Media Week

Just following on from Mel's posts about Twitter. Thought people might be interested to read Dell's short presentation on how they are using Twitter and why. There's some valuable insights in there.

http://www.slideshare.net/justingsouter/dellwhytwitterkerrybridge

There's a lot of talk about how you measure social media. But how can you put numeric quantities around human conversations?

www.itsopen.co.uk

I spend a lot of my time trying to persuade companies to engage with social media. Sometimes it can be demoralising. The defenders of the status quo are well entrenched in some organisations. However, there are plenty of enlightened people leading the charge and prepared to enter the brave new world of social media which is very heartening. None more so than Dell.

I spoke with Dell earlier today. It was so refreshing. They have community ambassadors. They are fully immersed in social media. They have lots of facebook groups, Twitter channels and blogs for different customer groups.  Staff are actively encouraged to monitor blogs and join in conversations. Their platforms have been well thought out and are supporting the business. Michael Dell is actively promoting engagement. Social media engagement has been embedded into the business. They have clear strategies and policies. They are nurturing communities and in a position to mitigate any negative developments. It's an incredible turn around from the days of 'Dell Hell' when they were lambasted by bloggers for terrible customer service. It's also a fine achievement when you consider how hard it is for some companies to even bring themselves to use Twitter without breaking into a cold sweat!

www.itsopen.co.uk

Some marketing people don't like to hear that they no longer control their brands. But it is true. You may spend millions on a finely created commercial. But it can still be commented on and edited through social media. Every brand is being talked about now. Often there is a gulf between the official brand message and what people are saying. Just look at Trip Advisor for example.

Conversations aren't new. It's just that they are taking place through social media. Still it astonishes me how much money companies invest into press releases. There are still so many companies who continue to operate as if they control the message of the brand. Game over. Finished. Those days have gone. Today the brand image is linked to the thoughts and the conversations of a company's consumers. Businesses have to get to know their constituents. By listening and sparking open conversations via social media they will be able to co-create their brands with their key constituents.

www.itsopen.co.uk

Murdoch versus Google: who is going to win? It’s  a classic old media v new media showdown.  Murdoch claims his valuable content is being taken for free by Google and that he is not getting anything in return.  But is that the complete story?

Jeff Jarvis writes: ‘The problem here is that Google-virgin Murdoch simply does not understand the dynamics of the link economy. He roars against them. Google et al do not take his content, they send it audience and value. It is up to him to exploit that. The business failure here is Murdoch’s, not Google’s.’

Jarvis reckons that Murdoch is spending too much on commodity news.   Hard working journalists are not going to like that one. But there is a sea of information online and it is easy to pick up news now.  People do pay for content online. Providing of course it is niche and highly valuable and relevant.  Which is why brands like The Economist continue to prosper .

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/11/23/murdoch-madness-2/

Companies and brands are keeping their smart communications teams sealed off from the fast-moving world of social media. I think I've lost count of the number of times I've been told that there's no point sending a link to a video clip because the company firewall won't let someone read it.  So what happens is that people show up to work and are not actively participating in social media. This makes it difficult for agencies to communicate the importance of developing social media policies and strategies and it also increases the risks of those companies becoming culturally irrelevant or vulnerable to damage to their brand reputation as they will not be keeping up-to-date with what is going on. It's time to enable communications teams to open up and participate.

www.itsopen.co.uk

Turf battles are breaking out in corporate land. Who owns social media? Is it CR? Digital teams? PR? Brand teams?

Social Media does not respect organisational charts or silo cultures. A company's customers own social media. But internally no one seems sure about who should take charge of this new phenomenon which is impacting all aspects of a business. Social media is potentially a grave risk to the reputation of a business if it is not managed intelligently. I'd be interested to know what models could work best? Individual departments taking the lead? Stakeholder approach? Head of social media?

www.itsopen.co.uk

http://itsopen.co.uk/social-media-users-want-deals

I know some companies are experiencing difficulties with their legal departments when it comes to blogging and using Twitter.

Some legal departments want to see every blog post before it is published and they are worried about the implications of Twitter channels.

 Basically they are not comfortable with their company having more open conversations which is the key point of social media.

Legal departments have a role but they should not be able to dictate social media policy. They don't know the best way to speak with a journalist or to speak with a customer. That is not their expertise.

Of course there are regulatory frameworks that companies need to work within and these need to be respected, but having said that, companies must be free to communicate using social media. Otherwise their reputations could be damaged. And there are plenty of examples of lawyers issuing warnings to bloggers which totally backfire because they are too heavy-handed.

This is partly about companies trusting staff to use social media sensibly according to agreed guidelines.

Newspapers are a good model here. Journalists and editors are expected to have a certain knowlege of the law but are free to make their own editorial judgements in terms of what is most likely to appeal to their readerships. Lawyers are not writing the articles. But if and when there is a clear legal issue then the lawyers are brought in to advise.

Now granted not all companies have the role of newspapers. But the communications departments of major companies kind of have the role of newspapers in that they are reaching out to the public. They need guidelines but they need to be free to use their skills to judge which is the best way to approach people. They also need to have the space and support to be able to experiment. Social media is new and people have to be given the opportunity to learn.

There are some individual communications executives for large companies who are uncomfortable with how lawyers want to respond to posts on blogs and rightly so. Social media is about humanising organisations and treating people like people. The lawyers need to educate themselves about social media; relax a bit and recognise that they need to move with the times. Making communications teams paranoid about everything they write is only going to freeze people up and prevent the possibility of genuine conversations between companies and their stakeholders. Companies need to be more accountable to their stakeholders. They need to break down barriers between themselves and the markets they serve. They can do this through more open conversations.

This does vary from company to company. Some company cultures are more open and empowering, of course.

www.itsopen.co.uk

A new report has been published about 'Business becoming Social'. It was commissioned by Maitland (www.maitland.co.uk) and I was one of the participants. You can download it from their site.

 The author, Dr Andrew Currah, a research fellow from Oxford University ,has written about the cultural bias towards traditional media and the fact that there is an irrational bias in boardrooms towards traditional media. Which caught my eye. There is a sense in traditional media that the article is the end of the process. Whereas bloggers look to extend the natural life of stories by commenting on them and passing them on.

Despite Facebook and Twitter generating literally millions of users, and bloggers breaking and adding to news stories, the boardroom seems to think on the whole that the world begins and ends with publications like the FT. Now, the FT is a fine paper but it does not always manage the conversations that its stories generate online and these conversations can have an impact on the reputation of a business. Especially when someone tweets something about them which might be just a rumour.

 There is a real risk I think that generational and cultural barriers could hold back UK companies from fully engaging with social media in innovative ways like Dell has for example. I'm not suggesting all boardrooms have an irrational attachment to traditional media. But a lot do. I have personally spoken with heads of communications from some companies and am astonished by their attitude for example to Twitter. The mistake some communications professionals are making is that their personal prejudice is not shared by their stakeholders or customers. There is hardly any company out there which is not mentioned in social media. But how many companies actually have social media strategies? How many are running cohesive social media programmes? There is such a gap between corporate communiations culture and consumer communications culture at the moment. Not in all cases but there does appear to be plenty of status quo upholders who are very uneasy with the idea of having to relate to bloggers rather than editors who they went to college with.

Typically of course while a lot of businesses hesitate Richard Branson is using YouTube, Twitter and blogging. Which is what you would expect, isn't it. A sharp communicator who recognises change and acts upon it.

 www.itsopen.co.uk

The Ecologist - if you haven't noticed - has turned off the printing presses. It is no longer available in print.

Instead readers are urged to go to www.theecologist.org

Eco stunt/shrewd business move?

Which magazines and or newspapers will follow suit?

Any doubts about the impact of social media? Watch this short video...it's a bit melodramatic. But the statistics come at you in a barrage and are astonishing when you appreciate the changes they reflect in how people are consuming media.

http://socialnomics.net/video/

It is a big mistake for News International to start charging for content. It is a regressive move in my view. It takes News International back to the walled garden web site approaches of the 1990s. One which Yahoo has been struggling to break free from. If you charge for content you put up barriers. Besides news is a commodity now. News International will deny itself readers. It will prevent its columnists from getting their viewpoints across; it will be hard for News International writers to enter into conversations with other online communities and so on. My argument would be to make News International's content as accessible as possible: let go and be everywhere. Build the brand. Gain influence and charge more for ads. Unique visitors will increase. Be innovative about where you put your ads. Also I think there probably is a case for re-thinking the role of journalism as practicised by News International. How do you compete when news is everywhere for free. How do you really distinguish yourself? Having said that, I don't blame Murdoch for trying to protect his assets. But in my humble opinion, he is not approaching it in the right way.

www.itsopen.co.uk

So David Cameron can't be bothered with Twitter. Clearly he is not as smart as Obama's campaign team who used Twitter ruthlessly and cleverly to reach out to different sections of the electorate.

Still if he's having second thoughts he might want to read about how many progressive companies are using Twitter and getting some pretty stunning results:

http://itsopen.co.uk/twitter-for-businesses

Memo to Cameron: the media landscape has fundamentally altered and unless the Tories participate they will lose influence.

It seems that Yahoo was not too pleased with Forrester's US Interactive Marketing Forecast and they have asked for changes to be made.

 You can read the full blog post about it here:

http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/2009/07/yahoo-has-the-right-mobile-priorities-1.html