Confessions of a Journalist: do you think I actually read your press release?

April 19, 2012 by 4 Comments

This post is the first of a new series I am going to write about my experience as a journalist/blogger. I’ve written and continue to contribute to numerous publications – TechCrunch, Business Insider, the Telegraph, the Kernel, Betakit and more – and  I cover primarily tech startups. That said,  these tips are definitely relevant for all industries as journalism is going through a massive evolution with the development of new technology platforms.

Topic 1: The beloved press release.

Now, I picked a bit of a provocative title for this article on purpose. But PR and comms departments, please calm down – I DO read your press releases. Well, that is, if they are good.

What makes a good press release, you ask?

Any PR or comms expert is very familiar with a press release – an official written communication statement that is sent to the media in order to announce or share a piece of information. Most of the time, companies send out press releases to announce “official” news – the launch of a new product, new funding, an acquisition, etc.

Press releases also vary greatly from one industry to another. In tech, press releases tend to be 1-2 pages max, a little more neutral in tone with less visuals and more text. But go look at press releases from more visual industries – like fashion or cosmetics – and you’ll discover a variety of tones, colours, photos and very little text. For example, here’s a very eye-catching press release from bath & body brand Soap and Glory:

If you want to see an example of a more sober press release, take a look at Ebay’s press room. Honestly, neither of these styles is necessarily better than the other – they are actually both relevant for their audience.

Good press releases will of course feature a catchy title (I cannot stress the importance of titles enough as I often receive hundreds of emails a day that look more or less the same) and relevant information for the particular topic. Some journalists will actually publish more or less exactly what you send in the press release. But many journalists will (hopefully) want more; in fact, they’ll want to publish something exclusive that you’re not offering to everyone in your standard communication – so be sure to save some good bits of info for the journalists you really want to develop good relationships with.

News beyond the release.

Even though many traditional PR and comms teams may still hold on tight to their beloved press releases, journalists are actually excited in finding news through other means – and there are tons of terrific social platforms that they turn to in order to do so. Some of these I mentioned in an earlier post about some of the new social platforms companies should really be paying attention to: Pinterest, Quora and Instagram. But naturally, the list is much longer and often includes Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare and more. These different platforms are now considered viable and verified sources for news, so Facebook status updates, Tweets, Quora answers and Foursquare checkins can all be used in lieu of quotes in articles.

For example, here is an article in People Magazine about actress Melissa Joan Hart. Notice that the evidence in the article is a direct link to her Tweet…

Journalists love this type of thing because it looks like they’ve done some good fact-checking and they can use quotes direct from the source. PR and comms teams should think about leveraging different platforms when communicating to journalists and supplementing press releases with Tweets, Quora answers, Foursquare checkins and more. Or, ditch the press release and send this stuff in lieu – in some cases, a very powerful Tweet can be enough for a story…

Oh, careful, everyone can see.

That said, don’t forget that social platforms are public and that everyone can see. Therefore, the information published on these platforms lose their exclusivity if the journalist doesn’t publish quickly and if multiple sources pick up on the info. So be sure to manage what you publish and what you give to journalists – and always include something exclusive if you can.

No, press releases are not dead.

It may be natural to want to draw the conclusion that press releases are losing their relevancy – but they are very clearly NOT dead. They’re simply going through a bit of metamorphosis with the evolution of the social web. But we need to recognize that communication habits are changing as are the ways in which journalists and bloggers receive and relay info as well.

Some quick things to avoid…

In the past, I have seen some companies do all kinds of no-nos with press releases. For example, one company used to send along a press release every month to announce a “new” product feature. It quickly became evident that the features were rather trivial and that this was simply a poor communications tactic. Overtime, I stopped reading the releases.

Another thing to be sure of is that you send the press release in the right language (the language that the journalist will be publishing in) and the right format. If there are elements (photos, videos, links) that the journalist may want to incorporate into their article, be sure to send them as part of the original email (there are now different products that let you build dynamic and multi-media press kits, including Augure). Do not send large attachments as they can get stuck or also annoy the journalist – in fact, the journalist will probably contact you to get the elements they need if they are interested.

Now, if there are other journalists, PR or comm experts out there that would like to share additional tips and tricks, feel free to chime in.

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3 new social platforms your company should be paying attention to

February 21, 2012 by 4 Comments

Back in 2004 when Facebook first launched, there was no reason for companies to pay any attention. The platform was only open to a select number of American university students and nobody really thought of “poking” as having any real business value. It couldn’t be much better than a big, college chat room…could it?

By the time YouTube and Twitter launched within the next few years, Facebook was already well on its way to becoming the dominant social platform and businesses were beginning to tune in. The company had launched interest “like” pages in 2007 and redesigned them for business purposes in 2009. Nobody dared to question the business value of Facebook as it launched its famous “Like” button on April 22, 2010.

But while businesses undoubtedly grasp the value of Facebook, there is still a lot of reticence to join other social platforms – potentially because none have become as powerful as Facebook with its 800 million users. Even platforms like Twitter – which has managed to topple governments around the world – still struggles to convince companies of its business value.

Still, just because a social platform doesn’t have 800 million users doesn’t mean that it can’t dramatically change the way you do business. Innovative cross-platform social strategies can often result in an increase in user acquisition and retention. So here are 3 new platforms you should be paying attention to, if you haven’t already.

1. Quora

Founded in 2009 by a handful of former Facebook founders, Quora is the social web’s answer to Yahoo Answers. This social Q&A site may not seem that different from the rest – but the company’s original user acquisition strategy encouraged well-known professionals to use the platform as early adopters. Therefore, you can find questions and answer by people like Sun Microsystems co-founder and former CEO Vinod Khosla, amongst others.

But what does this mean for business? This platform can do everything from help you recruit talent to help you establish relationships with potential clients – primarily by demonstrating your expertise. It’s a little less fun than poking and retweeting, but then again, it’s far more professional. By clearly demonstrating your expertise in relevant topics, your answers will begin to make their way to the forefront. This, in turn, should help you (and your business) gain exposure. Don’t believe me? Just read how HelpJuice leveraged Quora for customer acquisition.

It can also be used as a more indirect customer service channel. If you notice that a particular question that is related to your business or sector is accumulating a lot of followers, then it’s probably worth paying attention to. Mashable’s Heather Whaling notes the example of Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom, who leveraged the platform do openly answer questions about his company.

To find out more on how building a Quora presence can be beneficial to your business (and how to do it!), check out this article from Inc. Magazine.

2. Instagram

The company crowned as Apple’s best mobile app in 2011 is far more than your average photo sharing app. Tons of brands – from Starbucks to Burberry to MTV – have discovered the beauty of this app, which focuses on providing good quality photo content rather than pushing products and services down people’s throats.

As with many social platforms, experts encourage Instagram users to post consistently, frequently and to engage followers and users. But what makes Instagram different from the other social platforms is the visual element. This means companies can present content in a fun and creative way – and chances are it will look amazing, too. Even if your product is not visual, chances are you can come up with a related theme that will make having an Instagram account worthwhile.

Instagram itself published some resources for brands to see how they could leverage the platform – including my favorite idea: flash mobs! But if you’re curious for more info on why companies like General Electric (check out some of their featured photos here) and Puma are flocking to Instagram and what kind of content they’re creating, read this.

3. Pinterest

The latest social platform to take over digital headlines is Pinterest. This virtual pinboard platform allows people to organize and share their interests from all over the web in a visual way.  And once again, companies haven’t failed to notice the business potential in Pinterest either.

Companies like Birchbox, Whole Foods and Scholastic have developed beautiful display boards that help to visually communicate their domain of expertise. As one article put it, Pinterest is “visual story telling for brands” that helps to create brand awareness. Brands can use it to communicate about their domain of expertise as well as their company culture, corporate social responsibility and more. In addition, “pinning” good content from the right location can help you drive traffic to your site or other social media properties. Check out this article for a few tips on how to use Pinterest for business – and if you’re still not convinced, check out this fabulous presentation by Nurun’s Gregory Pouy.

Obviously there are tons of other noteworthy social platforms out there too. But these are 3 that are really beginning to make their way to the top. In the next few weeks, we’ll be including more in-depth analysis and tips on how to properly leverage these platforms – and a few others.

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Is Social the New Corporate?

February 17, 2012 by 1 Comment

Last summer, we measured the nature of social engagement by top French companies listed on the CAC40 to determine whether corporate communications were a part of the mix. The results were slightly underwhelming, with only 2 daily tweets and 1 Facebook weekly update from corporate accounts on average and very little discussion about corporate and reputation-driving topics.

A chart from Augure's study of social corporate activity showing a correlation bewteen update frequency and community size

Click to access study

Later that year, I wrote a post explaining why focusing on brand could be damaging to corporate reputation. But could this all be changing ?

3 reasons corporate communications could be gaining social foothold

First of all, Social Media has come of age. According to recent research by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Facebook and Linkedin are now considered the most effective (and used) tools by Inc500 companies and users of social media are reporting a record levels of success.

A graph showing which social media has the best success rate according to Inc500 companies

Improving feeling of success

The improvement in that feeling of success is slight but real. But more importantly, the goals set for social media engagement by these fast growing companies are revealing, the top 3 being :

  • Brand awareness: 90%
  • Company reputation: 90%
  • Web traffic: 88%

Secondly, and looking at it from another angle, Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer reveals that although general trust in business is on the decline (mainly because of major distrust in financial institutions) two other indicators bring some optimism:

  • Trust in Social Media and corporate channels as sources of information is making significant progress at +75% and +23% respectively (albeit still at rather low levels)
  • Trust in CEOs is (still) extremely low. But both company employees and company experts occupy top rigs on the trust ladder. Proof, if any more was needed, that businesses must use their employees and internal experts as social ambassadors (and more importantly, that companies doing so are reaping huge benefits).
The Trusted Sources slide from Edelman's 2012 Trust Barometer deck

Most Trusted Sources in 2012

Finally, a sign of the (social corporate) times is that more and more companies are publishing utterly corporate documents such as annual reports and CSR reports to new channels such as tablets and are encouraging social sharing by readers (see for instant the Electrolux Financial Reports page).

The road ahead

If corporate communications aren’t gaining on social media in most organizations, they should be:

  • Corporate reputation is a company’s strongest immaterial asset.
  • Companies have unlimited access to some of the most trusted sources of information to do their social reputation management work for them : their own employees.

One last thing: If theory isn’t good enough, facts may help convince the reluctant. In the 2012 Harris Poll RQ study of coporate reputation, the top 5 positions are held by Apple, Google, Coca-Cola, Amazon.com and Kraft Foods. All extremely social companies, 3 of which having pushed out more ‘traditionally minded’ groups.

Is your company is discussing corporate issues with its social communities, yet?

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How La Redoute turned crisis management into clever social marketing

February 3, 2012 by 2 Comments

The naked man in the picture on La Redoute's websiteFor a major online retailer, what can be worse than finding out from the Internet that one of the photographs in your online catalog shows a naked man next to young children wearing your clothes?

That’s the situation French brand La Redoute was faced with a few weeks ago, when they used a photograph of kids running on the beach to sell a new T-shirt model. It wasn’t long before site visitors using the zoom feature on the page discovered a naked man in the water just behind the group of young models. Definitely not the kind of associations that sort of business is after.

Obviously, this spread like wildfire on Twitter and Facebook, which more than whiffs of #epicfail tags attached to it.

Turning a reputation threat to your advantage

The brand needed to react and quickly. But initial response wasn’t overwhelming. A few apologies were written and the offending pictures removed, not that quickly.

However, as with every crisis, when the damage is done, it’s done, there’s no undoing, Ctrl+Z or MIB flash memory eraser. Crisis management in these situations is not about undoing but about rebound and moving on.

And this was performed brilliantly with the following video (in French).

Why is this so good ?

  • It acknowledges the issue openly and then more. While most companies responsible for a mistake usually try to minimise it or their responsibility, the message in this video not only recognizes the issue but gives examples of more mistakes in the catalog. However amusing and minimal the example given, this sends out a very open and positive message.
  • It says I’m sorry. “Again, we are very sorry for …”
  • It describes the plan in very accurate terms. “… We have placed whole teams on this. They have scanned the whole catalog and found more problems …”
  • It opens up dialogue for the future. “… But we know there are probably more mistakes left in there. We are asking you for help …” Active participation of the public totally eliminates what antagonism may have built up in the first stages of the crisis.
  • It uses crowdsourcing. There’s effectively no better way to iron out all the niggles than to unleash the unlimited power of the Internet on it. With literally thousands of visitors eager to be the first to find new blunders, the chances of there being any left in a few days absolutely minimal. For free.
  • It rewards intelligently. “… Since a naked man is responsible for this, we will reward anyone who firsts reports a boo boo by dressing him/her up from head to toes …” While many CSR programs are plagued by iffy greenwashing feelings for being totally unrelated to the social or environmental damage caused by the company, La Redoute’s initiative is spot on. The sell clothes. Their clothing adds caused an image problem. It is through closing they will make it better.
  • It’s a fantastic marketing operation. While some buyers may have been put off by the initial blooper, the video, that has now been watched over 150.000 times, is likely to get thousands of people scan through the whole catalog in search of something out-of-place. How many will actually buy, I wonder.

It may not be over, though. Initial crisis response is all about re-establishing dialogue and laying out the plan ahead. So far, so good. But the faulty company then has to walk the path. In this case, the video is so clever that some will inevitably feel it was all done in purpose. The way La Redoute addresses these worries will probably key to the complete resolution of this minor hick-up. If they make to much of a show out of it, it could flare out of up-to-now benign proportions.

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12 important goals for a monitoring plan

January 27, 2012 by 1 Comment

While monitoring – particularly of the social subspecies – is on everyone’s lips today, it is often considered in only one of two contexts:

  • Customer feedback: by monitoring all customer expression channels (social media, phone, email …) and applying heavy technological machinery to face the daunting task of analysing the huge volumes implied, a summary of pain points can be extracted in order to alter the very structure of internal services and support
  • online PR measurement: since media production and consumption has shifted online in the past few years, paper clippings are no longer sufficient to evaluate the success of PR campaigns and online monitoring is used to complete the picture

While both are very valid uses, I’d like to point out a few more. Not because of a sudden crave for encyclopedic endeavours, however pleasant that may be, but because recent evolutions in the social and media landscape dictate profound changes in the way companies and organizations engage with their publics and monitoring is the single most important tool to navigate these often complex waters.

How the Web was won

This is a chart we use on our website to explain the four phases of engagement that must be considered in any communications campaign: Listen, Map, Engage, Measure …

Listen, Map, Engage, Measure. 4 steps in agile campaign management

4 phases of Engagement in a web 2.0 environment


… and back again.

That “back again” is the essential part! While in the past you could plan, execute and measure, the web 2.0 has changed all this and mobile is only making it more complex. The minute a message leaves your company (very often, way before that …) it is amplified, distorted and relayed at various speeds and frequencies depending on media, channels and communities. As previously mentioned on this blog, this new environment requires your PR and communications to learn from Agile and Extreme programming methodologies in order to adapt. Monitoring is essential to plan ahead and gain rapid feedback from all possible channels.

Who you engage, how, and what you measure to keep the boat pointing in the right direction are important aspects of your monitoring plan. The real takeaway is that monitoring is behind all four of these phases.

12 essential goals

OK, I lied. I don’t have 12. 12 sounded like a great number. Large enough to pull the crowds and not so large that I would scare anyone away. But the fact is that the number varies on your own campaign. What are you trying to achieve? Consider all the aspects of your campaign then choose the most relevant from the list below and add your own!!

So, here we go, in no particular order.

Preparing a product launch

Chances are your new product will appeal to many audiences: users who want to know when and how and how much; journalists, who want to know what to write, whether it’s worth their time (unless you’re Apple); bloggers, who want to be the first to spread the news and gain influence and credit (and traffic); resellers, who want to know whether you have addressed past product criticism, whether the rumors about a feature are true …

All of these audiences and expectations need to be identified and addressed for a successful launch. For a recent and compelling example, see how Nokia launched their Lumia 800 after years of struggling in the smartphone market.

Counting on my fingers, that’s at least 4, right there !

Preparing your entry on social media

With Facebook rocketing towards the billionth member mark, not a day goes by without 20 messages turning up in my mail box enticing me to join the party and triple my company’s revenue on social media. Yet the reality is more sobering, and for every success story, ten companies are realizing the emperor really is naked.

The withheld truth is that social media is not a one-size-fits-all marketing venue. Set foot on the wrong network with the wrong approach, and that free community will suddenly look very costly.

Here are a few things you can measure before pressing the GO button:

  • Find out where your prospects/customers are. There’s no point in painting your house blue for Facebook if you should be thinking of Linkedin instead
  • Find out what the hot discussion topics are. Listen before you talk. Identify areas where you can add value
  • Understand the internal gearing of the community. Who pioneers the news, who relays it, who is vocal but not listened to, who is really influential …
  • Understand critical engagement points. What are the positive topics? What are the negative? What ideas are associated to your brand or products? Are there any false rumors going round …

+4 !

Finding your reputation drivers

As they do every year, Edelman have just published the latest edition of their worldwide Trust Barometer, analysing reputation drivers throughout the world. While I used to be (and still am) a huge fan of that enormous survey, I do have to admit that the granularity somehow doesn’t cut it anymore.

Reputation drivers must be measured on the community level to be acted upon and will be different for every company. Measure what blogs are saying about you and compare that to online media and traditional media. While the main stories will be the same, the finer points of view won’t.

Now, let me count … that’s plenty more.

Optimizing your channels

You have successfully engaged with multiple social media communities, you have a regular newsletter shipping, strong relationships with journalists and bloggers …

You have a corporate message to get across.

Measuring the efficiency of media kits across channels

In which channel is it being best received (open-rates, click-through rates) and relayed (retweets, +1, LIKEs …)? Which format suits which channel best? Answers to these questions are key to optimizing your 1 to many engagement.

Media monitoring

Cheating again! I mentioned that in my introduction.

Yes, but, should you stop monitoring TV and newspapers just because of your online feed? Maybe, maybe not? Which are your strongest lead generators? Where are your opponents being most listened to? What is your competition doing? What is your share of voice on the various channels? All this must be plainly visible from a single vantage point. You can then eliminate what is not providing actionable information.

I’ve stopped counting, by now. I need my fingers to type this.

Public affairs, CSR and stakeholder engagement

Who are the best stakeholders to meet for a specific campaign? Influence is one thing to consider. The more influential the person, the greater the amplification of your message.

But that’s not all. Obviously, you’ll want to know what she’s been talking/writing/filming about recently. Anything about you, or your competition? Are there topics you’re not likely to agree about?

But that’s still not all. What been said/written/filmed about her? influential or not, the reactions she triggers might not be the ones you are looking for? What is her own image within your target audience? …

Bottom line, I promise

There are many more uses and goals, whether you’re a public sector corporation, an agency looking after you client’s visibility, a global company or a niche SMB.

But I hope by now my message is clear : monitoring is no longer (only) a question of plugging a clipping provider’s data stream into an application and counting mentions. As more and more departments and employees are becoming a part of your relations with the outside world, many more sources of information for planning and feedback should be integrated into and shared as a convenient and consistent whole to steer the whole organization towards its top line goal.

Sharing the results of monitoring

Sharing the results of monitoring

Offline media, online media, social media, one to one engagement, events, surveys … all are sources of precious information that need to be considered as monitoring and integrated into your daily tools and processes.

If you have any specific monitoring goals in mind I haven’t mentioned here, I’d love to hear about them. Please leave a comment.

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5 must-have steps in every monitoring plan

January 20, 2012 by 2 Comments

Media monitoring on a smartphone

Media monitoring on a smartphone

Monitoring is an essential part of any PR and reputation management campaign management, but is often considered from the sole point of view of extracting information from the Internet, whereas a successful plan involves and requires many other steps.

In my previous post, I described monitoring as trying to a listen to a conversation happening 20 feet away in a crowded bar. This is the information extraction part often referred to, but what good is it if the conversation stays in your head as a string a words, not communicated to anyone or analyzed or used to take action ?

Here are 5 steps that define a useful media monitoring plan from the definition phase to the decisional aspects.

 

Defining entities

Cutting through the billions of conversations going on each day implies restricting both the subjects you’re interested in as accurately as possible and limiting the sources to the most useful ones. defining entities is the first part.

Most competitive monitoring plans will focus on brand names, products or services and company executives. That in itself can be quite a hurdle. I monitor the news for Augure (which means “omen” in French) and you wouldn’t believe the stuff that comes in from World of Warcraft, ancient mysteries forums, church organ players and death metalheads if I’m not careful in my keyword selection. Oh my … ;)

WOW Augure !

Once you have defined your keywords and potential namesakes or other pitfalls, advanced monitoring platforms use semantic analysis to extract the correct information using context in the article. This filters out most if not all of the noise without missing important data.

Defining sources

Where does your audience hang out? Are your stakeholders most vocal on Facebook or in blogs? Is offline coverage important to your success?

Listening to the social world

Listening to a social world

The natural temptation, in order not to miss anything important is to monitor the whole universe. And this leads to numbers games about the number of sources being monitored. But that’s meaningless and dangerous:

  • First because as soon as you have the technology to monitor a blogging platform such as wordpress, you can monitor over 50 million sources. Hook-on to Facebook and that’s 700 million, no 800, no 900 no … Numbers are meaningless. Far more important is to identify those that are influential in your industry, extract clean information from them (no adverts, no spam) and be able to add more as and when necessary.
  • Secondly because you will not be able to digest the result of too large a reading list. My photography-minded friend and Augure Product Manager Caroline set up one of our feeds to monitor the news about a new camera on social media. Like her, I doubt that you will enjoy seeing thousands of messages pile up every hour (unless what you want is a statistical dashboard), even on-topic ones ;) So be specific about what you need to include. By default, we suggest packs to our customers and it is always easy to build from that.

Homogeneizing

Forum messages and offline have very different structures. Mixing offline sources with online media requires some technical work in order to present readable and interpretable results. As a simple example: in your monitoring results, would you rather see tweets with shortened links or the article hiding behind the link ?

Analyzing

What is your goal with that monitoring? Are you interested in the share of blog coverage of a product you have just launched or is real-time sentiment analysis of a developing crisis more important to you?

Publication click-through statistics

Too often, analytics are an afterthought of monitoring plans. But defining the dashboard you need prior to anything else is important to determine what information your monitoring and/or qualification software/teams need to provide you with? Tone, volume, size, images, number of views, ranking, influence levels … ?

Sharing and collaborating

As social networks have changed public relations forever, companies have had to adapt by becoming more social themselves. Stakeholder engagement is no longer the exclusive responsibility of a few staff members in the PR team and more and more employees are becoming brand ambassadors after being trained and receiving proper engagement guidelines.

Media monitoring feeds view on a smartphone and an iPad

Media Monitoring On The Go

As will be discussed in the final installment of this series, monitoring is essential for successful engagement and its results should be share with anyone taking part in discussions on behalf of the organization.

Depending on the recipient, sharing may take the form of an analytic report, a webzine to read in the tube or a formal press review and reputation dashboard. Whatever the form taken, sharing is an essential and often overlooked part of success.

Now that you have the 5 steps in hand, how do you use your monitoring to enhance your social engagement ?

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Raising the bar for online monitoring

January 13, 2012 by 2 Comments

Picture yourself at the pub after work with that cool pint in one hand and your mates all around you discussing the day’s events: That incredible piece of fielding by Kiwi 12th man Bevan Small, the dreaded copying machine that’s down again, the new memo from IT and how idiotic it is to have made Greedo shoot first in the Blu-Ray edition in spite of fan protest.

Tables all around are the same and the whole room is alive with the hum of multiple conversations and points of view on various topics, everyone joining in regardless of background or expertise.

The hum of simultaneous conversations

But you’ve hooked onto a specific exchange going on a few meters away about a specific case you’re working on. After struggling several minutes to piece together the few words you have been able to isolate from the background drone, you realize your eavesdropping led you on to a different subject that you initially thought and you jump back in to your pal’s discussion with a hasty”… of course Han shot first! There’s no way Greedo could have missed at that range otherwise. Lucas is a self-righteous twerp!”.

From digital data to engagement information

Monitoring online and social media can be a very similar experience to this. The bar analogy isn’t just for fun, because social media engagement recommendations start exactly like this : “imagine yourself in a bar full of conversations. Listen to the conversations, add meaningful comments whenever possible. Provide information and entertainment and make a name for yourself in the community”.

Augure's anline and social monitoring dashboard

And, as I will describe in part 3 of this series, monitoring is not only for reporting, but a tremendous help to guide your engagement:

  • Who is discussing your brand and who is having the greatest influence in the conversation ?
  • How is your engagement campaign doing ? Which are the most responsive media and which terms are getting the most amplification ?
  • What is the global impact of engagement on the company’s top line and reputation ?

So, where do you start ?

The augure webzine displaying monitoring results for the iPhone 4s

Augure's webzine displaying monitoring results for "Apple"


Going from the millions of digital voices found in blogs, comments, Facebook, online media, Twitter and forums to a clean and useable output that resembles the picture above implies a series of challenges that are described in the next post:

  • Define who you want to listen to. In the bar, you cannot choose to eliminate a table or add others. In social monitoring project, you can.
  • Define what you want to listen for. Sir Isaac Newton’s view of an apple isn’t the same as Steve Jobs’ was. Trust me, we know. We have clients with fruit names and we are called Augure (which means omen, in French). So we know a lot about disambiguation.
  • Define what you want to measure. Are you launching a product and interested in share of discussion or is sentiment relative to a recent crisis more prominent in your mind ?

I will go deeper into these aspects in the next two posts. Stay tuned !

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Helping your Facebook fans help you – with engagement

December 2, 2011 by 1 Comment

2011 has been a big year for Facebook. New features were launched to make the world’s largest social network an indispensable tool for companies and to monetize its continent sized fan base via new forms of engagement and advertising. A few weeks ago, I asked whether the new Timeline, which appears to be still rolling out slowly, would help PR Pros or not.

More recently, I argued that using social media exclusively as a short-term branding tool was dangerous for corporate reputation management, that engagement is key to long-term social media success and that PR should always be involved in defining the organisation’s social media strategy.

Facebook F8 presented new features for PR and marketing

In this post, I’d like to examine some of the other news from Facebook to determine whether and how these may impact PR and reputation management.

What makes your fans tick ?

Among the slew of new features announced at Facebook’s F8 conference last September are new buttons that go beyond the LIKE action. This is Facebook’s first step towards making fans share more and in more varied ways. VIEWING, SHARING and others are being made possible, and content publishers are even able to create their own button through apps to suit their own publications.

More significantly, and far more controversially, Facebook introduced the Ticker on the right hand side of the page, to show you what your friends are doing, who they are friending, what cafe they are checking into and what brands or products they are liking.

The facebook ticker

The ticker was met with almost universal criticism. From users, who claim it simply provides too much information into their friends’ lives. And from many many experts denouncing privacy scares.

Since the introduction that feature, many articles have been written to explain how to protect yourself from it and even how to remove it altogether (thanks to a Google Chrome extension, how surprising ;) ).

But Ticker is amajor component of Facebook’s business plan, along with Top stories and Sponsored Stories.

Beyond the obvious personal branding/reputation associated to ticker, its significance is due to the fact that it now integrates Sponsored stories in its feed. Sponsored stories are adverts in which the text is not written by the advertiser but is extracted from a fan’s update or action: Eric LIKEs the latest news from your company and all of Eric’s friends will see an advert for your news containing his “this is really interesting” update. This is significant because, according to Facebook, sponsored stories have much more impact than conventional advertising.

Top Stories, the final element in Facebook’s engagement trilogy, may be even more important to PR and reputation management professionals. Indeed, while the news feed on your Facebook page has always been presented in chronological order, top stories can be pushed up to the top of your feed is enough of your friends have liked it or commented on it. I already mentioned EdgeRank – Facebook’s feed filtering algorithm, that determines what friend and brand updates you actually see in your newsfeed – in 5 reasons not to count Fans on Facebook. The algorithm strengthens the visibility of brands you engage with and reduces it for others. Top stories push this idea one big step forward.

Finding engaging content to publish

Obviously, producing and publishing engaging content on Facebook is key to starting engagement. How do you know what your fans like best ?

Smart Insights recently published an interesting infographic describing the basic types of sharers in the UK and what content they like to share best.

But this is generic and the best way to understand what your community wants is to … listen to discussions. Listening will give you insight in major issues, major likes and dominant speakers. But I’ll tell you much, much more about this in my next post ! Stay tuned :)

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Why your brand image could be crippling your corporate reputation

October 14, 2011 by 5 Comments

It has been argued that corporate reputation is an aggregate of the company’s image over long periods but that’s not entirely true. And confusing image with reputation could in fact lead to a degradation of the latter.

It’s all relative

Let me explain.

Building brand image is trying to establish strong, favourable and unique associations with the brand in the consumer’s mind. When you think of Nike, the swoosh – Athena’s wings – comes to mind. So do the slogan “Just do it” and associations with high performing athletes.

Nike's swoosh

Corporate Reputation, on the other hand is the sum of perceptions by all stakeholder groups relative to their reputation drivers. World wide surveys such as Edelman’s Trust Barometer reveal what these reputation drivers are, year after year, at the country level.

But for a corporation, these can – and do – change with geography and stakeholder types. Consumers might or might not be happy with product quality. NGOs may still have memories of underaged labour or environmental misconduct. Partners may appreciate doing business with the company. Employees may love internal training and salaries but dislike work conditions …

  • One is about changing mindsets, the other about listening.
  • One is about selling products, the other about enabling business.
  • One is short-term, the other lasts for years. Years ago, Nike signed onto the Global Compact in an attempt to promote an environmentally and socially responsible image but negative associations still linger ten years on.

Social Media should not be (exclusively) a branding channel

Nowhere is stakeholder monitoring (and engagement) more important than in corporate reputation management. In order to find the reputation drivers and issues relative to them, there simply is no alternative to listen and engage.

Reputation barometers such as the Reputation Institute’s are vast surveys asking stakeholders what matter most to them. PR guidelines such as those published by the IPR and AMEC are constantly pushing towards primary reasearch because it is an area that has demonstrated the ability to provide actionable insights and meaningful information.

social media activity types for large french companies

Click the image to access our study (in French)

And yet, social media, the one area where organisations can engage directly with their public is very rarely used to question visitors and discuss social or environmental issues. It does happen, but more often social media is being used to promote brand image, run community-boosting contests or games and develop entertainment programs.

We have just released a study showing how France’s largest corporations are using social media. After recent surveys revealed how much social activity was being devoted by the public to these companies and their boards, we evaluated how these companies were responding.

We measured their presence on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and YouTube, their publication frequency, the variety of activities on these networks and community engagement. You can read the complete analysis on our website by clicking on the picture above, but here are three takeaways:

  • Companies tweet about 100x less than their public
  • Only 8% of social activity is devoted to bilateral engagement
  • Community engagement is non-existent for 70% of companies

Marketing and PR could share ownership of social media

In her book No Logo, writer Naomi Klein noted: “In many ways branding is the Achilles heel of the corporate world. The more these companies shift to being all about brand meaning and brand image, the more vulnerable they are to attacks on image.” That was a decade ago. But it remains as true today and nowhere is it more in evidence than on social media.

There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that a Facebook page dealing only with the company’s environmental programs would remain quite empty and would not sell many products. But a combined effort between marketing and communications teams would likely be profitable to both. Organisations that have gathered large communities could listen to them more actively and combine reputation management with brand building. Just do it!

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