THINKing

Social Media Relationships: Are They Real?

Just saw Suzanne Vara’s excellent piece on building social media relationships. Let’s listen to Ms. Vara for a moment:

Social media has afforded us the opportunity to meet a lot of people. We gain insight as to who they are through their profiles, blogs, with whom they associate and our interactions with them…we find an entirely new world and start building relationships. There are some people we just click with and feel like we have known them forever.  We like them and look forward to seeing them each day on their blog, on our blog and in our platform streams.

There are a number of people – those whom I call DCs or “digital colleagues” – I look forward to each day as well. But are these relationships real and actionable from a business standpoint? Most are not. But some of those online relationships – as Ms. Vara points out – may blossom into something deeper.

As we have discussed before, the value of connections in business cannot be underestimated. I’m talking primarily about tight connections that you use to help you achieve your personal and professional goals. Friend and business coach Brent Dees of Focus Four tells us that you if want a $1 million business, you should have 40 contacts (your Focus 40) each of whom can bring you $25,000 in business. Your job is to help each of these contacts achieve their goals and they, in turn, will help you reach yours. This is a spin on the method that made Andrew Carnegie a millionaire many times over.

Now, Brent says that a human can’t truly support more than 40 contacts of this nature, and I agree.

However, with the advent of social networks like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook, you can have access to hundreds of contact to help you connect with others who may be able to help you.  Social media means your close relationships are no longer bound by geography – and that is a beautiful thing. For instance, there is Bob Taylor from Grand Rapids, Michigan who I talk with about wine, bacon, guitar playing and social media. Jay Ehret in Waco, Texas, has become someone I read and listen to via podcast. Says Jay in a piece called Welcome To Social Town,

The amazing thing is I didn’t know any of these people three years ago. This is what social media has done for my professional, and personal, life. To me, it’s not a marketing channel, it’s a community of my favorite people who don’t happen to live in the same city I do. I wish we all did live in the same place because we would have some killer happy hours! But we don’t, so we just hang out together online, in Social Town.

What do you think?

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Top 5 PR Posts

Our PR-related posts are among the most well-read. So, I thought we’d bring to the forefront some evergreen features on PR.  Now, let’s review.

Communications Planning 101 - Developing a communications plan requires a disciplined approach. Your first order of business is reviewing your current program for impact and efficiency.

How To Be A Great Radio Guest - Radio – despite changes in media habits – still is a great way to get in front of a lot of people. As a radio talk show guest on a national program, millions could hear your message.

Pithy Pitches - Your painstakingly crafted email pitch is completely customized and ready to send to the in box of that carefully targeted reporter. There it goes! Did you hear that? That was your email pitch being deleted.

Six Tips For Perfect Email Pitches - Your media pitches can go straight over the plate. With a little forethought, and a few tips, you can throw fewer balls and more media relations strikes.

Slow Day? Create News -  Sometimes there seems to be no client news worthy of coverage. That’s when the savvy PR pro digs deep into the old bag of tricks and pulls out one of these ideas to perk things up.

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Cap The Spill, Then We’ll Talk

You’ve probably read about BP’s so-called social media efforts to shape the conversation about the oil spill. It’s not just BP. The government keeps barring journalists from the area in what seems to be a move to downplay the spill. There is plenty of blame to go around in this debacle.Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim has an interesting take on this topic, too.  Says Andy,

“Updates, Response, Statement, Briefing, Broadcast, Distribution, Push. Those are just some of the words that I found while looking around BP’s social media efforts for the Gulf oil spill. So, what’s missing? How about…Listening, Engaging, Discussing, Conversation, Dialog, Understanding.”

Listening would be a good step, but BP, if you really want to shape the conversation, fix the spill. Once that is done, I”ll be ready to “talk” with you through social media.

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Hook Me Up With A Human

Oh, what has happened to the carbon-based organizational interface? Many organizations have digitized humans – aka carbon-based units – out of existence in their customer service operations. Now, I love digital technology as much as anyone, but it is time to bring the people back into their appropriate customer service roles, don’t you think?

Have you ever tried to reach a human at Amazon.com? When I last checked it was almost impossible to find a telephone number on the website. Just to annoy them, here is their toll free number: 800-201-7575.

Many organizations don’t even have a live person answering phones. They dump you directly into voicemail. If this happens to you, punch “0″ immediately. Some systems are programmed to ignore the first three “0s” so keep punching. This almost always gets you to a sentient being. OK, sentient may be a little strong. At least they are breathing. Sometimes if you hit the * key, you’ll be sent to the company directory.

The Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business reports that in one of its survey about customer service “can’t find a human” was at the top of the list of things participants disliked. The study further showed that calling a toll free number was still a top preferred method of reaching a company, but more people are turning to the web because no one appears to be home at the phone.

The society has published an online directory containing a lot of contact information for many top companies. Use it frequently.

Another tip for hunting down a human: the Whois directory. However, truly cunning companies have removed their contact information from there, too.

Companies which continue to shirk their responsibility to their customers eventually will pay. Customer retention rates will spiral downward and new business will dry up. At least, I keep telling myself this will happen to these bad PR poster children.

If you call me, unless I’m on fire or talking with a client, I’ll answer my phone. And, if I somehow miss your call, it won’t take me 24 hours to get back to you. It’s bad PR – and inhuman – to do anything less.

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Top 5 Posts

Here are the Top 5 Posts From THINKing this month, in case you missed one. Let us know which is your favorite.

The Rule Of Reciprocity

Twittering Journalists

Say What You Mean, Mean What You Say

Creativity 2010 – Week #7

Face Time

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The Rule Of Reciprocity

Are you using the rule of reciprocity?  I ran across this topic not too long ago, and it got me to thinking about how this rule applies to marketing and PR.

Much of what we PR people do is based upon this rule. Do something for someone else and they will turn around and do something of equal or greater value for you.

I’ve written about this before in a series of posts about networking and gaining new business.

Friend Brent Dees owns Focus Four, a three-year curriculum to teach business owners how to work on their business and not in their business. In the Focus Four class, Brent teaches you how to utilize this rule most effectively. Says Brent,

“You should identify the people who can do the most to assist you in reaching your personal and business goals and then find out what they are trying to achieve. Once you know this, your efforts should be directed toward helping them reach their goals. This is smart business and good public relations.”

Remember, you do it because you want to help them. Expect nothing in return from them. But guess what? They always return the favor a hundredfold. That’s how to put reciprocity on steroids.

How are you using this rule in your business or your life?

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How To Be A Great Radio Guest

Radio – despite changes in media habits – still is a great way to get in front of a lot of people. As a radio talk show guest on a national program, millions could hear your message. Talk radio listeners tune in about 20 percent more than the average radio listener.

Being a great guest takes some work on your part. Let’s review what you must do in order to attain great guest status.

Be Available. Journalists of all stripes complain about not being able to reach sources when they need them. With radio, it is not just a 9 – 5 job. The great radio guest will show up whenever he or she is needed.

Be Conversational. This goes beyond your ability to carry on a good conversation. You must speak clearly, concisely and in terms the average listener understands. Start throwing around business-speak like “that’s not in my wheelhouse” and get booted off the show before it starts. In fact, don’t talk like that when you are not on radio!

Be Ubiquitous. It was true when I was in radio and it is still true today, radio people follow their print brethren. If you have been quoted by a news magazine or newspaper, radio producers are more likely to have you on. And, help producers locate you. Make sure you have an online presence and that you have your media clips accessible so producers can determine if you are the right source for them.

Be In The Moment. If you are out pitching yourself, take advantage of the news cycle. If there is nothing happening currently that ties your expertise into the topic of the day, then wait. Your day will come.

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Squirrel!

Like Dug The Dog from Pixar’s movie, Up!, marketers too often are distracted by the latest shiny thing. In my view, strategy should dictate tactics. But tactics are fun and strategy is hard, marketers say.  And that’s the way it is with social media. More than half of all marketers are currently engaged in some form of social media, according to eMarketer, but do they really have a grasp of how it fits into overall business objectives?

“With so much intense interest and activity, the big question is, Are marketers doing it right?” said Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO and author of “10 Best Practices for Success with Social Media,” one of the Insight Briefs in the series. “Since social media marketing has the potential to affect so many areas of an organization,” he said, “the enormity of this opportunity leads many marketers to chase after every technique, tactic and metric that passes them by.”

Social media is not about marketing, and that is why I believe an organization’s PR group should take the leadership. Good public relations has always been about dialogue, listening to your publics before you respond.

Do you agree? Tell us who you think should be responsible for social media.

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Front Page Coverage – That’s What I Want!

Does everyone in business seem to think all you have to do is call the local daily paper and they come out to do a page one profile of your business? With all the downsizing, it’s hard enough just to get the media to open your emails or take your calls. Getting a front page story just because you want it: priceless.

I was talking with a prospect once who tossed this off as if it was no big deal, “of course we’d like to have the paper come down, meet our principals and do a profile of our business.” Another one wants to become a “rock star-type celebrity” in his industry.

Well, I’d like to win the lottery, but at least I know I have to buy a ticket first in order to be in the running.

Got any thoughts on this subject?

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Top Content

In case you missed some of our posts, here are the top five read of all time:

Twittering Journalists

Top 10 Story Starters For Blocked Bloggers

Newspapers: Dig The Grave 

When Billboards Go Bad

It’s The Relationship, Stupid

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