The May issue of Fast Company Magazine features a great article by Ben Paynter on the proliferation of social media tools and how major consumer brands are using them to build customer loyalty. The article, entitled “Five Steps for Consumer Brands to Earn Social Currency”, is also very applicable to non-consumer brands, including many of the B2B technology companies we work with at the Bateman Group.

The impetus of the story was a new study by Vivaldi Partners and Lightspeed Research examining how companies create true value from social media and online community. Not surprisingly, the study revealed that many brands are still using social media to drive buzz, often too fixated on the numbers, i.e., “We’re up to 100,000 Facebook fans now, how cool are we?”

The study offers great insight and real-world cases on what works. Even better, Fast Company’s Paynter did an excellent job dissecting the study for the best five lessons. If you haven’t abandoned this post yet to go read the full article, you should! If you’re too lazy or pressed for time, here’s the Cliff Notes version:

It Ain’t All About the Numbers – Just look at Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks. The former has 80% fewer Facebook and Twitter followers than Starbucks. Yet Dunkin’ Donuts fans are 35% more likely to recommend the brand, according to the study. This is because Dunkin’ takes a more advocacy-driven approach. Their create-the-next-doughnut contest drew nearly 300,000 different entries this year and has become an annual event.

Context is King – Beer drinkers don’t give a rat’s ass if their beer tastes great or is less filling. At least they don’t talk about it with their drinking buddies. This means bottle packaging holds little relevance and that the bonding or “social context” during consumption is what’s most important, according to the study. Anheuser-Busch’s bud.tv encouraged being a solitary Web potato and failed. On the other hand, Bud’s attempt to brand “fan cans” in collegiate colors for tailgating was on the right track. Unfortunately for Bud, it was foiled by college administrators who viewed the campaign as condoning underage drinking.

Not All Brands Need a Facebook Page – Mass-market utility brands such as Gillette aren’t likely to see much upside in social currency, says the study. Gillette has loyal users: 96% of respondents in the study touted its good quality and reliability. Yet Gillette jumped on the social media bandwagon, producing a series of YouTube videos giving tips on how to “manscape” down below. One video shouts, “When there’s no underbrush, the tree looks taller”. Really, Gillette? Really?

Social Tools are Just That: Tools – Axe definitely pushes the envelope with its racy ads and viral videos on CollegeHumor. But does the body spray product really help guys close the deal? Because Axe’s social media strategy is pure goofball, the study concludes that it doesn’t translate as strongly compared with a more serious brand such as Clinique. Clinique’s educational YouTube how-to tutorials on applying makeup have earned it stronger social currency in the end.

Social Media Stunts are for the Birds – Two social media campaigns launched by Wendy’s and Burger King prove this point. Wendy’s “You Know When It’s Real” campaign featured commercial spots, online games, and contests about how it’s never-frozen patties are cooked to order. Burger King’s much buzzed “Whopper Sacrifice” asked fans to drop 10 friends on Facebook to get a free hamburger. Today, BK’s fans have moved on, but customers trust Wendy’s products much more, concluded the study.

To download the full report, visit: http://www.vivaldipartners.com/pdfs/Vivaldi_Partners_Social_Currency_US_Report_2010WEB.pdf.

For those of you social media pros in the know or brand marketers with good common sense, none of these lessons should come as a big surprise. What they all remind us is that any social media initiative needs to be authentic to the brand’s identity and engage its audience in the way they expect and want to be engaged with. If you’re an irreverent brand, it’s fine to perhaps push the limits a bit further. Just be mindful that all the buzz (Facebook fans, YouTube views, etc.) might not translate into more engaged, brand advocates in the end.

Behold the April Fool’s Day edition of the Bateman Buzz Meter (technically #4), our semi-regular ranking of recent newsworthy events based on PR and Social Media effectiveness.  As always, please comment on any current news headlines or PR stunts you think are worthy of the Buzz Meter we may have missed.

(Remember to click on the image to view it in full screen)

]]> http://www.batemanbanter.com/2010/04/bateman-buzz-meter-april-fools-day-edition/feed/ 0 http://www.batemanbanter.com/2010/03/wikipedia-rules/ http://www.batemanbanter.com/2010/03/wikipedia-rules/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:27:28 +0000 Bill Bourdon http://www.batemanbanter.com/?p=461

Jay Walsh, Wikipedia

My colleague Amy just turned me on to a PRWeek Q&A with Wikipedia’s head of communications Jay Walsh, who offers some helpful tips about contributing content to the site.

Wikipedia entries for technology companies and their market segments often rank in the top five search results on Google, making them an increasingly important communication platform. It comes as no surprise that companies often turn to their PR agencies for advice on shaping or correcting their Wikipedia presence.

Some common questions we’ve received here at the Bateman Group include:
•    Can we publish our own Wikipedia entry or does a third party need to do it?
•    The Wikipedia entry on our company was turned into a stub – how do we get it back?
•    How do we edit an article that misrepresents our product?
•    We want to be closely associated with XYZ trend –can Wikipedia help?
•    How do we go about engaging our circle of influencers to collaborate on a Wikipedia entry for a new market category?

These are all issues that PR agencies can and should be proactively helping their clients navigate, but it’s crucial to follow the rules of Wikipedia engagement.

I’ve highlighted a few of Jay’s tips about complying with Wikipedia’s policies below. Are you playing by the rules?

Be Neutral
According to Jay – and this should not come as a surprise to most of our readers – one of the single most important rules to keep in mind is that maintaining a neutral point of view is a key aspect to contributing and editing Wikipedia content.

Publicists and PR pros are often representing clients, or even their own firms, and often come to Wikipedia just to edit those relevant articles.  Wikipedians can tell if you might not have a neutral point of view based on your actions and your history (every single edit to Wikipedia is visible to anyone – transparency is very important).

What Jay doesn’t tell us is that non-neutral content contributed by brands is seen a mile away by Wikipedia’s community and almost always removed from the site.  If your company is just dipping its toes into Wikipedia waters, starting small with an initial stub article for the community to build on often makes the most sense. If a company self-publishes a long and overtly promotional entry about itself, it will almost definitely experience resistance from the community and lose credibility in the process.

Wikipedia Tips
Jay offers the following practical tips for PR pros. Most of these involve common sense and follow industry standard social media etiquette, but there are a couple of gems in here, too.

•    If you start a page, keep it short (or make it a stub).  No need to write 2000 words in a first submission.
•    Be transparent about who you are.
•    Create a user account – and make one for one person only.  Don’t create user accounts that are broadly named (for example. WidgetsPR).  Wikipedians edit on behalf of themselves, not entities or groups.
•    Before you edit, ask if someone else in your firm or business already knows how.  They could save you a lot of time and advise you on the best way to proceed.
•    Make your PR assets available to Wikipedians.  We only use freely reusable images, so make your press image available under a creative commons license whenever possible.  Build robust websites for your business or your clients – provide up to date and high quality information so Wikipedia articles can have good sources when necessary.
•    Get to know what’s going on in the history of a page – especially if it’s a page about you or your business. Every edit and everything that’s happened to that page since it was created is publicly shared: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_history.

We’ll plan to share some specific Wikipedia case studies based on our client work in the future.

Today’s post is the first in a new series debuting on Bateman Banter we’re calling: “The New J-School”, a semi-regular examination of the evolving nature of journalism in today’s digital age. The month of January brought to light some interesting developments we feel signal the start of a much larger trend — one that could swallow the conventional ad-supported media whole — the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism.

In the last week, two former BusinessWeek editors disclosed new deals to write for the corporate blogs of companies they used to cover. Steve Wildstrom, until recently the Personal Technology editor for BusinessWeek, forged a relationship with graphics chip giant NVIDIA to write for the company’s popular nTersect blog. This kicked off with a well-publicized trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where Steve reported live from the show floor. Wildstrom’s former BusinessWeek colleague Steven Baker also announced ongoing deal to write for SmartData Collective, a community of blogs sponsored by data warehousing leader Teradata.

Either by choice or necessity, more and more journalists are becoming independent agents forced to fend for themselves in the open market. Wildstrom and Baker are at the forefront of this new breed of journalist cutting their own deals, and, in the process, figuring out how to do the reporting, get paid and deal responsibly with ethical issues. As these free agents seek out new opportunities to make money, they’re finding very little coming from traditional advertising-based media outlets. There are, however, an increasing number of corporations producing their own content and becoming media companies in their own right, and many of them need help.

For even the largest companies, maintaining a corporate blog with the kind of content needed to become the “must-read” site in a given sector is an uphill battle. At best, there may be 2-3 budding thought leaders in every organization, but the responsibility of writing thought-provoking, compelling content week in and week out is burdensome when it’s an adjunct to a full-time job. The burden is then passed onto the PR team to clean up poorly written or conceived copy until it’s suitable for publishing; nudge others to complete their drafts; and source more and more “content creators” within the company to share the burden.

Cutting deals with former journalists brings a new level of professionalism, respect and credibility to a corporate blog while alleviating the burden that has fallen on the marketing and PR professionals who produce it. Moreover, these deals allow the newly freelance journalists to remain a part of technology sectors they’ve followed for years. Without a masthead to call home, fewer PR people are calling them with breaking news or to broker meetings with their CEOs. These journalists are worried, and rightfully so, that their value in the marketplace will diminish as their relationships with story sources and C-level executives erode over time.

If approached the right way, the rise of corporate-sponsored journalism sounds like a win/win for the reporters and corporations, but it also raises several questions. How will this impact the quality of the reporting long term? How will this benefit readers, if at all? In the tech sector, the number of journalists considered truly credible is quite small. With the publishing industry imploding, who’s grooming the market influencers of tomorrow?  How long before demand soon outstrips the supply? Could companies that fail to broker deals with newly independent journalists ahead of their competitors soon discover there aren’t any good ones left? Worse still, could a Cisco or Oracle or EMC swoop in and buy all the quality ones up?

Next time on “The New J-School”, we’ll attempt to address these “what if” scenarios and share our thoughts on effective ways to integrate corporate-sponsored journalism into a marketing strategy.

On June 25, 2009, we launched Bateman Banter, the Bateman Group’s official blog on topics and trends in communications, public relations, marketing, social media and technology  – and the areas where those topics intersect.  We thought our growing readership would appreciate a recap of the blog’s most popular posts from our first six months. For those of you visiting Bateman Banter for the first time, this post will do a good job catching you up. We’re looking forward to seeing all of you return for more Bateman Batner in 2010.

Bateman Buzz Meter – Editions One, Two and Three. The brainchild of our very own Shannon Walsh, Bateman Buzz Meter is our take on the best and worst industry headlines and PR campaigns . From the Tiger Woods fiasco to Facebook’s new privacy settings and lots in between, the Bateman Group organizes the latest news, PR stunts and blunders in a colorful and easy to read matrix each month.

12 Days of Christmas in Silicon Valley. If you haven’t seen it yet, our holiday video card features the Bateman Group’s special rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas performed by the amazingly talented Gale Bradley Singers. Fred put it best when he described the video as “a parody of what we can only call ‘Silicon Valley values’ at a time we can all use a good laugh.”

Open Social Media Strategy Pays Off for Panda Security. This post highlights how the Bateman Group’s client Panda Security has embraced social media to transform itself from an introverted and technology focused company to an open organization that is able to better interact with its customers, partners, and employees.

Are spokespeople going the way of the dodo? In this evocative post inspired by a Wall Street Journal article, Tyler Perry (not to be confused with Tyler Perry) answers the question: Will corporate blogs replace company spokespeople?

37 Signals Satires Twitter Valuation: Why Didn’t I Think of That?! In this post by yours truly, I call out the best tech industry PR stunt of the year: 37Signals’ satirical press release about its billion dollar valuation in response to Twitter’s one billion valuation. 37Signals’ CEO Jason Fried jokingly justifies his company’s valuation based on investors who are paying $1 for 0.000000001% of the company. Brilliant.

Facebook vs. Twitter: Which is Better for Marketing your Business? In this controversial post inspired by a New York Times article, Lisa Melsted offers her prediction about how B2B versus consumer brands will get utility from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter in the future.

To Embargo or Not to Embargo? Prompted by the Wall Street Journal’s decision to no longer honor  embargoes,  Tyler Perry discusses the implications of this policy shift for brands, PR, and the broader media landscape. Only time will tell what embargo policy shifts are in store for 2010.

PR or Advertising: Who Should be Managing your Sponsored Conversations? In this post I introduce the emerging and somewhat controversial concept of ’sponsored conversation’ and explain which camp, PR or advertising, is better positioned for success in these new waters. And the winner is…PR.

Bateman Group speaks out on information overload. The fragmentation of the media landscape and explosion of the blogosphere has made it increasingly challenging for PR practitioners to stay on top of not only the news, but the conversations most relevant to our clients. In this great video post by Amy Ziari, she interviews some Bateman Group employees about the history of how PR firms have monitored media and what tools they use to stay productive in an era of information overload.

Finally Putting “The Article” to Bed. In this witty and insightful post, Fred weighs in on the heated debate sparked by Claire Cain Miller’s July 4^th New York Times article on the Evolution of PR in Silicon Valley. Fred offers some great perspective on the different styles of PR, comparing and contrasting approaches perfected by new kid on the block Brooke Hamerling and industry veterans like Andi Cunningham.

Introducing Bateman Banter, the official blog of the Bateman Group. Fred pens the inaugural Bateman Banter post and lays out our editorial mission and unique P.O.V.

Thanks for your feedback and inspiration over the last six months since Bateman Banter has been and please continue to join the conversation by sharing your thoughts and perspectives with us.

With the holiday season upon us, we were feeling especially creative this year. We wanted to apply this energy to a project that both celebrated our industry and made use of the very elements responsible for its rapid change — digital media, new delivery methods and viral publishing. Our holiday video card features a very special rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas performed by the amazingly talented Gale Bradley Singers. Its a parody of what we can only call “Silicon Valley values” at a time we can all use a good laugh. Credit for this creative and humorous send up goes to the entire Bateman staff. Special thanks to Amy Ziari for her masterful video editing and production skills.