dna13 Asks for Social Media Tips

I was contacted by dna13 with a news release about their recent white paper on the best strategies for managing corporate reputations in today’s social media environment.  The white paper was based on research that dna13 presented to the Reputation Institute’s Annual Conference earlier this year and information that was also compiled from the advice of experts in the public relations industry. Due to the tremendous response to the white paper, dna13 wanted to hear more insight from public relations professionals directly. So they are reaching out again to the PR community to get our feedback.

Of course, I can’t resist an opportunity to discuss my passion for PR and social media communications.  Here are the questions posed by dna13 and my corresponding answers:

What do you do to stay ahead of the social media curve?  It is extremely important to stay ahead of the social media curve by learning about new technology and testing the many different platforms that are available for monitoring, reporting, distribution of content, contact management and CRM. My agency, PFS Marketwyse is constantly talking to our PR technology vendors to make sure that we understand the best tools and resources available to track news, monitor conversations, report on trends and provide our clients with social media measurement.  There are excellent software programs that allow you to have all of these wonderful tools right on your desktop; ones that enable you to stay abreast of news in real time and allow you to approach social media engagement the right way on behalf of your brand.

Do you have any tips you would like to share with the public relations community about how to effectively use social media?  I listen carefully before I engage in conversations!  In mine and Brian Solis’ book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations, we discuss how you need to listen, observe and identify relevant conversations and how they relate to your brand, long before you participate.  You cannot just jump into conversations without knowing the people, their interests and the culture of the community.  Listening enables us to customize stories and to offer meaningful information; to become a trusted, valuable resource and to build a strong relationship.

What do you wish your current (or prospective) media monitoring platform or tool could do? Although there are some great tools available today, it would be great to have a resource that is an all in one relationship management tool, as well as a digital asset center.  I think a one stop shop that allows you do everything including: research and build relationships with media/bloggers, monitor and measure real time news to identify trends and issues, distribute announcements and content and then invites influencers into a platform to view additional interactive and social media resources (and interact with important influencers even more) all in a safe and secure environment.  This would be the ultimate PR platform.  I guess this would be an amalgamation of the best practices of many of the PR technology service providers that I know, all coming together for a comprehensive solution.  Of course, it would have to be a resource that we could all afford!

What tools do you think are most important in a media monitoring platform, particularly when faced with social media networks? For example, do you need to share the results of your efforts in the form of an executive briefing book with the CEO?  ‘Wish you could listen to what is being said about your product or brand on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? I would like to see executive briefing books automatically generated, briefs on competitive activities and even a comparison of efforts between direct competitors and a monitoring report that compares changes in influence over time (from quarter to quarter with percentage increases/decreases).

Those are my answers to the dna13 questions and I hope that you will take the time to think about your answers.  If you want to share your thoughts with dna13, you can email them directly to PRSocialMediaTips@gmail.com, and they will be featured in future whitepapers and PR industry trade journal articles.

Thanks dna13 for asking those questions and for helping to make our social media efforts more effective.