Articles by Paul Dyer

We’ve all heard it time and again… Social Media is about conversation! Says the new guy in the room. Everyone nods in unison. It sounds mysterious and innovative. We’re not marketing to consumers, we’re having a conversation with them! However, conversations end with Goodbye. If that’s not how you want YOUR social media program to end, I suggest you chiggity-check yourself and get with the real program. Social media is about driving business results. Period.

What does that mean for the 87% of social media flacks out there clamoring social media is about conversation! as loud as their blog and panel seats will allow them? It means that if you’re considering hiring them… Don’t. Save your money. The business translation for this statement is I haven’t figured out how to drive business results through social media yet. This is probably because most social media experts are little more than well-versed social media consumers. Social media consumers partake in social channels on their own time, as part of their personal lives. In this regard, social media IS about conversation. This is personal social media. This is just like personal email. Personal email is about conversation. Company email is about driving business results. Likewise, company social media is also about driving business results.

Social media is a fantastic new business opportunity for companies. It can drive sales, awareness, messaging, recall, branding, and any number of other business objectives. It is also a fantastic new business opportunity for PR professionals who have a natural proclivity for the space. However, gone are the days when a company can be successful in social media simply by “doing it’. It’s no longer impressive to host a blog. In many instances and industries it’s expected. As the luster fades from doing social media for the sake of doing it, so does the impetus for companies to dedicate resources to it. Social media can no longer be about “just giving it a shot”. Much as its traditional counterparts, social media is now about driving business results.

So what role DOES conversation play? asks the new guy much more timidly now. Conversation is one of many means to achieving business results in social media. It cannot stand on its own, however. Conversations end with goodbye. If social media is to succeed in the corporate world, it must end with a “good buy”… Ok sorry, that was terrible. Point made, though. Before engaging in any social media campaign it is important to identify your target business objectives. At the end of the campaign if you have a lot of Facebook friends and almost as many unmet objectives, it’s time to retool. This is not personal social media for your company. It’s company social media for business results.

You can CarryOn now catch recent posts from CarryOn Fresh as well as updates on the latest and greatest in the CO world by following us at: twitter.com/CarryOnPR. The goal of having an agency feed is not just to cut down on the number of employees Tweeting from their mobile phones during meetings, it’s also to demonstrate a lot of the cool business applications that can be realized through Twitter. Keep an eye on it as we’ll be sharing those soon!

Recently American University’s Social Media Center released a report titled “Code of Best Practices for Online Video”. In it are six guidelines on how producers of online videos can work with copyrighted material to create things like parodies and mashups without being out of line. Kami Huyse, BoingBoing, and others have already done an admirable job of reporting on this release, so instead I wanted to take some time to focus on best practices for how to PROMOTE online videos.

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1. The community is smart

If you try pumping views, seeding comments, or any other tactics that may be construed as counter to the organic purpose and nature of the community, you will get flagged for it. Once you’re flagged by several users your greatest hope is either indifference or deletion. Neither of these is a good alternative for brands who wanted to leverage the promise of social video sites.

2. Faux UGC is OK

Creating viral videos and seeding them under the guise of being unbranded/user generated IS ok. As long as you own up to it later. People don’t like being duped but they will accept it for a good reason. In other words people will understand if a video had to be seeded under the guise of being user generated for the purposes of being funny or entertaining. They will not be understanding, however, if you continue the ruse and refuse to take ownership of your content.

3. Honesty in VSEO (Video Search Engine Optimization)

This seems like a no brainer but still needs to be reiterated. As with SEO, video optimization can play a big role in how proliferated it becomes (how many people view it) as well as how engaging it is (how many people comment / rate/ email it as well as how many repeat commenters you have). Methods of video optimization include strategic response linking, title / tag / description optimization, and thumbnail optimization. These elements can be likened to the meta data of VSEO… They are easily manipulated but doing so inappropriately can actually have negative consequences. Just make sure your descriptors, response link, and thumbnail are accurate representations of the content you are posting and you should be fine.

4. Don’t Trick Google

YouTube This is also a bit of an adaptation from old school search engine optimization. Back when I was touring and speaking on SEO I was frequently approached by marketers who wanted my take on their latest scheme to shoot to the top of Google rankings. My advice to them was invariably, “If you think you’ve figured out a way to trick Google… DON’T.” That means 1) don’t think you have tricked Google because you probably haven’t and 2) don’t implement your idea. Those are the sort of ideas that got BMW kicked to timeout from Google. Cut the tricks and instead focus on creating top notch content, optimizing it with strategic but accurate VSEO (see above), and promote it via good ol’ fashioned grassroots outreach. If users don’t like the content enough to share it virally chances are any shady tactics are going to be flagged regardless.

5. It’s About the Brand

Viral videos are hot. They’re sexy. They are the rage and for good reason – according to comScore there were more than 10 BILLION online videos viewed in February of this year. Top videos in sites like YouTiube, Revver, and DailyMotion can make a marketing campaign successful or crash a young company’s servers (if they’re lucky). Add to that the average YouTuber is now up to 28 minutes per visit!

Mass consumer appeal, prolonged engagement, this is an enticing marketing opportunity. And everyone knows which videos succeed, right? They have to be funny, sexy, or humanly impossible for people to watch them. Right? Wrong. YouTube and other social video sites are a great opportunity as long as you segment your audience, find the RIGHT people to view your videos and grow your message virally from there. These people want something that is on brand. In fact, off brand videos in social video sites can be a huge turn off for consumers. Don’t get caught up in the “What Will Consumers Respond to?” mentality. Think instead of “What Message do I Want Consumers to Absorb?” and craft the best content to convey that message. It may not be funny. It may not be sexy. But if it is on brand and you select the right targets for seeding then your marketing objectives will be achieved much more readily.

6. Be Real

Seriously. For all of us. Be real. If your client comes to you and asks for a YouTube video, you should first be asking yourself – is this the right opportunity for a viral video? Or did my client just hear about YouTube from his or her daughter? Be real with yourself and your client about the content you are creating and the purpose behind driving it forward – does it align with the brand messaging? Will it resonate with your online audience? Does it address current opportunities or threats? If it does not then you are walking into one of two situations – public indifference (ideally) or public martyrdom. Yes, the community will make an example of you for feeding them crap, so be real about the videos and message you deliver.

Sometimes the best policy is just to picture the final video in your head and ask yourself – would this video suck? That’s the $1 million dollar question and one you should ask yourself every time you cut a viral video… Does this video suck? If it does, then be real. Counsel the client. Don’t let them make a mistake by putting poor content out on the web. If you have a hard time figuring out answers to the questions in the last paragraph then odds are you need to take a step back from the project and be real. It may be time to live and fight another day.

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Social video sites are massively popular, the wave of the future, and able to perfectly bake sourdough bread while teaching you to speak French. They are also a liability if not handled with composure and experience. Following the underlying principles behind these six rules should provide you with a solid starting point for how to successfully promote viral videos without incurring either the community’s wrath or indifference.

Congratulations to the Methuselah Foundationfor becoming the number one story on the Digg homepage! New CarryOn client, the Methuselah Foundation (more about MF below) was featured in a story by WIRED.com writer Alexis Madrigal last week. The story was submitted by mega-Digger MakiMaki (who is unaffiliated) and the joint CarryOn/Methuselah team reacted quickly to socialize the post online. What started with just a few Diggs soon moved to the top spot on Popular and Upcoming stories from the Health News section. A second wind of promoting the post via targeted Facebook, Eons.com, and email tactics led to a surge in people who really “Dugg” the story. Just a few short hours later the post was on a rapid ascent with hundreds of Diggs and it cruised past the Digg editorial team to become the most popular story on Digg.com! Since its time on the homepage the post has skyrocketed to 857 Diggs and 158 Comments from users. Check out the story from WIRED where the story has received an additional 71 user comments and let us know what you think!

Nuts! I just realized it’s been weeks since I checked my mailbox here at CarryOn. Never a good move with our ever-vigilant receptionist, Judith, who’s been known to shout into the office-wide intercom with threats of fire and brimstone and throw packs of staples at people who let their mailbox get too full. So it was with trepidation that I snuck past her desk and peeked at my name on the wall lined with mailboxes. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Not a single piece of mail in WEEKS. I breathed a sigh of relief.

The truth is this sort of finding is becoming more and more frequent. Where as recently as 12 months ago I was receiving at least a dozen pieces of mail a week (at my office that is – Lord only knows how many pounds of mail I received at my house), I’m now finding fewer and fewer trees have cursed my name as they crashed to the ground.

What’s my secret? Well, first of all as a Web 2.0 guy I don’t think I’ve signed up for any sort of paper mailing in… well… ever. More importantly, I think this trend signals the long overdue realization that direct mail marketing to office buildings is about as effective as putting fliers on my windshield while I’m eating dinner. Email, RSS, social networks, evites, discussion groups, these are the ways of keeping people informed of upcoming events and new products in today’s service and retail environment.

I do have a secret, however…It’s called Green Dimes and I used it for both my home addresses and my office address. Am I the most environmentally-friendly guy in the world? No. Far from it, unfortunately. Heck, I still haven’t gotten my computers greenified. But this Green Dimes business isn’t just about eating soy products and showering bi-weekly to save energy. For a few bucks, they practically stopped junk mail coming to my house and office. Sure, I still wake up every morning to 3 Chinese menus, 2 tree trimming postcards, and a handful of Molly Maid fliers rubber-banded to my fence, but I’m pretty sure nothing short of a tiger pit is going to prevent that. This Green Dimes thing makes it much easier for me to find the few paper bills that still come regardless of my having paid them online since the first month and repeatedly selected the “Turn Off Paper Notices” option online. And it makes me more environmentally-friendly both for Mother Earth and father living room, which is where junk mail used to accumulate in my house.

Check it out – breaking your dependence on the postal service will also help turn you to the wonders of a web-based life where organization newsletters and coupons to KFC come on a largely opt-in basis.

Peter Shankman has launched an interesting service of sorts called Help a Reporter, which actually stems from his hugely popular Facebook group If I can help a reporter out, I will. On the new homepage Peter likens the service to ProfNet which in my opinion misses the mark in a good way. ProfNet is a paid service that puts PR people, journalists, and experts together based on similar topics of interest. However, it’s also very clearly a sales tool for both the PR practitioners and the experts. Based on its roots in social media, Help a Reporter, has the opportunity to be much more. It has the opportunity to be more alumni association than vendor – a network of people with common backgrounds who have a vested interest in helping one another. Perhaps that’s why Peter goes on to say:

This is really the only thing I ask: By joining this list, just promise me and yourself that you’ll ask yourself before you send a response: Is this response really on target? Is this response really going to help the journalist, or is this just a BS way for me to get my client in front of the reporter? If you have to think for more than three seconds, chances are, you shouldn’t send the response.

In other words, Peter is asking that you don’t take his community and turn it into Second Life… A great concept that blossomed into community and was subsequently deserted when the axles broke on the marketers’ bandwagon.

The question remains to be answered, do we as practitioners have that sort of self control? Or perhaps more pertinently, do we have the presence of mind to recognize when we are helping a reporter versus when we are loading our pitch into a shotgun and sawing the end off? The future of PR is returning to relationships (as opt-in technologies like RSS take over from email, the ultimate sawed-off shotgun), and Help a Reporter is the start of a great community as long as we treat it as just that: community.

Hulu.com is a new social video site that represents one of the first major steps toward offering network video content for free online. Hulu is currently only open to a small population of beta testers but should be launching to the public sometime later this year. Here we take a look at the future of both online and network video.

Overview:

Hulu is a joint venture between News Corp. (which also owns MySpace) and NBC Universal. It offers programming from partners Bravo, E! Entertainment, FX Networks, Sci Fi Network, Sundance Channel, USA Networks, and more. Popular network shows like SNL, Family Guy, Heroes, and Prison Break are all available for free through the site. Check out a complete list of current network partners and available shows here.

Initial Thoughts:

Our first reaction is (no pun intended) Bravo! Finally a good move from the big guys to enter the social video scene. Not only does Hulu make network programming available online, it enables users to share it via an embed code similar to YouTube. Want to embed your favorite episode of Family Guy on your MySpace page? You can. At least we expect you will be able to. Presently there are only 3 episodes available from Family Guy, all of which are from the most recent season. Whatever content is on Hulu CAN be embedded, however. What if you don’t want to embed an entire show on your profile? No problem, Hulu allows you to clip just your favorite scene straight out of the episode and embed away. Can we say it again? Bravo.

Walk Through:

For a quick walk through of the platform check out the below screencast:

When watching Hulu videos on a high speed connection they played flawlessly and immediately. When testing Hulu on a Sprint air card for broadband anywhere, however, it was never able to get past buffering. By comparison, a video on YouTube will play somewhat choppily right when you open it or else buffer rather quickly and then play seamlessly. I’m sure the higher resolution of Hulu videos (the full screen version looks great) makes for much heavier data streams. Regardless, given the backing behind the site I’m sure they will have any bandwidth problems ironed out before going live to the public.

To complete the review, here is an embedded clip from the popular Family Guy clips on Hulu… The Salesman/Peter interactions are always priceless:

Is it advertising?  Marketing?  Public relations?  Is it something entirely different?  Personally I think there’s a case to be made that social media IS entirely different…  But that’s for another day.  For today the question of which traditional practice belongs in social media is increasingly germane as budgets are allocated to the elusive “social media” campaign and marketers, advertisers, and PR practitioners alike are jockeying for position.   

To begin somewhat cheekily let’s dissect the term, “social media.” Sounds sort of like a combination of “society” and the “media.”  In fact, it could very easily be reiterated as a combination of the “public” and the “media,” wouldn’t you say?  Makes me wonder, had the industry simply coined the Web 2.0 phenomenon “Public Media” rather than “Social Media,” would this three-legged race between PR, marketing, and advertising even exist?  Who would argue that a new iteration of the media (blogs, user reviews) and the public (social networking pages, user-generated content) was anything but public relations?  Assigning an ad agency to manage your Public Media campaign would be like aiming to get a spot on the Today Show and deciding that a billboard en route to NBC studios was the best method of attaining it. 

For a starting point let’s create a working definition for business’s role in social media.  How about: 

Fostering an organization’s ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values. 

If that works for you as a definition for a business’ place in social media then read no further.  In actuality, that is the definition of public relations as set forth in Robert Heath’s Encyclopedia of Public Relations.  You’ve got to admit it bears a strong resemblance to what most organizations ought to be striving for in social media.  That said, it is true social media campaigns require skills commonly associated with advertising and marketing as well.  Who then is best suited to take ownership of the campaign at large? Wikipedia defines the three practices as follows: 

Advertising is a communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. Many advertisements are also designed to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of brand image and brand loyalty. 

Marketing is a societal process which discerns consumers’ wants, focusing on a product or service to fulfill those wants, attempting to mold the consumers toward the products or services offered. Marketers are tasked with creating consumer awareness of products or services through marketing techniques. 

Public relations (PR) is the management of internal and external communication of an organization to create and maintain a positive image. Public relations involves popularizing successes, downplaying failures, announcing changes, and many other activities. 

What makes social media interesting is that a successful campaign involves understanding consumers and molding them in a way that aligns with your product (marketing), managing communications to create and maintain a positive image (PR) and informing consumers about products or services (advertising).  Likewise the skill sets associated with practitioners of each – research/demographics (marketing), communications/messaging (public relations), and creatives/collateral (advertising) are all valuable in the social media realm. Let’s look at what each practice contributes to a social media campaign. 

Marketing: Understanding your audience and molding your consumer has historically been a complicated process.  Traditional focus groups, surveys and research were time consuming, expensive, and had the potential to be entirely misleading if not handled expertly…  That was of course before the web.  These days web analytics can tell us exactly who is visiting a website, with what frequency, which pages are most popular, what the site’s overall demographic is, where else they go online, what keywords they search for, which brands they have an affinity for, how much time they spend online,  etc. etc. etc.  The available information is akin to Best Buy taking a three-page survey of every single person who entered their store, regardless of whether they made a purchase or not, and cutting up the data a dozen different ways.  The marketer’s responsibility in defining the consumer and discerning his or her wants is significantly lessened thanks to technology. 

Advertising: Designing creatives and collateral that are visually compelling will always be an important part of communications.  In social media, that need is expanded because almost all aspects of a campaign require graphics, flash, and even video content. However, this is where the role of an advertiser is more a necessary evil than a central component of a social media campaign.  Social media revolves around UGC – User Generated Content (all of it altruistically branded, compelling and extremely viral of course), which extends far beyond the company’s resources to create itself.  Advertisers are limited to what I call BGC – Brand Generated Content.  This content has its place, but at the end of the day it is still content that is created by the brand (be it by the company or its agency) and pushed in front of consumers just like traditional advertisements.  Extremely well crafted ads can spawn spoof UGC content, but for the most part advertisements are a brief, self-serving announcement with little opportunity for interaction or sustainable engagement.  This is exemplified in Wikipedia’s definition of advertising:, “…informing potential consumers about products and services,” is a pervasive mentality in advertising that allows little room for dialogue.  If you haven’t seen the humorous YouTube video on “The Break Up” with advertising, check it out. 

Public Relations: Managing communications to create and maintain a positive image – the hallmark of PR professionals, is the strategy on which all good social media campaigns are based.  The influencers may have changed from journalists to bloggers or other social influencers, but the strategy is still to reach those influencers with a compelling message, have a dialogue, and foster a positive public image.  The promise of social media is dialogue with consumers – the advertiser’s role neglects this promise and the marketer’s role is lessened thanks to technology.  The PR practitioner’s role in crafting a message, building relationships with key influencers, and fostering a positive public image is the cornerstone of a successful social media campaign. 

To come full circle, admittedly social media campaigns do require aspects of all three traditional practices.  However, the strategy and campaign ownership needs to come from the public relations practitioner.  Still not convinced because you have a great viral video created by your Ad agency?  Fantastic!  Give it a shot; try posting it to YouTube without creating any dialogue or developing a communications strategy.  Next step?  Cross your fingers.  That’s about the best you can do.  If you want to reap the rewards of true engagement with consumers you need to leverage that content as part of a properly conceived dialogue with relevant influencers.  If you want to reach the end game of serving as a branded conduit for meaningful consumer-to-consumer dialogue that messaging strategy needs to be executed with perfection.  Brand Generated Content is great as a starter log, but communications managed by PR professionals is the match that has to touch all corners of the wood pile before you can really get a fire going.  For a list of other peoples’ position on the subject, check out the following: 

http://buddingpublicrelations.blogspot.com/2007/08/advertising-and-pr-in-social-media.html 

http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/2007/08/is-social-media.html 

http://www.livingstonbuzz.com/blog/2007/11/13/social-media-pr-advertising-or-none-of-the-above/ 

http://getgood.typepad.com/getgood_strategic_marketi/2007/10/the-lines-they-.html 

http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/2007/10/pr-will-lose-social-media-to.html