Today’s guest post is authored by Katrina Dene, the Bateman Group’s summer intern and a third-year journalism student at the University of Oregon. Katrina looks at how the use of technology and recent emergence of social media have impacted both the practice and study of PR in equally significant ways.

As I enter my third year of college and take my first steps toward a career in public relations, one thing became abundantly clear to me during my summer internship at the Bateman Group — technology has had equally a profound impact on the study of PR as it has on the practice of PR. The senior PR practitioners at the Bateman Group were quick to point out when they were in college; the majority of academic programs geared towards the study of PR were woefully out of touch with what was being practiced in the field. They were genuinely surprised when I informed them that the classroom experience has evolved dramatically in 20 years. To say it’s taken a quantum leap since the members of Generation X were college students would be a huge understatement. Gone are the days when students showed up to class with just a pen and a notebook, furiously taking hand-written notes as the professor lectured or worked the chalkboard. Today, I still show up to a lecture with my pen and notebook, but also with my laptop, BlackBerry and, of course, my i>Clicker.

i>Clicker Remote

The University of Oregon, along with many other schools, has implemented the i>Clicker system in quite a few of its lectures. For those unfamiliar, an i>Clicker is a remote control-driven auto responder device that allows professors to ask multiple choice questions and instantly present a graph of the results. Amazing what technology can do, right? It’s an instant progress report for the teacher to determine if they’re getting their message across by quizzing the students in real time.

As far as student/teacher relations go; however, this is actually a little troublesome. I am no longer Katrina Dene, third-year student. I am now a serial number with 89% accuracy for in-class pop quizzes. I become an arbitrary number on an arbitrary scale. While this new use of technology has its advantages, particularly within large classes of 100+ students, professors should not lose site of the importance of building true relationships with their student and finding new ways to engage them both on- and off-line. Interestingly, the emergence of social media has helped.

In another one of my classes, the structure of our lectures was impacted directly by social media, perhaps to an extreme. Instead of the traditional lecture, questions and response format, our class added video chat and instant message via Skype along with Twitter micro-blogging to the mix. As an alternative to listening to lectures on the PR trade, we “Skyped” with real-world professionals, other professors, graduate students and government officials who relayed their personal experiences for us to learn by example. Furthermore, students were not only encouraged to raise their hands to ask questions, but also Tweet the inquires to our class hash tag on Twitter. In turn, our graduate teaching fellows were hard at work monitoring the hash tag activity and answering questions for the 160-person class.

So what does this say about the future of communications in the teaching of communications? Well, social media has allowed us to build and maintain a network of relationships both inside and outside of the university like never before possible. Using video chat enabled us to learn from industry experts and working professionals from all over the world. But has this shift damaged the treasured teacher/student relationship? I ponder this while remembering one basic principal: One strong relationship is more powerful than ten weak ones. More traditionally: Quantity does not necessarily ensure quality.

Yes, the integration of technology with the college classroom has made the experience much more automated and a bit less personal.  On the flip side, social media has made the opportunity to take a more active role in one’s own education easier than ever before.  The members of Generation Y have grown to accept two-way communication between student and teacher to be the norm. The classroom has evolved from a place of simply consuming information and reciting it back to one where students have become active participants in the creation of content and the learning experience itself. What better way to prepare us for an economy where successful entry requires you to do much more than just intern. You must also cultivate a personal network of influencers, seek out mentors, take time to volunteer, keep up on current events, follow the stock market, maintain a personal blog and basically do whatever it takes to stick out in today’s uber-competitive job market. Learning today is much different than learning yesterday, the key is to adapt and apply each change in a way that allows you to be better equipped for tomorrow.

You might think the connection between popular reality TV shows like American Idol and business strategy is fuzzy at best, and on many levels you’re right. But there’s actually a lot that businesses can learn from these programs – not from Randy Jackson or Paula Abdul, but from the social media data.

Bateman Group’s client Kapow Technologies just completed a really cool project, dubbed Reality Buzz, which was created to see if real-time analysis of social media conversations could predict the outcome of two popular reality television shows: American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. After collecting tens of thousands of tweets, comments and discussions about contestants each week (down with Kate Gosselin!) and applying a dash of sentiment analysis, Kapow batted well above .500 on its predictions. In fact, Reality Buzz predicted 80 percent of the elimination rounds for Dancing with the Stars correctly!

In a great guest blog post to ZDNet, Kapow’s Rick Kawamura offers five lessons learned from Reality Buzz that businesses should apply in order to extract real value from social media data. Here are a few choice excerpts:

Rule #1: Data trumps conventional wisdom

While Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, would say otherwise, data-driven business decisions definitely outperform guesswork.

Rule #2: Timing is critical

Any data more than 24 hours old is pretty much worthless for predicting who will be eliminated from a reality TV show. The same holds true in the business world, where it’s imperative for the data to be as close to an event as possible, as this data has the strongest effect on sentiment.

Rule #3: Don’t be blind to the noise factor

It’s easy to understand trends, changes in momentum, volume of traffic, and ratio of positive to negative sentiment. However there is a lot of noise that can easily skew the data, especially with large, very public shows like American Idol. The bigger the show, product, etc., the more noise.

Rule #4: Not all social media sentiment created equal

There are differing degrees of sentiment, and not all translate equally well. Companies also need to consider how to weigh one tweet versus a Facebook comment versus a blog post. Each is just one piece of data, but does each one count equally?

Rule #5: Don’t look at data in a vacuum

Having knowledge of the events and circumstances surrounding the data sets is critical to understanding and extracting intelligence from social media. In the case of Reality Buzz, it was helpful to watch the performance shows for added context.

BP is damned if they do, and doubly damned if they don’t.

According to Reuters, the company has apparently purchased “oil spill” and related search terms from Google and other search engine providers in an effort to drive traffic to its Gulf of Mexico response website. This SEO strategy is a clear attempt by the company to control communications around the worst oil spill in U.S. history and improve sentiment about its brand within the media.

While BP hasn’t disclosed how much it has paid for these search terms, President Obama has criticized the company for spending $50 million on TV ads in an attempt to turn around consumer perception about the company during the crisis. I agree with Obama that TV ads, an old school tactic used by tobacco and oil companies for years, are in really poor taste. Purchasing the search terms; however, is a very new crisis communications tactic worth a closer look.

A spokesman for BP explained to Reuters: “We know people are looking for those terms on our website and we’re just trying to make it easier for them to get directly to those terms.”

This case represents an interesting dilemma for crisis communication strategists. On the one hand, search term strategies like this will certainly help BP to drive traffic to their site, giving the company more control what’s being communicated. On the other, consumers of online news media today are much more sophisticated and many see right through excessive social media marketing. Moreover, they understand the power of broadcasting their distaste about a company virally across their networks when so inclined.

In a press release issued by BP on June 4th, the company’s Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said:

“The Board of BP has been clear from the outset that all resources available to the company should be applied to meeting BP’s responsibilities in addressing these events.”

If this statement is true, then why not invest $50 million to support the response?

Okay, as a communications professional, I admit this question isn’t entirely fair. There are three crucial communication elements to addressing a crisis:

1) Be a resource to media as well to the public

2) Be transparent about the situation; and

3) Be responsive.

All of these things require an investment, although $50 million seems a bit excessive. The company has issued literally dozens of press releases and videos since news about the spill first broke last month: http://www.bp.com/extendedsectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=40&contentId=7061813.

I’ve not done a thorough audit of these communiqués, but upon a brief review, I can tell you they overwhelmingly focus on how much oil BP has collected, not how much has been lost, and how much money the company is donating to environmental project XYZ. Not surprisingly, this canned crisis communications statement is a thru-line among most of these announcements:

As part of its commitment to restore the environment and habitats in the Gulf Coast region…

My take: Try as they may, BP’s high volume of outbound communication and savvy social media marketing tactics aren’t the right band aid – nothing is. BP may be committed to fixing the problem now, but they were never 100 percent committed or prepared to prevent it from happening in the first place. If they can definitively prove that the problem could not have been prevented, that could be their silver bullet, but they can’t. As a result, the losses from brand damages alone, which I’d argue are far greater than the billions of dollars they are investing in environmental damages, will take years to recover.

So the question remains…in light of a disaster, when the conversation on the web reaches a fever pitch, should PR pros jump right in or sit back and wait? Personally, I don’t think we can sit back, but I also think that brands are still trying to navigate how to best handle mishaps and disasters in the social world. The one factor that has emerged as a constant, however, is authenticity. Social media allows brands to speak directly to all their various constituents. If they don’t do so honestly and authentically, they are doomed before they hit tweet.

Let us know what you think of the situation and how BP has handled it thus far?

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.

We were pleased to announce this week the addition of two more European-based companies to our expanding client roster of national and global brands.

Effective immediately, CoreMedia of Germany has appointed Bateman Group as agency of record for the U.S. for the full range of integrated PR and social media communications programs.

In addition, StepStone Solutions of the U.K. retained Bateman for a three-month brand building project to increase perception of StepStone Solutions in the U.S. as one of the world’s leading suppliers of Total Talent Management Solutions.

CoreMedia and StepStone Solutions join a small, but growing cadre of European-based companies who have turned to Bateman Group to jumpstart their North American presence. Others include The Open Group, Jericho Forum, Panda Security and Kapow Technologies.

Please join us in welcoming CoreMedia and StepStone Solutions to the Bateman client roster!

Much to the glee of journalists and the chagrin of PR practitioners, another “PR blunder” has hit the airwaves, this time under the pen of the folks at TechCrunch. Although I am always shocked by the carelessness exhibited by people pitching journalists when they KNOW if they make a mistake, there is a good chance they will be publicly chastised and humiliated by the recipient (enter in waves of awkwardness as you think of 80s high school movies…or your own high school movie), I am even more stunned by the passionate anger expressed in some of the comments people make about these honest mistakes. Take this one, for example:

i think future posts should embarass (sic) the hell out of PR Flacks and not omit their names or companies.
that is the only way they will learn.
by disguising their identity, you still save them face to screw up again.

Spelling error aside, taken out of context this could be in reference to fur-wearing celebutants or people that don’t clean up their dog poop forcing you to be ostracized in your office when you step in it rather than someone that was a bit careless and hasty to hit the send button while doing their job. I am not saying that this isn’t “embarassing” – it pains me just as much to read these terrible pitch letters as it does to watch the aftermath of “PR is the bane of the my existence” posts – but I am often floored by the anger directed towards the PR industry. I don’t want to get into a huge discussion about why this is, or a debate about the validity and need for public relations–if you are reading this blog, you probably understand the value that we bring to our clients–but I do want to suggest two things.

One: If you work in PR, pull yourself together. These slipups happen, but our industry is under constant scrutiny and there are journalists out there just WAITING for an opportunity to pounce on you. Social media means they can do so immediately, with no cooling off period. Take your time in doing your research and writing your emails so you aren’t pitching an infrastructure software product upgrade to Wired magazine or Oprah, or addressing a journalist as “insert name here.”  It is that simple.

Two: this goes out to those that take sadistic pleasure in these types of mistakes. To you, I also say pull yourself together. The anger is bizarre and actually scary in the “I will hunt you down” sense. Seriously. I’ve been doing this a long time and I have seen my fair share of journalist errors, including those that have sent my client into a furious frenzy or a legal scramble. I can also bet that the crazies ardently posting response after response to every entry from Michael Arrington shouldn’t be throwing stones in a glass house either.  Every well-known brand I can think of would be nowhere today without a solid communications strategy. To compete in this crowded marketplace, companies big and small must be able to communicate their value proposition and differentiators. (So I lied; I dabbled into the value of PR just a bit. I couldn’t help myself. ) So to the crazies: PR is not going away. For the health and safety of others, please redirect your energy into something more productive, like your own business, or learning to be more accepting of people less perfect than yourself.