I just read a guest post from Scott Bishop on the Spin Sucks blog entitled “Is your brand navigating the social stream blindly?” Within the blog, Scott comments about “flying blindly” -

“Brands that navigate blindly think social media is more or less a guessing game, a craps shoot. I assure you, there is little room for guessing. Guessing costs time. Guessing costs resources. And it rarely works.”

The longer we consult and work with our clients around social engagement we realize how many companies are “flying blindly.” Those companies that are looking at metrics are focusing on popular indicators such as “unique visitors” and “page views” for your website and “Likes” and “Followers” for social media platforms like Facebook & Twitter. These are good indicators of traffic, but I would challenge these measurements effectively tie into key business goals.

It is my feeling that there is currently a ”mash-up” of departments involved in what we are labeling marketing and communications efforts such as social engagement. For example, these communications efforts typically reside and are being managed by marketing or communications teams internally. While the web analytics and measurements are being managed by the web development or IT teams and once leads have been generated on the website, those contacts are then being handed off to the customer-facing teams such as sales and customer service.

I would claim that we (marketing and communications professionals) have an absolute obligation to become more analytical with our support and efforts. The days of laying claim to “branding & awareness” are behind us (NOTE: I still believe these things are important, just are impossible to measure). I say “obligation” because we now have the technology and tools to tie into Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are important to the business goals and objectives of our clients and their management team.

Please take a minute to do a quick analysis of your marketing and communications efforts by asking yourself these 3 questions:

1. Have you clearly identified and incorporated your business goals into your communications plan?

2. Do you have the right measurement tools in place to ensure that your communications efforts are impacting these business goals?

3. Are you listening to these measurements and conversations and adapting your communications efforts accordingly?

I would go as far to say that implementing a communications plan today without focusing on measurements, analytics and metrics that truly impact your business is a potential detriment financially to your company.

What are you doing to be more focused on “Analytical Marketing”? Do you believe marketing and communications efforts should be so directly tied to business goals? As always, I’d love your thoughts on this subject. 

Before I construct this conversation, I will unequivocally take the position that, “yes, I believe your company’s communications efforts must tie into sales.” I’m tired of all those in communications (marketing, PR, advertising, social media, etc.) toeing the line on this issue.

I hate to be so literal and direct, but let’s look at the overall Webster’s definition of “marketing” (NOTE: I realize not all of you view communications within marketing…but I do) -

1a : the act or process of selling or purchasing in a market
b : the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service
2: an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer

Do I believe this is an accurate definition of marketing today? No. Do I believe the principles of marketing are to generate sales? Yes.

Personally, I’m tired of “awareness” and “branding” as default measurements of our communications efforts. While both are significant effects of a solid communications effort, I would question one’s ability to measure either.

The evolution of “Social Engagement” and technology enhancements have allowed us to closely measure the impact of these conversations. While interactions, sentiment, engagement and insights are all valuable ways for us to better understand our audiences and how to help them, they don’t always result in direct sales. What does generate sales are “call to actions” with these audiences that result in clicks, conversions (sharing information with you) and the leads or direct sales that are generated from these efforts.

We shouldn’t limit our ability as communicators to tie into the sales process through our online and social engagement only. Shouldn’t we (marketing/communications) be aligning ourselves with the subject matter experts (SMEs), sales and other customer-facing teams internally to ensure that the most valuable communications and content are being created and shared throughout our company?

I was fortunate enough to have discovered a technology called SAVO. While SAVO prides itself on being a “sales enablement” tool, I’d like to view the on-demand software platform they’ve created as “Marketing’s Holy Grail.” I encourage you to explore their site and blog to learn more about how their technology works, but realize that their platform incorporates all important aspects of fostering such a marketing & sales relationship internally with it’s social networking design (share, comment, rank) and measurement capabilities (ties directly into most CRM systems).

Ultimately, SAVO provides marketing & communications teams the ability to directly tie and measure the sales effectiveness of all forms of communications. Keep in mind, “garbage in, garbage out” so each piece of communications and content must address the specific needs of your sales teams and other customer-facing teams internally.

This certainly gives us all something to think about and consider!

How do you measure the effectiveness of your communications efforts? Are you directly impacting sales?

Let me begin by saying I define “Traditional Marketing” by the marketing or communications folks who still believe the best way to help their organization is through advertising, media relations, direct mail, etc. In the right situation with the right company, each are important to the overall communications program, but every day the Web grows these tactics have less and less of an impact.

I just finished reading David Meerman Scott’s book The New Rules of Marketing & PR (for the 4th time in 3 years). Scott originally published this book back in 2007 and in an e-book format back in 2006, yet the principal direction of the book is very much alive and meaningful to communications and marketing professionals today.

Like watching a great movie multiple times and experiencing something new each viewing, I have a whole new set of “key learnings” after reading Scott’s book this morning. Throughout the book Scott hammers on the reality that “on the Web, you are what you publish” and that we live in a self-publishing time when businesses don’t need to rely as heavily on third-parties to connect with their buyers.

I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone married to traditional marketing methods and overall approach will undoubtedly fail in today’s communications climate. Here are the Top 3 Reasons Traditional Marketing Will Fail:

1 – Failure to align with business goals – It has always angered me to believe that marketing and communications professionals (self included) consistently fail to tie our strategies, plan and tactics into actual business goals and objectives like increased revenues and client retention. In today’s age of “Corporate Publishing” (or “Brand Journalism” as Scott discusses) we have the ability and responsibility to solve customer problems, gain their trust and point them to our solutions (when appropriate). We must stop leaning so heavily on metrics like website traffic and media clips in our communications plans and start making ourselves a more credible contributor to business goals.

2 – Talking AT instead of WITH key audiences – Every form of traditional marketing is one-way and salesy in nature. Our websites are structured around OUR products/services instead of allowing our target audiences to clearly identify with our brand when they visit our site. Social networking, blogging and the rapid dependence of the Web and powerhouses like Google have put control back in the consumer’s (no different in business-to-business) hands. Next time you’re considering a big media buy or ad campaign, take a minute to ask your customers how they might appreciate being communicated WITH…not at.

3 – Consumers are in control - An extension of #2, we now live in an age of ME Media where consumers are in complete control of the brands they wish to connect with and when. Even traditional media is filtered to the consumer as a result of technologies like RSS (real simple syndication) feeds, DVRs (digital video recorders) and satellite radio. Many brands have embraced and empowered their customers to have a voice for their company including Ford, Whole Foods and even those brands we may not have expected like Comcast. We must provide our customers with a voice and perhaps even a figurative seat at your board if you wish to connect with them moving forward.

I realize these might come as no surprise, yet I consistently fail to see marketing and communications professionals integrate these “New Rules” that Scott has clearly laid out in his book – back in 2006.

How have you made this shift? What aspects of these new rules have you incorporated into your traditional marketing plan?

YouTube, celebrated its 5^th birthday last month and earlier this week the power of video achieved yet another milestone as Mashable’s Ben Parr captured in his story, “YouTube Surpasses Two Billion Video Views Daily.” Keep in mind that this figure is nearly double the prime-time audience of all 3 major broadcast networks combined. Here are some more figures from Ben’s story to ponder… 

• 24-hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute and the average person now spends 15 minutes a day on the site
• 209.43 million – the number of times the most popular YouTube video, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” has been played
• More video has been uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than all 3 major broadcast networks created in 60 years

The stats speak volumes on their own but we as marketers we can’t ignore the fact that video must be a part of our communications solutions efforts ASAP. Here are 3 Reasons Marketers Can’t Ignore YouTube & Video:

1 – Consumers are lazy – I mean this will all due respect, but we are experiencing The Shift in the way we communicate with folks in this new world of ME Media. Consumers are in control and are demanding that video be a part of their “experience” with your brand and as a result, they can easily share with others via email, Facebook, etc. YouTube has become a force that dares any marketer to consider the full impact of the notion that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then moving pictures on YouTube are worth thousands if not millions of engaged viewers who virally share video content across their social networks.

2 – Making video doesn’t have to break the budget – The barriers to creating video have fallen so low in terms of cost and ease to produce that anyone anywhere with a $100 Flip Video Camera in their hands can create and share content worldwide within minutes. The reality that is hard for companies to embrace is letting go of the polished and professional-looking (expensive) videos and going with the more “raw” video files produced by Flip Video and others.

3 – Puts a human face on your brand – If done well video is an imprinting medium that will allow your company to put some human qualities around how you are solving problems for your customers and fans. People remember what they see and with the power of the camera you can put your organization’s story in the context you want your key audiences to view it in.

This list could have just as easily been 10 Reasons but I believe with this recent milestone from YouTube, the three listed above clearly spell out a case for the use of video by every marketer.

I’m anxious to hear your thoughts around this subject and how you are using video – Happy Friday!

I just read an interesting study from the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) that said, “80% of businesses plan to boost investment in social networking.” I can’t say this surprises me too much and don’t know what their definition of “boost” might be going into 2010 budgets:). I do think that as communicators and advocates of social media we need to be cognizant that social media isn’t our savior.

Okay, I won’t go as far to say that social media isn’t right for business – I actually do think there is a place in social for every type of business. What gets me the most excited is what the practice of social media has now uncovered in business communications. For example, I believe that businesses are now smarter about how they are distributing their stories to the audieneces that matter most…through social and traditional means.

As a result, here are 3 ways your organization can benefit from implementing a formal Story Distribution process:

1 – Leveraging Existing Communications – One of the biggest mysteries in the world of corporate communications is why so many useful and amazing studies, stories and facts are bottled up internally as if it were a map to the Holy Grail. Instead, look at each of these valuable communications tools, wrap your company messaging around it in an email and send it off to your employees, clients, investors and prospects.

2 – Actually Deliver an ROI – There is nothing more frustrating as a communications professional than having to quantify how awareness and branding effect a company’s bottom line. You know why? It doesn’t! Before you jump all over me…give me a chance to explain. There is significant value in landing a media story, having bloggers buzzing about your brand and unbelievable engagement across your social platforms. It may even result in a sale or two or several for your company. But it isn’t and shouldn’t be a direct tie into sales…until your Story Distribution process came along. Now imagine all of the validity, awareness and branding that you’re helping establish for your company is repurposed throughout the organization and among your targeted audience by the sales team, HR, investor relations, customer service, etc. In essence, you would be hedging your bet by doing so and allowing your communications to actually tie into your company’s bottom line – a true ROI.

3 – Because It Already Exists – What I mean here is the communications tools and channels already exist within your organization. Your sales, HR, investor relations, customer service and marketing teams already exist. You just need some real time communications tools developed around each story being distributed in a way that is complimentary to the platform and process that already exists. If Sales need it in a PowerPoint slide – it happens. If HR needs it in a 500-word article for their weekly newsletter – it happens. If Customer Service needs it in scripted bullet points – it happens.

I’ve always been a big believer in Story Distribution processes although I have also been caught up in the traditions of clip reports and focusing on the results. Today, I’m happy to say that I believe my job begins when the story takes place because now it is time to share that story with others…through social media, through additional media coverage, and through hand-delivering the story to your key audiences.

Do you use Story Distribution in your communications strategy? If so, how is it working and what makes it happen? If not, why not?

As a marketer and PR professional I am targeted (weekly if not daily) with a new seminar, conference or webinar on various ways I can leverage social media and the various platforms for my profession. A recent example includes a “Twitter Boot Camp for PR & Internal Communications Workshop” hosted by Ragan Communications (a very trusted source in our industry) which is actually being led by two folks I really admire – Allan Schoenberg (CME Group) and Barbara Rozgonyi. In fact, I recently led the conversation for a “Twitter 101″ webinar for PR professionals with CISION, the leading media relations software provider. Over the course of two sessions we had more than 2,000 participants!

I think its great our profession and industry are embracing social media advocacy and I can honestly say that I’ve never been on a call, webinar or attended a conference on this subject that didn’t provide at least some value. Most advice has been pretty solid for myself and I can only assume for the other marketers involved with each…but what about everyone else in business??

I’m a firm believer that as marketers and PR professionals we often operate in our comfortable “silos” (or departments). Some common examples of this are when your company receives media coverage and the marketing team might put a link to such coverage up on the website and perhaps have professional reprints made of the story for the sales team. Instead, shouldn’t the coverage be leveraged and packaged for all of your departments to effectively communicate with each of your targeted audiences? Probably…but we don’t.

I bring this up because I believe we’re missing the boat as social media advocates for business (as a whole). Instead we continue to educate within our own comfort zone, to our own people, and in ways that matter to our profession.

- What about the CEO who thinks social media is a waste of time…as he observes his teenage kids constantly communicating on Facebook?

- What about the Sales VP who doesn’t believe Twitter can generate any sales for her company?

- What about the SVP of HR and Legal Counsel who are trying to figure out how restrict their employees’ social media participation while at work?

I think you see my point. What can or should we do? I’m all ears:).

I’m usually pretty good at including links in my blog posts (as I advise any of my clients to do) but surprisingly, I can’t find much about a topic that has been very near and dear to me recently – advising businesses on how to effectively leverage their media coverage and other news to their targeted audiences.

Myself included, I believe that PR professionals should take a hard look at how we are conducting business. Too often the end result of our efforts are in the form of a “clip report” listing out all of the media hits we’ve received for the month or targeted campaign. Although media coverage is an essential part of what we do, it is only the beginning to an end.

As a result I’ve come up with “5 Steps to Effectively Leverage Your Media Coverage”:

1 – Gain Organizational Buy-In - It is so important that the most influential departments of an organization (not just marketing and sales) understand the value of passing along successful media coverage to their targeted audiences. These departments don’t need to create new ways to communicate with their important audiences, they just need to understand the value in “merchandising” these stories to such audiences. By doing so your entire organization is hedging your PR spend bet by ensuring these audiences have seen the coverage…directly from you.

2 – Customize Your Distribution – Once you have buy-in from the most influential departments (i.e., sales, marketing, customer service, HR, IT, IR, etc.) you need to make sure the materials you are arming them with are customized for their specific needs. For example, HR might prefer to send something out to the employees via an email while sales might prefer some speaking points about the coverage since they typically meet face-to-face or over the phone. In order to support the entire organization, you must customize your correspondence accordingly.

3 – Designate a Department Contact - It is one thing to arm a department with the right tools to effectively communicate with their respective targeted audiences, it is another thing to assume they know what to do with these tools and/or will use them at all. As a result, you must have a point of contact within each department who takes ownership of this communications strategy. Someone who can train, advise and measure how effective such outreach was within each department.

4 – Measure Your Impact - Building on point #3…you must develop the appropriate mix of measurements that are consistent with you management team’s expectations. Typically this is a blend of quantitative and qualitative measurements. Quantitative might be tracking how many people each member of your department reached out to with these tools – via email, phone, in-person, etc. Qualitative might be some anecdotal feedback you received from your targeted audience about the coverage.

5 – Report to Key Management – Once you’ve discovered the right mix of measurements for this program, you have to ensure that the executive teams are able to see how such a program is being implemented across your entire organization. In addition, they have to see how effective such outreach is for the overall goals of the organization. Seeing that you’re creating a minimal amount of work and leveraging existing means of communications…they’ll likely see the value of such a program.

I’m sure I’ve left out some of the important steps or details but I believe we as communications professionals need to remember that the validation we create with media coverage is only as good as the number of targeted audiences that see it. What am I missing? As always, thanks for reading and/or joining the conversation!

You’ve just wrapped up a successful PR campaign and generated numerous stories across national, regional and trade media. Your client is pumped up as you deliver the culmination of your program in the form of a massive clip report. Everyone is happy…right?

I’ve constantly been agitated by the PR industry (for which I’m a part of) and our inability to tie into the most important aspect of our profession – validating the client’s that we serve. There are many different ways for us to measure the effectiveness of our programs. In fact, Katie Paine, founder of KDPaine & Partners is probably one of the very best at designing the measurement programs in our industry. However, I’m not talking about measurement; I’m talking about educating companies about how to effectively “merchandise” these media placements throughout their organization directly to their targeted audiences. Validating their business by hand-delivering such media coverage to these targeted audiences.

Here are just a few of the things you can do to make your PR program an internal success that will have the entire organization (and targeted audiences) singing your praises:

• A Reason to Call or Email - How many times do sales teams bitch and complain about having to make cold calls or never having anything new to take to their clients or prospects? Now they do as a result of your media coverage. Draft a number of communications tools including emails, speaking points, etc. that anyone in your organization can take to their respective audiences directly relating to these stories. They now have a great reason to connect that isn’t self serving or traditional.
• Encourage You Organization to Leverage Social Media – Too many times we hear about companies looking to put restrictions in place for their employees on social media. Bad idea. Instead, encourage and arm your employees with the links, Tweets, and summarized posts about the media coverage on their personal profiles. Besides any employee should be excited about their company being featured in the media.
• Wear it on your Sleeve – Okay, not literally but employees should be proud of such coverage and should let others know via their email signature, on their website, marketing materials, business cards, etc. Everyone appreciates being featured in the media and besides, it will certainly be a great conversation starter.

I could go on and on but would love to hear what you’re doing to “merchandise” your stories. This has become a standard practice for my firm and I hope others will catch on and not move on once the results come in but instead let the games (and outreach) begin!

I continue to be amazed at all of the interactions being had on Twitter with traditional/social media professionals and others. In fact, today’s announcement by Cision introducing their new service called JournalistTweets followed by another amazing conversation tonight on #journchat made me think about something…

Is Twitter becoming a new media platform itself?

I say this for many reasons…not just because of the Twitter hype we’re experiencing today. Let me try and explain with these 3 points:

1 – The News Push – I’ve been able to replace all of my RSS news feeds because most of the major news outlets I traditionally follow are broadcasting their news via Twitter (i.e., here is an amazing list compiled by Sarah Evans – MediaOnTwitter).

2 – The Micro Blog – Most media (journalists and bloggers) are using Twitter to market their stories or blogs to others. Granted, they are only using Twitter to supplement their “story marketing” but there is no doubt that the traffic being created by these tactics are growing rapidly.

3 – The “Conversation” – This is the biggest reason (and most powerful weapon of Twitter) I am so bold to make a statement that this is becoming it’s own media platform – like TV, radio, print, etc. On Twitter journalists are conversing with mass audiences (not just PR/Communications professionals), tapping into general interest and niche expertise alike.  In the same right, these casual conversations are becoming news themselves.

Am I going on a limb here? Perhaps drinking too much Twitter Kool-Aid? Or do you too believe that Twitter has morphed into so much more than just another social media or networking platform. Talk with me!

For us “news junkies” we can’t help but see the stories and chaos taking place on Twitter today around Amazon.  According to reports, their supposed “glitch” resulted in several gay and lesbian authors and books being flagged as “inappropriate content.” Several folks are posting to the Twitter hash tag #AmazonFail (here is some additional background on this).

Without knowing all of the details or specifics, I have to offer up some PR thoughts to this entire situation (i.e., PR dilemma):

1. Speed of message – As many of my PR colleagues (@chrispitre & @JGoldsborough) mentioned while tweeting about this story earlier today, how could Amazon have sat on this over the weekend (regardless of it being Easter)?  As of 1 p.m. CT today, there has yet to be any statement beyond “glitch” from Amazon. Such an organization cannot afford to have their PR people (or their executive team) sitting back while getting slaughtered online & in the news.
2. Just tell the truth! – I’m not sure how much of the truth was revealed on this situation by Amazon, but when the WSJ, AP and others just have that you’ve said it was a “glitch” you aren’t quite answering the question.  Just admit, “we messed up” or “have no idea what happened but will get back to you once we do.”  Or in the spirit of yesterday’s religious holiday…”the truth will set you free!” Unfortunately it may be too late!
3. Get online – Regardless of the “facts” Amazon needs to be on Twitter, commenting on blogs, and communicating with the social media communities.  I’m not sure if this is their official Twitter profile, but it certainly appears to be “crickets chirping” on their end. This is a colossal mistake…either way you look at this issue.

I could have done a Top 10 or 20 list here but thought I’d start with the 3 most obvious:).  I’d love to hear your comments or reactions to the way Amazon is dealing with (or not) today’s situation.  Thanks!