Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter paving the way for social journalism

April 8, 2011 by 1 Comment

A sign of the Times (grin), the venerable NY Times recently eliminated its Social Media Editor position, arguing that social media needs to be a shared responsibility rather than a siloed occupation. Initially pushed to “promote content, [...] build communities and attract new audiences” social media are now also used to “publish real-time news and updates for breaking stories and live events”.

A point of view shared by The Guardian’ Meg Pickard, who goes further into social to determine how “journalists can collaborate with readers to better understand, explore or reflect subjects or experiences”. Rather than settling for the traditional model in which journalists work on a story before its publication and readers consumer it after, with no real exchange between the two, the news media is trying to understand the value of an authentic relationship with a community.

Facebook, Linkedin & Twitter: 3 visions of social PR

The social media majors have not been blind to this evolution and have in recent week pushed forward many features that will help the trend forward.

Journalists on Facebook logo

Facebook has shown the greatest recent activity in this domain, introducing a new Journalists on Facebook page containing Get started and Best Practise tabs. The page, on which the About .. description reads:

Reach your readers directly on Facebook, an audience of more than 500 million people around the world.

has attracted 26000 fans in just 3 days. Although wall posts are few and far between, the Facebook & Social Journalism article explains the benefits of social widgets such as the LIKE and RECOMMEND buttons for media organisations:

Since we first launched these initiatives at the beginning of 2010, the average media organization has seen a greater than 300% increase in referral traffic from Facebook.

However glamorous sounding, Facebook is only doing its best to catch up with Twitter in popularity among journalists. As Andy Carvin, Senior Strategist at NPR and noted for his coverage of the Egyptian crisis on Twitter, puts it, most journalists are on Facebook for purely personal reasons and have a lot of catching up to do before they use it professionally.

Janis Krum's picture on Twitpic

Hudson crash coverage started on Twitter

Twitter, the 140 character 5-year old whizz kid has gained tremendous following from journalists and freelancers attracted to the real-time propagation of news around the world. Twitter’s claims to fame far predate the ongoing middle east uprising or last year’s protests in Iran (during which the platform was asked not to shut down for maintenance by the Obama administration, such was it’s impact on local events).

There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy

In January 2009, for instance, all media coverage of the news breaking crash landing of a US Airways Airbus in the Hudson river started on Twitter with a picture posted by one Janis Krum who happened to be riding a ferry on site.

But Twitter appear to be doing some catching up of their own by developing profile pages for business accounts similar Facebook Fan pages. According to other sources, Twitter may even drop its 140 character limit in some circumstances! Stay tuned.

Linkedin Today on iPhone

As for Linkedin, it appears that in a mad scramble to monetize its user base as quickly as possible prior to its IPO, the pro-oriented network is “borrowing” features left, right and center: after allowing updates to be posted and other members to be followed, some time ago, Linkedin is now rolling out social sharing buttons that:

“enable users to share your website with Linkedin’s professional audience, and drive back traffic to your site” or “enable users to recommend your products and services to …”

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever used Facebook, it should. According to Mathew Ingram of GigaOm, there is so little overlap between the two networks that there might be room for both sets of sharing features: “Facebook still seems to be a social playground for many users — a place they post photos and play games and share links to funny videos — while LinkedIn is like the office”.

But more importantly, Linkedin recently started the Linkedin Today page, a personal news site that brings you industry news and articles algorithmically selected from the top releases, tweets and articles posted by the 90 million members, to suit your interests (based on your connections and industry). Below the articles are a list of selected indurstries you can follow. This implies that by posting your company news and expertise to your Linkedin account, you can have it displayed in front of many other members of your industry without having to share a group or be directly connected.

4 ways social sharing will boost your PR

So, while the giants are engaged in this mutual catch-up ballet in search of profitability, how can organisations benefit? There are four easy catches:

  • As journalists are less responsive to press release distribution and pitches, social sharing gives companies an alternate way of connecting and increasing their coverage.
  • Links in articles written about the company increase its website’s Google ranking and visibility.
  • Social search has higher credibility that traditional search because its results are based on the activity and preferences of the user’s network. Social sharing is a great way of being found and read.
  • A huge, and rising, proportion of mobile Internet access is dedicated to social media. Social sharing is an easy way of reaching your audience on their mobile devices without redesigning your website.

So by sharing news on these three networks, companies have an unprecedented opportunity to reach far more consumers, journalists and other members of their industry, to increase website traffic and leads and to spread their side of the story in reputation management activities.

Filed under Industry debate Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Is social search impacting your reputation?

January 21, 2011 by 2 Comments

It has often been written that your reputation is what Google says it is. A fact supported by search statistics showing that over 2/3 of all internet searches transit via the Mountain View giant’s servers. However, that would be missing one major point: conversations between internet users are one of the highest sources of influence on buying decisions and reputation factors.

Flickr image by Lee Haywood

Google may not always dominate search

Social consumer are using their networks more and more to ask for and share recommendations about companies and their products. Much as the more traditional internet goers, they use traditional search (read Google, and sprinkle a pinch of Bing, if you don’t live in China) to find information. But once initial awareness of a product has been gained, much word of mouth is exchanged on forums, Facebook and other social networks. Quora seems poised to become a crucial actor in this field, for instance.

Of course, Google has added many social features to its social search and integrated social presence to its social search results. But Facebook sees things differently and, as the Palo Alto rival approaches the demographic limits of new user acquisition, its strategy for future expansion seems to suck discussions about the world’s brands onto its own turf. “Like” buttons and Fan page serve exactly this purpose and while some Fan pages have rapidly become enormous, some (many?) have not grown fast enough to compensate for the corresponding decline in traffic of corporate websites. That alone can constitute a threat to your reputation management efforts. But if Facebook succeeds in attracting the world’s brand-centric conversations, its search may well dethrone Google’s as purveyor of image and reputation.

Influencer engagement and social CRM

This interesting post discusses whether you should embark on the much hyped real-time route and, since social has gained so much momentum, the question is certainly valid for reputation management. The author argues that influencer engagement is a selective PR exercise, at the risk of seeming biased, while the latter requires a more profound transformation of the company, particularly if you wish to engage in interactions, not simply provide asynchronous responses to questions and issues.

For reputation management purposes, it makes sense to focus on influential stakeholders and on answering the most representative issues rather than engage in systematic real-time interactions (marketing and crisis management are different, of course).

So how do you manage your reputation in a social world?

First, integrate offline, online and social in your monitoring plan. Social may be the new buzz-king, leading surveys (see for instance Edelman’s 2010 Trust Barometer) indicate that top influencers are industry experts, who do not express their views through a “XXX sucks” Facebook update.

Second, use engagement best practises to identify stakeholder groups and their respective issues.

Third, feed your social CRM with reports of your interactions to enrich it as you go and create a priceless engagement repository that will let your plan campaigns with far greater accuracy and confidence.

SO, is social search impacting your reputation, and how are you addressing that? Please describe your experience in comments.

Filed under Industry debate Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

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