Harnessing the World of Social Media and Client Relationships

The Wall Street Journal Online recently published an article by Marshall Loeb of MarketWatch titled Improve Client Relationships Through Social Media.

In this article, Loeb discusses the growing popularity of social media platforms like MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, and how all types of businesses are embracing these tools to build community and strengthen consumer interest.

Loeb then highlights the co-founder of ThePort Network, Dan Backus. ThePort Network is a firm that focuses on creating software tools for virtual communities. Below Backus outlines the following four tips on how to use the power of social media to support your company's advantage when dealing with consumers:

- Know your audience. The tools you will want to invest in should be directly related to the online behavior of the people you are trying to reach. Ideally, you will want to conduct audience research to determine how often potential customers are online, what other sites they visit and how comfortable they are downloading podcasts or setting up RSS feeds.

- Align organizational objectives with social media tools. Different tools are better at accomplishing specific goals. For example, blogs are a great way to get feedback on potential programs from large groups of readers, while photo-sharing programs are useful for building a sense of community and excitement around new programs.

- Establish procedures. Social media require companies to have a higher level of trust in their publics than other communication tools. At the same time, it is important to retain some oversight to ensure communications remain appropriate and continue to focus on your company's key goals. You might want to begin by identifying forum moderators and establishing rules for posting.

- Identify resources and bring everybody on the same page. A successful social-media strategy requires participation from many constituents, as well as from the organizational leaders themselves. Before initiating, make sure the internal personnel support the idea and are willing to integrate social media functions into outreach activities. Ideally, those same leaders will want to participate in the online communities themselves – both to learn more about their customers and to use that knowledge to shape future goals.

These are great tips on how to harness the world of social media to your company’s and/or your client’s advantage.

Can We Do It? Yes We Can.

In a recent marketing survey in PR Week, I came across an interesting quote. Clark Caywood, professor of integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University, said he’s skeptical as to whether the PR industry can capitalize on the new media that has emerged in the last few years.

Caywood doesn’t believe that the “PR industry will be able to demonstrate some form of thought leadership on blogs, how to measure blogs, or even the integration of video and blogs,” according to the PR Week article.

“To a lot of my friends in PR, [new media] is like another press release vehicle, and that’s not what it’s all about,” said Caywood.

Respectfully, I disagree. Just because new media may not make for an easy ROI formula, does not mean that we underestimate its value or mistake it for another vehicle for distributing press releases.

To the contrary, Furia Rubel and many of our colleagues encourage clients to blog, not just when they have press release-worthy news to report, but when they come across an article and want to comment or share important and relevant information with their target audiences. We also encourage new clients to embrace Myspace, Facebook, YouTube and other social media opportunities when it makes sense to reach their target audiences. Certainly a press release wouldn’t jive with any of those forums.

Perhaps the industry can take this skepticism as a call to arms and rise to the challenge of utilizing new media.

MySpace Continues to Grow in Leaps and Bounds

MySpace Continues to Grow in Leaps and Bounds

Joseph Menn of the Sydney Morning Herald tells us that MySpace and Photobucket struck a deal last week for $250 million. After Photobucket was banned from the most popular social media site, MySpace purchased Photobucket “which draws more than 30 million monthly visitors who view and store billions of digital photographs, videos and slideshows.”

Menn says, “Like MySpace, both Photobucket and Flektor are set up to make most of their money through advertising.” Now Fox Interactive adds these to their suite of services.

Fox Interactive president Peter Levinsohn said, "We now control the single busiest social media site, the single biggest personal media destination, and what I think is the coolest set of tools that exist today," referring to MySpace, Photobucket and Flektor respectively.

This is yet one more reason why MySpace continues to lead the pack in social media.

Digital dark ages. Are you still asking, "What are widgets and who are Slide and RockYou!?

Business Week department editor Heather Green reports in this blog that

With 150 million daily slide shows served, Slide is claiming to be the biggest widget
company. Impressive numbers, but I was speaking with RockYou yesterday and they say that they're serving 100 million widgets a day. Of course, as folks start claiming big numbers, we're going to need outside ways of verifying them.

For those who are still in the digital dark ages, you may be asking, "what are widgets, and who are Slide and RockYou!?"

So to add a little insight:

Slide helps you publish and discover personalized Slide Shows of photos and other digital content. Launched in 2005 by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, Slide lets you use photos and other digital content to publish and discover the people and things that matter to you. Slide can be embedded onto any website, viewed on your desktop or shared with your friends or fans.

RockYou! creates and distributes the most popular self-expression widgets on the web. RockYou!'s viral accessories can be used to enhance the look and feel of any blog, personal website, and are used on social networks like MySpace, Bebo, or Facebook. RockYou! widgets include photo slide shows, glitter text and voicemail accessories that enable people to stand out on social networks.

Widget: (As per Wikipedia since this definition hasn't hit Merriam-Webster's yet) In computer programming, a widget (or control) is an interface element that a computer user interacts with, such as a window or a text box. Widgets are sometimes qualified as virtual to distinguish them from their physical counterparts, e.g. virtual buttons that can be clicked with a mouse cursor, vs. physical buttons that can be pressed with a finger. Widgets are often packaged together in widget toolkits. Programmers use widgets to build graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Another definition can be found at dict.die.net.

Bottom line: These are all tools to help you communicate more efficiently and effectively in the digital age. How can attorneys use them ethically? That's yet to be discovered.

MySpace to Launch Video Channels

The Wall Street Journal reported today that MySpace

is launching video channels that will feature news and lifestyle video from partners including the New York Times and National Geographic. . . . The channels will include programming created for the Web and comes as MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate News Corp. (NWS), is rapidly expanding its video offerings.

This is important to keep in mind as the world of social media continues to expand and as communicators seek ways to disseminate their messages to the masses. According to a recent Hitwise study indicated that MySpace is the most popular Web site in the US, commanding 4.46 percent of all visits. That's a greater market share than Yahoo's email service (4.42 percent), Yahoo's home page (4.25 percent), and Google (3.89 percent). Did you know that 100 million users live on MySpace?

Online Rants, Raves and Resumes: The Digital Dirt You Leave Behind

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Online Rants, Raves and Resumes: The Digital Dirt You Leave Behind

Every few months I’m asked to speak at a university regarding job placements for soon-to-be graduates. My opening question remains the same: “How many of you have a MySpace, FaceBook or Friendster profile?” And as more than half the students begins to raise their hands, I say, “my question is rhetorical, I really don’t want to know!”

I tell them that, if they, like many of today’s well-educated Gen Y’ers, have an online social profile, personal digital page or blog, they need to start analyzing the digital dirt they’re leaving behind.

Digital dirt is the information about you that is available on the Internet. Digital dirt can be a posting to someone else’s Web site, information about your likes and dislikes, your hobbies, photos, profile, rants, raves, resumes, and the list goes on. And the trail of information that you leave is usually in plain view for others to see, including prospective employers and future clients. When was the last time you typed your own name in Google?

Dishing dirt can create a dilemma . . . .

It is becoming more and more common for employers and recruiters to look to these sites to qualify job prospects before being called into an interview.

I served on a panel recently were we met with more than fifty graduating seniors from a Philadelphia-area university. When I brought this very subject up, one of my male colleagues said that he researched a prospective employee before conducting an interview and found some indecent spring break photos of her posted on an online profile. Because the interview was already scheduled, he asked a different colleague to conduct the interview because he felt uncomfortable addressing the young lady after seeing her undressed online. Needless to say, she didn’t get the job.

In fact, a higher education institution that I know of dedicates a portion of their Assistant Director of Marketing and Communications’ time to surfing enrolled student’s online profiles on sites like MySpace and FaceBook. The assistant director has found disturbing photos, blogs and other information that has lead to the expulsion of several students.

Another human resource employer told me that she compares resumes submitted to her company with those posted in online forums such as monster.com, jobs.com and careerbuilder.com. She looks for inconsistencies so she can be sure the interviewee is on the up and up.

A 2006 Wall Street Journal article by Jared Flesher states, “According to a 2005 survey of 102 executive recruiters by ExecuNet, an executive job-search and networking organization, 75% of recruiters use search engines to uncover information about candidates, and 26% of recruiters have eliminated candidates because of information found online.” Just think: this number has likely increased since the survey was conducted.

But I’m already employed . . .

The problem with digital dirt doesn’t only apply to those seeking employment. It also applies to those who are already employed. Human resource directors and supervisors are watching what you’re doing online as a way to monitor business productivity. According to a recent Gallup poll, the average employee spends more than 75 minutes per day using office computers for non-business related activities.

According to Neen James, an international productivity expert, “Employees waste valuable company time with inappropriate Web behavior including social networking, sending and receiving personal email, instant messaging, and personal blogs.” These activities cost American companies billions of dollars per year. “But those who embrace business productivity are really cracking down.”

And those who embrace productivity are watching their employees’ moves. Some employers are just blocking the ability to access certain social and consumer sites. Others monitor usage and reprimand employees when the behavior is inappropriate. Even others will shadow employee computer usage and watch everything they type, email, access and instant message.
A relative of mine manages more than fifty people in an International company. He told me that one of his employees has been cautioned several times for inappropriate online activities – including the use of MySpace. He then proceeded to do some digging and found rants and raves about their company and its management using the “F” word and other foul language – all of which were posted during normal business hours. As I write this article, the employee’s employment future looks grim.

Five steps to creating clean dirt . . . .

I’ve always been intrigued when I pass work sites with signs that say “wanted – clean dirt.” What an oxymoron. Right? So think about it, how do you get clean digital dirt? It’s not as easy as one may think!

Step one: Narcisurf. Search for your name on the Internet to find your "digital dirt." Search yourself every way possible. Go to Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, Dogpile, and every other search engine imaginable. Type your name in quotes and see what comes up. Then, type in your phone number, your online aliases, your first initial and last name, your full name with your middle initial, etc.

Step two: Clean your profiles. Go to every site on which you have a profile that you can control and clean it up. Make sure that everything on that profile is 100% accurate. Then make sure that if you have posted something, you would forward it to your grandmother or future employer to read or see.

Step three: Ask to be removed. If you have a posting on a site that you cannot control, contact that site’s webmaster and ask that your post be removed. If you can’t get through or if the answer is “no,” make sure you are able to address any question that may arise in an interview or by your employer regarding the matter.

Step four: Fill in with clean dirt. Sometimes, the irremovable dirt can be covered up a bit with clean dirt. Crowd your Internet profile search with positive information about you or your studies. For example, create a blog based on an academic subject, business area of expertise or hobby for which you have an interest. Keep it neutral.

Step five: Monitor yourself. Set up a Google Alert with your name included. Be sure you know what’s being said by and about you.

It’s important to remember that every nugget of information that you post on the Internet or that someone posts about you can last for many years to come. I recently searched archive.org for my company and found archived postings from 2002. The information is there for any current or future client to see. The good thing is that I have nothing to hide. Do you?


About the author: Owner of Furia Rubel Communications, Inc. (www.furiarubel.com), a public relations agency in Doylestown, Pa., Gina Rubel is a strategic public relations expert, attorney publicist and client advocate. With more than 15 years experience, her legal, nonprofit, healthcare and education clients have received everything from national prime time television placements to cover stories and features in consumer and trade magazines. Gina teaches public relations programs to corporations and universities throughout the U.S. and is regularly published.