Will social media specialists go the way of the blacksmith? Yes, if you
believe Steve
Rubel, the well known Edeleman blogger. He believes the social media
manager will be extinct in a few years. Where will they go? Absorbed into the corporate marketing and PR machines, says Steve.
Steve is one of my favorite bloggers and always seems to be on top of the
latest trends. But this is one I'm hoping he misses.
Steve's argument is that PR professionals at most companies will soon be
well equipped to manage social media activities as well as a lone-wolf specialist. These
skills aren’t rocket science and can be easily picked up by a savvy inhouse communications
manager. Most companies don't have the "luxury" of these specialists
when instead they can sweep it up into existing PR or marketing organizations.
I think this would be a huge mistake.
Social media requires different skills and mindset than PR--in fact, it's
the antithesis of PR. Ever hear of a PR manager who really believes in letting
go of the messaging or allowing employees free reign to engage in wide-open
conversations? PR is about message control and spin. Don’t try to disguise
it as anything else. Public relations and “transparency” are like oil and water.
There’s no reason we can’t continue to have separate positions for social media marketing managers or strategists, and that public relations organizations can't be involved of course. As social media strategist and Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang points out, we already have specialized marketing managers in large corporations sorted by industries, mediums, and channels (ex: web marketing, search marketing, event marketing).
Here's what really bothers me.
Continue reading "Killing off the Social Media Specialist " »
... and not realizing it?
Now's a good time to think about your skills and how well you're positioned for the Brave New World barreling down on us.
Here's a good place to start.
Robert Scoble started a list of obsolete skills a few weeks ago here and that later led to a giant and growing wiki .
Scoble's list was pretty straight forward:
1. Dialing a rotary phone.
2. Putting a needle on a vinyl record.
3. Changing tracks on an eight-track tape.
4. Shorthand.
5. Using a slide rule.
6. Using carbon paper to make copies.
7. Developing film/photos.
8. Changing the ball or ribbon on your Selectric Typewriter.
9. Getting off the couch to change channels on your TV set.
10. Adjusting the rabbit ears on your TV set.
11. Changing the gas mixture on your car’s carburetor.
But the longer list--and you can argue about some of these all night--is much more wide ranging. Some of these were blown out by new technology ("adjusting rabbit ears on a TV", "dialing a rotary phone") others a reflection of changing lifestyles and mass marketing. Who has their milk delivered to their homes anymore? Is "knowing your neighbors" now dead? Are "good manners" history?
Some just faded away quietly. Remember carbon paper or when you had to actually focus a camera or format a floppy? What about percolating coffee?
Some are arguable. Is "common sense" really dead (maybe). Have we truly lost the ability to think--and "drive" (driving a car is listed as a lost skill). What about "read a map?"
So what skills will be obsolete in five or ten years?
Will "writing" be dead? Already "texting" "IM-ing" and "twittering" has replaced true prose in most of the blogosphere--so what's next?
Steve Rubel raises a good question, as to whether online communities can ever "stick" for any length of time. Most don't last for long. He goes down a long laundry list--The Well, Tripod, GeoCities, Friendster and so on. Remember CompuServe? All had communities at one time. All came and went. Now it's even more competitive and complex, and the stakes are higher. What does this mean for the likes of a FaceBook or MySpace, let alone a smaller fry like Yelp?
He points out that only a handful of sites endure over a dozen years. Those sites all have "moats" that protect them, he says. "These barriers to entry include peer-to-peer commerce (in the case of Edelman client eBay), robust user reviews (Amazon.com) and deep entrenchment in vertical markets (BlackPlanet.com)."
Besides the moats, I'd also say at least in the case of Amazon, they know how to really serve their customer, uh I mean community visitor. Their user review system is the best. The sales process is automated and smooth, and of course, they use all of their intelligence to tailor choices to each "If you like XYZ book, you might consider ...."
So it may be mixing apples and oranges, but Amazon does have a community of sorts, mixed with a powerful e-commerce machine--and it works. By comparison, so far, as Facebook tries to overlay a new marketing system on top of its former community site (while sucking in millions of oldsters like me), it's messy at best. Complaints about violation of privacy run rampant.
My guess is that community sites come and go because that is the nature of communities,which are fleeting and fluid, not much different than past times, when neighbors would convene at the local coffee shop to trade gossip (and still do). Some of those last for years, but in other cases they break up after a few weeks or months. Facebook's juggling act is to try to keep people connected and coming back, while they try a slew of marketing schemes to milk everything they can out of this model. They are trying to defy gravity, in a sense, and break from the past. They'll probably pull it off, but don't bet the farm on it lasting forever. The ghosts of The Well and all of the others say otherwise.
The
New Rules of Marketing and PR (David Meerman Scott)
I liked this book. Well
organized and thought out, it outlines a new approach to marketing and PR,
using Web 2.0 tools. The old days of mass marketing and PR has been
replaced. Now it’s all about conversations, interaction, and appealing directly
to the user’s needs. You’d better give the customer the information they want,
when they want it—or kiss them goodbye.
My favorite part of the
book is where the author talks about how anyone can now be an online publisher,
even corporations. Chapter nine outlines the “content rich website” which will
undoubtedly replace the old marketing-driven website of the 1990s, with these
focusing on the viewer/reader. Other good chapters on “branding your company as
a trusted resource,” blogging to reach your buyers, and the usual stuff on wikis,
podcasting, and other web 2.0 tools.
David covers a lot of
strategic and practical ground. As the Amazon review puts it, this book,
“provides the technical novice a thoughtful and accessible guide to
cutting-edge media arenas and formats such as RSS, podcasts and viral
marketing, without neglecting the fact that technological wizardry can't
substitute for a well-thought out marketing program. This may even be a better
book than The New Influencers, which I also liked (see review).
Other noteworthy books
(which I’m either reading or will be reading soon):
1) Online
Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25
Successful Online Marketing Gurus (Michael Miller)
Covers everything from web design to
blog marketing and online advertising. Nice array of bloggers and writers.
2) Radically Transparent (Andy
Beal and Judy Strauss)
Andy Beal writes a great
blog so this is bound to be a good book. Written for any marketer or PR
manager-or anyone—who has to deal with online reputations—whether you’re trying
to polish your company’s reputation, or someone has blasted you.
Continue reading "Books on Social Media Marketing (and more) " »
People are still scratching their heads, wondering how Hillary Clinton pulled off a stunning upset in New Hampshire over Barack Obama. The media and pundits, blinded by the polls and Obama's rock star speeches and crowds, had written her off. But if her speaking and communications skills played a role--and of course they did--you have to look at what she did the last five days leading up to the vote.
One knock against Hillary has always been that she's not likable--too cold, too political, driven by polls, not the people. But in the NH TV debate, and later on the stump, she showed a different face--more humble, more giving, more human. Critics called it just another Clinton gimmick--remember "slick Willie's" reputation in the 90s? And when she almost teared up in front of a crowd later (photo above), and began talking about how hard it's been and how she truly wants a better country, some pundits said the "stunt" could backfire--a show of weakness, they said.
In fact, it may have had just the opposite effect, grabbing media attention and galvanizing the women vote. After losing the women vote in Iowa, she won it back in NH, 46 percent to 34 percent. According to the TV talking heads and exit interviews, some women said they decided to give her another look after hearing her emotional-charged statements. Some talked about how hard women have worked over the last generation to rise in corporations and political offices in this country. The Hillary episode may have reminded some of the long, hard trail, turning Hillary into a lightning rod for a larger issue--at least for the moment. And that's all she needed-a moment to show her human side.
""I think she's human. I think she's got the clout," said Joyce Connelly, 76, an independent from Laconia, N.H. in a newspaper interview.
Another woman, interviewed on NPR, said she "woke up that morning and knew I had to vote for her (she was going to vote for Obama). It almost felt like a duty. What was I thinking before?"
No one will argue that this one issue won Hillary over in NH, or that women are voting for her soley because she's a woman. But one would be equally naive to think her new and improved speaking style--see my last post--isn't giving her a big boost. She may not be an Obama, or even rival her husband Bill as a silver tongued orator, but she's finding her true voice--one more authentic, richer, more believable. Too bad she couldn't have found it earlier, but better late than never. Look for a very interesting race going forward.
Bert Decker, the presentations skills guru, published his annual list of the top ten best (and worst) communicators recently, and it's worth a peek. It's a reasonably good list, with some blatant exceptions.
First, where is Barack Obama? While Bert listed Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, he left out Obama, who's hands-down the most eloquent public speaker running for office, as he showed in the recent NH debate. He has an uncanny ability to distill complex issues into simple but compelling messages--and deliver them with passion and even fury, engaging with audiences on an emotional level we haven't seen in years. His victory speech after Iowa rekindled memories of Martin Luther King.
Huckabee, by the way, also demonstrated strong skills on the stump in Iowa and NH. In the NH debate, he nailed several issues with clear, direct answers and an unwavering, direct style--such strong eye contact, at times he seems to be almost looking through the camera. I don't know if it's his baptist preacher background, but it's clear he has an iron-clad conviction when he speaks (compare that to Bush, below).
By comparison, Fred Thompson (on Bert's Worst List) stumbled and bumbled through his answers, making you wonder if he was even tuned in at times.
While we're talking politics, you can't forget Hillary Clinton. While she's not the orator that Obama is, she has improved dramatically the last year. She's managed to soften her image slightly, and seems more likable at times--witness the exchange during the NY debate when she joked about "being hurt" by the popularity comparisons with Obama. "I don't think I"m that bad," she joked. She's sharp and articulate on the issues and shows steely nerve, when needed. Yet she can still lose her cool, as she did during the debate when John Edwards said she reflected the status quo and was against change. She almost came out of the chair yelling back at him. Note to Hillary: chill.
Bert also put Bush on the "worst" list, and for good reason. Amazingly, Bush has actually gone backwards since being in office when it comes to personal speaking style, picking up odd mannerisms and behaviors that would fail him in a college speech class (example: the infamous head cock). See "Managing the Bush Twitch"
Moving on, and back to the list. I had two other qualms. Maria Bartiromo and Glenn Beck, two TV personalities, should be kicked off the list. Bartiromo is certainly attractive and may be an ok correspondent for CNBC, but as she showed in the documentary on Alan Greenspan a few months ago, she's no heavy hitter. Indeed she spent much of the hour gushing over the former fed chairman like a swooning cheerleader, and focusing on silly questions like how he thinks in the bathtub. Beck is just loud and obnoxious and just a notch over Suzy Orman, another scary woman who made it on Bert's worst list.
The only one who beats out both of them is Nancy Grace, the loud-mouthed TV commentator who proves that you don't have to have any class or speaking skills to make it on TV. She's on the "worst" list. Good job on that one Bert.
Everyone agrees that today's media--and journalism in particular--is going through a major transition. The question is, can today's traditional media-newspapers, network TV, etc--make the leap to the new world? More specifically, can individual journalists make the leap?
The jury is still out but many people are skeptical about the future of this business. Who can blame them with print publications fading so fast--Business 2.0 was the last to bite the dust with their October edition. And as you can see from this debate ("Losing the Journalistic Security Blanket") in the Media Shift blog, some skeptics don't even think journalists will be able to handle comments.
That argument seems logical: Journalists are sheltered and stuck in their own worlds, accustomed to a top-down system where information only flows one way. Compared to the traditional media, the new rough and tumble world of blogging is a free-for-all. No one cares if you have a media brand behind you--the halo doesn't work in the blogosphere, where everyone has an equal voice. They'll never adjust, the argument goes.
I disagree for several reasons.
1. Journalists aren't stupid--they see today's trends and know where it's going. Yes the newsrooms may still look the same but below the surface there's a lot of energy going into adjusting to the new media world. Many reporters, including more than a dozen or so of my old BusinessWeek colleagues, are already blogging.
2. Comments create excitement, and interest in their stories. Static stories can be boring, but mix in a few comments and you have an interesting debate. While some thin skin reporters cringe at any criticism, others welcome any feedback. If nothing else, you appreciate the fact someone is reading your stories.
3. Content is king: Journalists are professionally trained to dig up interesting stories and spin them for their audiences. Content and "the story" still carry the day in the blogosphere. Some journalists may need to adjust to the style--shorter, punchier, etc--but that's relatively easy for the good ones.
4. Blogging is liberating: Magazine journalists get tired of writing for heavy-handed editors, often having to write within restrictive guidelines (newspaper reporters seem to have enormous freedom, by comparison, but they get burned out too). Blogging enables them to speak their minds more freely and use their own style. It also allows them to create valuable connections with readers.
Continue reading "Five Reasons Journalists Will Adapt to the New Media World (Like it or Not)" »
The debate within the PR community rages on around Wired Editor in Chief Chris Anderson's public decision a few weeks ago to ban dozens of PR folks from his email after they spammed him with what he called stupid or irrelevant story ideas (Anderson is author of The Long Tail) What made this different was he did it publicly--"Sorry PR People You're Blocked" , so now they can't pitch him anything--at least from a specific email address. After blasting the "lazy flacks", he offered a clarification Nov. 1, saying he wasn't blocking entire domains, just individuals--presumably sloppy PR people who blast out aimless emails, he says. Chris' "outing" of the villainous PR types has caused an outcry in the
PR community. I heard it again last week at an SVAMA conference in San
Jose, and he's received hundreds of comments, many of them screaming foul--ironically, creating
publicity for himself (see my comment to the original post below).
What's really interesting is that despite all the hype and hoopla about the new "age of the conversation," the PR model hasn't really changed since I was writing for BusinessWeek over 15 years ago.
Companies, as one commenter pointed out, want big name editors/pubs on their media list. It makes them feel better, even if your chances are slim of getting any ink. Overloaded agencies assign junior account people to the account and loosely supervise them. Junior PR person doesn't do his homework--why read the magazine anyhow?-- and sends out press releases and memos pumping up their client's product or business.
The editor could be toying around with five or six story ideas, and open to others--but it takes some work figuring that out (reading the last few articles, seeing what he's blogging about, what his rivals are writing about, exploring trends in his industry and subject matter). Why do all this when you can blast him with a bunch of press releases?
You have to wonder, after all these years, and so many smart people in this profession, why it still goes on? Perhaps, because: a) Corporate client pays the bill and doesn't ask questions. b) the industry still has an abundance of young, ambitious but inexperienced people c) it does work perhaps 1% of the time (this is the lottery approach). Take your guess, but it's probably a mixture of all three.
Clearly the industry needs to come up with a new model, and there is some movement in the right direction. One idea is to quit pitching editors like Anderson, who claims to get 300 emails a day, and work with the client to create something of value. This might be a new website or blog with a collection of interesting and worthy materials on a given subject. You could invite guest columnists or bloggers and build up a central platform on your subject. The technology is all there, and today companies can just as easily be publishers as the Wireds of the world. Then you have something you can pitch to the editors--information that might actually help them do their job. This is just one idea, but the point is to move beyond the old "dialing for dollars" model and do something of value, for the client and the editor. Get creative.
Longer term, technology and editors like Anderson will go a long way toward weeding this out. But don't expect it to be solved quickly. Meanwhile the cat and mouse game continues. This time the cat struck back.
My comment to the original post:
Continue reading "Wired vs PR Flacks--the Debate Rages On" »
What's amazing is how one agency can continue tripping over itself. After suffering through Katrina, FEMA looked like it had finally come up with a solution during the recent California wildfire crisis for bad media coverage: stage a fake press conference. It goes like this: plant the "reporters" (FEMA employees) to ask softball questions and let the FEMA official, No. 2 man Harvey Johnson, appear to be in control ( "Are you happy with FEMA's response so far"? Harvey: Yes, very happy. Next question..") Real reporters were only given 15 minutes notice to call into the press conference, and then had to sit on the phone and listen--no questions allowed in the FEMA press conference model. This helps keep things rolling along a lot more smoothly.
We'll see if this model catches on anywhere else, maybe even corporate America. Imagine when Steve Jobs hears about it--no more whiny reporters to deal with (or maybe we could have the Fake Steve Jobs hold a fake Apple press conference and see where it goes).
Meantime, Federal Emergency Management Agency chief David Paulison is ripping his own agency for the debacle and No. 2 man Johnson is complaining that he knew nothing about it (wait--how did he know that "reporter" to call on by name?).
Where's "Brownie" when we need him?
And here's the latest kicker: FEMA held another press conference featuring Michael Chertoff, head of Homeland Security, but-- get this--they only invited a select number of reporters and only one TV news crew (AP), according to CNN (check this video out).
Oh, and the guy responsible for it all, Pat Philbin, won't be getting a new job as director of public affairs for the head of national intelligence. We'll see if he holds a press conference to announce his next move.
