December 2007

 A study conducted by the good people at the Pew Internet & American Life Project has concluded that a whopping 93% of teens are now online.  Of those, about 64% are using the Internet to post content as widespread as pictures and videos to homework assignments.  Feel free to take a second to pop your eyeballs back into their sockets.

According to a USA Today article on the study “Teens don’t drop old technologies as they add new ones, ‘they just communicate more,’ says Pew’s Amanda Lenhart. ‘And more frequently.’” 

For too long PR practitioners have considered a successful hit to be the front page of the New York Times.  Naturally we want mass audiences, but that’s like wishing for a return to the days of three TV stations.  As media continues its perpetual splintering, the future of PR will be defined not by print but by processors. 

Look into the crystal ball with me. 

In 10 years when these teenagers are young adults, news will regularly be delivered to their mobile phones or directly to their inboxes, not to their doorstep by a paper boy.  These adults will get personalized updates and news that is strictly relevant to them. 

Will a typical press release or pitch get picked up by media the way it might today?  Probably not.  I envision a day when press releases are regularly sent directly to consumers’ mobile phones and PDAs.  Forget pitching media when we can send highly relevant, highly targeted and most importantly, USEFUL information to the people we’re ultimately trying to reach.  What if PR practitioners could send press releases or company updates directly to consumers?  It could very well happen with the way traditional media continues to disintegrate.  And what if those consumers could send PR practitioners direct feedback about the products/brands that we’re marketing?  Certainly this group of consumers will be far more tech savvy than previous generations and the crumbling walls of media will only continue to put marketers and their audience on a much more intimate plane.  If the media, marketers and consumers represent three distinct groups today, in 10-20 years these groups will probably be indistinguishable - instead, we’ll simply be trading information with one another.  And the success of PR will not be about the number of eyeballs but about the quality of information shared and its meaningfulness to those who receive our messages. 

So let’s move beyond those New York Times hits, and let’s try to think about ways to actively reach and engage consumers instead of simply talking at them.  Sounds quite refreshing to me. 

A recent CNN story about political attack ads explored negative ads in American politics. These are definitely not a new phenomenon. The fear-inducing “Daisy” ad for Lyndon B. Johnson was devastating for Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign. The Willie Horton ad was a huge factor in the 1988 presidential campaign.

Social media has changed a lot of the rules for politics and business in general. We’re just starting to see how much of an impact this will have as the first presidential campaign since the explosion of social media heats up.
Now anyone with a laptop and a cursory understanding of video editing can reach a huge audience without the traditional barriers to entry. A negative campaign ad mashup of the famous 1984 Apple Super Bowl ad resonated with Obama supporters earlier this year when it replaced the image of “Big Brother” with Hillary Clinton. It will be interesting to see how these types of videos influence the presidential election as we get closer to the final vote in November.

The discussion about negative political ads got us thinking. How do these tactics apply to the business world?

The exciting thing about social media is that anyone now can make a video that could reach a huge audience. A huge community can also easily come together to share ideas about a specific topic. Unfortunately, however, anonymity often doesn’t help dialogue as some people leave comments they wouldn’t make if their real names and faces were somehow required. This is one of the biggest problems with political attack ads. It is often not clear who creates them, and they never contribute to meaningful dialogue.

The best way for companies to engage their customers using social media is to use be open and honest with them. Blogs, forums and other social media can be useful platforms for encouraging legitimate discussion of issues and can provide a mechanism for customers to give feedback.

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A recent guest post on TechCrunch by Dan Ackerman-Greenberg, co-founder of a viral video marketing company, touched a nerve with readers. He shared “secret strategies” behind many of the viral videos that appear on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet. What is striking about the post is that he was willing to share so unapologetically some controversial tactics used to promote viral videos.

Among the shady YouTube tactics Ackerman-Greenberg outlined are the use of misleading titles, creating fake user accounts, creating false controversy by posting phony comments back and forth, deleting comments they don’t like, paying bloggers to post videos and more. The post generated about 500 comments, mostly decrying these tactics.

First, people shouldn’t be surprised that these tactics are being used by some to push viral videos. The ultimate search for marketers is to reach the elusive youth demographic. The potential to reach such a huge audience makes us all consider how to get our message to them.

So, back to the angry response of many TechCrunch readers …

What are they expecting? Don’t most videos that appear on the most viewed page have some agenda? Of course they do. One comment by “rico” says it well: “i know a lot of people would like to keep their youtube experience pure - heaven forbid their viewing of cat videos and snl skits be tainted by marketing, but don’t get angry just because someone figured out how to make money in a creative way.”

YouTube and other social media resources are a great way to reach a lot of people. We think that it is just not worth it to use unethical tactics. It’s a good rule of thumb in PR that if something could embarrass your client if found out, then don’t do it.

Ultimately, good content is key to any viral video’s success. If done correctly, hundreds of thousands of potential customers may view your message. But that is not really the end goal, is it? While stupid videos like this one mentioned by Ackerman-Greenberg may generate a lot of views, we doubt that it is really going to influence the company’s bottom line. It is hard to correlate a large number of views with actual actions taken by consumers, voters, etc. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not worth creating good viral videos. If the video encapsulates your brand well and inspires people to act, it can have a huge impact.

Greenberg states, “You simply can’t expect to post great videos on YouTube and have them go viral on their own, even if you think you have the best videos ever. These days, achieving true virality takes serious creativity, some luck, and a lot of hard work.” Yeah, that is probably true, but we believe that there are more ethical ways of “greasing the wheel.” Doing it the wrong way just gives our profession a bad name and ultimately hurts our clients.

Let us know what you think. Post a comment or two.