One of the first things I learned in marketing was to “mirror” my audience’s behavior.  For example, working at an agency for years, we learned to watch the body language of the executives in the room. Lean forward at the boardroom table if they lean forward, be more relaxed if they are more relaxed. If the client was visiting and he or she was a “corporate” type and wore a suit, the entire marketing/PR team would suit up for the meeting. Mirroring your audience goes further today to understand their experience.

It’s all about the experience.  Listening, making connections, sharing what’s relevant and of value to build stronger relationships.  You can do this online and in the physical setting. There are audiences that you should think about daily so that your experience with them grows into a trusted relationship.  One of the most important relationships is the one you have with executives and/or the CEO of the company.  In order to move your relationship to the next level, you need to think about their experience and what they expect from you.

Let’s start with the CEO or the executives that you work with.  It doesn’t matter if you’re on the same team (in-house marketing for a brand, non-profit, etc.) or you’re the agency partner, the amount of relevance and value the executives experience with you and your interactions will determine your level of relationships success.  It’s important for you to think like the executives to deliver what they need from their communication professionals.

Here is your list of things to think about when you interact with the CEO to make his or her experience better:

• Leads, sales, and the sales cycle
• Employee recruitment
• Employee productivity
• Strategic partnerships
• Customer service satisfaction levels
• Company coverage and endorsements
• Crisis mitigation
• Brand reputation
• Competitor activity in the market

These are a few areas when highlighted and measured, as a part of your communications programs enhance the executives’ experience with you.  Now, this does not mean that your executives don’t care about the many other important areas related to communications and your job function, or the programs you create and implement.  Executives only have so much time in a day, and they’re focused on specific indicators that move the business toward profitability and a more favorable reputation in the eyes of the public.  If you only have a brief window of opportunity with your executives, then you want to be prepared to make their experience with you as relevant and valuable as possible.  Organize the information that’s a part of their world and bring it to the table. You will see your relationships with executives grow to new levels of trust and respect.

What valuable information do you think about and share with your executives to enhance their experience?

For those of you who caught my December 7^th Vocus Webinar on “The Techniques of the New PR Champion,” here’s Part II of the Q&A. I can tell from the number of questions, (there were over 65 with some duplication), PR professionals are ready to embrace new practices and they’re looking at 2012 as a year with increased social media responsibilities.  If you missed Part I of the Q&A, you can find it here.

1. What is the best way to start social media marketing?

The best way to start in social media is to “listen” or monitor conversations for keywords related to your company, its products/services, executives, competitors, and what’s trending in your industry.  These conversations will allow you to identify the people who are actively engaged in dialog relevant to your brand, in the networks where you need to participate.  You can use either free tools or paid monitoring platforms to track the conversations over a period of time. Listening enables you to know where to build social media profiles because the conversations are frequent and in-depth.  These conversations also help you to understand the critical issues of your audiences, to share more meaningful information with them.  You want your company to become a valuable resource through social media rather than using it as a channel to pump out “spammy” messages.  Setting up a monitoring platform will give you the intelligence you need to prepare a strategic program and to participate effectively.

2. What are some of the key questions we should be asking internally to determine not only where our resources should go, but also how deep into each of these segments we should delve?

This is a great question and so many communications professionals overlook the “why” of social media.  The very first question is to ask, “Why do we need social media and do we really need to be everywhere?” The “why part” will also unfold into:  Whom are we trying to engage?  Where do they congregate?  What specific outcome are we looking to achieve?  Before beginning your program, you should also be asking simple resource questions including:

• Who will be managing the social media program? Will it be a collaborative effort in the communications department and/or what other departments will be involved?
• Where are we participating now and have those efforts been consistently managed from a resources perspective?
• What types of content do we have available that we can use to engage people vs. developing new content, if we’re short on resources?
• How much time will we need to devote to social media with other types of communications efforts in play?
• How are we going to collaborate internally to advance the organization’s sharing and innovation, which is an efficient and more productive way to approach social media?

3. When you say duplicate others efforts, does this indicate we should cut back on RTing?

Duplicating efforts doesn’t necessarily mean cutting back on RTing.  As a matter of fact it makes the RTing more effective.  For example, when you have several departments working on a company-wide program, let’s say a big tradeshow, there is an opportunity to share similar content and to time the release of information for more impact.  You may also want to consider one set of links for posting that lead back to a central landing area, rather than different departments having their own links and separate landing pages for the same content. It’s more organized to have a one set of links driving to a hub, and it’s a lot easier to keep track.  Using internal calendaring or a universal calendar system gives employees access to approved content they can share and then other departments can retweet or support the effort by posting it in their networks.  The more you coordinate the sharing of content, based on timing, themes, keywords, etc., and support one another’s participation, the easier it will be to track and see the success of your efforts.

4. How do you know you are getting good ROI on Twitter, especially?

There are so many different tools to measure Twitter activity.  You can use Twitalyzer, TweetStats and TweetEfect, which will tell you everything from who shares your content the most, the frequency of your retweets, and even which tweets build your community as opposed to the tweets that make you lose followers. However, when you really want to see the ROI, it’s best to use a specific link in a tweet that directs your Twitter followers to a landing page, where you can track their actions. For example, perhaps you want them to register for an event or sign up to download an ebook? Where social media measurement ends, website analytics begin.  Using a link to a landing page allows you to track from click to conversation.  I frequently mention the simple example of Dell using a link to a promotion via Twitter. By offering a link to a discount deal on a PC, Dell was able to track $3 million in sales.

5. Can you give a B2B example of a company effectively using social media?

There are many B2B examples but one that comes to mind is Dunn & Bradstreet (D&B). They use social media including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn as an extension of how they connect with, and are a resource to, their customers, prospects and the community at large. For D&B, social media is part of how they bring their data to life; they live up to their brand by being a dynamic company and one that wants to connect D&B users, as much as possible, with the people behind the data and their insights. Similar to D&B, IBM was among the first to recognize that allowing their employees to engage directly with their customers through social media made their customer’s feel even closer to the brand.  Other B2B companies using social media successfully are: Cisco, SAP, Intel, and Network Solutions.

6. What is the best process on finding advocates?

Social media champions can be your internal employees who naturally raise their hands and want to be a part of social media on behalf of the company.  These are the people who take the initiative to start and manage the first social media profiles.  These individuals are great candidates to participate on a Social Media Core Team for strategy or to be a part of your Social Media Coalition, which handles a lot of the day to day activities on your social media properties.

The external brand advocates or champions come in many shapes and sizes. You can have customer advocates who engage, use your products and naturally want to share the information in their networks.  When you set up the monitoring of your keywords you can usually uncover these champions and their favorable reviews and endorsements.  They also make themselves very visible on your social media properties, constantly thanking you and looking for more information to share.  There are also influencers or champions who take an interest in what you do based on an interest they have in your industry. They, too, can be uncovered by listening to the conversations in different networks.  Of course, with these bloggers, you want to do some homework to identify their level of influence and the communities where they participate. It’s important to take the time to get to know them before you jump into the conversations.

In both cases, your once you pinpoint the needs of your champions, they are willing to share relevant and meaningful information with their communities. Suddenly you have an audience of audiences, happy to further the reach of your stories, further lending credibility to your brand.

7. I am the only person focusing on social media in my company, do you recommend focusing on a few channels or touching on many channels less frequently?

With scarce resources, I would definitely recommend focusing on a few channels and mastering engagement in those places, rather than spreading yourself too thin.  The pace you set from the onset has to be maintained, and if all goes well, it will increase based on engagement with your customers and other stakeholders.  Too many times I’ve seen companies very enthusiastic about social media participation to later find out months down the road they can’t keep up with the activity and many of their profiles go “dark.” Remember, we are dealing with people and their interests. If someone visits your Facebook page and you haven’t taken the time to post in two months, there are plenty of other places for them to engage with more interesting organizations.  People also want to interact with people, so it’s especially important that you have the resources to have a personal presence and to attend to your audiences needs, rather than just use a timed feed of updates or tweets.

8. What method do you recommend for measuring the effectiveness of your PR efforts.

I measure PR in the higher-level buckets, which include financial, employee productivity, reputation and customer service levels.  When you put a social media program in place it has to be integrated with other communication and also driving to a hub where this information can be captured, from click to conversion.  In many cases, departments may look at community growth, buzz across platforms, the number of retweets on Twitter, or comments on a blog post. However on a higher level, executives want to see how social media looks with respect to leads and sales, how much money it saved the company, the brand’s reputation, endorsements and sentiment tied to public confidence, and how employee activity resulted in productivity by delivering successful projects on time and under budget.  PR can also be tied to customer satisfaction by using social media to answer questions directly, measuring customer sentiment, and gathering research and applying helpful feedback to your products and services.

9. What are the best practices a one-person shop can adopt?

A few best practices for the one -man shop include:

• Don’t be in too many places; pick a couple or a few channels and really move toward engagement with people rather than informing with outbound messages.
• Realize that you have to plan your content carefully and know in advance what you are going to share each week.  Of course you need to be active on a social site to thank people, ask and answer questions and engage with them, peer-to-peer.
• Monitor keywords carefully and filter down to exactly what you need to hear.  Focusing on the most relevant keywords based on your overall communications plan and what you’re trying to achieve will help you to maximize your efforts through social media.
• Enlist the support of other potential champions who work in the company and who may already be out there social networking.  They may be able to help you increase the your reach and also help you to listen for negative conversations that surface.
• Set up a good monitoring system and have it tied to your mobile device, especially if you find yourself away from your computer for a good portion of the day.
• Realize you can pre-plan and time certain updates and tweets when you know you have a scheduled meeting or you are in transit.  But, be sure to check back with your community to make sure they don’t have any specific questions or issues.
• Monitor and measure frequently, so you can show progress and benchmark small wins. This may lead to additional resources moving forward.

10. What was the website to look up the best practices social media policies?

One of the best websites to help you in your social media policy development is www.socialmediagovernance.com.  The site has over 100 best practice social media policies for you to review.

It’s never too early to make predictions.  As I watched the Holiday decorations go up in my neighborhood over the weekend (I know, it’s not even Thanksgiving yet), it made me think about 2012 and the years to come.  So, here is my “moving forward” post on what going to happen in PR next year, as well as what to expect as we head toward 2015:

• PR will be more integrated with marketing, advertising and customer service.  Brands will focus on earned, paid, owned and sponsored media in their media mix, further promoting the integration.

• PR will be an important component of social customer relationship management, as we become even more involved in customer facing issues, especially as they pertain to marketing, sales, service and support. PR will continue to collaborate with customers to help create and empower advocates.

• PR professionals will focus on communications strategy with a permanent seat at the strategy table. We’ll help to break down the silos and to work cross functionally with other areas of our companies.  New strategies in monitoring, measurement, innovative communication, relationship building, reputation management and crisis management will give PR a direct path to the CEO.

• PR will be more focused on the business of communications creating the connections / relationships that lead to financial outcomes (leads, sales, cost savings, customer service satisfaction levels, etc.) vs. the output (physical products including blog posts, articles, tweets, etc.) and outtakes (public take-a-ways including messages, perception, opinion, etc.).  PR will be held more accountable and will have to demonstrate ROI, which is sales and revenue based.

• PR professionals will focus more on the natural fusing of communication and technology. The PR person’s daily role will include technology in communications and it will not be someone else’s job.

• PR professionals will be much more in tune with mobile communications and helping their brands create engaging interactions, as consumers use their handheld devices more frequently for search and store purchases.

• PR professionals will use a mix of traditional, digital and social media, blended together perfectly for companies to reach their audiences, where they congregate. We’ll be able to make deeper connections and to build relationships, loyalty and advocacy through any type number of channels (including new media).  PR encompasses all media and it’s our responsibility to guide brand communications through these channels.

• When we discuss “media” we know that we’re referring to all media, including journalists, bloggers and the brands with owned media channels that deliver valuable content to audiences.

• PR professionals won’t have to ask: What makes a viral campaign? How do we connect more strategically through social media? What are great examples of PR 2.0? How do you measure ROI through social media? Instead, we will be teaching and influencing others to answer these questions. We will make the difference when it comes to our own brands, because we are the greatest case study reflecting change!

Of course, all of these predictions may not happen in 2012.  But, certainly by 2015, we should be tackling this list of accomplishments. As an industry, PR has made great strides and continues to capture the attention of executives as a valuable part of a company’s communications program.  It’s time to pick up the pace, embrace new practices and put any “fears” of change aside.  As we collaborate in our own social communities, and share and innovate together, we are providing our own answers every day.  Let’s continue to forge ahead to set a great example and to secure the successful future of PR.

What are your predictions for 2012 and beyond?

I was interviewed for a virtual event called the Future of Media: Radical Integration presented by Cision, which will take place on August 23, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. ET. The question I was asked: how important is owned media in the marketing mix today; an interesting question for PR professionals, as our focus has been on relationships that result in earned media. My question and many others will be answered to show how PR and media is evolving. The event has 30 experts and 15 questions, all in one hour. I hope you will tune in to what I think will be a very informative hour. Here’s a link to register and my video about the event.

http://futureofearnedmedia.com/

My book review of Social Marketing to the Business Customer is long overdue. I read the book in preparation for the #PRStudChat April session when we asked the authors, Eric Schwartzman and Paul Gillin, to be our special guests.  This book is really good and deserves a review.  Of course, I have to disclose that I consider both Eric and Paul social media friends, yet other than the #PRStudChat session, I have no other work or business affiliations with them.

Social Marketing to the Business Customer is a valuable guide to strategic social marketing.  I also appreciate a focused book, which stays on course from start to finish. I know how difficult it is to remain on track and to strategically thread your message throughout the chapters, so the reader does not get lost in a sea of information.  This book guides you through a purposeful course; one that introduces social marketing to organization, provides the ways to listen to the market, discusses how to generate leads and how to build stronger B2B relationships.

Although many of the chapters provide excellent insight, a few of my favorite chapters include:

• Chapter 5: Creating and Supporting Social Media Policies – It’s no surprise that this is one of my favorite chapters! When you set the table for social marketing, it’s critical to make sure that policies are set in place and supported within the organization.  The authors do a great job illustrating how different areas of the organization have risk and opportunity through social media and how it’s imperative to have a policy in place.  The chart on page 60 of the book reveals the agendas of different departments within the company.

• Chapter 12: Lead Generation – Lead generation takes on an important function through social media, where generating the lead comes from getting involved in conversations and being helpful.  Chapter 12 discusses the key success factors that are common through the stages of the social funnel.  The authors focus on: content to make connections, leaving the sales speak behind, how to share your expertise and spanning the buying cycle (as they put it, “building a library of content that matches buyer interests at each phase”).  The bonus in this chapter is a chart with the nine stages of the buying process and the differences between the traditional media tools vs. the social media tools.

• Chapter 14: Return on Investment – ROI is always a tough subject to tackle especially in 14 pages.  However, the authors take a complex topic and break it down for the reader.  They realize that ROI is still a huge concern for executives and don’t use the term loosely.  They clearly point out that outputs in social media have to be measured financially.  And, they also teach the reader how many of the intangibles can be translated into financial terms. Other bonuses in this chapter include the section on metrics, which is very informative and illustrates how to focus on the more relevant metrics beyond traffic and unique visitors.  The other section that helps the reader to apply ROI is “Putting it All Together” which gives a solid example of comparing the ROI of webcasts vs. whitepapers; seeing the example and breaking it down with an ROI calculation, so you can apply the formula to your own ROI scenarios.

Overall, Social Marketing to the Business Customer is an informative B2B guide, with relevant examples. There is a tremendous amount of information presented in the book.  Good organization of focused content transitions the reader smoothly from setting the stage for a social media organization to taking a strategic social media program to market.

Experience tells us that social media may lead to escalated levels of communication or crisis at any time.  Whether a company has contributed to a situation that upsets its customers, information is misunderstood, or there is a malicious attack on the brand, you have to be prepared.

Part of the readiness comes from developing a social media policy, which includes a Comment Response Chart, to guide the response and handling of the conversations.  The best Comment Response Charts are well rounded to show a range of conversations; from normal dialog and how to handle general questions (certain departments fielding specific inquiries) all the way up to the crisis situation.  There are basic Comment Response Charts, and although these companies should be applauded for taking the time to put them in place, it’s time to go to the next plateau.  Your organization must be prepared for the unplanned or unknown social media outbreak of negative information that is not necessarily represented on the simple Comment Response Chart.

How do you take the simple Comment Response Chart to the next level?  Here are four easy tips to think about when you are working on your organization’s chart:

• Know Your Influencer: Don’t just evaluate the comment, but also research the commenter and that person and/or group’s influence.  Is this person a former customer, who is upset and you know that rectifying the situation will bring that individual back into your happy customer camp?  Or, is this a constant complainer who wants to be heard and included in changes in your product or service, or is it a troll that is a known as a company “hater” and won’t change his/her course of communication?  Knowing the different types of commenters, and their level of influence, will allow you to better understand how to handle the situation.

• Create Levels of Conversation Escalation:  Decide before the crisis occurs your levels of escalation, and when certain personnel should get involved in the social media communications. Levels can range from department personnel handling the inquiries, and getting the proper information out through different networks, to including the PR department, the Public Information Officer (PIO) and also alerting executives and a crisis management team.  Knowing these levels will help to set guidelines, so that everyone knows when to involve other members of the company, before communication escalates and gets completely out of hand.

• Let the Community Support Your Brand: Understand that there are times that you will rely on your community to answer questions and to provide information to peers.  In some cases they may be sticking up for or “fighting” for the brand.  If you jump into the conversation and take a stance too quickly it may appear defensive. At the same, you must be ready to have your employees release information at the right time to stop any miscommunication before it spreads. It’s important to identify the topics and instances that you feel are best handled by your community supporters vs. your own internal brand champions (your employees).

• Add the Comment Response Chart to Your Crisis Plan:  You should integrate your Comment Response Chart into your company’s overall crisis plan.  The crisis management team needs to know the proper flow of information through social media and how social media is a part of all company communications, and not necessarily segregated or placed in a separate silo.  By having your Comment Response Chart integrated, all members of the crisis team will be aware of who handles the different channels of communication from traditional to digital and social media. For example, crisis can start in a traditional or digital situation on the organization’s website and make its way to social media.  The reverse is also true; it’s not uncommon for a social crisis to receive media attention (yes, that means reaching newspapers or digital media outlets, as well).  Having the entire team knowledgeable about the Comment Response Chart and the flow of proper information will allow the company to address crisis through all of the communications channels.

Of course these are only a few of the many tips to help advance your employees with their social media responses, whether interacting with a friendly and sometimes not so friendly public.  If you are proactive in your efforts and advance your Comment Response Chart prior to the crisis, your employees will be ready to handle the many situations that may arise, as they engage on the company’s behalf and in its best interest.

Yesterday, I conducted an all day learning workshop.  It was pretty intense, with only a couple breaks and a working lunch. The employees who participated in the workshop were there to learn about the new social media plan and policy recently adopted by the organization.  They spent the day listening to presentations, getting involved in several team exercises (both with their departments and people who they never worked with before) and watching videos from outside experts and companies.

Taking the time to communicate, educate and involve employees in your new initiative that’s poised to move the organization forward, makes people feel valuable and a part of the company’s growth.  It also motivates people to buy into a new program and to take action.  If a company wants an army of internal brand ambassadors, the company has to invest time and energy into creating those brand ambassadors.  Of course there will always be natural champions who surface.  These are the “Passionates” who raise their hands and want to immediately get involved. However, creating a broader learning environment and engaging more members of the company, means moving different people toward passion through education and team development.  Suddenly, you’ll find champions, you never knew existed in your company.

”It’s their job and they need to get on board” is not a good approach. Sure, in a tough economy, when companies aren’t spending a great deal on internal education, I’m sure this has been said a lot.  However, the reality is … if you want your employees to truly buy into your efforts and believe in the brand, you have to empower them, educate them and give them the tools that they need to succeed.  This is especially true with social media and employee participation. At the onset, social media to the employee may appear as “one more hat they have to wear.”  Of course, this type of thinking is not exclusive to social media.  Any change effort that necessitates a shift in culture (the mindset of the people), the process (management of systems and procedures) or the technology (infrastructure), should be introduced in a way that makes people feel a part of the process and working together toward a better solution.

Investing in your employees isn’t a one-time opportunity, it’s ongoing and the more you continue to empower, give trust and provide the right tools, the more they will feel motivated and use the tools to participate in programs that transform or advance your business.

Investment = Buy-In

Last month the #PRStudChat Community had a really great discussion with the authors of Social Marketing to the Business Customer, Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman.  Our discussion included: the major differences between B2B and B2C social marketing, the best ways for B2B brands to use social media and how these brands should determine the right platforms for B2B social marketing.

To further the #PRStudChat discussion on B2B social marketing, I want to share the information I received from the Worldcom Public Relations Group regarding a study they conducted with B2B companies surveying their social media practices in 2011.  The study was conducted using 100 businesses, with approximately 54% of them planning to increase their spending on social media this year.

Here are several of the interesting findings from the Worldcom survey:

• Twitter was the most popular channel, used by 85 percent of global respondents, followed by Facebook (74%), LinkedIn (72%), You Tube (69%) and corporate blogs (60%)

• Approximately 83% of the respondents are using social media to communicate with target audiences, with about 66% doing so, for more than a year

• Approximately 89% of the executives from these B2B companies believe social media will increase in value for their companies over the next year, and 58% expect the increase to be significant

• When comparing companies by revenue breakdown, 80 percent of the small B2B companies (under $50 million) and 88 percent of the large B2B companies (over $1 billion) surfaced as the social media leaders, using social media for over a year

• Mid-sized B2B companies are still grappling with the role social media will play in their communication and business development strategies, with only 46 percent of these companies planning to increase social media spending this year, as compared to 68 percent of the small companies surveyed

It was also interesting to learn from the study that North American B2B companies use social media to communicate thought leadership, more than European companies, which primarily use social media to engage with customers and prospects.

Overall the Worldcom survey reveals that B2B companies are recognizing the growing importance of social media, with the expectation that budgets will increase in 2011.