FacebookCampToronto4

Last night, I attended FacebookCampToronto4 which is the fourth installment in a series of unconferences, aimed to share ideas in an open setting with developers, marketers, people interested in social media, students, whoever. I’m definitely not a developer, and this is the first time I’ve attended, along with my friend Sarah who invited me. I had no idea this event existed before, but I wish I had. Particularly since it was free. Always a bonus.

I have to admit, though I knew of the marketing opportunities and targeting activities associated with Facebook, it was a bit of an eye opener. Mostly, I’m talking about the developers who make the applications available for everyone to use and optimize their profiles.

Rebecca Sawyer of Facebook talked about monitizing Facebook applications. Developers create these applications, but like most creative ventures, the marketing tends to be an afterthought. If I could summarize it to a basic principle, her strategies were to cut the fat: meaning, target specific groups of people using specific tags or words etc..

There were plenty of solid case studies to demonstrate that targeting smaller groups produces efficient results. I also have to comment that she handled a certain, well I wouldn’t call him a heckler, but a disgruntled facebook user/developer/whiner with aplomb. The audience wasn’t appreciative either, with many of the audience shouting “way to represent Canada!!.” Even at a social media unconference, we want to act our best in front of the Americans.

Aside from the some of the (funny) unpleasantness, what’s coming up for Facebook is a redesign of the layout and organization of user profiles. It’s definitely going to cut out the clutter of the many, many, many applications that have been released in the last year. I can already envision groups like “BRING BACK THE OLD LAYOUT!” springing up, but it’s going to a simpler, optimized profile space. In Andrew Cherwenka’s own words from Trapeze, it was “starting to look a little like MySpace” and I have to wholeheartedly agree with that statement. With the new site design, there will be separate tabs for your wall, photos, personal info, applications etc.. and applications won’t be in the way.

A key new feature will be the customization abilities of the applications tab and users will be able to place their favourite apps front and centre (one developer who was sitting in front of me looked particularly pleased).

There also some case studies from Refresh Analytics and SlangBook but two applications that were particularly interesting were Praize’n’raze presented by Sebastien Provencher, Praized Media and MouseHunt by HitGrab which was represented by Joel Auge.

I tried to sign up for the Praize’n'raze application, but it didn’t seem to be working. Not so good for launch day, but it’s up and running now. I hope to try it out in the next days and write about it here. Very cool concept for a facebook app.

Aside from the deluge of rain upon exiting MaRS after the event, it was definitely a good event. A bit taken aback from the lack of signage and initial set-up, but overall I took alot away from this unconference. Looking forward to the next one.

2 Challenges and the 8 practices to combat the timeliness of the web. Especially if you’re not used to it.

The media has changed and the public’s perception of power in buying decisions, beliefs and trust in organizations has changed with it. PR has used the media and built relationships with key journalists and editors to get key messages to the public. But now, we don’t obtain our information from one, trusted source.

More than ever we get it from various, real time sources. We talk to each other when something we bought breaks within a couple of weeks of using it. We demand an organic response from the company we purchased the product from.

The public has become participatory, and we as practioners have to participate as well.

But for all the talk and discussion, can we really as busy practioners keep up with the speed in which the internet moves?

Not everyone wants to move at the speed of online communications. Some just want to move at their own facing these challenges:

1. It can be overwhelming. There’s too much to check and keep track of. There is a certain pressure to always be checking and to be on top of every single nuance of a trend or piece of news. Most people do not like to be on a computer outside of work: they like to get out and have quality time away from a desk.

2. Timeliness. Feeling overwhelmed can be due to the fact that being timely in contributing to social media is important. Part of the issue is the fact that it’s not what you knew before or what you know now, but you know before it’s done. What you can anticipate and the trends you see before hand. Many people simply don’t have the time, or the inclination to have that high level of anticipation.

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What if you just don’t care to much to participate online? Here’s a few ways that will let you participate without losing your sanity:

1. Just like everything else you start, take your time to learn and build credibility

Sign up for the social media tools that you find interesting, and explore if others in your social network are using it.

I have a MySpace account that I think I’ve used about a dozen or so times. I have a grand total of 5 friends in my network. My social and (emerging) professional networks simply do not use it. So, I don’t use it.

Inorganic use of a communications tool does not lend credibility to your online reputation. Without a good reputation, you might as well give up on using social media tools. You’re dead in the water and your key messages just float to the top.

I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the power of “key influencers” and I think that while they’re important, it’s a tighly coupled system of ensuring trust in your organization. In a study conducted by James Coyle, assistant professor of marketing at Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, Elizabeth Lightfoot of CNET Networks, and Ted Smith and Amy Scott of MedTrackAlert conducted the study… Said Coyle:

“We find that trying to track down key influencers, people who have extremely large social networks, is typically unnecessary and, more importantly, can actually limit a campaign or advertisement’s viral potential. Instead, marketers need to realize that the majority of their audience, not just the well-connected few, is eager and willing to pass along well-designed and relevant messages.”

Basically, it takes good actions and participation to build good relationship with your publics. If the key influencers you’ve built relationships with fall hard, your organization may fall with them.

2. Develop the habit online communications

Easier said than done, but once a learned behaviour becomes a habit, it’s difficult to break. But like everything new, getting started is the most difficult part.

Christine Perkitt has some good tips and reasons to at the very least, give Online PR practices a shot here.

2. Read like your audience: SCAN

This article from Slate, sums up quite nicely why we skim through text when reading online.

The online environment itself is a factor for the lack of attention we exhibit when reading online. Every single bit of information is right at our finger tips.

The notion of hypertext and linking makes reading information dynamic, but it can also tempt users away from your content. Make sure the most relevant information is first, and treat them like you would a journalist who would read a press release.

They’re getting inundated with information, so you have to consider “Why do I need to read this?” With the hypertext element of Web 2.0, if a random thought pops up in your reader’s head like “I wonder why cats are finicky eaters?”, then most likely, they will be right onto google and away from your content.

4. Write concisely

This is a tactic that’s at the root of good public relations practice. Too much rhetoric or techno-babble or flowerly, expressive language doesn’t give people the information they need. That goes for the public, the media and stakeholders.

It’s tied in closely with the reading habits of online users, but good writing online is the same as good writing in print.

5. Don’t write about online PR practices exclusively – if there’s a topic about an old fashioned communications practice get on it!

PR is PR. Online communications is a tool, and a tool that’s important to public relations practice in 2008. But the same issues remain constant, and the same tactics remain viable. There’s always a public relations triumph or failure in the news and a lesson to be learned by it.

Reputation management takes on a whole new meaning in an online space. Information and news travels much faster and more collaboratively than in traditional mass communications. I’m convinced though, that online communications remains the same as traditional mass media since it’s still the same audiences that read it and interact with it.

People remember one bad crisis and don’t remember the stellar repuatation that a organization has built over years or even decades. Though the tools change, PR practices and tactics always remain the same.

6. Be involved in real life

I know this seems a tad condescending, but when you’re out there and going to events, concerts, participating in group activities, you get a different sense how people are communicating. And, what it is they are interested in and care about.

7. Have fun with these new fangled tools.

It’s easier to say “this is so useless, I’m not going to use this for anything, I don’t like, THIS IS POINTLESS!” than to simply just have a bit of fun with twitter, your blog or a Flickr account.

I believe that these new tools should generate a genuine interest in users, and if you’re forcing yourself to use any kind of social media tool, it may be a waste of time. If you aren’t feeling it, or your own social network isn’t using the tool, then you don’t get the most out of what they can offer.

When I began using Twitter, I wasn’t skeptical of why this was in use, but how people use it. I took some time to watch how people:

1. Interacted with one another

2. Interacted with the tool

3. What they were posting

Now I’m quickly realizing that it’s more of a connecting point of a person’s real life and online activities. And a useful tool in connecting and sharing ideas with colleagues and friends.

But without a fun and positive attitude towards an alien tool, I don’t think I could get through the clutter to see what everyone was talking about.

8. The most obvious thing you can consider – your audience.

Do they use all this stuff? Would they be on facebook? Are they looking for authority, or a similar viewpoint from a peer?

It really depends upon the importance of the issue to the audience. When it comes to issues surrounding health care, education or public safety, the public wants to have a authoritative voice in the form of a doctor or expert in the field.

Social media may bring authorities on a more level playing field, and though social media is more peer-to-peer based, knowing that your audience requires an authoritative stance, may pose some serious questions on whether peer based information and collaboration would be beneficial.

Sometimes, social media may not fit the bill.

I’m new to this business. Throughout my studies here at Centennial, I’ve learned about how PR is changing, and how we as bright and shiny new practioners will participate in a whole new way in building key relationships.

But is it really a significant? Or are tactics adapting to a new medium?

In short, people are getting their information from a wide range of sources. Newspaper readership is dropping and TV viewership is significantly down and does not seem to be improving. As we’ve all heard before, the old broadcast model is not influencing the public in way it did before.

There’s more to public relations than simply relying on the media to broadcast key messages to target audiences. There’s building trust with the public and other audiences, and trust is something that is absolutely crucial in an online media environment where (however where your point of view is) everyone is a publisher.

Ross Mayfield of Socialtext talked with Voce about the “big shift” in PR:

I think we are shifting from a world of exclusives to inclusives. In the old days, you only had people like John Markoff that had the ability to publish. So, you would pay way too much money to PR firms, such as your own, that had these trusted, expert relationships with the only publishers in town. They would give the executives some media training and you could hone the perfect pitch for the short window you had with the big broadcaster.
Now it’s changed to where everyone has the ability to publish. The number of relationships with publishers went for a few to thousands, if not millions. As a result, it is much more difficult to determine what PR firm you want to work with to get your story published. At the same time, that has become a new opportunity for PR firms—to understand the more complex media landscape. It also means that it’s not just one executive that is the originator of the message—it could be anybody in the company.
Edleman’s Trust Barometer reported that in 6 out of 10 countries surveyed, individuals trust peers over institutions, such as media institutions. And, 50% said they trust a rank-and-file employee over an executive. The new PR challenge is how to enable and trust your rank-and-file employees not just to carry a message, but for them to engage in conversation

The media hasn’t so much changed, but it has become much more complex and the public has responded to these new habits. To maintain trust with the public, it then starts at the source: the company or organization.

I don’t think the notion of trust is a new idea in public relations, but in an increasingly complex media environment, a bad public relations story becomes more than a bad news day, but a viral conversation throughout blogs, and consumer networks like Get Satisfaction. Bad things do happen, negative stories get published, but if you’re already conversing with consumers, the labyrinth of online communications could be easier to navigate.

I don’t think there is a quick way to learn about or to get involved with the right people online. And it’s important not to forget about those who want their news and information from traditional and authoritative sources. But silence in the online sphere is not an option when younger audiences simply turn to the internet and their peers for sources of information.

Anyone who uses a scanner, old hard drives, a dot-matrix printer and other long-lost pieces of hardware, to remix a song, who then films the performance is my unofficial hero:

James Houston, a graphic design student from the Glasgow School of Art, completed this as his final project.  The song being performed is Nude by Radiohead, off their most recent album “In Rainbows” as a tribute to the remix contest the band held earlier this year.  It sounds a bit quirky at first and, to be honest, a bit weird, but it becomes somewhat endearing and then full appreciation ensues. 

If he didn’t get an A+, he was robbed. 

I embedded a youtube link, as the original wasn’t quite embedding as it should, so check out his Vimeo profile here:

Big Ideas (don’t get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

I’ll let him explain the context and why he did it. 

Net Neutrality. Definitely a thorny subject.

Downloading music. A potentially thorny subject, depending to whom you are talking to.

It all takes up space and bandwidth, and ISPs are responding in such a way that is alarming many of those who advocate an open model for the internet.

This article in Exclaim explains how this is not a potential issue, but an issue that’s occurring as you’re reading my blog. For better or worse, peer-to-peer file sharing has changed the way we get and even listen to music. Now streaming videos are the norm, and larger networks can handle a large volume of traffic to create online communities that could not exist before.

And apparently, ISPs (good old Rogers and Bell) want to put a cap on all that. Or actually have been:

“We’ve also seen Shaw (which provides telephone and internet services) charge its customers a $10 “quality of service” fee for using competitor Vonage’s VoIP phone services. Also not cool. Lately, and perhaps most uncool, we’ve seen Bell Canada do away with unlimited access plans, steer new customers into capped plans and bump existing customers out of the unlimited access they already enjoy by any means necessary. Bell is not coincidentally engaged in “traffic shaping” — slowing down and restricting the pipe at peak or specific hours — which has the immediate effect of choking traffic to file sharing sites and limiting peer-to-peer activity in general.”

Alison Outhit, Exclaim June 2008

Now with the music downloading aside, if ISPs continue to limit the amount of bandwdith available to customers and business, and it becomes a premium service to have unlimited access to the internet, what happens to the new notions of PR and conversing with public? It has been repeated in many blogs and publications by PR practioners that with the internet and online social networks, everyone from the CEO to the mail clerk can influence and build relationships with the public and vice-versa.

Does that adaptation go out the window if Net Neutrality is eroded? Does the public change their habits again if the internet as a medium becomes a top-down model?

There are many more articles I could cite about Net Neutrality, but this one brings up a point I could relate to: Whoever has the power to control the cables and hardware, will have the power to determine what kind of content will be distributed.

And unfortunately, it is going from an academic debate to your own surfing habits.

It’s a complex issue, but if you want more reading check out:

http://www.neutrality.ca/

http://whatisnetneutrality.ca/en/node/3

http://www.savetheinternet.com/

]]> http://meighan.wordpress.com/2008/06/26/net-neutrality-and-pr/feed/ 0 meighan http://meighan.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/the-blogger-mystique/ http://meighan.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/the-blogger-mystique/#comments Tue, 03 Jun 2008 02:04:54 +0000 meighan http://meighan.wordpress.com/?p=5 ]]>

I wanted to start off my blog with an article I stumbled upon when trying to figure what I was going to name this thing. A professor at the University of Ottawa published a book early last year, detailing his studies of the emerging blogosphere.  

Now, Professor Michael Keren teaches in the faculty of communication and culture.  He’s an expert, he’s studied for many years as to how humans connect and share ideas over a large network, and why this is important to us all.  

This one quote however, either struck a nerve, or made me laugh in its reference:

“Many of us end up like Father McKenzie in the ‘Eleanor Rigby’ Beatles song, who is writing a sermon that no one is going to hear,” he suggests. “Some of us are going to be embraced by the mainstream media, but the majority of us remain in the dark, remain in the loneliness.”

In referencing the Beatles’ devastating ode to the futility of life, a blog could be seen as a lonely person’s lifeline to the alienating outside world.   Keren seems to have followed those who use the blog who are isolated on a daily basis and use it as a personal form of expression. 

But I think Keren may have missed the underlying importance of the blog: it’s publishing. 

Forming a blog takes time and development. It’s a creative process, and no matter what it is about, the author has to find their voice.   It’s a stumbling block when you start thinking, “Who will read this? Will anyone care? Who am I writing this for? Really, what’s the point?” 

It’s a struggle to go against attitudes, whether it’s your own, or others, that project negative connotations of online culture and communications.  It’s not for everyone, but it’s something to say, “I’ve contributed to the conversation.”  Even if it’s online. 

So, I’m taking my own advice, and getting this blog going.  

Hello world. 

Here it is: a blog.  Most importantly, a blog about PR, media, social media, music, art and random internet fad that I find to be hilarious.

I agonized over what to call it, as I would think a nice, neat and clever little name would somehow stick in the minds of readers.  It was harder than I thought, so I was inspired by an unnamed skit, from an unnamed British comedy group.   I tried the “put-the-letters-PR-into-related-words” route, but, after much consideration, I went with what I have. 

Ah, branding. 

1 point to whoever can name that skit. 

….coming soon!