PR News Digital PR Next Practices Summit – Executive Summary

October 6, 2010, Grand Hyatt, New York

Creating the Digital PR Dream Team

Speakers:
Mary Henige, Director of Social Media & Digital Communications, General Motors
Lee Mikles, CEO, The Archer Group
Holly Potter, VP Public Relations,  Kaiser Permanente

This panel focused on what qualities to look for when hiring a social media strategist and how to involve the rest of your company in social media. The panelists talked about whether to hire someone with more of a PR or digital/social media background, and whether a social media strategist can work remotely, among other subjects.

Lee Mikles, CEO of The Archer Group, brought up the point that young people may understand Twitter but not necessarily your brand. Mary Henige added that media relations staff can be trained in different platforms. Holly Potter, VP of Public Relations for Kaiser Permanente, said she leans more toward a traditional PR person than someone coming from solely a digital background. Digital experience alone won’t have an all-around benefit to the brand.

Hiring

• When Kaiser Permanente’s position of media relations director was open, the company evaluated its communications team’s strengths and found that it didn’t need a leader for traditional media; the company needed a leader for digital efforts. The person managing the online news center was interested in this redefined position and had an understanding of the brand.

• General Motors weeded through applications to find candidates with entrepreneurial experience. Ideal candidates had experience in Facebook and Twitter, had started a Web site and had nonprofit experience. By bringing in candidates for interviews, employers can see whether applicants have real online experience and interests, Henige said. So many people want to get into social media, but they need to build up their overall experience.

• When hiring, Potter stays away from applicants who say they’re a social media guru. There’s still a lot to learn about social media, and anyone who says he/she knows everything about it is wrong.

• Social media people need to be likable, since they’ll be conversing with the world. If you don’t want to talk to an applicant, move on.

• The panelists said it wasn’t necessary for a social media strategist to be in the same building as the rest of the company or work the same hours. The online news cycle is 24/7, so if digital staff is monitoring Facebook conversations at night, Potter doesn’t find it necessary for them to be at their desks at 8 a.m. Also, as a global company, GM's communications and digital teams can coordinate efforts without physically being in the same spot, Henige said.

Company involvement

• A company needs to have a clear plan on how to handle complaints, Mikles said. The rest of the company should understand Twitter, rather than be hearing about it for the first time when there’s a complaint. Everyone at the company needs to know the emergency plan for a social media fire.

• Report on social media progress, such as followers and retweets, to the rest of the company, beyond just reporting the negative tweets about the company and other social media fires.

• Kaiser Permanente is in nine states and the District of Columbia, so it has community managing programs at regional levels. Potter spoke about educating the national and regional PR teams on how social media can be used to elevate PR and how to resolve issues coming through social media at the local level.

Using social media

• The Archer Group’s legal department uses the Wall Street Journal test when talking about social media. It asks: Can you stand this tweet being on the cover of the Wall Street Journal?

• With social media, there isn’t time for a highly formulated response, and a company can’t just tweet about its brand. It needs to find a voice that fits and press the social media team to publish and stay relevant.

• Kaiser Permanente now pitches to key bloggers, in addition to traditional reporters. The company also participates in online conversations.

• Potter said social media has been a critical avenue for service recovery. Kaiser Permanente monitors complaints that come through social media and connects them to the appropriate person at the company.

• A company can’t address everything in the social space relating to its brand, so plan out a strategy and decide what to pay attention to. General Motors’ social team monitors Tweetdeck and hashtags, for example. Reporters often tweet what they think is the key message and headlines. By monitoring this, General Motors can jump in to clarify points to reporters online. “We can stop digital forest fires as they’re happening,” Henige said.

• When developing the right brand voice, encourage employees to be authentic and humanize the company’s tweets.

The Next Generation of Social Media Tools: What You Need to Know Now

Speakers:
Nick Mendoza, Director of Digital Communications, Zeno Group
Jason Winocour, Partner, Hunter Public Relations

This panel provided practical usage tips and measuring tactics for the social media tools predicted to have the greatest impact—the next generation of tools. The discussion offered case studies for each tool, with an emphasis on using it to connect with an audience. “It’s not about the tools, but who you’re trying to connect with and some ways you can reach them,” said Nick Mendoza, director of digital communications at Zeno Group. 

Geolocation

• Geolocation is currently a billion dollar business, and projected to grow about double that in the next few years. “At SXSW this year, geolocation tools were generating a lot of buzz,” said Jason Winocour, partner at Hunter Public Relations. Still, they haven’t hit the critical mass, as only 4% of the population is using.

• Foursquare: Right now the most popular geolocation tool, Foursquare allows users to check in to places like cafes, restaurants, parks, offices and earn rewards and incentives. Friends can also recommend nearby places.

  • What makes it unique? You can check in anywhere. Hardcore users can earn mayoral status (by establishing the most check-ins) and badges.

  • Current challenges: The Foursquare business development team is overwhelmed. If you choose to work with them, they may take a while to get back to you.
  
  • Starbucks offers a nationwide special to mayors (folks who check in the most number of times); they can go to any other Starbucks and get a dollar frappuccino. Another example: MarketFair Mall in NJ offers the mall “mayor” a prime parking with a banner.

• Gowalla: This is the second-largest geolocation tool (at least before Facebook Places launches widely). It emphasizes global exploration more than checking out local places. Marketing partnerships are more geared toward travel destinations.
  
  • What makes it unique? Passports, pins and leaderboards, rather than badges, incentivize users to check in to locations.
  
  • Challenge: While Gowalla has a different focus than Foursquare, Foursquare has begun to pull ahead with 3 million vs. Gowalla’s 300,000 users. Why? The Foursquare founder is very plugged into the social and digital world and good at attracting investors.
  
  • Case Study: At SXSW, Chevy partnered with Gowalla so that anyone who checked into the program at the local airport got a free shuttle in a Chevy to the fest.

• Facebook Places: Still more or less in Beta. There’s overlap with Foursquare, but this doesn’t necessarily mean Foursquare will go away (see Twitter, which survived despite Facebook adopting similar update functionality).
  
  • What makes it unique? A network of over 500 million users; legions drooling to create apps.
  
  • Challenges: Users don’t necessarily want all friends to know where they’re checking in. (Foursquare enables you to have a separate network of friends). No awards or gaming…yet.

• The Other Players: Brightkite and Loopt both have their followers. Pulling ahead with some unique features is Scavenger: In addition to addition to earning points for checking in, you can also earn through solving challenges. Scavenger Case Study: The NFL arranged a series of challenges through Scavenger to help Patriots fans locate lost Superbowl ring. Another example: Smithsonian hosted a challenge where users checked in to all nine museums and answered related trivia to compete for an iPad.

Blogging Platforms

• While platforms like Wordpress and Blogger can be very useful and are currently the most commonly used, they have their limitations: They are clunky with multimedia; not as social; and it can be challenging to integrate them with a company Web site.

• A new generation of blogging platforms has emerged to address these deficits. Two big new platforms: Tumblr and Posterous. Benefits: They are easy to use; users can email posts from smartphones; they are SEO friendly; and have a much stronger social media aspect. Tumblr has more prominent users since it’s been around longer.

Internal Communications

• Many companies block social media because of lost productivity. There are times when email can’t accomplish the same kind of community sharing, explains Mendoza.

• Some examples of internal communication programs: Yammer, Present.ly, SocialCast. These are basically Twitter for business. They’re not terribly expensive. You can install behind company firewalls.

• Deloitte used Yammer to save thousands in branding fees. Deloitte’s CEO posted to the community looking for a new company tagline. He received thousands of submissions from employees. In a couple of weeks, the company had a new tagline, as opposed to outsourcing through an agency. This kind of collaboration wouldn’t have worked on regular email, and a company wouldn’t necessarily want that information shared publicly on a site like Twitter.

Video

• There are many tools out there to help post and craft video, not just YouTube and Ustream. 

• Editing tools: You can  edit YouTube videos with TubeCop, KeepVid, Animoto. (Upload all content and edit for about $3 for file.)

• TubeMogul: Can help figure out what’s hot in online video.

Social Media Management

• Tools: Sprout Social, Tweetdeck, socialTALK, Shoutlet. These show “how to identify influencers and manage team workflow in terms of content,” Mendoza said.

• Benefits: Listen and respond effectively; create multi-channel engagement; identify who are the best people to reach—who will respond to your content and spread it; centralize control and manage team workflow or accounts; understand what people are saying about brands/message pickup.

Group Buying

• Group sharing sites like Groupon allow people to score deals through joint activity.

• These sites increasingly have tools for mobile, on-the-go buying.

• They’re also regional. New York City has a number of group buying sites.

• Negatives: You can lose money since the sites get the biggest percentage of sales. For example,  Groupon gets 50% of sale price.

• Case Study: Gap: $50 worth of apparel and accessories at the low price of $25. As a result, 441,000 Groupons were sold, generating $11 million in sales—and also generating ongoing conversation on Twitter.

How to Measure ROI for Your Digital PR Efforts

Speakers:
Tim Marklein, Executive VP, Measurement & Strategy, Weber Shandwick
Danielle Brigida, Digital Marketing Manager, National Wildlife Federation
Johna Burke, Senior Vice President, BurrellesLuce

For effective digital PR efforts, first define the desired outcome in clear, measureable goals. Online tools measuring influence are measuring popularity, which isn’t the same thing as influence, Tim Marklein of Weber Shandwick said. Looking at the number of followers isn’t enough, added BurrellesLuce's Johna Burke—some followers could be bots instead of real people—so think about qualitative results, too. Tools for social media analytics change all the time, and since there are so many, you can’t base all your measurements on one tool alone, said National Wildlife Federation's Danielle Brigida.

Measuring online success

• Pick the social media metrics most important to you, and monitor how you’re doing in those metrics.

• Brigida uses PostRank Analytics to monitor number of fans, how many impressions and retweets content gets, and how many people are seeing, commenting on and sharing content. With this information, she can see which blog posts did well and why, and then she knows what content to push more or what platform to give extra attention to.

• Figure out which types of social media your audience uses and focus on those areas.
  

Cost of social media

• Pay for a URL shortener service—it’s the only way to hide your statistics. You can look at the competition’s statistics if they’re not paying for the service.

• Social media is about relationships, so your company needs people to engage others. Start thinking about how many relationships your digital team is managing. One person probably can’t manage a community of 10,000.
  
  

Quick Study: How Volkswagen Leveraged Mobile Gaming Applications for a Product Launch

Speakers:
Laura Halsch, Group Digital Strategist, MWW Group
David Herrick, Executive Vice President, MWW Group

To launch the GTI to a younger, tech-savvy audience, Volkswagen needed to think beyond traditional tactics. MWW Group helped the brand “launch a car in a different way, without that satin cover and press conference,” said David Herrick of  MWW Group. Volkswagen and MWW  debuted the campaign exclusively online to target their demographic. Volkswagen created a mobile game application to raise awareness and generate buzz among their key influencers. The mobile app generated 3.7 million downloads and 255 million media impressions in only six weeks.

Targeting an Online Audience

• The GTI consumer target audience had a strong overlap with smartphone adoption, Herrick said. Also, a large percentage of GTI customers were iPhone users. Putting together the pieces, the MWW team realized they could leverage a mobile app to build relationships with GTI customers and expand the consumer base.

Driving an Audience With an App

• Laura Halsch, group digital strategist at MWW, said the team studied the app market carefully before deciding upon a concept. Gaming was the most popular category in the App Store and within gaming, racing was the most popular genre.

• The GTI app was designed to be entertaining—it wasn't just a branding tool. It was built with 12 unique tracks and five different modes. Users could fully customize music and track friends’ results.

• MWW launched the game with an event. “One of the most important things for this event was to attract influencers,” Halsch said. Finding the right special guest to draw the target audience was crucial—they decided upon Olivia Munn. While Attack of the Show host Munn may not be widely known throughout the entertainment industry, “she has a very committed fan base that fits closely with our target audience,” Halsch said. “She also had a very high social media footprint.”

Measuring Results

• “We were able to track not only engagement, but sales,” Halsch said.  “We saw that the average person was spending five minutes playing our game—that’s five minutes of time with the brand.”

• 50% of GTI sales were first-time Volkswagen owners.

Keynote Address: Social Media - What's on the Horizon?

Speaker:
Sarah Evans, Owner, Sevans Strategy

Sarah Evans, owner and founder of Sevans Strategy, has elevated the profile of her firm solely through online brand-building and social media tools. She pointed out that organizations are beginning to understand the impact of social media tools like Facebook and Twitter, but perhaps are not preparing for what’s ahead. While the tactics may seem new, the core strategy is tied to traditional PR. A successful online strategy is built upon “engaging real conversation online,” Evans said.

Every Opportunity Counts

• Evans opened her keynote with an example of seizing an online moment and gaining vital recognition. When a rare earthquake in Chicago at 4 a.m. woke her, she posted the news on CNN iReport and created a Twitter trend, leading to a call from the New York Times social media editor Jennifer Preston. “I gained 3-4 viable business leads that day,” Evans said. 

If You Don’t See an Opportunity, Create One

• “You can be the first to do xyz for your company using social media,” Evans said.

• Hijack a conversation and find an opportunity for others to share. When Apple was launching iPad, Evans jumped into popular online forums, finding that the pace of discussion was so quick, she couldn’t interact. Sensing that others may have the same problem, Evans created a private discussion room for the iPad, inviting people to join via Twitter. She observed that a community developed from that chat, and members connected through other forums after the event. 

Meet a Need in an Innovative Way

• Evans created the #journchat discussion forum, which she described as “an ongoing conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR.” This online weekly community hosts different guests like Jennifer Preston.

• As the forum’s reputation grows, it has been able to attract participation from mainstream news organizations like CNN. 

Generate a Lot of Quality Content

• Evans said that she can measure business leads by the amount of time she devotes to blogging and her Twitter account. At this point, she will schedule that time in.

Do Things for a Good Cause

• Giving away freely can actually enhance reputation in online communities.

• Evans established the #beatcancer hashtag to set a Guinness world record for mention of a single term in a time period. She partnered with Blogworld to spread the word. The outreach met the goal to achieve 250,000 mentions in 48 hours.

Cutting Through the Clutter

Speakers:
Stephanie Agresta, EVP, Global Director of Digital and Social Media, Porter Novelli
Deirdre Sullivan, VP of digital strategy, MWW Group
Heidi Sullivan, VP of media research, North America, Cision
Kellie Parker, Community Manager, Sega

A lot of social media monitoring tools clutter the social space—they often do the same things but in different ways. Spend a lot of time exploring these tools to find the ones that best fit your needs and figuring out how to use these tools completely. If your company already has a set of tools in use, evaluate whether those tools measure what you need. Free tools might be perfect for your needs, instead of a big package.

Tools

• Panelists discussed the following tools: Klout.com, which identifies influencers on topics across the social Web; SlideShare.net, for sharing presentations, documents and professional videos; oneforty.com, which offers tools to make Twitter more useful for work; and search.twitter.com to monitor conversations by keywords.

• To identify your keywords for a campaign, use: Google Adwords’ external keyword tool, keyworddiscovery.com, Wordtracker.com, Google Search Suggest, Yahoo Search Assist.

• Other tools: Google blog search, Technorati, blogpulse, CisionPoint.com, Radian6.com, SocialMention.com, trendistic.com, blogsearch.google.com, Twitter lists, Digg and LinkedIn.

• Sega's Kellie Parker uses Brandwatch.com, which shows referrals by type of site and the sites visitors come from. If she sees visitors coming to Sega’s sites from IGN, she knows she needs to be more present on IGN boards. In-bound links are the currency of the social Web, so know who is linking back to your site.

Events

• Gillette Fusion Razor invited digitally fluent consumers and high-profile bloggers to a blogger forum event at Yankee Stadium to interview Derek Jeter. 
  

• Hold events to engage influencers. MWW Group's Deirdre Sullivan helped create the Fashion 2.0 Social Media Awards held in February 2010. Nominees asked to be voted for, and 10,000 votes were cast because of online influencers. Despite a snowstorm on the day of the event, 300 attended when only 200 were invited

Approach

• All things digital should be grounded in community, said Stephanie Agresta of Porter Novelli. Connect with influencers on personal levels, not just professional. Deirdre Sullivan added that consumers are not influenced by messages that brands create. Instead, they look to personal recommendations.

• Social media is about solving a problem. Define participation and content strategies, and utilize an editorial calendar.

• Social media turns users into contributors. There’s a community of influencers for every industry.

• To track influencers, become one. Influencers boil down information for people, share information, talk to people and take questions. People get excited when a brand responds to them. Offer something of value to an influencer.

• Take time to figure out for your campaign where you want to be; ID an initial group of people talking about what you want. B2B might want to focus on LinkedIn’s Q&A section.

• Twitter Rule of Thirds: Spend 1/3 of the time talking about you/company, 1/3 on conversations and engaging and 1/3 on social karma (RT/sharing articles, introducing followers to others).

• Kellie Parker does community reach with fans through YouTube, Facebook, blogs, forums, Twitter, as Sega’s fans trust those in the community more than a corporate message. She hears from fans what they like and dislike about a game through social media.  Feedback goes to brand manager and the people who make the game trailers to work with that information.

• Ask influencers to be a guest blogger on your site. Keep a human voice associated with your brand, Agresta said. Parker: Let individual personalities shine through. If more than one person tweets for a company, each should sign their own tweets.
  
  

Smart Digital Tactics During a Crisis

Speakers:
John Bell, Global Managing Director, 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy
Dallas Lawrence, Managing Director, Burson-Marsteller
Gary Spangler, Corporate E-Marketing, DuPont
Sarah Tyre, SVP/Group Manager, Issues & Crisis Management, Ketchum

From drafting an online crisis plan to controlling how and when your company comes up in search, this session offered tactics for managing and mitigating a crisis. Also, the panel of seasoned crisis managers provided tips for recognizing and preventing reputation damage before it starts. After all, the “best defense is good offense,” DuPont's Gary Spangler said.

5 Trends Driving Crisis Management

1. Everything happens at lightning speed
Bad news spreads faster than ever before. “We may need to react fast in a matter of hours, not days, but we may not learn when to get involved and when not,” said John Bell, global managing director of 360 Digital Influence at Oglivy. It’s more of an art than science. Convince your clients that experience in the social media space is vital.
Case Study: Moms reacted badly to the portrayal of moms in a particular Motrin commercial. Motrin’s email response from VP of marketing Kathy Widmer was posted within the first 24 hours. The apology was picked up by a number of mommy blogger sites, mitigating the negative tone.

2. People demand hyper transparency
Search reputation is delivered through multimedia. Any individual has the power to expose what were once private conversations.

3. Get ready for 2-way dialogue
One-way messaging doesn’t work anymore—people crave dialogue.
Case Study: Bell pointed to the example of Ford CEO Alan Mulally’s handling of a potential image crisis. The legal team at Ford had sent a cease and desist letter to a fan organization using the Ford brand image. Mulally used his Twitter account to address the issue in real time, first questioning the Ford legal team, then adding that there were additional factors involved—the fan club may have profited off of the brand image.

4.  Search reputation delivers multimedia
Mine search engine results and find out: What are people really searching for?
Some useful tools: Universal search and google instant
Reputations are built or broken in search.

5.  Your detractors are resourceful
Greenpeace is a master in the art of brand-jacking, Bell said. “If you don’t think that these guys and gals who are resource-constrained, will not be able to mount an offense against you, you may be kidding yourself.”

3 Kinds of Online Threats

1. Accidental: For example, United Airlines lost 90% of stock value overnight when an archived bankruptcy story was accidentally posted.

2. Deliberate but uncoordinated attacks: For example, Domino's. “Two guys with cameras cost Domino’s 2% of profits,” Lawrence said, referring to the infamous cheese-up-the-nose video. Domino's didn’t even have Twitter at the time the video went viral.

3. Deliberate and organized: This could be a deliberate brand-jacking. For example, Greenpeace created a Nestle-style image showing a person eating a chocolate-covered monkey finger, effectively getting Nestle to adopt a stronger position on animal rights.

Issues Management Overtaking Crisis Management

• “In the age of social media, we’re all going to need to deal with issues management much more often than crisis management,” said Gary Spangler of DuPont.

• The key issues management strategies? Listening, reacting, engagement. “I look at listening around a topic. Look at where the actual interest lies in the issue,” Spangler said.

• Create orphan Web pages around negative terms. Then use paid search around those terms.

• If brand has suffered a negative attack, don’t just focus on addressing the negatives. Remind people about positives—why they liked the brand to begin with.

• When writing a press release, repurpose the same content into a blogger comment, a tweet, a Facebook post, a YouTube video—take one piece of traditional content and multiply by six at same time. If the issue turns out to have legs, you’ve got a full online response prepared.

• Between crises, develop relationships with influencers. If you’ve established the trust and are honest, influencers will be more willing to help you through than if you just approach them in the heat of moment, Spangler said. Be transparent. Be up to date on guidelines and best practices. Be intimate with the WOMMA Web site, and keep to a code of ethics.

Digital Crisis Plan Best Practices

• An online crisis plan should have the same objectives as a traditional traditional. You’re still trying to get critical information out, Ketchum's Sarah Tyre said.

• While digital media creates a whole new realm for potential  image crises, it also holds a lot of of potential. “Social media allows us to provide information directly to an audience,” Tyre said.

Guide to a Digital Crisis Plan

• Phase 1 - Diagnose: You’re going to have to take some lumps. What is the impact here to your business? Is this something that’s going to gain traction? Is it coming from a credible source? Set the right goals.

• Phase 2 - Manage: Base everything on a 360 degree view. Don’t view the crisis in vacuum. Balance it out with what is happening on Wall Street and in traditional media.

• Phase 3 - Redefine: After you emerge on the other side of a crisis situation, look at rebalancing your keywords and search terms. Try to find an opportunity to provide your side of the story. Don’t make your first stab at social media be in a crisis.

How to Leverage Video for Your PR Efforts

Speakers:
Pete Codella, APR, CEO, Codella Marketing
Doug Simon, President & CEO, DS Simon Productions

Videos add a depth that pictures or written press releases can’t. For example, media can see how a CEO talks and demonstrates expertise through video. A company could record videos of the CEO talking to the camera or to reporters. An expert could talk about involvement with a campaign. By creating a company’s own videos, the company owns and can repurpose them. A Flip camera, which functions best in close range to the speaker and microphone, allows for quick editing.

Attracting an Audience With Video

• YouTube is the #2 search engine. People will most likely find your video on YouTube. Also, embed your video on your own Web site, Pete Codella said. Some of Codella’s clients like how Vimeo embeds video.

• Use SEO for your videos with titles, descriptions and tags—search engines read text, not video or graphics. Further, create a page for the video and add “_video” to the url. You may even want to create a video subdomain or .tv site.

• Submit your video to search engines. Google rates content higher when it has video, photos, multimedia.

• Video retains attention, but using YouTube alone or looking at metrics alone is not a digital strategy. PR is about creating and sharing content to try to change people’ s behavior, with which video can help, Doug Simon said.

For more must-know PR content, insight and practical tips, attend PR News' one-day How-To Conference on Dec. 1, 2010. Join us at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., for 11 how-to sessions, 11 expert trainers—all in one day.