Social media revolution! So what’s next?

Social networking websites have seen unprecedented growth with communications professionals quick to adopt social media as a new platform for conversations about their brands. However, initiating online conversations with target audiences is often not enough when it comes to raising brand awareness. Identifying social media influencers among these audiences and encouraging them to talk about the brand is as important as participating in online discussions and putting up corporate messages on social networking websites.

The US baseball team Cleveland Indians has successfully used this strategy to build a strong relationship with their fans by becoming the first sports team to have a social media suite in their stadium. The idea encourages social media savvy fans to tweet and blog about their experiences from watching the games and to help raise brand awareness.

Another interesting example of emerging trends in social media use comes from the finance sector. Hedge funds and other investors are considering embracing sites like Twitter and Facebook to rally support for their industry and reach out to small shareholders and potential allies. Small investors are already using social networks to increase their influence versus big shareholders on boards. Websites such as MoxyVote.com allow small shareholders to vote on corporate issues independently or as part of a broader group and strengthen their role in corporate decision making.

As online activism becomes increasingly important for NGOs and private organisations, its potential to move groups of shareholders from passive administrators to active participants should not be underestimated. Engaging audiences as brand ambassadors or cause advocates is a great way of strengthening brand loyalty and encouraging a two-way model of communication. However, this area still has to be explored. As different industries adopt social media at different pace, there is plenty of space for experiment and innovation.

Social Media – A British Love Affair

Hold the press everyone – it’s finally official. Social networking is now top of the list when it comes to our favourite British online pastimes. It’s even overtaken portals such as the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and Sky Sports.com in popularity.

The stats are massive – last month Facebook accounted for over 12.46 per cent of all internet activity and there were 2.4 billion visits to social networking sites just in January 2011 alone.

Similarly Linkedin has more than 90 million registered users around the world and there are over 1 billion tweets a month on Twitter.

It seems the tipping point has finally come, with social media leaping ahead when it comes to influencing our online lives. And there’s apparently no end to this British love affair.

But despite all the numbers and stats, one fact remains clear – this revelation surprises no-one.

Social media is so much part of our daily lives, most of us don’t even think about using it. So it’s hardly a shock it’s dominating our internet usage.

In such a short time social media is now firmly in camp ‘Status quo’ – now that’s surprising!

PR in the Middle

Being social media savvy is now second nature to PR and is something that personally fascinates me.  Similarly, our journo cousins have embraced this new medium – as enthusiastically as us – many setting up their own blogs, groups and micro-sites.  

What’s less clear is how journalism uses social media to source articles and research stories. In this age of instant digital information, is the press release still the best way to grab a journos’ attention or should we dazzle them with blogs, forums and vodcasts? Even more worryingly, is PR still important to modern journalism?

A recent survey by Cision and the University of Sunderland, aimed to find out.

For all PRs holding your breath, fear not!  The survey showed journalists still view traditional sources like press releases and direct contact with PRs as paramount. 

Although journalists’ use of social media and search engines over the past three years has increased, traditional channels are not being negated but are used in conjunction with social media. 

In fact, only a small minority of respondents reported using traditional channels either more or less than they did three years ago.

The survey revealed networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook were the single most important social technology for journalism by approximately 30 per cent of UK respondents, with Twitter not far behind.

More surprisingly, Wikipedia was the most used online tool for journalists –with over 60% using the site to check and source stories at least once a week, compared to 22% for blogs, or 34% for news wire services.

However, story ideas, concepts and angles were still drummed up via traditional sources, such as direct PR contact and via corporate sites.

Overall it seems journos are not at all behind the times when it comes to social media – they have welcomed it with both hands. Thankfully it seems that PR is firmly in this three way embrace and PR is still in the middle.

Embracing social media – different paces abound

We have all embraced social media in a big way – particularly in PR where it is such a natural fit for us – it’s pretty much second nature after all, we are so used to having dialogues with journalists, sharing stories and having on-going conversations with all types of people.

So it’s easy to forget, perhaps, that social media is still evolving at a rapid rate and that businesses aren’t all embracing it at the same pace.

Just in the past few days, I’ve heard of two global brands who are way behind the curve. One has flatly refused to have anything to do with social media and the other, is ‘way behind’ in their social media conversations according to an inhouse marketeer.   For those kind of brands struggling to persuade directors to embrace social media  – here’s a useful post from an interesting US online publication, ‘the social media examiner’, ‘9 ways to sell social media to your boss’.

And then of course, there’s the other problem that businesses are online but don’t know what the guidelines are.  The rules are still evolving and changing, again at a pretty rapid rate.  Twitter is still largely unregulated and businesses are still learning and experimenting with it.  Here’s some latest guidelines that have come out of oatmeal.com.  They are not necessarily right, in fact I would question many on the list, but it’s interesting to see guidelines attempted to be set.

And then of course, there’s the fact that Facebook is only just starting to be used as a valuable marketing tool  for businesses. The largest social media tool on the planet provides a huge opportunity to businesses – the social media examiner has lots of ideas on how to maximise your Facebook profile to generate interest among customers and prospects as well as some great recent campaigns that have really worked for brands.

So as we all move at different paces, and standards and guidelines continue to evolve as time passes, once the revolution is over, it’ll be great to see what transpires.

Net Neutrality – what it means for PR?

Recently there’s been a wave of stories around the issue of net neutrality and its wider implications. Such as the release of a “joint policy proposal” by Google and Verizon concerning hardline and wireless net neutrality.

This is a concern for many – and especially communications professionals.
Net neutrality keeps the internet fair. It provides a medium through which any of our clients can, with a relatively small amount of capital and the right skills, make their voice heard.

This value is being challenged with some network operators rumoured to be advocating (again) the prioritising of certain types of traffic for a charge. If this happened, a domino effect could ensue with charging creeping into business models across the net. So pay walls could pop up everywhere as big content carriers or blogging platforms seek to claw back network charges. The impact on online media and bloggers could be immense and strike at the heart of why the Internet has flourished as a source of information for all, rather than the few.

Resistance to ending net neutrality is huge. So any shake-ups of this magnitude are going to be difficult to progress. But the issue does keep on returning to the agendas of both network operators and content players. As communication professionals we have interest here too and we need to be vigilant about where this debate is going.