Originally posted on The Naked Pheasant.

How do you ensure that your limited time and resources is spent using social media effectively? The answer is not as many people often believe?

The current view is to try and engage purely with the superstars of the twittersphere in the hope that they will repeat your name/message and promote you. This is timely, expensive and rarely succeeds.

The other method I have seen used is to hit everyone who refers to a specific term. Having a search filter setup for key words and then conversing with anyone who mentions your key terms is a sure fire way to spend a great deal of time with people who have limited influence. In an ideal world, this would be great but many firms do not have the time to spend engaging with everyone. The cynical part of me believes that this approach is often used purely to hit metrics on report cards, I doubt that savvy people will allow this approach to go on for much longer.

Instead, my view is to focus on those people that are influentials. The people who create and share ideas as oppose to merely broadcast.

I presented on this topic a few weeks ago at BrightTalk – if you’d like to see my presentation you can do so above.

We live in a world that gets more and more casual by the emoticon. The prevalence of popular shorthand has made professional writing in largely personal spaces murky waters. Here are five suggestions curated by the Friday Five team and inspired by Edelman’s own Edit and Proofreading Q-Tips.

Keep it Brief

Even in spaces where speech is not limited to 140 characters or less, there are benefits to keeping your thoughts concise. Studies have shown that entries that are 150 words or less are more likely to generate conversation.

If Twitter is the intended medium and the author would like a tweet to be passed on, care should be taken to ensure that enough characters are still available for his or her user name to be included in the event of a retweet, without any additional editing necessary.

Link Love

Just as other writing formats require footnotes, social media attribution takes the form of links much of the time. It’s very important to link to original source material. In addition to giving credit where credit is due, links provide meaningful back-up and context for the assertions being made in your writing.

You Are Here

“Here” could refer to anywhere. Perhaps that is why it is so often used as the linked word in sentences designed to provide click-through context. For example: “Click here for a map of the museum”. As Edelman Digital’s Phil Gomes noted, “This draws the eye to the most useless word in the sentence.” A better phrasing might be “Download a map of the museum.” From a search perspective, a linked keyword will mean a lot more to Google visibility than a word like “here” or “this.”

Abbrevi8 Only When Necessary

Professionals should avoid overtly casual abbreviations unless absolutely necessary. Shorthand like “b4” or “l8r” looks trite, even when used without absolute necessity. Acceptable abbreviations when necessary include: b/t (between), and w/ (with).

Disclose Early and Often

If the subject matter you’re writing about references a client or directly addresses your client’s immediate field or industry, disclose that relationship early in your writing and again as separate comments warrant (i.e. Individual tweets count as separate comments). The word client in parentheses after the company name will typically suffice.

With thanks to the following individuals for sharing their insights: APAC: IndoPacific Edelman, Jakarta – James Allan, Hartiasri Ariviani, Prima Harrison, Vida Parady, Bruce Poan, Rudijanto; Europe: London – Jo Sheldon; LatAm: Sao Paulo – Gabriela Bruschi, Tatiana Castro, Andre Larrubia, Osmar Maduro, Michele Vercosa; US: Chicago – Phil Gomes, Matt Groch, Jessi Langsen, Suzanne Marlatt, Dan Santow, Danielle Wiley; NY – Kim Berndt, Esther Buterman, A.J. Desjardins, Amanda Kaufman. Special thanks are in order to this issue’s author, Tracy Waldman.

It’s no secret that information is exploding, but just how much may shock you.

Americans consume 100,500 words a day, according to a study by the University of California at San Diego – and that doesn’t include any information at work.

What’s worse, as more content is digested digitally, we now scan and skim. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen found that on the average web page users read at most 28% of the words.

While both of these studies focus only on the US, the “Attention Crash” is a global problem – and it’s not going to get any better. This means that the single biggest challenge PR professionals will face in the next 10 years (and perhaps beyond) is in how to secure enough “surface area” to create behavior change.

The good news is that we’re not alone. The media too is struggling to capture fleeting attention spans. Consider this: the average Internet user spends six hours a month on Facebook, according to Nielsen (no relation to Jakob). Most news sites are lucky if they get 20 minutes of a user’s time per month.

However, the media, more so than the PR industry, is successfully coping with these changes by increasingly turning to traffic-generating search engine optimization tactics. Page-view journalism, like it or hate it, is the new reality. And we can learn from the media.

Writers and editors at Hearst Media, for example, use a tool that suggests relevant Google-friendly keywords. The Huffington Post runs two different headlines on a story as it’s published to determine which is stronger – and then it abandons the weaker one. Bloggers change their headlines weeks later to cater to Google. And a rising assortment of content mills (AOL’s Seed.com, Demand Media and Yahoo’s Associated Content) assign thousands of stories to amateur scribes. Payment rates are based on keyword volumes/search demand – i.e. their traffic potential. (The image below shows how AOL uses Seed.com to recruit writers for its network.)

With this in mind, here are three simple tips to help you implement a more traffic-friendly PR campaign.

Use search data to inform message development/story ideas

Google knows more about me than my own mother. The same is true for you. If you’re thinking about breaking up with your significant other, Google knows. Looking for a new car? Google knows. You get the idea. Put your sailboat into these winds and your programs will go further.
 
Start with Google Insights. On this site you can see how the world thinks and searches. This information can be used to help shape messaging strategies and program that increase the likelihood that any earned media will find its way into high-value search results. View Google as media.

Write web-friendly copy

Brevity rules online. Web users are very mission-oriented. This means that any messages that are meant to be consumed/reverberated by others via screens need to be very clear and literal. This is especially key for content that you hope to see spread on Twitter. Write headlines like tweets. For more, see this forthcoming book from Yahoo.

Create and generate socially connected content

Content is king today. If a company isn’t creating or effecting content on a regular basis, they will be invisible. However, in a world where everyone can create, it’s becoming critical that all of the content we generate be socially connected.
 
Three great resources here are rich media sites like Flickr, YouTube and SlideShare. Consider prioritizing these sites over traditional press rooms and/or turn to emerging services like Presslift that already have strong SEO.

Originally posted on Campaign Asia.

For at least the last decade, the environment has taken center stage when it comes to issues in which consumers and employees think businesses need to take an active part. However, now it seems that the environment is not alone, and ‘health’ as an issue is just as important.

This is what we’ve found in Edelman’s second Health Engagement Barometer. Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of the 15,000 respondents to this survey said that they would trust a company more that is effectively engaged in health and two thirds (65 percent) would either recommend or buy products from these companies. While globally 65 percent say that sustainability is as much about the health of people as it is about the health of the planet, this figure was far higher in China (89 percent) and India (70 percent).

Now, I’ve planted my fair share of trees as part of a company’s environmental commitment over the years. Heck, I’ve organised these events myself. But I’m pleased, especially as we have a looming health crisis on our doorstep with an aging population and rise in chronic diseases, that the public is sending a clear message to business to get on board or pay the price.

Health Actionists

According to the study, which was conducted in 11 countries including China, India and Japan, respondents naturally cluster into various groups reflecting their own personal interests and involvement in health. The group that stood out in my mind was the group dubbed the Health Actionists. This group (roughly one sixth of respondents) is highly engaged and interested in health; and, unlike other segments, these people persuade others to take action. What’s more important for marketers to note is that 70 percent of this group is active in social media; 65 percent regularly use Google or other search engines; and almost half (49 percent) frequent consumer health web sites.

Marketing implications across Industries

Is this data only a message for the pharmaceutical industry and other healthcare companies? Well, no actually.

Sure, the pharmaceutical industry should sit up and listen – and for an industry typically shy of social media because of legal and regulatory issues, it’s refreshing to have a defined group of people who are proponents of spreading health information online. However, this research has a more far-reaching message that cuts across industries, but the expectations vary by industry.

So, what does this all really mean for marketers in the region?

For the food and beverage industry, people want to know the health risks of your products and services (51 percent) and they also think you have a role to play in educating the public on health topics related to your products and services (50 percent).

For the media and entertainment industry, you need to play a role in educating the public on health topics, as well as support the health of your local community.

The final question is: how are we doing? Well, not as well as you’d like to hope. A little over half (56 percent) said that in general, business is only doing a fair or poor job in this area, and only one third (36 percent) even trust business to fulfill its role in addressing health.

Hopefully companies will take lessons learnt from the environmental phenomenon and get on board early. Some clearly already have, but what surprises me is that many businesses have a market-by-market approach when it comes to health. However, consumers expect to see a consistent approach each time they interact with a company, and the respondents to the Health Engagement Barometer are saying that loud and clear.

Local social networks across the world are under pressure by the spread of Facebook. Smaller, local players seem to be no match for the worldwide network. The question arises: Will they survive? A European case shows they can.

The big turnaround kicked off when Facebook started publishing in multiple languages in 2007. Two years ago Skyrock still was the undisputed champion of social networking in France, with Tuenti holding the title in Spain. By now, the American network can pride itself in having twice the number of users in France as Skyrock and about 1.5 times as many as Tuenti in Spain.

‘Two years, no longer’

In Germany, the popular StudiVZ Group remains top of the chart for now but Facebook is closing in fast showing impressive growth numbers. It’s a matter of time before it will top StudiVZ as well. Björn Hasse (Director at Edelman Frankfurt, Germany) said it best when he stated: “Let’s give it two years, no longer. The globals will win.”

There is hope however for brave little local networking sites. Take a look at Hyves in the Netherlands. The Amsterdam-based organization is showing encouraging endurance. Its market share continues to grow and one in every five pages visited in the Netherlands is a Hyves page. In a country inhabited by sixteen million people, Hyves claims an impressive eight million unique visitors a month with Facebook lagging at a mere 2.5 million (source: ComScore).

Business case

Despite being founded in the internationally oriented Dutch market, Hyves retains its dominance against global player Facebook and provides other local networks with an interesting business case.

What sets Hyves apart is its talent for making the most out of local trends and current events such as elections, national holidays and sports highlights. It successfully engages users in discussions and co-creation initiatives on the platform. Offline, smart partnerships with key Dutch brands and organizations like national TV stations and the Dutch national football team ensure visibility and emphasize the local relevance of the network.

Worth coming back

According to the statistics, Hyves offers more than half the country a user experience worth coming back for – and with that, a wealth of segmented target audiences for advertisers and social media strategists. It’s therefore not surprising that the company has been profitable since 2006.

In short: local networks can co-exist with Facebook and will continue to do so. Skyrock, Tuenti and StudiVZ are all cooking up ways to differentiate themselves from Facebook – as Hyves has. Local online networks will remain a force to be reckoned with when developing social media strategies.

Image credit: Vincos

It’s not every day that a client asks you to create something that is meaningful, innovative, creative and fun.

Okay, with Ben & Jerry’s, it’s every other day. In keeping with Jerry Greenfield’s motto “If it’s not fun, then why do it” they have really outdone themselves this time.

Ben & Jerry’s is always looking for new ways to engage with their fans. They saw early success with their Facebook page which reached one million fans last year and is steadily growing.

Their Twitter presence isn’t too shabby either, with over 10K followers. In March, Ben & Jerry’s entered the world of iPhone apps with “Scoop of Happiness” which includes a Scoop Shop Locator, flavor and ingredient information as well as Mystic Moo a clairvoyant cow who makes flavor recommendations based on your mood.

Last week, the “Scoop of Happiness” app got a little bit happier with an extra scoop of Augmented Reality called Moo Vision. Now this is a big first.

Moo Vision unlocks 3D AR experiences launched by the pint lid design – without markers or QR codes. Instead, by leveraging the capabilities of iOS 4.0, the AR experience allows for natural feature tracking. It tells the story of Ben & Jerry’s platform of “It’s What’s Inside That Counts” while letting fans take advantage of breakthrough technology from wherever they are enjoying their pint. Currently, there are four pints that Moo Vision recognizes. Unlock them all and get some special background images.

The cows have come home, in terms of this technology. Using Moo Vision is like finding a prize inside your cereal box, except it’s on the outside! We’ve always loved sharing our story. Now, instead of just telling it, we can help our fans experience it by taking them on the journey with us. — Katie O’Brien, Global Digital Marketing Manager at Ben & Jerry’s

Be on the lookout for more surprises from Ben & Jerry’s over the next year as they go completely Fair Trade with their ingredients.

This is only the beginning of a bold and digital journey. (Seriously, my job is better than yours and I’m sorry to break that to you)

Digital Team: Peter DiBart, Sarah True, Albert Lewis, Evan Rosler, Lou Tehan. In conjunction with Circ.us

Originally posted on Wilder Voices.

When it comes to figuring a company’s social architecture around social — where a social media team should reside in a company, there are several options, such as:

• Centralize approach – One team manages all social media activities
• Decentralized / Silo’d – Each BU owns their own Social Media P&L
• Coordinated – One social media team tries to make sure everyone is aligned, but has no accountability
• Hub and Spoke model Centralized but consists of members from each BU — and each BU representative has a dotted line into BU and Social Media Team
• Hub and Spoke model without the dotted line reporting – Everyone sits in one group and reports to the lead Social Media person

My old company, Intuit handled it several different ways:

• In the early Web 2.0 days, only one group was really being social and that was the online community team
• In the mid Web 2.0 days, there was Hub and Spoke Model with dotted line reporting for each social media managers – reported to BU and to Social Media Lead
• And now, Social Media seems to have adopted a decentralized model with each BU owning activities on external social networks (this has led to duplication of programs, inconsistency in messaging, etc.) (Note: I am no longer with the company, so I might have my info wrong)

My recommendation for companies to is the ‘Hub and Spoke model’ with each BU having a Social Media Captain being dotted line into the lead Social Media person. Why the dotted line? This holds the business units accountable, gets them to provide resources, and it becomes part of their op mechs and it ensures that Social is part of every aspect of the group: Cusotmer Service, Product Development, Marketing, etc.

These Social Media Captains should:

• Coordinate all social media efforts within their own BU: Cust Serv., Product Management, Marketing, etc.
• Integrate social media metrics into their own BU’s dashboard

The main Social Media Team should drive:

• Guidelines for the company
• Policies, Training, metrics definitions, technology evaluations, best practice sharing
• Crisis Management (Preemptive and Responsive)
• Coordination with non-Bus Units (finance, legal, privacy, etc.)
• Primary social media dashboard: primary objectives and KPIs

Some requirements to make this Hub and Spoke dotted line approach successful include (based on my experience at Intuit):

• Top down support (CMO, etc.)
• BU Leader’s support
• Extensive information sharing with BU leaders
• Fully dedicated Social Media captain assigned to each BU
• Integrate Social Media learnings/results into BU dashboard
• Monthly reports – dashboard, successes/case studies, update on training, industry trends, etc.

It is important to note that a company’s culture should be an important factor in deciding which is the right model. Almost all the companies I have worked with have been very open to trying new org models out and have been very democratic in their approach. A few years ago, though, I worked with a company that was more top – down and where the business units wanted complete control of the marketing mix. So, it is important to think about how any of the above models would fit into your current environment.

There are many reasons we end up creating a deck for ourselves or a client. Sometimes it is for an important stakeholder meeting, other times, it’s to introduce a new plan or strategy. Either way, once those events are over, that presentation may find itself buried on a server somewhere, never to be seen again, far from the social Web.

Why horde information, though? Did you know that there actually is a place where you can share your decks with a wider audience? SlideShare is basically a YouTube for visual presentations, and not only is it a place for you to share, it’s also a place to find other people’s ideas on all sorts of topics – including the future of health communications.

Edelman Digital has recently gotten more involved on SlideShare in the last few weeks, and in honor of that, we went digging to find some of the most interesting presentations out there relevant to the health and digital spaces.

Healthcare Napkins

There are some amazingly creative presentations on SlideShare, designed to simplify complex ideas into easy to digest ideas. One of the most interesting may be this visual “back-of-the-napkin” breakdown by Dan Roam explaining the Healthcare Reform debate of the last year.

GP and Specialists Study

Although the research is several months old, this study on pharma and physician participation in online health information and social media in the United Kingdom still provides several insights into the universal concerns of healthcare communication online. There are several interesting charts in here on the different levels of participation among the specialists and general practitioners who were surveyed.

Happiness as Your Business Model

Tara Hunt’s clever and engaging discussion of looking at economics through the eyes of psychology is not only is fascinating, it also shows off a few other cool things about how visual information doesn’t have to be boring. A presentation doesn’t have to be all bullets and lengthy slides to get a point across – sometimes, simple is better, and Hunt does a great job at proving that.

How Facebook and Twitter Are Changing Healthcare

In both a forward and retrospective look, Kevin Clauson, a professor of pharmacology at NOVA Southeastern University, breaks down the landscape of healthcare and digital media. Looking at the change of culture, business and delivery of information, Clauson’s presentation shares several examples that may serve as good case studies.

Six Digital Trends to Watch

Edelman’s Steve Rubel and Dave Armano took some time out of their hectic calendars to get together and create an incredibly valuable presentation on what’s next in the digital realm. These two thoughtleaders within Edelman have some great ideas and foresight into what we’ll have to plan for in the future.

How to Organize A Successful Meetup

While the social media world is a great place to forge connections with people. Eventually, you want to meet up with them IRL (in real life). Enter the meetup, an event geared to get to know your friends, likers, and followers in person. Mashable offers a how-to post.

Brands Offer Incentives for Location-based Check-ins

Now there’s a reason to check-in (while others start gaming the system). Starbucks (client) introduced its first-ever national “mayor special” with Foursquare that rewards store mayors with dollar discounts on Frappucinos. In the U.K., Domino’s has a Foursquare promotion running that offers free pizzas and discounts to Foursquare users who check in at its locations.

Social Media Platforms 101

Eloqua has put together a neat 38 page e-book covering all the main social media platforms and how they work. Great reference for training newbies.

Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love

“Neuroeconomist” Paul Zak has discovered, for the first time, that social networking triggers the release of the generosity-trust chemical, oxytocin, in our brains. And that should be a wake-up call for every company. Professor Zak recently visited Edelman’s New York office and his findings mesh well with Edelman’s trust barometer.

Win with Web Metrics: Ensure a Clear Line of Sight to Net Income

Web measurement guru, Avinash Kaushik, preaches with evangelical fervor on the need for businesses to compute the economic value of their web presences. Web interactions should be bucketed into price, cost, market share or market size which have a clear line of sight to net income. If you can’t find that line of sight then maybe it’s not a very important metric.

The Rise of Fake PR and How to Manage it

Fake PR cases seem to be on the rise.The most notable of course have been the following: the fake BP Global PR Twitter account, the General Mills press release hoax, and now, the fake PR account for AT&T.

BBC News has revealed that the British Government has spent, or proposed to spend, somewhere between £10,000 and £40,000 on developing phone applications. One of the apps, a job seeker’s tool, has been downloaded 50,000 times and a Motoring Masterclass application proposed by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency sounds genuinely unique and useful in that it calculates fuel efficiency, tracks the proximity of a highway rescue organisation, and can be used as an emergency hazard light – so what’s the fuss?

Well, the new Coalition Government has recently launched a public spending review, with spending on the digital propositions of many Government departments coming under the the microscope. There are, a review by the Central Office of Information has revealed, 820 Government websites which cost £94 million to design and build between 2009 and today and a further £32 million in staffing costs.

When asked by the Daily Telegraph for comment on the app spending disclosure, I pointed out that £10,000 to £40,000 seems a reasonable budget for the work, depending on the complexity of the app and resource required to implement it. I also warned that, where Government departments are planning such applications in future, they should ensure that they aren’t simply duplicating functionality that’s already available in free or paid for apps, and that there is a genuine need for such an app in the first place.

I also said, although it wasn’t included in the article, that Government departments would be wise to seek out, and make their data available, to partners who want to create applications that use that data. This way, rather than paying for design and development, useful applications would still come to market, but tax payer funding would be replaced by market economics – those who build and release the app being free to seek reward for their efforts by selling it.

The failure, if there is one, in the Government apps already created is that they don’t appear to be underpinned by a clear strategy that aligns business drivers with end user requirements. Third party application developers, driven by the chance to make a profit rather than a desire to simply do something “cutting edge”, seem more likely, in many instances, to create genuinely useful apps that make clever use of Government data. There’s no reason, by the way, that businesses and other organisations can’t benefit from freeing up some of their data for use by third parties – in the UK, Tesco (our largest retailer), The Guardian and the BBC are all experimenting with doing exactly that.

Image credit: Cristiano Betta