Category Archives: Communication

NewComm Forum 09 presentation by Brian Solis: The New Organization Landscape for Marketing Communications

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Brian-Solis-NewCommForum-09 Brian Solis – founder of FutureWorks, PR 2.0 blogger, and revolutionary thinker – presented at NewComm Forum 09 last month about “The New Organization Landscape for Marketing Communications.” Here are the highlights of his fabulous presentation, which has yet to be released:

Solis asked “Who owns social media?” A very hot topic in the blogosphere these days, it was a great way to start the presentation because all ears pricked up.

He said that no one owns it and, at the same time, everyone owns it. The sum of all parts (of an organization) make a whole. And social media affects every part of an organization.

Solis then described social media as “the new gold rush,” where everyone’s jumping in because “it’s hot” and “it’s supposed to be what we’re doing.”

But, Solis says, the question we should be asking is: “How are we going to socialize what we (our brand) represent?”

And who represents your brand in the Social Web does matter. Solis recommended that organizations carefully consider who in the company should be entrusted with the keys to the Ferrari. He talked about “Twinterns” or interns who are in charge of corporate Twitter or other social media accounts. He said, “Are you going to risk having a Twintern deal with a blogger with thousands of RSS subscribers?”

“Are you going to risk having a Twintern deal with a blogger with thousands of RSS subscribers?”

There are other ways to be cost effective.

Companies today are still viewing Social Media from a top-down perspective…when they really need to be embracing it more as an evangelical initiative.

“Social Media provides a fantastic opportunity to build communities and create ways to get other people to go out and do work for you,” said Solis. Each division in a company needs to be “socialized” in order to build these communities.

How would this setup occur in an organization? A social media “team” begins an “interagency” within your organization. The new roles for this new communications agency would look like this:

  • Digital Anthropologist
  • Strategist
  • Communications Manager
  • Research Librarian
  • Support Team

The most important thing to remember is that social media is about sociology; not technology. Effective immersion into this world requires experience, insight and perspective…solidified by interaction…and measured by relationships.

Photo Credit: Kenneth Yeung – www.thelettertwo.com

NewComm Forum 09: Trends, tips and thoughts about evolving social web communications

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Before tactics, you need strategy. Before strategy, you need research. The analysis of your research will ultimately open doors to new ideas, opportunities and directions. Only then will you have insight.

“Research without insight is just trivia.” – Katie Delahaye Paine

Put simply, the 2009 NewComm Forum was a hotbed of insight dispensed and discussed by the new media communications elite. As appropriate for a research firm-sponsored event, the presentations and discussions were littered with heaps of advice and best practices.

ShelHoltz_NewCommForum09 Held in San Francisco, from April 26-29, the Forum catered to about 400 professionals from the communications, media and marketing industries. I honestly had difficulty choosing between the sessions – which were highly relevant and practical, as well as forward thinking. From the “New Business Models for News Organizations” roundtable discussion with Tom Foremski and Andria Carter to the “Social Media and Crisis Communications Revisited” keynote with Shel Holtz, the conference was pure bounty.

Beyond the lack of power strips for laptops, my only disappointment was that I could not attend all of the presentations, which were delivered in a break-out session format. Fortunately though, after the conference, many of the presentations were made available here for download.

The value of this conference is in its DNA as a product of the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR). If you work in communications, marketing and/or media and you’re not familiar with SNCR, you should be. According to the SNCR website, the organization is “a global nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank focused on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society.”

Include this conference in your budget for 2010. Now.

NOTE – Stay tuned for highlights from “The New Organization Landscape for Marketing Communications” a presentation (not available for download on the SNCR website) by Brian Solis. I will also create a separate post regarding the “Trends in Journalism” session.

Twitter doesn’t take a holiday; Neither should managing your reputation

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amazon_logoOver the weekend, while some gathered for family dinners or hunted for Easter eggs, and others enjoyed a day in the park, I got caught up in listening to the online buzz about Amazon and the global reaction to its new policies.

I watched as anger and dissent – like mutating airborne bacteria – rapidly diffused throughout the Social Web, from network to network and person to person…all while the giant – Amazon – slept. By the time the global bookseller got wind of the situation, Plan A – which could have been “containment,” the chance to proactively manage the situation, was no longer an option. It was time for the big bookseller to declare a public relations state of emergency and go straight to Plan B: global communication and response.

So what did Amazon do? They emailed a comment:

“There was a glitch with our sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed. We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.”

Amazon’s reply was like pouring lighter fluid on a fire.

As of this writing, the company’s blog still has not been updated and the tweets continue to pour into the stream with #AmazonFail holding its own as a top Twitter trend. There’s talk in the Twittersphere that says Amazon will “speak” tomorrow – the start of what will prove to be a very long week of defensive maneuvering.

In the end, this all could have been avoided. And there’s no excuse for it anymore. Twitter has proven itself – time and again – as a viable and valuable communications channel…in times of disaster, giving, protest, and celebration.

Twitter – like any communication tool on the Social Web – doesn’t take a holiday. It doesn’t sleep. And it doesn’t take weekends off.

And neither should you…if you care about your reputation.

RELEVANT READING:

Information connects; Stories bond

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As you can see from the image below (a graphic depiction of recent topics here at Diablogue), I’ve had News and Information on my mind. Why? I just launched a news site for our local communities.

wordle-infoconnects

While information does connect us, it’s the locally flavored stories that create the bond between us.

Image source: http://www.wordle.net

What is news?

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paulrevereNews is what you think it is.

Today, with access to unprecedented amounts of information on the Internet – including millions of blogs, comments, traditional news sites, reviews, press releases, videos, and conversations on social networks - people are choosing how and when they are receiving their information. But, more importantly, they’re choosing “what” information they want.

This is what we call news.  

It’s that simple: News is what we think it is. Just like brands are shaped by consumer perceptions, reputations are built by recommendations from friends and peers, and expert labels are earned by professional colleagues, news is defined by what we think is important. And on the Social Web today, this is gauged through our participation in telling stories and determined by our willingness to share information.

Ironically, it has been this way throughout history. For a time, however, when traditional mass media was the fastest method to share information, news was packaged for easier distribution and consumption. It may or may not have been what we considered news, but it was – at the time – the fastest way of getting “new information.” And when pieces of information somehow dripped outside of the packaged news story, it was often called a leak. Not surprisingly, though, the leaks were stories that had audiences too. Quite often leaks also became very popular “news” stories. So today, you can think of the Internet as a virtual news sieve…with leaks all over the place, each one with its own relevant audience.

Whether it’s leaking information or telling stories, we all play an important role in creating and disseminating news. And that can mean anything from stimulating global conversation to actively sharing bits of highly relevant information with members of our community. 

Welcome to the Social Web — where every visitor, reader, and contributor is also a reporter.