the technology…I wonder if Boomers and Gen Xers approach social media with the same confidence and assurance.
Aditi Mehta: People from my generation use social media for all sorts of reasons…Social media sites allow us to constantly be connected to each other on an interactive level, and they serve as entertaining alternatives to boredom, free time and procrastination. I have noticed that Gen Xers and Boomers mainly use social media to network with known colleagues, friends and family, or for professional advancement and networking.
Zontee Hou: I think that Gen Y comes to the table with an attitude that their lives are public to a large extent. Having grown up with reality TV and a tabloid culture on steroids, Gen Yers believe that transparency is key not only to the way they live, but also the way the brands with which they interact present brand image. Authenticity is key.
What Can Gen Yers Learn from Boomers and Gen Xers and vice versa?
Natan: “Instead of being skeptical about new media and avoiding it they need to test/experience it the same way we do. They also need to recognize that our generation communicates differently. We grew up on AIM and texting and then Facebook. We’re used to collaboration and mixing work and play and we need to know that our employers understand that.”
Jennifer: “Gen Yers can learn from the vast historical perspective their older colleagues have. An older colleague can very easily understand the natural cycles of the economy or of a particular company because of their historical perspective, while a younger colleague may only be judging a circumstance in the moment. On the flip side, it seems that younger colleagues often bring a fresh look to the business picture–younger people question more and ask the why’s that make their older colleagues really consider!”
Aditi: “Gen Yers should learn to take advantage of the career advancing and networking aspects of social media sites in the same way as Gen Xers and Boomers. By communicating with Gen Yers, Gen Xers and Boomers can learn how to best market to and reach out to users of social media sites without seeming spammy or cheesy.
“I think the most important thing we can learn from them is that we often need to slow down…We need to remember how patient they were in proving themselves and achieving their success, instead of trying to do everything at once all the time, the way our media habits tend to be.”
Zontee: “I think that Gen Yers can learn to take a worldlier view. This is a generation that has come to the table wanting instant gratification, thinking they know everything. Gen Xers & Boomers offer a broader world view, a sense that some things take time, and a less “disposable” approach to goods and services.
“Gen Xers & Boomers, I believe can learn a great deal about displaying a public passion for those things they care about and how that can effect others; from politics to popular products and games Gen Yers make their voices heard and they want to influence others in a real and tangible way.”
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This is a sampling of what will be discussed at PR Camp New York. And don’t forget the Boomers and Gen Xers need to weigh in. Share your thoughts on the PR Camp Facebook page.
Let me get back to you.
In a little more than two weeks on November 20, PR Camp™ New York will debut a different way to engage PR and marketing professionals. It will feature an incredible lineup of moderators from top brands and agencies in New York City. With a carefully planned agenda and a full day of interactive discussions, PR Camp New York seeks social media solutions for the changing communications needs of today’s companies.
PR Camp New York aims to be something more than a traditional conference, which relies on power point presentations and panels. We are not the first to use an “unconference-like” format, and we are not the only PR event in town. But to get a group of hard working, over scheduled New York professionals to take one day to engage with one another, we have to offer something special. We think we do that.
Exploring Tensions in the PR Profession
Throughout the day, we will pair off moderators to explore “tensions” that exist in our industry:
- Clients and Agencies
- Young and Experienced Professionals
- Marketing and PR
on topics about buyin for social media programs, talent management, success measurement and marketing/PR alignment.
The goal is not to create conflict; it’s to find solutions through collaboration.
The symbol of PR Camp New York is the campfire, not a boxing ring. Campfires are places to tell stories, and I heard plenty of scary ones as a kid. Similarly, social media can be “scary.” It’s disruptive and takes us out of comfort zone.
But campfires are also places to forge bonds and share good times; we intend to do that and provide networking opportunities for people advancing in their careers or looking to change directions.
Discussions To What End: Finding Solutions
To be successful, PR must be more than discussions about the challenges and opportunities of social media. It has to be about solutions. Every session is geared to finding strategies behind new technologies that you can bring back to your offices, share with bosses, clients and colleagues and hopefully implement.
What does finding solutions mean? It means:
- getting into the details of how younger professionals can mentor their more experienced counterparts and vice versa.
- looking at defining when clients and agencies should act like partners to sell social media to client’s management team and helping agencies figure out ways to sell social media services to their clients vs having clients do it themselves.
- discussing tools that help achieve better tracking AND addressing how we define success and in what timeframe.
We also hope to showcase some young companies building applications designed to help PR and marketing professionals do their jobs better. We want to begin formulating an industry standard where attendees at future camps will choose the best technologies.
And here is the kicker. Not everyone in the room believes social media is the be all and end all. Some times social media is not the answer. We will explore that as well.
So join us at different type of PR and marketing conference. Learn, network and above all discuss the hottest issues in social media around a virtual campfire.
Let me get back to you.
ALIGNING INTERACTIVE MARKETING and PUBLIC RELATIONS
Now
The Next Wave
As I written before, the boundaries between PR and interactive marketing continue to blur — even though they still often operate as separate functions in many organizations.
I suspect in time, social media will push companies to the margins that focus exclusively on web applications and media relations. Money will still be made courting reporters and overseeing web development, but the real action will be where PR and interactive marketing overlap. In that digital/social media space, the focus will be on balancing relationships, storytelling, placement, search, applications and a means to measure success.
Right now, the real challenge is managing the transition and determining an effective alignment strategy. Consider what Rachelle Spero, Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Cohn & Wolfe wrote me:
I was recently discussing the alignment of PR and interactive with a peer from one of our sister companies at WPP. She told me that during an all agency call the client asked about search optimization. The interactive agency contact said she had a whitepaper on search. Then the ad agency manager piped in and said he had a whitepaper on search. Then the PR guy added that his agency had a whitepaper on search. Aligning PR with interactive is important to the client. Do we need any other reason?
Rachelle will be addressing this changing dynamic as part of a session at my upcoming PR Camp New York. Rachelle and other PR executives will be paired off with interactive agency executives to discuss how to better align their practices.
The goal of the discussion is not blood on the floor or to pick a winner. Rather, it’s collaboration. It’s time to directly address such issues as messages vs key words, placement vs search, impressions vs click-throughs, and story telling vs application building.
So in addition to Rachelle, here’s a preview of what some of the moderators are thinking about in terms of the alignment issue.
David Berkovitz, Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i emphasized the need to learn from each other:
“Especially when engaging in social marketing, interactive marketers increasingly need to think more like PR practitioners in terms of building and cultivating relationships with the key influencers in their fields. Meanwhile, PR professionals need to better understand what online influencers want – namely targeted, personal communications and often some assets to share, rather than press releases and corporate updates. There is plenty both kinds of practitioners can learn from each other.”
Andrea Harrison, Strategy Director, Razorfish wrote me that the need for cross agency collaboration is critical in managing resources and delivering results.
More and more our clients are asking us to work cross-agency on social marketing programs, highlighting the need for better collaboration with our counter-parts in PR. While in the past all earned media or WOM was earmarked as the domain of the PR shop, the growth of the social web and the role of digital marketing has changed that dynamic. Now we see PR and Interactive working together to craft and deliver the messages through platform applications and other interactive campaigns.
Joe Ciarallo, Editor, PRNewser.com and Manager, PR Initiatives, mediabistro.com believes that their won’t competition to own social media because everyone will own it.
Brian Solis said to me recently, who ‘owns’ social media within an organization is going to be like who ‘owns’ email. Yes, maybe IT sets up email, but it is used by everyone in the company. The same will apply – if it is not already – to content creation and interactive marketing.
But even as social/digital media becomes more central to the way we do business, Jonathan Kopp – Global Director, Ketchum Digital still recognizes the non digital world.
“Even the most digital citizen lives with one foot firmly planted in the analog world. Each of us is living in our own “digalogue” — the word I use to refer to conversations that span seamlessly across digital and analog channels.”
In addition, Alex Norman, Executive Vice President, Schematic and Chris Andrew, Vice-President-Group Director Media, Digitas will lead discussions.
So if collaboration is the end game, how do we get there? Visit the discussion tab on the PR Camp New York Facebook page and share your thoughts. I am interested to get your perspective on how intense the rivalry is now, whether the alignment PR/interactive marketing is really an issue, whether PR and interactive marketing will evolve into one business and if so, what role will social media play in making it happen?
Let me get back to you.
Meet the next generation of bloggers. They get their information from their network of friends, prefer Facebook to Twitter, assume everything they see is marketing and don’t watch local television news. Their news consumption habits are forcing television stations to rethink how they deliver local news.
These were some of the points that were raised in a roundtable discussion this past Thursday night with a group of college students from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). They were visiting CBS Atlanta’s studios as part of a video production class they were taking. Sue Rodman and I were on hand at the invitation of Director of News and Digital Content Steve Schwaid to talk about blogging.
CBS Atlanta is reaching out to bloggers in an effort to stay relevant and attract younger viewers in the new media age.
And those efforts include Blogger Stew and using Blackberries and one person news crews to cover major events like the recent floods we have experienced here in Atlanta.
We covered a lot of topics during the 2 hour discussion including what is the difference between a blog and a news article and what is a blogger’s responsibility to his or her audience.
Clearly, a lot has changed since I was their age, but some issues persist: production values, liability, and ethics. There was some debate on how important the quality needs to be in the age of YouTube. Television news stations need to maintain certain broadcast standards. But increasingly at least for breaking news, people have a lot more tolerance for bad audio and video – if the images are compelling.
And while we clearly have more leeway in how we cover a story, journalistic integrity can’t be compromised. We can’t feed answers to interviewees, we can’t provide information and then get their reaction (after day one of a breaking story), we can’t tape in places where people have an expectation of privacy, and we can’t interview children without their parents’ or guardians’ permission.
Each student was given a camera to cover whatever they wanted. This class should test their understanding of story telling and their ability to balance the personal and the professional. It will be interesting to see what they come back with as they pursue stories over the course of the semester.
Let me get back to you.
We continue to reach out to the PR and interactive marketing community for PR Camp New York on Friday, November 20 at the 92nd Street Y, Tribeca. The list keeps growing and is just about complete. Still room for two more brands.
Confirmed Moderators
Stephanie Agresta – EVP, Global Director of Digital Strategy and Social Media, Porter Novelli
Erin Byrne - Chief Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller
Chris Andrew – Vice-President-Group Director Media, Digitas
David Berkovitz – Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i
Joe Ciarallo - Editor, PRNewser.com and Manager, PR Initiatives, mediabistro.com
Converseon – TBD
Stacy Green – Manager, Internal Comms. & Public Relations, The New York Times
Janine Gianfredi, Marketing Manager, Google
Howard Greenstein – President and Social Media Strategist, Harbrooke Group
Andrea Harrison – Strategy Director, Razorfish
Peter Himler – Founding Principal, Flatiron Communications
Jim Issokson – VP, Reputation Management, MasterCard Worldwide
Morgan Johnston – Manager, JetBlue
Dina Kaplan – Chief Operating Officer, blip.tv
Joe Kinsbury – Social Media Lead, North America, Text 100
Jonathan Kopp – Global Director, Ketchum Digital
Peter Lucht – Global Director, Verizon
Alex Norman – Executive Vice President, Schematic
Corvida Raven – Generation Yer and Blogger/Media Strategist, shegeeks.net
Steve Rubel – SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
Rachelle Spero – Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Cohn & Wolfe
I look forward to seeing you at PR Camp.
Let me get back to you.
Put Comcast, the American Red Cross and AT&T in a room to talk social media, and you are going to get a crowd. And that’s what happened at last Wednesday’s sold out Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association (AiMA) monthly meeting – Big Brands Discuss Social Media Initiatives.
The verdict: PR (no ROI!) and logos did not fair well but passion, Twitter and customer support did. And Facebook got mixed a review.
Those are at least some of the highlights from the Twitter stream of members of the crowd who came to hear the observations of:
- Frank Eliason, Senior Director in National Customer Operations, Comcast @comcastcares
- Mimi Chan, Director of Wireless Youth Marketing, AT&T
- Wendy Harman, Social Media Manager, Red Cross @wharman
- Dave Williams, CEO and Co-Founder, BLiNQ Media’s @blinqmedia
For an excellent summary of the evening check out Josh Martin’s post.
As event organizer Toby Bloomberg pointed out, the three panelist delivered three distinct perspectives: social media as customer service, social media as youth marketing and social media as community/non-profit outreach.
The crowd size reveals how hungry people are for information about social media. Frank, Wendy (with a burning fever no less) and Mimi sounded almost nostalgic (Harman was originally ”hired to stop bloggers”) as they recounted their early experiences with social media.
My biggest takeaways
- It was clear to me that Comcast has been so successful with Twitter in large part because of Frank’s passion.
- I was surprised to learn that Red Cross is not using its social media channels for direct fundraising appeals, unlike other charities.
- I am still thinking about the question some one asked about whether each social medium should have the same voice. The answer is worth a blog post of its own. It’s very certainly very complicated especially as Facebook tries to Twitterize itself, large brands try appeal to a diverse customer base in a direct personal way, and marketing, PR and customer service begin to merge.
- I am also thinking about legal implications of Frank’s prediction that the next big thing for companies will be to aggregate other forums & blog communities to provide helpful service to customers. What kind of disclaimer do companies need when tapping the advice of customers to help other customers?
But being so focused on social media these days, I sometimes have a hard time separating the warmed over from the fresh and insightful. So while it was interesting to hear what the panelists had to say, it was even more interesting to hear what resonated with the audience.
Twitter Soundbites
Facebook vs Facebook vs Twitter
Emily30075 RT @KellyeCrane Key for AT&T on Facebook is to provide exclusive content. Give users a reason to come back and talk about the brand. #aima
thechrisjordan RT @raykillebrew: RT @tessa “It’s very hard to learn from your customers on Facebook. They don’t go to fan pages often.” #aima
abrill It’s difficult to learn about and from your customers on Facebook…Twitter utilizes conversation better #aima
amygriz Twitter allows you to find out things faster, easier & cheaper than any other medium, which allows you to respond to customers faster #aima
Logos
amygriz People don’t want to have conversations with a logo. Be personable with your customers in your interactions. #aima
Customer Service
DevonSuter RT @thomasls: It’s funny how many don’t consider helping customers as one of the primary reasons to get involved in Soc Med. Or sad. #aima
Tessa “Instead of having a focus group, I twittered – would you call our IBR(?)” Tons of response. – @comcastcares
Twilosophy Marketing, PR & service are coming together = most retweeted quote of the entire event so far #aima http://ow.ly/15SazU about 21 hours ago from HootSuite
leenjones RT @spunstephanie: AMEN. RT @Cerealguru: Customer service and marketing cannot be separated–it’s about connecting and relationships!
I will be interested to hear from other attendees to see what they took away from the event.
Let me get back to you.
Start spreading the news. PR Camp New York is slated for Friday, November 20th at the 92nd Y Street Tribeca. I will be using this blog, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin to keep everyone updated.
Based on the success of PR Camp Atlanta, I wanted to bring PR Camp to New York. I also decided to make it a full day so that we could add more sessions and give attendees more time to come up with solutions to the challenges we identified. I hope the format and discussions will engage and challenge attendees.
We already have a great lineup of social media executives from agencies and New York based brands. (I will be announcing many of the names shortly.) I am still looking to complete the final list of moderators for the four sessions as well as additional sponsors. So I am open to suggestions.
What is PR Camp?
PR Camp is geared for PR and marketing professionals at all levels to share experiences, address problems and find solutions to social media issues that are facing our industry.
Its logo – the campfire – is iconic. Campfires are places to gather, tell stories, forge bonds and share good times.
In much the same way, PR Camp provides a forum to gain insights and build community. Following the unconference format, PR Camp is highly interactive. Discussions are free flowing and highly energized; we don’t rely on Powerpoints or formal panels.
The camp is divided into 4 sessions – each devoted to a particular issue around a central topic impacting the PR and marketing profession. Each session is divided into four groups or “cabins” led by a “counselor” who facilitates discussion. Counselors then report out their findings to the larger camp to discuss. The goal of each session is to come up with solutions that participants can take back to the office and implement.
Given its structure, PR Camp is limited to 200 attendees and moderators. This size is optimal for 40-45 attendees per group to participate and explore a full range of topics.
Confirmed Moderators and Companies
Stephanie Agresta – EVP, Global Director of Digital Strategy and Social Media, Porter Novelli
Chris Andrew – Vice-President-Group Director Media, Digitas
Erin Byrne – Chief Digital Strategist, Burson-Marsteller
David Berkovitz – Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, 360i
Joe Ciarallo – Editor, PRNewser.com and Manager, PR Initiatives, mediabistro
Stacy Green – Manager, Internal Comms. & Public Relations, New York Times
Janine Gianfredi, Marketing Manager, Google
Howard Greenstein – President and Social Media Strategist, Harbrooke Group
Andrea Harrison – Strategy Director, Razorfish
Peter Himler – Founding Principal, Flatiron Communications
Jim Issokson – VP, Reputation Management, MasterCard Worldwide
Morgan Johnston – Manager, Corporate Communications, JetBlue
Dina Kaplan – Co-Founder, blip.tv Joe Kinsbury – Social Media Lead, North America, Text 100
Jonathan Kopp – Global Director, Ketchum Digital
Peter Lucht – Executive Director, External Affairs, Verizon
Alex Norman – Executive Vice President, Schematic
Corvida Raven – Generation Yer and Blogger/Media Strategist, shegeeks.net
Steve Rubel – SVP, Director of Insights, Edelman Digital
Rachelle Spero – Executive Vice President, Digital Media, Cohn & Wolfe
Lloyd P. Trufelman, President & CEO, Trylon SMR, New York
Paull Young – Account Director, Converseon
Schedule
8:00 AM Registration and Breakfast
9:00 AM Session One: Get clients and bosses to extend their interest in new media (In this session, representatives from PR agencies and brands are paired off to discuss how the two can work together to advance social media efforts. Together they will lead group discussions.)
10:30 AM Session Two: Help senior professionals tap the social media experience of junior colleagues. (In this session, a senior professional will be paired off with a very junior counterpart. Together they will lead the group discussions.)
12:00 Lunch: Planned Product Demonstrations
1:15 PM Session Three: With the blurring of PR and marketing, determine the best ways to measure success.
2:45 PM Session Four: Help PR and interactive marketing align practices and objectives (In this session, PR professionals will be paired off with interactive marketing professionals to lead group discussions.)
4:15 PM Wrap Up
I am very excited about the ideas that will be generated by the day’s discussions. I am open to your suggestions. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions. My email address is dangreenfield AT Bernaisesource DOT com
Let me get back to you.
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.
Joe Ciarallo’s post about the PRSA seeking to establish industry wide measurement standards dovetails with my post today. I want to take a closer look at three long standing “tensions” that hinder alignment between PR and interactive marketing and propose starting points to resolve them.
Why is alignment so important? Social media is making so. We have to confront traditional ways of doing business. I recommend starting with tensions between messaging and key words, impressions and clickthroughs, and story telling and application building. Each of these differences is impeding the integration of PR and interactive marketing which can in turn undermine social media’s effectiveness.
Key Words vs Messaging: Reconciling Different Time Frames
TENSION: PR is getting better at incorporating SEO and keywords, but its focus is still message consistency. The goal is to have CEOs and call center reps tell the same story and use the same anecdotes regardless of the venue. The mantra: reinforce through repetition.
This strategy has been very successful. Today it can pose problems when there is a disconnect between what executives communicate and how customers search. Brands can’t evolve if companies are unwilling to abandon finely crafted messages. And more importantly, users can’t find them. Consequently, as Dana Todd, co-founder and chief marketing officer at Newsforce pointed out to me, ignoring search cuts off PR from “feedback loops” that can drive traffic.
Interactive marketing on the other hand is about constant testing, experimenting and refining key words to increase customer acquisition. Changes in key words are not always reflected in press releases. The danger for marketing is that its focus on hard numbers can limit creative risk taking and limit a brand’s potential. To regularly change key messages can confuse reporters, opinion leaders and analysts who follow your brand.
RECOMMENDATION: It’s hard to align PR and marketing when they have different priorities. At the very least, marketing and PR need to coordinate better so that press materials reflect the company’s search strategy. Marketing needs to appreciate that everything is not measurable (I can now hear marketing laughing all the way to the client’s office.) and it must help PR to turn messages into calls to action that drive web traffic.
PR needs to put greater emphasis on search and understand that updating talking points is not a sign of weakness, but a reflection of a modern day communications strategy. An aligned strategy requires PR professionals to be more assertive in counseling clients and bosses about the importance of revising messaging. It also mandates that PR be more vigilant in helping the media to understand changes in messaging.
Impressions vs Click Throughs: Closing a Reporting Gap
TENSION: Dana calls metrics the “biggest point of pain.” PR and marketing have different success metrics. In the past, this wasn’t a problem. Editorial and advertising were separate, and it was OK for PR and marketing to measure different things. Today there is greater overlap and demand for more accurate measurement is only increasing.
Take PR. Its focus is coverage and reputation management. What people are saying and how they are saying are critical to success. Even as we begin counting comments, links, tweets/retweets, and views, impressions and hits are still the standard. Except impressions tend to over report what people are actually reading or viewing. They are approximations. We also measure tone and sentiment, but this too is an approximation of total sentiment and subject to interpretation.
On the other hand, interactive marketing tends to under report. Their focus is tracking conversions and actual click throughs, which don’t account for word of mouth and shared links that never make it to a report for clients.
The result: a gap in reporting and imprecise measurements of success.
RECOMMENDATION: Marketing needs to develop a methodology that takes into account its impact beyond clickthroughs (some kind of multiplier effect). PR needs to reevaluate the accuracy of impressions in determining its impact on a brand’s online presence. For example what is the role of headlines in measuring impressions? Are they more impactful than the body of the story? And is frequency (how many times a messages was received) more important than total impressions? As the rule of three demonstrates, it takes 3 times for a message to be retained.
Applications vs Story Telling: Giving Context to Engagement
TENSION: While more PR agencies are getting into the application business, interactive firms are still regarded as the experts. On the other hand, PR professionals are great at telling a company’s story and building narratives to support messaging.
For PR, applications – social games, contests, etc – aid in story telling; for interactive marketing the tool is the story. The danger of course is building tools for their own sake or having a message with no application to extend it. You can create a great social game that doesn’t extend messaging or design a contest that doesn’t result in long term conversations. So how do we align different objectives and different talent sets?
RECOMMENDATION: Alignment requires that we place tool building and story telling into a larger engagement strategy. Together they can build stronger relationships. In this way, PR and marketing give clients a better command of what is being said and how we say it. Applications then have context, and story telling has a call to action. The result: The user is more engaged. And equally important, by aligning skill sets, PR is not brought in after the tool is created and told – “Go publicize it.”
This is by no means an exhaustive list of recommendations, but it does begin to get at some of the inherent tensions that cause PR and interactive marketing to work at cross purposes. It forces PR to take a closer look at its metrics and forces interactive marketing to take a broader view of its function. Hopefully alignment will help the industry to start standardizing measurements and help clients select the right agency to deliver them.
Let me get back to you.
Interactive Marketing and PR: Star Trek provides a good visual
Today I continue a recent discussion about the challenges in aligning PR and interactive marketing. The battle lines are drawn with the two sides competing for the hearts and minds of clients.
Consider these two quotes:
The first is from Jonathan Kopp, Global Director, Ketchum Digital.
PR firms are poised to lead the way in social media because they approach conversation influence from an earned media perspective — finding existing story lines and figuring out how to make their clients’ point relevant. PR firms with a digital development capability can use visual and dynamic storytelling to add a deeper layer of engagement–digital assets designed specifically for social media engagement.
The second is from Michael Kogon, CEO of Definition 6, an interactive marketing firm based in Atlanta.
In the past, PR has typically been responsible for communications with internal and external audiences; developing the communications strategy and leading the execution. For most organizations, interactive marketing includes all the “online” marketing stuff. Today, with so much more communication taking place online, it’s more common to see progressive interactive agencies managing all online communications efforts, particularly around blogging and other social media.
So which side is better equipped to manage a client’s social media strategy?
I appreciate the battle lines. Each has a lot at stake. But I am not taking sides because I believe each has a critical role to play.
The debate reminds me of a famous Star Trek episode. The characters in question were in fact more similar than they realized, but their differences in perception drove them apart. The two characters fought to the end, unable to reconcile differences.
OK a little poetic license, but my point is that interactive marketing and PR are very similar. They are focused on increasing engagement and use the same tools to get there.
But while their services complement each other – positioning/branding, messaging/key words, impressions/click throughs, storytelling/application building – their strategies and success metrics are very different.
As a result, we create great tools that don’t necessarily extend PR’s finely crafted messages. At the same time, the messages PR creates don’t always evolve to reflect the way users search for information. And we tend to overestimate PR results and underestimate interactive marketing’s. Our individual clients may be happy, but an overall social media strategy may suffer.
And so the larger question for me is not who wins the battle, but how do we tap the talents of both sides to align marketing and PR objectives? How do you create a strategy that incorporates key words and messaging, click throughs and impressions and storytelling and technology? My next post begins to take on these questions.
In the end we may need to reframe the debate and demonstrate how PR and marketing and are extensions of one another, not opposites and not independent of each other.
Let me get back to you.
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Dan Greenfield
Principal, Bernaise Source Media