David Meerman Scott's Blog, page 69

Do you know what Public Relations is?

Somehow many corporate executives and even some PR professionals have lost sight of what public relations is. I still hear people confuse media relations with public relations.

Public Relations: How an organization engages with its publics.

The problem is that many people still assume we’re in 1994 when the only effective way to communicate with the public was via mainstream media. These people insist that public relations is exclusively media relations and staff their organization accordingly. This is a mistake.

Media relations: Working through journalists to reach your publics.

What people need to realize is that these are different activities. Of course, media relations is still valid as a way to get attention. Who doesn't want to be quoted in an important newspaper, magazine, or television show?

Public Relations is about content

PR is about reaching your audience. There are many more ways to do that than just via the media: Great website content, YouTube videos, blog posts, ebooks, charts, graphs, photos, a Twitter feed, a presence in Foursquare, Instagram, and so much more.

A few days ago I wrote about what Vodafone Egypt is doing. There’s no doubt communicating via Facebook and Twitter is public relations for them.

Added bonus: Career advice for Public Relations professionals

I first offered this advice back in 2010 but my sense is that some PR pros still need to hear now: You need to decide if you want to be a public relations expert (helping people reach their publics through, content creation, mainstream media, and social media) or if you want to specialize in the narrower focus of media relations (limit your skills to just influencing mainstream media).

It’s an important distinction. If you want to do the former, you need to learn some new skills.

Photo by David Meerman Scott taken in Cairo airport.

Newsjacking leads people directly into the buying process

The idea of newsjacking is quite simple: it is the art and science of injecting your ideas into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage and social attention for yourself or your business.

Thousands of people have used the technique to get their take into news stories.

Frequently people push back and say that newsjacking is frivolous. So what if you get into the news, they say, we’re interested in making sales. Well there is no question: Newsjacking drives new business.

Real-time content creation

Many companies now use newsjacking not just as a PR technique but also as a tool to generate B2B sales leads and drive new business for consumer brands. It works even in highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance.

Last week after my keynote at the Healthcare Internet Conference, Jeremy Harrison of MultiCare Health System shared a cool newsjacking example.

MultiCare is an integrated health organization made up of hospitals, primary care and urgent care clinics, multi-specialty centers, Hospice, Home Health, and other services, located in Washington state.

Jeremy says that they sprung to action, publishing real-time content to become a part of a conversation happening online after an emotional episode of the popular TV drama Downton Abbey dealing with eclampsia.

The team wrote a blog post right away and shared it on Facebook and Twitter. The post Doctor Q&A: Downton Abbey Highlights Dangers Of Eclampsia that was available the day after the episode aired in January 2013 right when people were discussing eclampsia. Within the blog post were links where interested people could learn more or book an appointment with a physician.

Cole Cosgrove wrote the story. He's one of four former journalists on the MultiCare Health digital content team and a talented writer. I love how MultiCare Health brings the newsroom mindset to content creation.



Driving people into the buying process

The blog post quickly generated well over 1,000 pageviews, with people spending an average of five minutes on the page.

Jeremy can directly trace about 30 clicks through to the MultiCare Find a Physician page in their Women’s & Children’s careline, the place where they can book appointments.



As Jeremy’s story of how Newsjacking helped drive people into MultiCare’s buying process shows, being a part of the conversations around breaking news stories can drive business.

Twitter IPO

I’ve been thinking about the Twitter IPO happening this week.

I’m not a financial professional and can’t comment on the financial stuff which bores me so much that my hair hurts – so I have no opinion on things like revenue and profit. Rather, I look at the big picture and invest in what I know.

Ever since Twitter launched, people have been calling the social networking service a fad. Tons of people have predicted its demise. But it seems to me that Twitter is unique enough and has a critical mass of global users to be a viable community for a long time to come.

People sometimes say that the growth of users hasn’t been as strong as Facebook. True, but with an average of 5,700 tweets per second, people are using the service.

Everywhere I travel in the world, people are active on Twitter. The company says some three quarters of its users are outside the US. Just last week in Cairo, Egypt and Doha, Qatar I met dozens of people who love Twitter and I connected with them on the service. The global aspect of Twitter should fuel growth for years to come even if the domestic market slows. There is always room for a global service to connect people from all over the world.

Twitter killer? No way!

Whenever a successful new category of social network is born, entrepreneurs line up to build a better version and pundits dub it a “killer”. How many search engines have launched as “Google killers”? How about “Facebook killers” (the most recent high profile one being Google plus)?

However, in my experience, once a social network builds critical mass, it is nearly impossible for a competitor to dislodge the number one position. Quick, what is the second largest social network in these categories? Video (YouTube #1), Photo manipulation and sharing (Instagram #1), Location based network (Foursquare #1), social network (Facebook #1), professional network (LinkedIn #1), physical product review site (Amazon #1)? They each have a bunch of wannabes. But the imitators are also-rans with miniscule market share.

While it might be easy to build a “better service than Twitter” it will be impossible to get the hundred million or so users to move over to the new network. There is only one Twitter.

There's only one LinkedIn, one Facebook, one Google, one Amazon, one Foursquare.

And there is only one Twitter.

For these reasons, I am bullish on the Twitter IPO.

Disclosure: I have an order in with my broker to buy some shares.

Vodafone Egypt proves big brands can master Facebook and Twitter

Last week I presented a Masterclass in Cairo and had an opportunity to meet with many marketers who are using real-time engagement and social media effectively to reach customers in the Egypt market.

In particular, Vodafone Egypt is very active and successful in using Twitter and Facebook for real-time customer service.

I spoke with Ahmed Sabry, CEO of IT Vision, a Cairo-based Digital Marketing Agency working with Vodafone Egypt to learn more.

Vodafone Egypt proves a big brand can master Facebook and Twitter

With 4.5 million Facebook likes, Vodafone Egypt has the largest presence on Facebook in the Middle East. On Twitter, they’ve got well over 300,000 followers at @VodafoneEgypt.

According to Ahmed, the company employs 25 social media specialists organized into teams who focus exclusively on social media. Besides Facebook and Twitter, they are also active in networks like Instagram and Foursquare.

They create content and interact both in Arabic and in English.

Each team specializes in one network and they operate 24x7. Team members follow what’s being said and if required respond immediately. In true real-time fashion, anyone who makes a customer service queries via one of the networks gets an instant response.

Social media fuels growth

Partly through its excellent social media customer support, Vodafone Egypt has grown to become the leading mobile operator in Egypt based on both revenue share and, with more than 36 million, the number of customers.

While it is impossible to make a definitive correlation between growth and social media customer support, it isn’t surprising to me that the company with the best real-time engagement is also the one with the largest market share.

Social media and crisis communications

Talking about crisis communications in a country that has recently gone through revolution and currently still operates under curfews and has almost daily protests may seem rather odd. But people draw a distinction between what’s going on politically (seemingly constant crisis) and what is happening with the companies they do business with.

This became an issue for Vodafone Egypt when the company ran a Shokran ("Thank You" in Arabic) campaign during the month of Ramadan in 2011.

The social media campaign encouraged people to show their appreciation to someone that they wanted to thank. Vodafone Egypt promised to retweet messages using the hashtag #VodafoneShokran and measured who got the most votes.

When supporters of former president Hosni Mubarak voted him to the top of the list, suddenly a fun social game became political and turned into a crisis.

The social mead team flagged the issue and very quickly executives decided that Mubarak needed to be removed. People vented on Twitter using the hashtag, but it could have been worse if the company didn’t act quickly.

In fact, according to Ahmed, Vodafone Egypt faces a social crisis nearly every month. But they have real-time monitoring tools in place so they know immediately what’s going on and they can deal with it right away. And once they engage, they monitor so they know if mentions are increasing or decreasing.

I’m often asked by executives of large organizations if real-time customer engagement via social networks is effective. With 4.5 million fans and real-time engagement at Vodafone Egypt driving the company to number one in the market, we have one more concrete example that the answer is yes.

No Woman No Drive

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia it is forbidden for women to drive a car.

Though there is no official law banning women from driving, they cannot be issued a drivers license.

Every now and then a brave woman defies the men in her life and risks arrest by going for a public spin. In recent days several women, perhaps aligned with the Women2Drive movement, have publicly tested the ban by driving in full view of the media and the police.

But it is Saudi comedian Hisham Fageeh who has really shined a spotlight on the ban with his fantastic take on Bob Marley’s “No Woman No Cry”. Fageeh’s YouTube video is at 5 million views in a few days and is climbing fast.

Direct link to No Woman, No Drive on YouTube

Humor is Truth

Sometimes, the best way to promote your cause is to use humor.

Saudi Arabia has the largest number of YouTube views per capita so this video is a great way to bring the issue of women and driving out into the open.

Three out of four customers annoyed

I have exercised in over 100 hotel gyms. Some are great, fully outfitted with the latest gear. Some are tired and broken down.

Today as I was doing my morning workout, I was thinking about how these rooms get put together.

Does any hotel developer actually interview potential guests before they plan and construct the gym? It doesn’t appear so.

Some, like the gym at the Stella Di Mare Hotel in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt where I am today (and is in the photo here) have interesting views. But most gyms are relegated to the hotel basement. Why?

How do they decide what equipment to buy and in what quantities? They must just study existing gyms and do what every other hotel does.

“Because everyone does it this way” isn’t the right way

The accepted ratio seems to be two treadmills for every one elliptical. Why?

The stationary bikes are nearly always empty of riders. Who decided on wasting money on those things? (My theory is they were popular in the 1970s but nobody told the hotel gym people.)

And for something really weird, consider that no matter how large or how small the hotel gym, there is always precisely one set of dumbbells! In the tiny Courtyard Marriott gym in Bangor, Maine (where I was about ten days ago) there was just one treadmill, one bike, and one elliptical. Yet they had one set of dumbbells. But at the Intercontinental in Cairo, which boasts a huge gym with some three dozen pieces of equipment that were mostly unused while I was there this weekend, I witnessed four people sharing one set of dumbbells.

"Dude, turn off the music."

Don’t even get me started on the music. Nearly all hotel gyms play music. Loud music. But at the same time, my informal analysis shows that about 75% of people in the gym wear headsets (usually in Apple white).

So while customers listen to their personal iTunes music selection, perhaps enjoy an audiobook, or they plug into the exercise equipment’s integrated television screen sound, the gym still pumps in the music. An annoying musical clash results, so people play their music with enough volume to overpower the gym music. Do hotels operators realize they are contributing to customers' hearing loss?

Who the heck decides to annoy 75% of their customers with a practice that can be fixed in one second?

Understanding your buyers

Why not learn from what people actually do in the gym and turn the damned music off? Why not get a second set of dumbbells?

Of course, this isn't a post about hotel gyms. It is about understanding your buyers.

When does an insurance agent enjoy a car crash?

With my friend Larry McGlynn, I went to the Nantucket Demolition Derby recently. It was a great day watching car crashes in beautiful autumn weather.

Larry is president of McGlynn, Clinton & Hall Insurance Agencies and is my agent. Larry is a funny guy so I’m always thinking of bad insurance humor.

“Larry, there are going to be a bunch of auto policy claims from today.” I said with a wink.

Larry laughed. “Yeah, this is the only time an insurance agent can enjoy a car crash.”

“Hey, is my rental car covered?,” I asked. “Maybe take a spin in the next heat!”

That got us to plotting. No, I didn’t crash my rental car in the next heat. Rather, we shot a YouTube video.

Larry has been writing the Massachusetts Family Insurance blog for over a year now. So he understands how interesting content can serve as marketing for his insurance business.

Larry pulled out his iPhone and shot a few minutes of footage. Upon returning home he had it edited into this fun little video.

Direct link to When does an insurance agent enjoy a car crash? on YouTube.

When I speak with entrepreneurs like Larry, so many of them push back on content creation. “I’m just a ______________ (fill in the blank - lawyer, doctor, restaurant owner, software entrepreneur, whatever...),” they say. “There’s nothing interesting about my business that I can write about or do a video about.”

Nonsense.

There’s always something interesting to create content about if you keep your mind open.

Have your iPhone ready. Interview a customer. Make a short film about something interesting in your market.

It’s never been easier to create content. It's all around you if you just take a look.

Making stuff up

One of the biggest problems with marketing is that marketers just make stuff up.

We marketers hang out in hip conference rooms equipped with stylish Aeron chairs, drinking designer water, and we say we are marketing.

Your company conference room is not where marketing strategy should develop. And it’s not your agency conference room either.

Making stuff up

Sitting around a conference room with your colleagues and agency staffers results in groupthink that's not tied to the realities of the marketplace. This behavior means you start by talking about product features, then reverse engineer benefits that you think you provide, which results in "marketing" around the made up benefits.

This is just making “stuff” up (you can substitute another word in the “S...” position if you’re less polite than me).

Get the heck out of your nice comfortable office

You've got to get out into your marketplace and meet with potential customers who have the problems that your organization solves.

You need to understand your buyers and what motivates them.

You need to know the words and phrases that buyers use. What is the actual language they use to describe problems they have that you might solve?

Only then will you be able to educate and inform your buyers with valuable and interesting content that generates high search engine rankings.

Only then, can you create the content that buyers will be eager to consume and that they will love to share on social networks.

And that content is your marketing.

Disruption as marketing

Most music artists use the usual route to launch a record – try to get radio airplay and try to get the media to write a review.

That’s not what Ronnie Dunn did to launch three new songs. Instead he performed a guerrilla gig from the roof of a restaurant, playing as the CMT Music Awards show audience was filing out of the venue next door.

Since Ronnie Dunn is well known to the country music world - his duo Brooks and Dunn have won more Country Music Association awards and Academy of Country Music awards than any act in the history of country music and sold 30 million records - fifteen thousand people gathered to watch the gig. He created quite the scene!

At his home in Nashville, I interviewed Ronnie about the disruption.

Direct link to Ronnie Dunn discusses disruption as a music marketing technique on YouTube.

Disruption

Live video of Ronnie's performance was projected onto the walls of Rippy's (where he was playing) and two other nearby music venues, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and Honky Tonk Central. At the same time his @RonnieDunn Twitter handle and hashtags were projected onto the roof of the nearby Ryman Auditorium. As Ronnie says in the interview, that aspect of the disruption caused him some trouble.

The hoopla generated tons of attention for Ronnie’s music as people shared on social media and the music press wrote about the surprise appearance.

Country Weekly: Ronnie Dunn Ambushes CMA Music Fest

USA Today: Ronnie Dunn debuts new single on Nashville rooftop

Put yourself out there

In the past, Ronnie has generated great success using mainstream methods. His fan base allows him to enjoy continued success no matter what direction he goes.

But his choice to put himself out there to give fans a surprise means that he stays relevant.

Ronnie uses Facebook to engage with fans on a regular basis, with many of his posts generating thousands of likes.

And heck, he even quotes Seth Godin in my interview. He's a marketing geek!

Passion

I recently purchased a new surfboard.

For a while I wanted a board that is shorter than my 9’6” longboard but still forgiving of my mediocre surfing skills. So I settled on an 8’0” Spyder Wright.

Spyder has been making surfboards for fifty years(!).

Spyder was a champion surfer and still surfs nearly every day and it shows -- the man is fit.

He lives six months a year in Hawaii and six months on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts.

What a life!

Spyder Wright has turned his passion into his work. You have to admire someone who successfully makes a living with what he loves.

I speak with so many people are stuck in jobs they don’t like. Spyder shows us there is an alternative.