These days it may seem like everyone is taking a dive into the blogosphere, but according to a recent post by Marketo, B2B marketers are not as quick to jump on the bandwagon. In fact, the article sites a 2008 Forrester Research report that more than half of B2B marketers either did not have a blog or were still figuring out their blogging strategy.

For B2B companies unsure of how a blog can benefit their company, the post goes on to identify the top reasons for starting a blog such as thought leadership, engaging with customers and a place for additional links to pages on the company website.

For those companies still deciding whether blogging is right for your company, Mashable recently posted an article “Five Surprising Social Media Business Success Stories,” which included a dentist, a steel building manufacturer, a paint company, a paper company and an aircraft maintenance and support company. This post is an excellent example that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a B2C or B2B company, a blog can be a beneficial addition to your company’s marketing activities as long as it is executed correctly.

At DJA, we work closely with our clients to determine whether and how a blog can benefit their company and if they have the time and resources necessary to be successful. When developed and maintained correctly, a blog can offer businesses a powerful way to increase dialogue, help search engine results and build better relationships with customers and other important audiences.

For those of you considering whether a blog is right for your company, be sure to check out DJA’s whitepaper examining blogs and blogging and how and when B2B companies might use this tool.

USC Annenberg recently released its sixth Public Relations Generally Accepted Practices (GAP VI) survey results, which have been cause for cautious optimism.  A total of 382 PR professionals from the corporate, nonprofit and government sectors participated, sharing data in Q4 of 2009.  There are a couple interrelated takeaways on which I would like to touch:

1. PR pros reporting to the C-suite were more satisfied with their jobs.
2. Management’s perception of PR is improving.

Of the corporate PR pros surveyed, 42.5 percent reported directly to the C-suite.  Of that percentage, 89.1 percent deemed it an appropriate structure.  To me, this raises the question, “What’s wrong with you other 10.9 percent?!”  Fewer than half of the professionals who reported to marketing, thought that line was appropriate.  Do you want to have less influence within your organization?  To really be a visionary and drive the agenda through messaging, you have to have access to the top executives.  Period.

Perhaps in light of these professionals having access to the C-suite, its not surprising that this year’s GAP study showed the highest rate of management taking PR/communications recommendations seriously (5.8 on a one-to-seven scale).  Indeed, management is starting to take notice of the value of PR.  (I bet the executive team at BP sees the value in it right now.)

As a final note, survey data seemed to support that professionals believed that the job loss rate would flatten out in 2010.  In the context of previous recessions and their ramifications on the PR profession, no news is good news.

USC Annenberg’s annual GAP survey is being released in installments this year, so stay tuned for more from GAP VI.

Iron Man not Gold-Titanium Man

“Iron Man, that’s kind of catchy.  It’s got a ring to it.  I mean it’s not technically accurate, because it’s a gold, titanium alloy, but its kind of evocative imagery anyway.” – Tony Stark, Iron Man

Iron Man is catchy.  Gold-Titanium Man not so much.  In tech PR, our goal is to be technically accurate, but to maximize our impact we should also strive to evoke emotion.

People buy based on emotion, but too many times we’re so focused on getting the technology right that we don’t consider the emotional reasons people are buying.

That point was brought home to me last weekend during the Iron Man movie mania that engulfed our household. Both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 are highly PR-oriented movies filled with press conferences, magazine covers, tradeshows and all the trappings of a life in the spotlight.    The quote above comes at the end of the first movie, when Tony Stark, the main protagonist, is reading the newspaper account of his exploits after the big battle is won.  A banner headline reads: “Who is Iron Man?”

At DJA, one way we tap into the emotional appeal of a product is to separate the consideration of a product’s market/customer impact from the discussion of its features and functionality.  By looking at the impact of the product, we can better develop the emotional side of the messaging.

The counter argument often is: “Our product is bought on speeds and feeds – we don’t need anything more.”  That may be true in the procurement phase, but that product must get onto a shortlist first. And that involves a human looking for some kind of emotional benefit from your product.   Another argument is that inspiring the customer is the job of the sales staff, not the marketer.   I argue that PR, as a prime influence in the awareness phase of selling, should bring the complete message to the customer to drive more leads and also to make sales’ job easier.

Actually, the biggest challenge with introducing emotion into a PR campaign is to do it well.  This means to not abuse adjectives to add false emotion and also to not overuse the term solution as a way to show the product delivers benefits beyond the datasheet.

In movies, characters get to live out their emotion.  The screenwriter’s mantra is to show, not tell.  In PR, it’s not that cut and dry.  When dealing with an arcane or technical product, it can be difficult to find the emotional benefit.  But every product with any real benefit does make someone’s life easier, and if that can be isolated and communicated, your message will resonate with more customers and be more successful.

Earlier this year Google debuted its Google Buzz, the latest social media platform to attempt to compete with Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Automatically registered with their Gmail account, users are able to share status updates, photos, videos and links. So far it sounds exactly like the other social media platforms, which begs the question – why would anyone want to use Google Buzz?

Well, according to the Gmail blog, Google Buzz is unique in its ability to deliver inline video play, full-resolution images and live conversations through email. Users are automatically set up to follow their email contacts and can choose additional posts to follow, while Google Buzz offers suggestions on interesting users and weeds out uninteresting posts. Through the Google Buzz platform, users can also connect to Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, and Twitter. Additionally, Google Buzz for mobile is also available, allowing users to share experiences and tag locations, so followers can easily know where you are at all times.

With the exception of providing your followers with more personal detail than ever before (i.e. location), Google Buzz seems to be nearly identical to the already well-established Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. And for DJA’s emerging tech clients, these more traditional social media platforms seem to cover the bases for growing and building a community. Many of our clients are already using Facebook to establish company pages that allow our clients to connect with fans through video, images and discussions. With LinkedIn, B2B companies can connect with likeminded individuals, create groups and discussions and share news. Using Twitter, our clients host tweet chats and share hashtags and links.

While it is still too early to tell whether Google Buzz will be a true competitor in the world of social media platforms, it has certainly lived up to its name and become a buzzworthy topic around the web. What do you think – will Google Buzz catch on for B2B companies or are Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter enough? Let us know!

In perhaps one of the most overdue changes in the information age, the Associated Press changed its convention from “Web site” to “website” last week.  While it is not unique that AP changes style on a certain term, one of the multitude of platforms is used to announce the change was a Tweet:

“Responding to reader input, we are changing Web site to website. This appears on Stylebook Online today and in the 2010 book next month.”

Within a few minutes, it was a trending topic, and a number of my own contacts were discussing the development.  Do we need any further evidence of the pervasive nature of social media?  As social media think tank Mashable stated in its post discussing the change:

“We’d actually gone rogue on the issue ourselves several months ago, thinking that ‘Web site’ was a rather antiquated way for describing ‘a computer connected to the internet that maintains a series of web pages on the World Wide Web.’”

Given the fact that AP’s statements in the wake of the change seem to indicate that its readership requesting this change was quite the chorus, the guys at Mashable are not alone.

Even major publications like the New York Times are recognizing that the nature of language is evolving in the direction of lower case letters and simplification.  Technology editor David Pogue stated in an <del>e-mail</del> email to Poynter Online:

“The trend in tech terminology is ALWAYS toward lowercase and no spaces or hyphens. ‘E-mail’ is rapidly giving way to ‘email.’ ‘Inter-office memo’ became ‘interoffice memo.’ (Actually, that’s the trend in all English: ‘extra-marital’ becomes ‘extramarital,’ ‘pigeon-hole’ became ‘pigeonhole,’ etc.  On the other hand, if enough publications all start using the lower case and the no-hyphen (sorry, ‘nohyphen’) term exclusively, then eventually, the public will stop tripping over them, and we can all move ahead in sync!”

Indeed, the information age is omnipresent, and it seems to live by the credo that less is more.

Last week I listened in on the Cision webinar “Engaging Social Media,” in which Cision’s own Jay Krall and Heidi Sullivan shared information on new strategies for more targeted, results-driven social media engagement. The webinar provided general information on listening and engaging through social media and briefly touched on measurement techniques, but what really caught my attention was an audience question about whether companies need to develop corporate guidelines for social media use.

With so many companies at various levels of social media interaction, many employees may have questions about who should be posting, what should be posted, when should information be posted, etc. To keep all employees informed on best practices, some companies have taken the lead and developed a social media guidebook. Several well-known firms have developed their own guidebooks and posted them on the Web for public consumption, including Intel, IBM and The Coca-Cola Company.

The extent to which a company should implement social media guidelines will vary depending on the size of the company, the type of industry and company culture, but it is certainly a good idea for every company to develop a few guidelines. By preparing a list of social media guidelines, companies can take the guessing out of corporate social media use and ensure that all employees are on the same page.

What do you think about social media guidelines – important or totally unnecessary? Has your company implemented some sort of best practices? Let us know your comments below!

One more Steve Jobs post and we’ll be done for 2009.  Steve Jobs has a trademark way of making a big announcement.  First, he starts his presentation with some routine news, and after talking for a bit he pretends to be done before pausing for dramatic effect and then saying, “There is one more thing…”

The pretend afterthought is, of course, the BIG thing.  This is how he introduces some of Apple’s biggest new products – its most hyped products.  Or are they?  The iPhone could rank as the most publicized new product launch ever, but few critics will call it hyped.

Here's Gartner's definition of how hype plays out in the launch of new technology products.

Which begs the question: What is hype?  Industry analyst group Gartner has defined a “hype cycle” that measures a product’s visibility over time.  The firm says the cycle starts with the “Technology Trigger,” which causes visibility to skyrocket to the “Peak of Inflated Expectations,” from which it plummets into the “Trough of Disillusionment” only to gradually rebound through the “Slope of Enlightenment” before settling into the “Plateau of Productivity.”

Cloud computing, PDAs and VoIP all have passed through the hype cycle, but this isn’t the case with Apple’s products.  My theory is that Apple avoids the Trough of Disillusionment by generally matching its pre-launch build up with great product features.  Thus, extensive promotion doesn’t become over promotion.

Often times, the temptation for companies is to use hype as a way to get noticed, or to jumpstart its marketing for a new product. But this can be risky strategy long term because

hype can lead to dissatisfied customers as they find out that maybe the promised features don’t do as much as they had expected.

But if a new product’s publicity matches the impact it will have on the market, this can minimize any negative reaction and set customer expectations properly.  If the product meets market needs and is well designed, it will catch on with customers, meaning it can replace hype with customer enthusiasm—the best way to generate buzz in the media and social media.

CEO of the Decade

OK, so Fortune named Steve Jobs its CEO of the decade for 2010, which means the race is on for the title in 2020.  To win all you have to do is beat Jobs’ record of reinventing the music, computing, movie and wireless communications industries—all while growing sales in the face of the worst economic downturn of our collective memory.

That’s a tall order.  But whether your goal is to be memorialized on the cover of Fortune or just to get back on a growth track, the article highlights Jobs’ use of disciplined messaging and communications to build the image of Apple.

A key Jobs business tool is his mastery of the message.  He rehearses over and over every line he and others utter in public about Apple, which authorizes only a small number of executives to speak publicly on a given topic.  Key to the Jobs approach is careful consideration of what he and Apple say – and don’t say.

The lesson for most companies is to hone corporate and product messaging to be brief, meaningful and differentiated.  Apple showed off its mastery of its strategy during the iPhone launch, which garnered an estimated $400 million in publicity and exposure.  Most companies have the opposite problem.  When the time comes to make news, they have to fight and scrap to get the attention of their audience – and a well-defined message helps to make an impact.

The DJA approach to message development is to filter messages through a framework based on two elements – customer relevance and competitive differentiation.  We then take these messages and organize them into a message “house,” where the roof is a tightly defined key message or theme.  The upper story is composed of three supporting messages, and the foundation is the set of facts that back up each supporting message.

With this foundation, we’re able to build a message that is memorable and can be delivered effectively in either 60 seconds or 60 minutes.

Today’s journalists are changing the ways they gather information and how they interact with sources. In order to stay ahead of the competition, journalists are expected to produce more content faster than ever before. This means virtually no time for phone calls or rummaging through emails and many journalists are now actively engaged on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. With these changes in the journalism landscape, PR professionals need to be creative and focused in order to meaningfully connect and interact with editors.

To help PR professionals gauge what today’s editors are looking for, Marketwire and PRWeek recently held a webcast on “The New Rules of Media Relations.” Panel participants included Kevin McCormally, Editorial Director at Kiplinger, Chloe Albanesius, News Reporter at PCMag.com, Ivan Oransky, M.D., Executive Editor at Reuters, Jessica Strange, Executive Director at Marketwire and Rose Gordon, News Editor at PRWeek. Here are some tips from the panel on discussion on email, media kits, social media platforms and event travelling trends:

• Email: Use punchy subject lines that shows you read something the editor has covered or that you have a new idea that will interest the readers. The draft of your email should include straightforward facts, no need for flowery descriptions.

• Media Kits: Sending an editor that much information is unnecessary. However if you feel you must send a media kit, use a flash drive.

• Social Media: DO use Twitter to figure out what the editor is interested in by following, retweeting and asking questions. DON’T send random pitches, especially when it’s obvious that you’re sending this to everyone else.

• Travel: Most publications have reduced travel budgets, so editors try to attend as many audio conferences and webcasts as possible to cut costs.

While the means for reaching journalists is constantly evolving, it is up to the PR professional to actively engage with editors in order to establish meaningful relationships and conversations.

All you have to do is Google “Sidewiki” to see that there is a lot of emerging concern in the PR community for this new function of the Google toolbar.   In essence, Sidewiki allows anyone to comment on a Website – without the Website owner’s consent or direct ability to remove that comment.  That posted comment appears in a window to the side of the Website that only Sidewiki users can see. (Sidewiki users: see the note I’ve attached to this post.)

Some in the blogosphere worry about Sidewiki becoming a tool for spreading defaming graffiti on Websites.  Anyone with an axe to grind can click on the Sidewiki icon and write a scathing note.  The note resides in the Sidewiki program and thus accompanies the Website, but is not part of the Website.  Right now, Website owners can’t remove the note.  The best they can do is use a  “report abuse” button to report comments that violate Sidewiki program policies.

To use Sidewiki, you need to have a Gmail account, which means some details about the writer of a comment are available.  But it’s easy to get a Gmail account not in your own name, effectively allowing anonymous postings.  The program policies allow removal of comments if the poster “pretends to be someone else,” but makes no provision for anonymous posts.

All of the concern about Sidewiki appears, though, to be a bit premature.  A quick survey of DJA client sites turned up no comments yet.  Google claims hundreds of millions of Sidewiki downloads, but the number of comments on several popular sites turned up nothing controversial or defamatory.

From my limited survey, I think that an equally likely outcome of Sidewiki is that it becomes another way to promote. A Sidewiki poster is able to tie her comments to a Google profile or to a business Website and use the service to boost traffic.   This is the case with the Sidewiki posters at the Whitehouse Web site where a Web design company complimented the site’s new design.

It’s probably too early yet to know what the impact will be on SEO efforts of Sidewiki postings.  A quick search on the name of a Facebook Sidewiki poster came up with no results on the first three pages of Google results.

At one point, the informal corporate mantra at Google was “don’t be evil,” and it’s unclear yet if this latest capability will be used for evil as many are concerned about. What is clear, is that the marketing power of Google will ensure that Sidewiki is in the hands of millions of people and that all corporate Websites must be watched carefully by PR, reputation management and corporate marketing teams.