I just finished the book Engage! by Brian Solis.  I’ve had the book for a couple of months and it’s not a book that you should just breeze through quickly.  I mean this in the best possible way.  This book deserves time and attention.  Now, I have to disclose that I am a big fan of Brian, as he was the co-author of my book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.  He also made significant contributions to my earlier book, PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences.

Friendship aside, I know how difficult it is to write a book (especially without a co-author) and you can tell the passion, and heart and soul that fills the pages of Engage!  When you read this book, take your time and absorb the information, because there is a lot. Engage! is a complete guide; a resource that many different readers will find valuable.  When I first picked up my copy, I wondered if the book was going to satisfy a widespread audience. Writing this book must not have been an easy task.  In my opinion, Brian has achieved what he’s set out to do.  Within the pages of Engage! is social and business insight for the beginner, novice, intermediate and advanced professional.

A few words of advice, if you are a beginner/novice to social media then go slowly and study the first half of the book.  Try to master the concepts, and research the platforms further, before moving ahead to conquer the second half of the book.  If you are intermediate or advanced social media professional or enthusiast, the first half of the book will provide some good background and interesting information.  It may also validate your current thoughts and practices. However, the second half of the book is where you will find incredible gems of information.

Although I could probably write a 20-page review on the book, I will try to give the abridged version and focus on three areas that were particularly interesting for me.  They include:

• Chapter 17, “Defining the Rules of Engagement”
• Chapter 21, “The Social Marketing Compass”
• Chapter 25, “The New Media Scorecard”

I’ve mentioned before, the social media communications process begins with a policy or guidelines for the organization.  In Chapter 17, “Defining the Rules of Engagement,” Brian does a fantastic job with policy development.  He uses several great examples, but his first is the the U.S. Marine Corp. and U.S. Army. Moving through these examples, he reminds us that our armed forces face the issue of OPSEC (Operational Security) and COMSEC (Communication Security), which put our forces at an elevated risk of compromise.  Moving through the examples he shows how the U.S. military is seeking guidelines, “defining, regulating, and promoting the use of social media…”  One of the best lines in the chapter is, “If the U.S. military is actively seeking guidelines …then it’s safe to assume that your organization should follow suite.”

The chapter also has great information on policies including Intel’s Social Media Guidelines, Tod Defren’s Top 10 Guidelines for Social Media Participation (offered for public dissemination) and a great case study on Brian’s work with Intel and the organization’s Digital IQ Program.

Another extremely helpful chapter is Chapter 21, “The Social Marketing Compass.”  I include the Social Marketing Compass in many of my presentations because it is such a vivid and useful tool.  According to Brian, the Social Marketing Compass “serves as our value system when defining program activities.”  This tool is meant to point an organization in a physical or experiential direction to make the right connections with customers and other stakeholders where they congregate and seek information or guidance.  Brian goes through every part of the compass, with full descriptions from the players and the platforms to the channels and the emotions.

Another very helpful part of Chapter 21 is the Social Media Plan Outline, which is a great outline to follow, as you are charting your course of action.

The final chapter in my review is Chapter 25, “The New Media Scorecard,” because what is a complete guide to social media without the measurement part.  This chapter is packed with measurement guidelines.  I especially found the Measurement Program Checklist by K.D. Paine to be extremely helpful.  K.D. offers a five step process from Step 1, What are Your Objectives, through to Step 5, Select the Right Measurement Tool. I also thought Brian did a great job with his discussion of the Cs of Measuring Action Through Cost, thoroughly  outlining and defining everything from Cost Per Impression (CPM) and Cost Per Click (CPC) to Cost Per Action (CPA) and Cost Per Engagement (CPE).  Other helpful ways to measure influence include the Razorfish Social Influence Score, as well as how to capture share of voice, which is “the total conversations in the social web compared to brand/competitor share.”

Engage! is truly a complete guide for brands and businesses.  True to the title, reading this book will either be the impetus to get you started, or the the means to have you dig in deeper to achieve social media success.  Thank you Brian for offering incredible insight, and moving us further along on our path to engage.

I think one of the biggest issues that organizations face today, as they navigate the social media landscape, is how they view the consumer disruption as a result of Social Media.  Brands, in my opinion, could be helping to alleviate the chaos by lessening the noise that comes out of their own organizations.  They need to learn how to become valuable resources to their stakeholders in the market.  Of course, it takes time, effort, resources and commitment to develop a Social Media program and to participate in the social economy the right way.

How many brands do you know of that are not taking full advantage of the social economy, social capital and true community building?  Many organizations are focusing on Social Media and the needs of the MEdia generation (as discussed in Brian Solis‘ blog post, “Significant“) as a huge change that will impact their overall business with respect to resources, responsibilities, process, infrastructure, and technology, as well as communications.  Rather, they are simply seeing the shift in consumer behavior and media consumption as a communications challenge in their PR and marketing departments.

That’s not enough! Viewed this way, companies start to implement Social Media programs for the sake of keeping up with competitors, who got a head start in social networking, or because of the “cool” factor.  Being an effective part of the social media landscape goes beyond a company’s communications department.  However, not many professionals understand why it’s important to step back and rethink process, infrastructure and technology; by doing so they will get so much more out of participating with customers in web communities.  At this stage, I believe there are many companies that don’t even know where to begin.

Companies need to start focusing on change management so that their organizations are better equipped to navigate the social landscape.  Throughout the organization, employees should learn and embrace the new media vision, strategy, technology, and cultural shift taking place as a result of Social Media.  I think that chaos can be managed first internally through education, understanding, commitment, and participation.  But, if every brand continues to jump into the Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube without everyone internally ever understanding why they are there or how their consumer wants to interact with them in these platforms, then the chaos escalates.  It has the potential to turn into mayhem and brands will eventually lose equity, mindshare and profit.

The approach and the journey to achieve goal of relationship status and subsequent rewards are often overlooked at the company’s peril.  For brands, it should start with a deep internal understanding (through their employees) and then it can be successfully launched externally to reach the company’s business goals.  After all, our employees are our evangelists, and they can help or hurt us when it comes to the social Darwinism and survival of the fittest.  They are a huge part of how brands navigate the social economy and can engage in community building and aide in the content management for their companies.

Bottom line:  In order to build better relationships with the MEdia generation and to navigate the social economy, companies need to learn their role in minimizing the chaos, lessening the noise and diminishing the confusion.  They shouldn’t be adding to it! This starts with an internal focus.  Have you focused on any internal efforts before launching your Social Media program?

There’s no shortage of excellent blogs and the numbers continue to grow.  But, with the hundreds of thousands that pique your interest, how many do you visit regularly?  Now, ask yourself another question, with how many of those blogs do you actually join in the conversation, tweet about and mention in your own blog to get a conversation started?  After all, one of the main benefits of Social Media is the dialog that you have with other members of the community.  You can share ideas, learn about almost anything and educate others on mutual topics of interests.

For me, there’s not enough time in a day to participate in all of the places that I’d like to, however, I find myself going back to the same blogs over and over again.  I call these blogs the approachable blogs and they include Chris Brogan’s Community and Social Media, Kami Huyse’s Communication Overtones and Brian Solis’ PR 2.0.  Even though they are all different, each one draws me in for a number of reasons.  Here are my top 10 approachable blogs characteristics (in no particular order):

1.      The blogger has a distinct and unique personality.  You just can’t find their sense of humor or blogging style anywhere else.

2.      The blog has photos, videos and/or links to helpful resources within each post.

3.      The blogger talks the community and asks questions. The style of questioning makes me feel comfortable to give my opinion and also gives me the sense that he/she wants to get to know me better.

4.      The blog is passionate (sometimes even over the top) and welcomes other passionate views.

5.      The blogger takes the time to comment back when you share your thoughts or even ask a direct question to the community.

6.      The blogger is friendly…you feel like he or she wants to have a relationship with you.

7.      Even though the blogger is writing for many members of a community…so many times the posts make you feel like it was written specifically for you.

8.      The blogger posts regularly and when he or she has to take a break, go on assignment or has a personal situation to attend to, a guest blogger steps in to keep the community conversing.

9.      The blog posts can be short and pithy or long and plentiful posts, either way the content should be filled with valuable information.

10.  The blogger tries to connect with you in other social network communities such as LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.  This makes you feel like to grow the relationship.

So many times I read about what we should be doing to connect with new influencers, but I also think that bloggers need to hear what they should be doing to connect with their loyal followers.

Please take a moment to share what it is that keeps you faithful to a blog and constantly going back to participate in the community.

Wednesday night, I co-hosted a book signing event with Brian Solis and Tara Hunt, author of the Whuffie Factor.  We attracted over 70 people at our meetup and it was a great night.  I met so many smart and interesting people.  The conversations were dynamic and each one taught me something new.  One conversation in particular stands out in my mind because it focuses on what I think may restrict some PR professionals from getting the most out of socialized media and PR 2.0.

The discussion began with a simple question: How does Social Media change PR?  I immediately discussed how the approach to communication changes and how Social Media allows us to have conversations directly with consumers and other important stakeholders.  It’s really the human conversations and connections that are so important (a one-to-one strategy rather than the broadcast messaging of the past).  It was very interesting to hear the reaction from my new friend who said, “I can tell you are a PR person because you have very ‘thoughtful’ answers.”  We discussed how social media and conversations are raw.  The blogosphere is filled with passionate dialog and flows with information.  I laughed and said, “Yes, I know, I’m working on my raw.”

The statement is so true!  As PR professionals, we are trained to think, be concise and thoughtful and give the “appropriate” answer.  Social media is the exact opposite. It can be very raw, which is representative of human nature and interaction.  It’s a challenge to work in an industry for 20 + years and to one day realize that the approach you took for so long has completely changed, as a result of the social media landscape.

But, in order for PR professionals to stay in tune with the marketplace, help their brands to achieve growth and to be successful in their own industry, they have to embrace Social Media.  It’s time to explore different approaches and get out of our comfort zones.  Now, I completely understand that there is a happy medium between the “thoughtful” PR answers and the Social Media “raw” of today.  We just need to find that balance and, then, Social Media will help us to truly connect and develop the kind of relationships with our influencers that we have touted for years.

Here are some photos from the book signing event.  There was no shortage of laughter and/or great conversations:

Getting Social IRL Pictures

I leave you with a couple of questions to ponder:  Are you getting the most out of Social Media and are you working on your “raw?”

When Brian and I were writing our book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, a large part of our focus was to identify the issues in PR, to motivate professionals to tackle challenges in the industry and to move forward with a new approach.  As we sorted through our research and had numerous conversations with experts, both in our industry, in social media, the complaints were all similar. PR lost its credibility and it was time to build back the integrity and respected reputation of a 100+ year old industry.  The more we talked to people and reviewed blog posts, tweets and comments surrounding the concerns in our industry, we realized that the problems existed for a long time.  Today, social media along with the ability for anyone to become a content producer highlights these pressing PR issues and propels them into the spotlight.

An excerpt from our book explains the current situation and how we need PR for the PR industry.

Often PR practitioners must defend themselves and the industry before they can “sell it.” PR has joined (for reasons discussed previously) other industries prone to continuous criticism: the auto industry (especially sales), real estate financing, and the perennial whipping boy, law. Our job is to adapt to the new world of influence, teach others around us, and, in the process, do a little PR for the PR industry. By doing so, we can fix the very things that spiraled PR into a state of crisis in the first place. If you polled those decision makers responsible for managing communications strategies about how they characterize PR, the following common themes would undoubtedly emerge:

• PR just doesn’t “get it”
• PR relies on hype and spin to “sell” stories
• PR professionals are handlers for those who know what they’re   talking about
• PR uses stunts or events to generate excitement and attract attention
• PR spams our messages to contact lists assembled by searching keywords in databases, without considering the preferences of those on the databases
• PR places greater emphasis on the tools than on relationships
• PR looks at customers and influencers as their audience instead of people with individual preferences
• PR professionals don’t do their homework
• PR runs away from metrics

This list is the “anti-PR” and it certainly does not represent the many credible PR professionals that I know and work with today.  Whether it was a few or many who contributed to this reputation, it’s great to know that we’re all working together to change this image.  I recently received a news release from PR News announcing their efforts to raise the relevance of public relations. The release stated:

“- Underscoring the relevance of public relations to drive marketplace success, influence ideas and manage reputations, PR News has rolled out the industry’s first-ever advocacy campaign touting the power of public relations. The “It’s the PR!” campaign’s main message is that PR is a major driving force, albeit an often unrecognized or dismissed area of the marketing mix.”

It’s great that professionals and PR organizations are banding together to face the issues and to reinvent our industry.  There are hurdles to jump over and a lot to learn.  We may make some mistakes along the way but together we can contribute to a more knowledgeable and influential class of PR professionals.

I read a really good article in O’Dwyers PR Report, the March 2009 Food, Beverage & Nutrition PR Issue.  The article written by Danielle Pagano, “Celebrity food: turning chefs into rock stars” discussed how in PR, having a good solid product sometimes isn’t enough.  There’s a tremendous opportunity, especially today with PR 2.0 and social media communications to make a real personal connection with people.  The article provides a recipe for turning a chef into a rock star in a 4-step process:  the look, the philosophy, the trend and the show.

I thought it would be interesting to take this 4-step process and apply it to another type of Rock Star.  You guessed it, the PR 2.0 Champion (that’s you).  Brian and I discussed the PR Champion’s role quite a bit in our book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.  In order to truly connect and engage with like-minded people in web communities and to be fully recognized as a valuable resource, someone that is not just some “PR guy” but “THE PR guy that you need to meet,” here’s what you need to consider:

The Look

Is there a way that people can identify with you?  Perhaps it’s your sheik style.  Or maybe it’s a certain way that you pose for your Twitter avatar and/or your Facebook profile pictures.  Look at Peter Shankman (@skydiver) on Twitter.  His skydiver avatar is so fitting with his personality.  He’s fun, a risk taker and his personality says “on the go!”  And, then, there’s Brian Solis (@briansolis). I don’t think I’ve ever seen a typical executive headshot of Brian.  He’s got some pretty cool pictures in his photo stream, very unique, at different angles; his pictures really show a lot of his personality and make him extremely sociable. For me, I would hope that my “look” is my smile and hopefully the friendliness and approachability that says to people, “Yes, I want to talk to you!”

In the article, Pagano stated that a chef has to find his or her own “thing.”  Well, the same goes for the PR 2.0 Champion.  Whatever that look or “thing” is, you have to be recognized for it, so that out of all the thousands of people in communities across the web or even in the traditional setting, you are spotted immediately in a room or in a crowded social media landscape.

The Philosophy

PR Champions need a philosophy to define them.  It’s what you believe in and stand for as a professional.  Your philosophy is your own type of movement that you’ve been initiating and carrying the flag forward from the start of your career.  It should be a passion that you want to share with all of your social networking friends and every constituent in your personal ecosystem.  There are really no guidelines to your philosophy, it can be extremely comprehensive or as simple as you like.

For me, my philosophy has always been that it starts with me and ends with me!  In PR, if you don’t experience it yourself then how can you teach someone else about what you do or how to take a best practices approach.  One of the greatest quotes on learning and change comes from Aldous Huxley, who was an English writer and author of The Brave New World.  He was considered in many academic circles as a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank. Huxley said, “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.”  I truly believe that with all of the uncontrollable changes in our world, the only place we can manage the best change is in our own universe.

The Trend

PR Champions have an opportunity to start a new trend in their organizations.  They can lead the PR 2.0 revolution.  As a Champion you can help your brand to understand that social media requires PR professionals to take on different roles.  As socialized media becomes increasing important to organizations as a means to communicate directly with their stakeholders, PR champions will have increased roles and responsibilities including:

• Social Media expert
• Market analyst/expert
• Web marketer
• Customer service representative
• Relationship marketer
• Viral marketer
• Conversationalist/listener

You can also show your leadership team (long before they point it out to you) that you are a new type of librarian and/or research specialist.  They need to know that as a part of this new function you’re ready to interact with the company’s social media manager or community manager to bring information to different silos within your organization (sales, marcom, R&D, product development, etc.)  It’s important for a Champion to lead the trend for the company, so information flows properly to create better products and services for your customers.

The Show

The Show is your opportunity to show off what you know.  Blog about the changes in PR!  As a champion, you need to inform and help people.  Incorporate video and podcasts into your own arsenal of communications. People who follow you will see your human, transparent side and connect to your personality.  They will learn from your wisdom and enthusiasm and recommend you to their network.  Being a champion means taking the extra time to connect with people in social networking communities. You should be helping your peers by answering their questions and even critiquing their work, if they ask for feedback.  I just recently helped a friend that I met on Facebook with a PR 2.0 communications project.  The payoff was his “thank you” and appreciation.

The show is not about you – yet it should be the best performance of your life.  And, as a true Champion performing selflessly for others, you’ll get a standing ovation!

So, tell me, how would you apply the 4-step process to make you a Rock Star aka PR Champion?

Yesterday was the official launch of my 4th book published by Pearson, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, co-authored by Brian Solis.  This is the first time that I worked on a year-long writing project with Brian, who is not only a pleasure to work with but he enriched the process and made this a wonderful and thought-provoking experience for me (Thank you, Brian).  Every page of this book illustrates our passion for public relations, social media and technology, and how PR 2.0 is reshaping a well established, century-old industry.

In the past, keeping in mind my first book was published in 2001, it was much more time consuming to track the coverage of prior book launches and measure the benefits of the relationships I developed with audiences, even in terms of sales.  Even then, we were able to see the Web analytics, for instance, web visits, page views and time spent on the site, but still relied on the IT department to deliver those stats to us.  However, today, we are directly involved in the conversations and also can manage the measurement portion, as there are so many more tools and resources that allow us to review the results of our efforts within seconds.  There is nothing more gratifying than hearing the direct feedback from your network and seeing how social media communications create excitement and dynamic conversations in Web communities. Through social media, you can ignite passion in others; passion that leads to action.

For the official launch of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, we posted our SMR on PitchEngine, distributed a traditional news release, created blog posts, sent out social network updates, participated in a blogtalkradio interview, shot video clips, etc. As a result, we saw the conversation grow and increase between yesterday and today.  In 24 hours, here are a few ways that we measured our efforts.  The views on the SMR were close to 200 at the time this article was published.  There were comments on the SMR, numerous comments on Brian’s blog as a result of his Putting the Public Back in Public Relations post and we also noted many of tweets and retweets about the book (via tweet replies and search.twitter.com). On the PFS website, there was a notable increase of 800% website traffic as compared to the average number of page visits in the month of March.  And, best of all our ranking in terms of PR books went from #5 to #3 in our category (also increasing the book sales cycle) on Amazon.com.

I want to thank everyone for their good wishes, feedback and participation.  We hope you enjoy the book and keep the conversation going!

I had the pleasure of presenting with Brian Solis, my co-author of Putting the Public Back in Public Relations.  BizSummits developed a great program on PR 2.0 that attracted many senior level professionals who were interested in how to further their company’s social media participation as well as their own.

A lot of what we discussed during the seminar had to do with change; mostly the changing attitude of the PR professional to embrace a new PR approach.  This new approach teaches us how to listen carefully and to engage with new influencers and customers directly in web communities.  We also join the ranks of content creators and we are connectors in the social media landscape.  One key point that Brian and I stressed was that the difference between PR 1.0 and PR 2.0 is “You,” the professional.

At previous conferences, I’ve noticed the Q&A portion of the seminar was always focused on the basics; the why, how, and what is the approach?  But, it was refreshing to be a part of a program that went beyond the basics and really delved into specific strategy, planning and forward-thinking when it comes to PR professionals and social media communications.  There are many professionals that I applaud, who are interacting in web communities like Twitter, Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, and they are doing so many great things in the social media landscape.  I’m happy to report that I see some progress and the PR 2.0 change is taking place.

So many times, I’ve prepared for presentations and it turns out that the audience is not quite at the level of professional development that I expected.  I’m happy to say that based on the nature of the questions during the BizSummits’ teleseminar, we’re making great strides and progress in our industry!  It feels good to see more professionals being open minded about the changes and participating in Social Media.

Now, I still detected that slight fear of change and some frustration over PR 2.0 challenges with social media, i.e., when we discussed the changing vocabulary and how in New PR there were no pitches, audiences and messages.  Other challenges came in the form of questions regarding measurement, how to get executives to buy into a social media program and how to handle negative comments and trolls.

It was a dynamic session and the 90 minutes flew by.  But what stands out the most is the take away from the conference.  After many discussions on varied topics from sociology and cultural anthropology to internal social networking platforms and external blogging initiatives, the most important takeaway that we stressed was: it’s all about you, the PR professional and your passion to engage in social media.  It’s your responsibility to learn and practice new PR and take the proper approach that goes along with it.  Our industry has star potential and so do the Pros that make up the PR profession.  What we lost in the days of the dotcom bust in terms of credibility can be regained through today’s PR 2.0 and educating brands on the socialization of media and how they can build stronger relationships with stakeholders through social media.

With this new approach comes the responsibility to listen, engage, learn more and understand the new media landscape.  If and only if you do this, then you can teach others how to listen, engage, learn more and understand how to use New PR effectively for their brands.

My question to you: do you see the same progress in our industry?