Social media has inevitably gravitated towards interaction on Twitter making it the 11^th most visited website and attracting an estimated 8% of the worlds Internet users. With so many people on it, its really no wonder that everyone from my mom to Coca Cola have jumped onto the band-wagon and are trying to milk the millions of Twitterers for all their worth.

At first glance, from a company’s perspective, the premise might seem simple enough; the goal is to attract as many followers as possible in order to get your product in front of as many faces as possible. This has led to numerous blog posts advising the novice starter on the best ways to increase follower count, some have even suggested adding your Twitter handle onto your email signature (Tip No. 9 here) and reprinting your business cards to reflect your Twitter persona.

Sounds like a valid enough argument right?… WRONG!

If your goal is to become the next Britney Spears of Twitter (at last count, 5.5 Million followers and No. 1 on Twitter Counter’s 1000 most popular) then by all means, spam away. For companies interested in increasing their influence and thought leadership, however, a very different approach is needed. Our clients at Page One are technology companies catering to specific communities of highly knowledgeable influencers, analysts, media, and all around tech-savvy folk. These clients use Twitter to disseminate a very particular kind of information and really couldn’t care less about Britney’s latest run-ins with the law (personally, however, I’m excited to catch her on Glee!). What’s more, there are only a handful of people with knowledge of something as obtuse as MySQL databases, preach it to people outside that community and your message will end up falling on deaf and uninterested ears.

Having a large number of followers also prevents you from catching the important nuggets of information that Twitter intended you to have. When you reach a couple thousand followers, their updates on your Twitter home page become a barrage that is nearly impossible to make sense of.

Most people confuse popularity with influence but these are two very different concepts in the Twittersphere. The difference between these two is at the forefront of a recently published study by the director of HP Lab’s Social Computing Lab, Dr. Bernardo A. Huberman.

Influence, as it turns out, is the ability to overcome people’s passivity enough to make them engage with you. In simple words, it means being relevant enough on Twitter for people to reply and retweet your tweets. This type of engagement requires a community of people that care about the same things enough to dialogue and hash out conversations (pun intended). To achieve this is no easy task, it requires paying constant attention to your Twitter account, setting up synergistic relationships by mutually following people in your community and Tweeting relevant and up-to-the-minute information that your community cares about.

According to Klout.com, a website that can tell you how influential one is in the Twittersphere, out of 5,560,927 total followers and 416,924 people Britney is following, there are 0 mutual followings. Imagine her standing in a room with her back turned to 5.5 Million people while she grooves to her own music through noise-cancelling head-phones. That’s what’s going on.

Popularity means nothing, at least for those interested in thought leadership and influence, if you can’t interact with your community. We at Page One PR understand that and encourage our clients to critically examine their social media campaigns. It’s not about looking up at the stars in silent admiration, it’s more about looking sideways and saying hi to the colleague standing right next to you.

We all know that social media offers marketing execs a great avenue to engage directly with their customers, but how do you go about doing it well without alienating your community?  We’ve been working with our clients to develop interactive marketing/social media campaigns, which allow marketers to use social media to stir up customer interaction and then funnel that activity into traditional marketing objectives, such as increases in product downloads, website traffic, etc.

For SAP we recently launched a campaign aimed at increasing interaction within the Crystal Reports community to drive website traffic and increases in free trial downloads.   On June 28, an online personality quiz launched and within the first four weeks had over 1,000 completions and 1,615 views.  The online “Reporting Artist” quiz asks the Crystal Reports community “what type of reporting artist are you?” through a series of humorous questions and then ends with one of four different personalities based on the responses.  Free trials for the Crystal products and whitepapers are baked into the personality responses.

To continue to build upon the success of the quiz, we are launching a new campaign on August 16 called “Reportapalooza”. You can check out the site now, but be sure to come back on the August 16 when the first challenge launches!  Through social media monitoring, we identified five of the top SAP Crystal Reports experts and are having them compete in a three month long challenge, similar to Bravo’s Top Chef.  During the campaign the experts will be asked to use the SAP Crystal solutions products as well as rely upon community involvement to complete a series of five challenges.  In November, we will crown the top Crystal Expert and shower him or her with prizes and recognition.  There are also a lot of incentives and prizes worked in for the community to participate along side the experts.

The goal of Reportapalooza and the interactive micro-site is to continue to build quality interaction within the community and ultimately increase Crystal product downloads.  Page One worked with White Rhino to develop the campaign concept and creative assets.  We designed the social media strategy to ensure that we tapped into the viral nature of the community and are using the SAP Crystal solutions Twitter and Facebook channels to drive traffic to the site.  Be sure to check out Reportapalooza in the coming weeks!

With social media growing increasingly more influential, more companies are looking to promote their products through social media. Some campaigns really work, and, as Page One managing partner Craig blogged a while back, some campaigns really don’t. Last year, Ford broke into the social media realm to promote the Fiesta, a small, European-style car targeted towards “millennials.” To support the young, spontaneous feel of the Fiesta, Ford asked 100 participants to drive Fiestas around to complete themed missions and to share them on the Fiesta’s official Twitter handle, Facebook page, Flickr account and YouTube channel.

On July 26th, Ford took an even bigger leap by doing away with a traditional auto show revealing and instead used Facebook as their main platform to reveal the new 2011 Ford Explorer. At 12:01 ET, Ford placed a “reveal” tab on the official Facebook page containing a YouTube preview video and an agenda of events throughout the reveal date. After the YouTube video reveal at 7:40 AM ET, an interactive feature to explore the Ford Explorer was added to the top of the page, with “Like” buttons attached to each feature. The rest of the day’s events consisted of live chats with the fans and people of Ford (including CEO Alan Mulally.) Fans barraged the wall expressing opinions about the car and asking a lot of questions for everyone involved in the live chats. Ford also bought ads on other sites with Facebook “Like” buttons embedded into the ads to direct fans right back to the main hub of the campaign.

I’ve got to give it to Ford – I think their campaigns are working out well. Ford is utilizing social media to have an on-going conversation with their consumers while aiming to increase awareness of and interest in a product. With the Fiesta Movement, they were able to get 50,000 people interested in purchasing the car (97 percent of which do not already own a Ford) just by asking 100 millennials to drive their car and share their experiences through social media. As for the Explorer reveal, I think Ford did a great job utilizing Facebook’s features by engaging with their fans via the live chats on the day of the launch. They also have been very good at keeping up with the page after the reveal by leaving wall comments and answering the community’s questions daily. To keep people around throughout the six months before people can actually buy the vehicle (it will be available for purchase in the winter,) they are running a big sweepstakes, several giveaways, and an Explorer tour around the nation. They are chronicling this tour through photos and YouTube videos embedded into their Facebook page.

It’s clear that with a well thought-out campaign, social media can definitely make big waves and generate a lot of buzz. Even after the Fiesta recently became available for purchase (which marked the conclusion of the six-month campaign), the Facebook Page and Twitter Feed still have a good number of followers and active voices (34,166 fans and 8,806 followers, respectively). The question is: will all of this translate into impressive sales figures? I certainly hope so. At Page One, we strongly believe in the power of social media. It’s good to see we’re not the only ones that do.

Screen caps and photos from Ford Fiesta and Ford Explorer’s Facebook Pages.

The line between PR and social media has been getting fainter and fainter for a good year or two. The integration of advertising and social media, on the other hand, seems to be a more nascent development, sped on by Facebook and LinkedIn advertising, as well as Promoted Tweets and Trends.

While some advertising agencies have begun experimenting with social media in their ad campaigns (e.g. Trident’s full-page ad showcasing Twitter messages from its customers or the Old Spice YouTube videos created by the ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy, with the help of social media consultants), social media firms seem a bit more cautious incorporating advertising into their marketing campaigns. This may be due to the distrust people generally feel toward advertising, which makes its introduction into a community-oriented social media channel rather tricky.

However, advertising can work especially well in social media due to the high engagement level of social media users. Page One PR has run Facebook ads, Twitter ads, and even placed ads on message boards and newsletters for our clients. The ads we ran can be divided into two objectives: to increase the reach or engagement level of a channel and to increase direct sales and downloads of a product or service.

What worked and what didn’t?

Message boards and newsletters tend to cater to audiences that are not being targeted by traditional forms of PR and marketing. By locating message boards and newsletters that are relevant to a client’s market, we can identify a niche audience that is very likely to be interested in a product or company. Though we may be reaching a smaller audience, it is one that is pre-vetted and predisposed to listen to our client’s message. The target audience is narrow but deep.

In contrast, running ads on Twitter-specific networks garners a very wide audience, but it is one that is primarily interested in Twitter. Even though an ad may be seen by a great number of people and can lead to a huge spike in followers, the viewers are rarely “quality” leads. As a further detraction, we have noticed that a significant number of followers generated from Twitter network ads drop off after a short period of time. The target audience here is wide and shallow.

We’ve generated better results from Facebook ads, though the outcome depends largely on the goal of the campaign and the “call to action.” We’ve found that ad campaigns that keep fans within Facebook’s platform lead to better returns. In one instance, we created and ran an ad to drive new fans to a Facebook Page. The number of fans grew by 44% with a gain of nearly 1,000 in one month and a conversion rate (percentage of people who became fans after clicking on the ad) of 30.3%. In contrast to Twitter network ads, fans generated from these campaigns did not drop off.

However, the results have been negligible for ads that require a user to leave Facebook’s site. We created a Facebook ad to increase attendance to an event. Though a high number of viewers who clicked on the ad ended up purchasing tickets to the event, the total number of clicks on the ad remained relatively low. This could indicate the keyword triggers and other ad filters were too well targeted to appeal to a large enough audience. A second Facebook ad offered a white-paper download from a client’s website, again taking the audience away from Facebook’s site and again leading to unspectacular results.

The last is also an example of what happens when ads are not integrated with an interesting marketing campaign. For instance, we ran an ad in which viewers were asked to share their funniest customer requests regarding a specific product. Perhaps not surprisingly, the results far outshone those from the ad that offered a whitepaper download. At a very basic level, the call to action should be more than just “buy now” or “click here.”

What’s on the horizon?

Social media at its best consists of both give and take – users generate and promote valuable content, while building relationships and engaging with communities. In contrast, consumers of traditional media and search engines are accustomed to a one-way street of communication. Because social media users tend to be more engaged, it signals a greater likelihood that they will interact with an ad, especially one which develops their relationship with a community further.

We’ve found the conversion rates from social media ads have been high, especially relative to more traditional forms of online advertising. In future, we plan to run more ads targeted at driving community interaction, specifically ones that keep an audience on Facebook’s site. We will also begin incorporating LinkedIn ads in our marketing campaigns and continue tweaking our campaigns on Twitter-specific advertising networks to generate better results. While care must be taken to ensure results are not offset by the cost of the ads, we have witnessed enough promise to continue using advertising in our campaigns where appropriate and we see this trend continuing for social media marketing as well.

We tend to write about Twitter a lot on this blog.  We’ve reviewed promoted Tweets and trends with online advertising, walked through step-by-step  case studies and example campaigns and have discussed how to set up a Twitter strategy, among many other topics.  When the agency first started running social media campaigns a few years back, Twitter was one of our most successful avenues for message distribution.  We measured our early successes through increases in Twitter followers though.

Today, Twitter still remains one of our more popular social media services, but our measurements have shifted to measuring engagement with top influencers.  We now look to capture Twitter metrics like influential @replies or retweets, traffic or clicks to marketing collateral like white papers, videos or specific pages on the client’s website, downloads of free trials or products and positive comments about our clients.  In order to increase these metrics we make sure our follower base is made up of influencers and then run a series of campaigns or activities that are designed to encourage interaction with these followers.

Below I outline three techniques we have been using recently to help increase engagement on the VMware vCloud and SAP Crystal Reports Twitter feeds we are managing:

1. Twitter Polls. For both feeds we have recently run a series of Twitter polls aimed at increasing engagement with our followers.  You can use a free service like TwtPoll to easily set up the poll and then promote it on your Twitter feed to collect responses from your following.  Usually your followers will take the poll and also help you promote by retweeting it to their followers or @replying their responses.  Not only do these polls help you interact with your followers, but you can also select questions that provide valuable research data.  For example, on @crystalreports we polled our following to see which Crystal Reports products they would like to try out.  Based on the results of this poll we now have a better idea of the type of products we should give away on the feed when we run a product giveaway contest in the future.

2. Twitter Contests. Another great technique, although a little more work to pull off than a Twitter Poll, is to execute a Twitter-specific contest on the feed.  There are many different types of Twitter contests and frankly I could write an entire blog post about this topic alone, but in general the best Twitter contests are ones that are easy and fun to participate in.  The whole goal is to run an activity on the feed that entices your followers and gets them involved in some type of game or giveaway, ultimately achieving some pre-identified marketing goal.  Most Twitter contests are designed to require the Twitter user to retweet a specific phrase that includes a unique hashtag or bit.ly link or requires the Twitter user to follow the feed and then be direct messaged an instruction or prize code.  For VMware we wanted to collect use cases so designed a Twitter contest that asked vCloud users to submit their use cases on a contest microsite, follow @vcloud and then tweet the phrase: “Hey, @vCloud I just submitted to @Bluelock’s developer contest to win an iPad! http://bit.ly/dsXfI1 #cloudmonkeys” to be entered to win a prize.  Contests like this help promote the feed and specific marketing content, but also provide a means to interact with the following.

3. Twitter Q&As. This is a relatively new technique we are trying out, but the preliminary results look interesting.  For SAP Crystal Reports we have identified a long list of business intelligence and Crystal Reports influencers, some of which have rather large social networks.  In order to tap into those networks we have selected a few of the top influencers and will be facilitating Q&As with them on our Twitter feed.  We are currently running our debut Q&A with a prominent author of a top rated book on Crystal Reports and are asking the community to submit questions via Twitter or Facebook to be responded to by the author.  We are hoping to execute a series of these influencer Q&As with members of Crystal User Groups and other technical communities in the future.  A series like this can provide our Twitter following with access to Crystal Reports “superusers”, which will serve as a valuable resource and make our Twitter feed a go-to site for Crystal users.

These are just a couple of the ideas we have been using recently on the feeds we manage.  Since social media is in a constant state of evolution, I’m sure we will be using different techniques in the near future.  What’s important to keep in mind though is that a good Twitter feed will provide both valuable content and engage with it’s following, either through conversation or techniques like those outlined above.  Let us know what techniques you are using to stimulate engagement on your Twitter feeds!

Much like the FTC, Facebook’s advertising and promotions philosophy keeps the users’ experience in mind. Facebook has become a useful tool for advertising and promotion through social media marketing, especially for targeting specific audiences. This tool, however, does come with rules. Since Facebook can shut down your campaign if they find any violations, it is essential to understand their guidelines. In addition to following Facebook’s Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, here are a few important things you should know about Facebook’s advertising and promotion guidelines:

1) Mind the platform:

2) Be Clear and Honest:

3) Take Full Responsibility:

4) Be Proper:

By abiding by these general points, marketing and advertising on Facebook shouldn’t pose a problem to your company’s campaigns. Facebook just wants to ensure users still have a good user experience while advertisers are promoting their company or product to a targeted audience. You should always be cautious when handling tools – Facebook is no exception. Use it wisely, and you will get results.

-
Research and writing assistance provided by Craig Oda (coda at pageonepr.com, Twitter @codawork)

After announcing the upcoming revisions in October, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released their guide for advertisers for the first time since 1980 in December with some notable revisions. With fines up to $11,000 per penalty, companies and endorsers engaged in social media campaigns have to be a lot more careful.

The FTC is cracking down on social media endorsements. From celebrities to tech bloggers, if the relationship, or “material connection,” between the endorser and companies using social media is not obvious to consumers, the endorser must disclose this information. The FTC has the consumers’ best interests in mind, but places the responsibility on advertisers to know what consumers take away from their ads and promotions.

Although the guidelines state that the connection between the company using social media and the endorser must be disclosed, they do not say specifically how or where it must be disclosed. The FTC does hold the endorser responsible for disclosure, but both the endorser and the company can be liable: “The Commission believes that the endorser is the party primarily responsible for disclosing material connections with the advertiser.  However, advertisers who sponsor these endorsers (either by providing free products – directly or through a middleman – or otherwise) in order to generate positive word of mouth and spur sales should establish procedures to advise endorsers that they should make the necessary disclosures and to monitor the conduct of those endorsers”(“Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”, Federal Trade Commission, 39).

How will these new guidelines affect social media marketing? Andy Sernotivz of AdvertisingAge says the FTC’s new guidelines work to social media marketing’s advantage: “Now we have the clarity to properly invest in social media, without having to guess about legal risks,” and Dallas Lawrence of Mashable and Bulletproof Blog suggests that “there isn’t much companies should be doing now that they shouldn’t have been doing before these rules went into effect.” Here at PageOne, we excel in our social media marketing campaigns, all while complying with the new FTC guidelines.

—

Craig Oda and Paulina Singhapok ( Twitter @sf_paulina)

With the crash of the economy in the fall of 2008, marketing services firms experienced a pitched battle for budget as clients slashed their spending through the recession. Perhaps hardest-hit were PR agencies. They had a tougher time justifying their ROI compared to service firms that were better at connecting their work product to revenue. Demand generation shops, SEO firms, ad agencies and anyone with a shingle that could make a case that they’d drive more qualified leads to sales than the other guy got a seat at the budget table. PR got pushed away and most public relations agencies saw revenues drop in 2009, and margins fall to record lows (under 14%, according to StevensGouldPincus).

That budget battle forced by the recession arrived at about the same time as more and more brands began to take social media seriously in their marketing. Many companies were frankly desperate to try anything that might work. And to their delight they found that the investments required in social media tended to start small. So they jumped in feet first.

Okay, now who decides what the plan will be?

Who’s in charge of that social media spending and strategy and execution?

Surprise! It turns out no one. The PR people tended to raise their hands first but many flailed since social media was so much different than the strict message control practiced by most brands’ public relations departments. The creative services agencies took the most of this opportunity. They understood a good idea and could create compelling content. Many had digital groups that could also do the digital plumbing required to publish that content on the Web. PR firms usually had to outsource this activity. Unfortunately a lot of ad agencies still only understand how to broadcast one way. They missed the engagement part of the equation required in successful social media campaigns.

Filling much of this gap in the meantime are some smart specialist firms that consult on social media marketing. Their principals pontificate on panels at prestigious conferences. They’re all over Twitter. We see some of them in our work with global brands such as Cisco and SAP. They’re smart. But most seem weak on the execution side of social media marketing. They have good ideas but they fall down trying to put them into practice. This phenomenon has been good for our business at Page One.

Tim Dyson, CEO of Next15, the UK-based holding company for some PR firms that we respect, pointed out recently in his blog that ad agencies were winning social media awards. Ad agencies are playing on the turf of PR agencies and winning. He observed that PR agencies can play that same game. At Page One, we’re already taking budget from the ad side.

Most of our big social media clients discover and hire us through individual business units. These groups have a business problem they want to solve. They have good budgets, too. They’re considering social media in the mix with other marketing spends, including advertising, webinars, lead generation, online micro-sites, games and more. The PR/communications teams within these companies know that we’re helping these business units, and we coordinate with them, but they’re not driving the strategy. And they don’t control the budget. It’s money that comes from marketing (usually from the ad spend), not whatever shrinking fraction has been allocated this fiscal year to PR/communications.

I think that there is an opportunity for PR to take charge of social media, but at the same time learn how to play well with the ad side of the house. PR can move faster and respond more quickly than the advertising people. We’re two-way communicators who just need to let go of our control issues. At the same time, ad people are great on content.

We’re in the middle of a pretty exciting social media campaign right now with one of the world’s largest software companies. We’re working closely with the client’s branding agency and the budget is split two-thirds, one-third between us. We’re driving the overall strategy and communications and owning the direct relationships with influencers. They own presentation of content. It’s going great right now. We’ll see when the results come in. I think it may prove to be an interesting model for future campaigns.

At Page One, we’re always looking for new ways to use social media and this includes experimenting with advertising on channels like Facebook or LinkedIn to increase our client’s follower base or engagement. For those of you who are already familiar with online advertising, I’m sure you’ve come to learn the top tips and tricks with online text ads. You can probably even recite the acronyms in your sleep – CPM, CPC, CTR… However, for those of you who are less familiar, I’ve pulled together a few tips of the trade for each channel.

Advertising on Facebook

The ads on Facebook show up on the right side of the pages with the ability to choose an image to go along with your text. You have the ability to choose the title for your ad, the image, the ad text and the destination URL. And at Facebook has publicized, you’ll be reaching out to 400M users with the added benefit of targeting in great demographic detail.

As you’re building out your ad, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Advertising on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has two types of advertising programs. Advertising Sales which includes rich display ads for campaign budgets over 250K and DirectAds, the targeted option for simple text and image based ads. In this blog post, I’ll be referring to DirectAds. Similar to Facebook, LinkedIn ads give you the ability to choose your ad image, title, description and destination URL.

A few things to keep in mind:

Before I let you run off and create your wildly successful ad campaigns, remember to not shy away from experimentation – especially when you’re advertising on social media platforms. Try out different texts and taglines for your ads or change the image to see if there is any improvement. With social media advertising, one of the great benefits is that you’re running on unchartered territory and you can change or pull your ads whenever you want to make them more effective.

“What the heck is Social Media Day,” you ask?  “Sounds like some made-up holiday.”

And you would be totally right: Mashable has arbitrarily named June 30 as Social Media Day—a holiday intended to “celebrate the revolution of media becoming a social dialogue.”

In honor of the day, social media aficionados are holding Mashable Meetups around the world, in hundreds of different locations.  Revelers are also invited to use the hashtag #smday or play the traditional game “Pin the Tail on the Fail Whale.”  (Okay, so I made that last part up).

I started thinking about how social media has evolved to become the dominant trend on the Internet.  From its humble beginnings in the chat rooms of the 1990s, Social Media now encompasses a countless variety of platforms, with new services launching all the time.

So, in honor of Social Media Day, I present a brief history of the social web:

1988 – Jarkko Oikarinen creates Internet Relay Chat (IRC)

1995 – Sun creates Java, leading to the first Java chat rooms, which allowed people to participate using their Internet browser

1997 – The term “blog” is coined by Jorn Barger

2002 – Friendster launches as the first modern social network.  Although it has since been eclipsed by competitors in the U.S., Friendster is still the #1 social network in Asia.

2003 – MySpace launches.  By 2006, MySpace had become the leading social networking site in the world.

2003 – LinkedIn goes live

2004 – Facebook launches at Harvard, and then later at other colleges.  In 2005, high school networks were added, and by 2006, the service became open to anyone.  By 2009, Facebook had overtaken MySpace as the dominant social networking site.

2004 – Flickr is created

2004 – Digg launches

2005 – YouTube is founded

2006 – Twitter is founded

2009 – Foursquare’s location-based social networking service launches

2010 – Google launches its social networking platform Buzz

2011(?) – Rumors are circulating that Google is plotting a Facebook-killer, to be called “Google Me”

Although Facebook is undoubtedly the King of Social Media today, the social media space is still young, and the tide can change very quickly (just ask MySpace).

With hundreds of different social platforms competing for mindshare, our clients often ask us which ones they should be monitoring.  The answer depends on the particular client, but in general, Page One’s social media services typically focus on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and blogs.  But we’re always on the lookout for the next big thing in social media.

Back in May, Page One partner Craig Oda noted that Twitter had banned “paid Tweets” and in turn rolled out its own marketing service, Promoted Tweets.  Twitter founder Biz Stone described Promoted Tweets as just the first phase of the Twitter advertising model. Simply, Promoted Tweets are company-sponsored Tweets that are listed first at the top of certain search results on Twitter.com, and are clearly marked as “Promoted.” Brands like Starbucks and Virgin America were the first to utilize the new service.  For example, when typing in “Virgin America” in the Twitter search engine, this Virgin America-sponsored Tweet is listed first:

Phase Two of the Twitter advertising model rolled out this month – Promoted Trends.  Once dominated by every Justin Beiber reiteration imaginable, the trending topics list will now incorporate topics sponsored by a company that will also be marked as “promoted.” Disney/Pixar was the first to try this new phase, by promoting “Toy Story 3” as a trend in advance of its June 18^th opening.

Last week, a clever campaign from Coca Cola demonstrated the potential of the Promoted Tweets model when executed well. The beverage brand capitalized on the World Cup fervor and “bought” the hashtag #WC2010, which was listed as a Promoted Trend on Wednesday, June 23 – the day of the U.S. vs. Algerian match and possibly the best (and most Tweeted) game in U.S. soccer history.  When Twitter users clicked on the #WC2010 Promoted Trend, a Promoted Tweet from Coca Cola with a soccer-related message and a link to their website appeared at the top of the search results. From this one-two Twitter punch, Coca Cola reported an impressive 86 million impressions and a 6% click-thru rate in 24 hours (via @mashable).

Twitter is very vocal about the fact that the evolution of this advertising model will be a slow one – heck, it took them two years to get to the Promoted Tweets idea.  But I can already see two places for improvement:

- Incorporating Promoted Tweets into broad searches: I could only find the Virgin America Promoted Tweet when searching for the phrase “Virgin America.”  I think Promoted Tweets would be of more value to companies if their Promoted Tweets were featured on broader searches – in this case, words like “Vacation,” “Airplane,” or “Travel.”

- Reaching TweetDeck users: In its current state, the Promoted Tweets model seems to skip over those Twitter users who use an external client, like TweetDeck or Twhirl, and don’t see trending topics (promoted or otherwise) on their interface. In searches for “Virgin America” on both clients, the Promoted Tweet from Virgin America did not appear.

At the Conversational Media Summit on June 8, Twitter COO Dick Costolo reported that Twitter now has 190 million users tweeting 65 million times a day. Clearly, Twitter is an untapped advertising goldmine.  However, I think that the Twitter advertising model has a way to go before more companies, especially those that are small-to-medium sized, see the benefit. With the flexibility of millions of advertising dollars, corporations like Disney, Starbucks and Virgin America are the perfect guinea pigs.

A little over a year ago, we delivered the debut issue of the Social Wonders Newsletter. A look through the past year’s topics reveals three main themes – Monitoring, Measurement and Management. While we did not set out with the intention of focusing on these three areas, it quickly became apparent that they form the cornerstones of social media campaigns. Here’s why…

MONITORING – Without it, we wouldn’t know what strategy to develop for a social media campaign and we wouldn’t be able to make a campaign dynamic and actionable.

To build a social media campaign strategy, we need to first conduct an audit just as we would for a more traditional PR campaign. The social media audit consists of four major monitoring-and-analysis components. The first three, which we break down in our September ’09 issue, monitor and analyze where a company (and its product) stands in comparison to its competitors, its market and its current social media efforts. The fourth component monitors and analyzes influencers who are most relevant to a campaign, a process we describe in our March ’10 issue.

But monitoring doesn’t end with the audit process and development of campaign strategy. Once the campaign has been launched, we continue to perform ongoing monitoring in order to identify specific actions and opportunities to proactively engage with target audiences (customers, potential customers and influencers). Ongoing monitoring differs from monitoring during the audit phase in that it leads to specific actionable recommendations that feed back into the creation of strategic content.

MEASUREMENT – Did the campaign accomplish its intended goals? Was it worth the time and resources? Measurement allows us to evaluate the success and value of a social media campaign.

The first question requires a method to identify and report the results of a campaign. To begin, it is necessary to set specific actionable goals for a campaign and to then determine metrics that have a direct correlation to the goals. Those metrics should be used to measure the effectiveness of a campaign. The goals for a Twitter campaign typically involve increasing awareness (of a company, event or product), so metrics that determine the number of impressions and the level of interaction (or interest) produced by a campaign serve as a good indicator of whether goals have been reached. Our June ’09 issue details the metrics that we generally use when measuring the results of a Twitter campaign. However, these are just starter metrics and we should always make sure the goals are really appropriate for a campaign. For example, reaching the largest number of people may be less important than reaching specific people.

The second question of whether a campaign was worth the time and resources addresses the issue of ROI and is unfortunately a much harder nut to crack. Though we would be the first to recognize there’s no simple solution, we offer one way to tackle the issue of measuring social media ROI (especially in comparison to other marketing programs) in our July ’09 issue. We hope to offer more on this topic as we get more hard data from our campaigns for clients.

MANAGEMENT – You’ve completed your audit, developed your strategy, and even determined the metrics for measurement. Now begins the work of producing and communicating content as part of your campaign, a process that can be overwhelming and time-consuming. How do you optimize limited time and resources?

Our debut issue from May ’09 outlines steps to increase the results of a product launch by incorporating social media channels like blogging, Twitter, and video. But how do you manage those channels individually?

For example, many companies struggle to find a process that allows them to publish and promote posts regularly for a corporate blog. In our February ’10 issue, we introduce one method, which follows a publishing model practiced by media companies and which addresses the three main obstacles of corporate blogging: 1) getting busy people to consistently contribute content; 2) identifying relevant topics; and 3) generating enough blog views to justify the cost of time and effort.

With Twitter, the challenge lies in managing the flood of content that is pushed out to the Twitterverse. How do you know what requires a response? Is there a way to minimize the amount of time spent searching for and writing mini-posts to publish? We have found that some tools can ease the process and we provide a guideline to using such tools effectively in our issue from January ’10.

Integrating video into a product launch is especially effective due to video’s visual impact and YouTube’s viral potential. Video can tell the story of a company or a product in a way that cannot be accomplished by the written word (e.g. press release) alone. Unfortunately, producing a video is a foreign process to most companies. Budgets rarely allow for the employment of professional production studios, so how do you make a video that looks professional, yet doesn’t cost tens of thousands? We struggled with the issue ourselves and share some tips we learned in our November ’09 issue.

Want to hear more about our experiences with new social media technologies and the lessons we learn while carrying out campaigns for clients? Sign up for our newsletter

.
.

As Shelly Milam mentioned in an earlier post, the annual SAP conference, SAPPHIRE NOW, was a great social media success. In addition to her points, I wanted to touch on two other strategies that Page One and SAP developed to encourage quality levels of social media activity.

1. Use of official hashtags
The conference underwent a name change, from Sapphire 09 to SAPPHIRE NOW. To make sure social media users were clear about the re-brand, Page One made sure to use the #sapphirenow hashtag in the majority of our tweets from the @SAPPHIRENOW Twitter feed. This helped to ensure that the new name would gain visibility before the conference started. We didn’t want to risk having the Twitterverse split up mentions of the SAPPHIRE NOW conference by using more than one hashtag when they tweeted about the event.

Hashtags allow tweets to be grouped together so that they can be easily located via Twitter search. For a large conference event like SAPPHIRE NOW, the hashtags were particularly useful for three groups of people. Many conference attendees in Orlando and Frankfurt were active live-tweeters who used the #sapphire to tag their updates, especially during the keynote speeches, which were timed to be presented to both locations simultaneously. SAP also launched an innovative website that allowed people to attend the conference virtually, and many online attendees were live-tweeting while streaming the keynotes. Finally, for people who could not attend the conference physically or virtually, the #sapphirenow stream was publishing such a high volume of tweets that it provided them a play-by-play of the conference’s most important events.

The #sapphirenow hashtag collected over 12,131 mentions by the end of the conference on May 19. On May 18, during the executive keynote speeches by Jim Hagemann Snabe and Bill McDermott, the hashtag was the number 4 Twitter trending topic in the U.S. This uniform use of the correct hashtag would not have happened without establishing #sapphirenow as the official hashtag weeks before the conference.

2. Designating multiple routing paths for the Twitter concierge
In addition to being the official voice of the conference, one of the functions of the @SAPPHIRENOW Twitter feed was to act as a concierge for attendees who needed assistance with anything from finding the nearest bathroom, getting more information on a certain session, or navigating through the virtual website. Many attendees asked questions via @reply or DM, and Page One and SAP worked together to designate the proper routing path for each type of question and for each location (Frankfurt, Orlando, or online). Each routing path led to the appropriate SAP employee either on-location or back at SAP headquarters. This made sure that every question asked would be answered as soon as possible via Twitter.

A Twitter feed cannot just spew out information. It needs to listen. Social media platforms are expected to meet a higher standard when it comes to customer service. Corporate accounts are expected to have a personal voice behind the brand that engages with its followers and fans. Social media users like to know that their opinions are being heard, and when the @SAPPHIRENOW feed responded to followers who had conference-related questions, they were appreciative of our help. This helps spread positive content about the Twitter feed, and it lets our followers know that they are important to us.

The development of both these strategies helped to make @SAPPHIRENOW a successful Twitter feed leading up to and during the conference. An overwhelming majority of the Twitter conversations about the conference were extremely positive and attendees were very impressed with SAPPHIRE NOW’s social media initiatives. Key takeaway: in social media, a little pre-planning can lead to a high payoff.

At Page One, we talk a lot about the benefits of using social media to engage with your customers and community.  One of the most interesting aspects of the social web is that it’s a two-way conversation: your customers can talk back to you, whether you like what they have to say or not.

The Nestle Facebook debacle in March is a now-legendary example of how NOT to respond to criticism online.  In this case, angry consumers began posting comments on Nestle’s Facebook wall about their use of palm oil in products.  A page that was supposed to promote Nestle got hijacked by consumers and became a place to criticize the brand, instead.  That was unfortunate, but the real trouble began when Nestle began censoring and removing negative posts from their wall.  An Internet-wide backlash resulted, and Nestle was forced to apologize.  In the end, Nestle conceded to the critics and partnered with The Forest Trust to support the sustainable harvest of forests.  Lesson learned: when you engage via social media, you have to be prepared to listen to what your customers have to say, and if what they have to say it negative, don’t even think about trying to censor it.

Another interesting example is the Bros Icing Bros phenomenon that is currently sweeping the nation by storm.  What started as a frat-boy drinking game has expanded to universities, offices, and Wall Street trading floors, mostly driven by social media as people post photos and videos of “bros” and even celebrities being “iced.”

Many have speculated that this is an undercover marketing campaign devised by Smirnoff, but that seems unlikely to me.  Sure, this fad is helping them sell more product, but the catch is that Smirnoff Ice is the butt of a joke.  As brosicingbros.com says: “try and buy the most disgusting flavored ice or a 24oz ice. Pineapple, mango, and grape are top of the list for the most gut wrenching, mind numbing, throw up in your mouth, Smirnoff ice flavors.”  Somehow, I don’t see Smirnoff’s marketing team writing that.

How should Smirnoff respond to this hijacking of their brand?  On the one hand, it’s a popular phenomenon that must be helping to drive sales.  But on the other hand, the game is immature and potentially dangerous, and Smirnoff doesn’t want to be seen promoting irresponsible drinking, not to mention the possible legal liability.  If you go to Smirnoff’s website, you will find no mention of “bros” whatsoever.  Smirnoff’s official statement is that: “Icing is consumer-generated and some people think it is fun. We never want underage “icing” and we always want responsible drinking.” What Smirnoff is doing is probably the best strategy: acknowledge the fad but stay out of it as much as possible.  If they condemned the practice or tried to shut down the Bros Icing Bros website, people would probably revolt.  If Smirnoff embraced the game and tried to promote it, people would assume it was a marketing ploy all along and shun it.

Another current example is the fake BPGlobalPR Twitter feed, which posts funny, derisive comments about the Gulf oil spill, as if written by BP’s public relations team.  In only a week, the feed has grown to more than 74,000 followers (by comparison, BP’s official Twitter feed has only 7,754 followers).  To add insult to injury, BP’s official feed was just hacked this week, as well.

When you take your brand to the social media channels, you have to be prepared for criticism.  Trying to censor people’s comments is a PR disaster waiting to happen.  Instead, your best strategy is to listen, acknowledge your customers’ opinions, and consider whether to incorporate their feedback into your business practices.

It was a tough gig. Could Page One create and grow a social media community for a vendor entering a new market? The vendor did not have a product to sell. Yet. Oh, and the incumbent market champion created the category several years ago and did we mention their name?

Amazon. Yikes.

This Amazon challenge raises an interesting question about timing in general for social media campaigns. Should a vendor initiate a social media campaign as part of a strategy to enter a new market without a product or service that is generally available? After all, a big component of any serious social media campaign is identifying, attracting and energizing a community conversation around shared interests. For vendors, that usually means customers.

We think the answer is yes. Especially when you are raising awareness with a targeted community of early-adopter prospects while at the same time educating the industry influencers about your strategy and upcoming offering. It also helps you attract beta customers before your GA formal launch. This kind of pre-release campaign is particularly effective with technical audiences used to doing things another way (i.e., using Amazon).

For this new client, we followed the Page One process for developing a strategy for our social media campaigns. We monitored the online conversations around the client and its competitors, identified the key topics and influencers, prioritized the communications channels, and recommended a series of targeted programs that we could measure to achieve our business goals.

Fast forward to today, and yay! we surpassed Amazon on Twitter (measured quantitatively by followers and qualitatively by engagement), caught up with them on Facebook and still have some work to do on blogs. But by any measure it was a very successful start for just six months. What did we do?

First, we quickly recognized that we couldn’t compete with Amazon around the terms associated directly with “cloud computing.” They pioneered this category and we didn’t want to start our campaigns from a deficit position. Rather, we recommended to the client that we start by building on their positions of strength. In this case, those strengths were virtualization leadership and a very large installed base of developers already familiar with their enterprise solutions. We said, “Let’s talk about how easy it is for enterprise developers to use what they already know and move some of their work to a public cloud. And back.” It was and is a cool simple story and a unique value proposition that appealed to our target audience.

Following are some of the metrics we reported back to our clients at the six-month stage in our engagement. By the time the client launches a generally available offering, the key influencers and early prospects in the market will be well informed and ready to act on the details of that forthcoming announcement.

Growth in three social media channels managed by Page One:

Last week Page One finished up a social media engagement with SAP to support the SAPPHIRE NOW user conference.  This was the first year SAP put a social strategy together for the conference and Page One was tapped to manage the Twitter feed and Facebook Page.  By the last day of the event, the Facebook Page had 3,332 fans, with 194 wall posts and 115 comments, and the Twitter feed had 2,037 followers, with over 780 retweets and over 12,130 uses of the #sapphirenow hashtag.

The team is still working on the final analysis reports, but I thought I’d share a couple of the tactics we used.  These two seemed to  work out especially well:

Influencer Identification and Outreach

SAP’s sheer size is both a blessing and a curse.  While a large ecosystem definitely helps amplify social messages there are an overwhelming number of groups within SAP and they all tend to have different goals and objectives.  One of our first tasks was to identify all the potential external and internal influencers and organize a master list.  We then developed a strategy for outreach to help amplify our reach.  Using a combination of automated social media monitoring tactics and good old fashion direct phone calls and in-person meetings, Page One was able to pull together a list of external influencers (analysts, media, bloggers, SAP Mentors, SAP Alum, and customers) and identify their social media locations.  We then went to work identifying the internal influencers (employees, partners attending the conference, marketing teams, speakers) and organized their various messages and goals for the conference.  All of this came together in a master multi-tabbed Google Doc spreadsheet that the team accessed on a daily basis to reference which assets to promote, who to reach out to, and when to push certain messages.  A master content calendar of our daily Tweets and Facebook posts was also created and regularly updated to share with SAP so the internal teams could help retweet and re-post our content.

Live Social Media Coverage

During the month’s leading into the conference we worked with SAP to develop a “week-of” Twitter and Facebook strategy to facilitate conference conversations through social media channels.  While there were many on-site programs that came together last week (a Twitter Concierge program, social media Q&As during keynotes, video content from the show floor, jumbotrons displaying tweets at the Santana concert, etc.) the real gem was the Social Ambassadors program.  In addition to the main @SAPPHIRENOW Twitter feed, we had a group of social ambassadors on the ground at both conferences that live tweeted highlights each day.  Each ambassador reported on a specific conference topic and acted as the real-time eyes and ears on what happened at Orlando and Frankfurt. They were given a dedicated Twitter feed, topic hashtag and FlipCam to help upload videos straight from the floor, as well as share their thoughts and insights on the latest news that came out of SAPPHIRE NOW.

Page One has been asked to provide social media support for quite a few conferences in the past few years, ranging all the way from Google I/O to McAfee FOCUS.  While there are still no silver bullets, each time it seems like we pick up a few more tips and tricks to make the social media experience better for the conference attendees.  What tactics have you found most useful for conference promotions?

Twitter announced yesterday that they are banning paid tweets.  If you didn’t know that many companies were using paid tweets, you need to pay closer attention to the world of social media marketing.  The online world of third-party content production is undergoing rapid evolution.  The announcement by the people at Twitter is a sign of a much larger trend in social media marketing to pay people to publish content.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter are changing their terms of use to capture more marketing dollars themselves.    Many people feel that Twitter’s announcement to ban paid Tweets was motivated by a strategy to limit competition for their Promoted Tweets service that they launched with Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America as customers.   Before scoffing at the concept of Tweeting for money, consider that the initial customers for Twitter’s Promoted Tweets services are big, global corporations with massive marketing budgets.

Six months ago, a powerful social media technique was to identify and build relationships with key influential people on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.  This technique quickly evolved into building the relationships with travel expense reimbursements, other marketing gifts, and to direct payments of money.  Although there are legal requirements for the disclosure of payment in some cases, the technique of paying people to produce content is in widespread use.

So, should you care about the Twitter announcement about banning of Paid Tweets?  Well, if you already knew about the practice of Paid Tweets and it isn’t part of your business processes, then you can pay little attention to the announcement.  However, if you have a limited understanding of how marketing techniques involving payment for content work, you need to dig in now and do some research.

I’m not recommending that companies pay for content.  The vast majority of marketing campaigns are based on traditional techniques of information organization, publication on official channels, and helping reporting to understand the information.

However, I do believe it is important to understand what other techniques are being used by competitors.  It is also extremely important to have a thorough understanding of the rules of use and the laws that affect these new types of marketing technique that involve payment.

Craig Oda, managing partner

coda@pageonepr.com

—–

Eight paragraphs into the blog post, this statement pops up:

we will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API.

Twitter is changing its terms of services and using legal tools to block paid tweets.

Due to the recent Gizmodo iPhone debacle, the legal implications and debate over  “journalist vs. blogger” has been getting quite a bit of talk-time.  Many on the Old Media side of the house cringe at the thought of bloggers receiving the same type of legal protections that took them many years of schooling and hours in the newsroom to achieve.  While the New Media folks claim bloggers most certainly count as journalists and reference O’Grady vs. Superior Court, the 2006 case in which Apple sued a group of bloggers for revealing a confidential unreleased product, as their proof point.

I tend to sit on the New Media side of the house and would argue that since so many traditional journalists now have blogs too, and would still claim legal protection for anything posted on their newspaper column or blog, then bloggers who are covering the news should also get the same type of protection.  Regardless of which side you land though it’s undeniable that there are shifts going on in the communications industry.  I’m beginning to question if the debate stops with just “journalist vs. blogger” though.

A blog published on Read Write Web yesterday covering the HP/Palm news is based entirely on Twitter content.  The article is basically a cut and paste of “the smartest tweets” from industry thought leaders about the acquisition.  After doing some internet trolling, it seems to me that this is one of the first articles to rely solely on Twitter content.  In fact, I myself hardly ever scan my Google Reader anymore and tend to just rely on my Twitter feed to get my daily news.  So if journalists first became bloggers and then bloggers became tweeters does this now mean that Twitter users get legal protection too?  What implications are there exactly for the Joe Schmoe who decides to use his Twitter feeds as a “reporting” mechanism and happens to tweet about a confidential product?  Does he get legal protection too?

Here at Page One, our social media techniques are constantly evolving. The context of social media marketing as a practice is ever-changing due to both the transformation of the platforms themselves and the abilities of third party applications in terms of monitoring and measurement. However, with all the discussion about evolution we can lose sight of the basics, especially when it comes to Twitter strategy. Last week in a “Twitter 101” presentation I discussed the principles of an effective Twitter strategy and wanted to share them with the Page One blogosphere.

Step 1: Identify the overall goal of your Twitter campaign. Similar to traditional PR, the messages you push out via Twitter should have an agenda (or potentially a variety of agendas). Goals for a Twitter handle can be one or a combination of the following:

1. Boost Awareness of a Company or Product

2. Broadcast and/or Promotion Channel: Positive news and information surrounding a brand, cause, or company launch.

3. Engagement with Industry Influencers and/or Potential Customers

4. Reputation Management: Proactive and Reactive Customer Service Channel.

5. Notoriety – Twitter can deem you an expert in a given field.

These may seem like common sense to an active user or even a Twitter novice, but often times the ultimate goal can be overlooked.  It’s important to take a step back and specify your goal(s) first as this is the foundation of a campaign.

Step 2: Identify the key components of your strategy. Whether it’s traditional or digital media, knowing what elements drive your marketing messages is imperative. The following are building blocks for an effective Twitter strategy:

1. Audience – Identify what type of customer/influencer is active in social media. For example, in the high-tech space we often ask ourselves: how technical is this audience? Are they developers, engineers, or is this audience connected to the product/service in terms of buying power for a company/organization? (These questions differ depending on the social media space.)

2. Messaging – The messages you push out are relative to #1: what type of information is the audience you specified interested in? Here at Page One, we construct Twitter messaging matrixes to review with clients before we even draft our first Tweet.

3. Content Production & Editorial Calendar – It’s important to note ahead of time appropriate corporate assets such as whitepapers and case studies that may be useful for promotion. Schedule this content by creating a monthly editorial calendar. Also, if you’re running a blog, it’s useful to outline a blog pipeline to promote via Twitter. This way the messaging has fluidity in terms of themes and timing.

4. Interaction/Engagement – As you build up your feed begin to target community influencers. Twitter is all about participation and recognition: a simple ReTweet or #FollowFriday can catch their attention.

In conclusion, once you’ve addressed your main goal for Twitter and outlined the key components driving this goal, you’ve successfully developed a Twitter strategy. Hopefully these tips have been useful for Twitter experts and newbies alike, and feel free to contact me on Twitter @haleyhebert or comment below if you have other ideas or questions. In part 2 of this series I’ll be covering how to gain followers on Twitter and how to find other desirable handles to follow, so stay tuned.

Just when you thought every possible angle of the health care debate had been covered to death…

The passage of comprehensive health care reform into law last week made the controversial bill a reality, but the debate rages on in the blogosphere and beyond. Regardless of where you personally stand on the issue, it’s interesting to take a step back and look at the health care debate through a social media lens.

Health care reform is perhaps the single most controversial and significant piece of legislation enacted since the advent of social media. It stands to reason, then, that there is much to be gleaned from the web.

Social Radar, a web analytics tool that tracks social media, came up with some particularly interesting data about the debate and its general trends. Web traffic was predictably highest on the days leading up to and immediately after the House passed the health care bill, but a closer look at the analytics suggests that the fiercely contentious nature of the debate (even by Capitol Hill standards) was fueled by an equally contentious debate being waged by the general public over the internet.

As the graph below indicates, the majority of conversations related to health care were happening on microblogs (read: Facebook and Twitter), followed by blogs, and finally web forums. This fact was not lost on Congress; both Democratic and Republican leadership employed Twitter and other social networking mediums at an unprecedented rate in an attempt to directly engage Americans in the health care debate.

Both sides, Democrat and Republican, are predictably claiming victory in out-maneuvering the other in the social media space. While Republicans are claiming victory based on momentum (@GOPLeader, the Twitter alias of House Minority Leader John Boehner, picked up over 2,500 followers last week alone), Democrats are touting the quality of their content, including a Facebook page that added 12,000 followers last week.

According to Social Radar’s statistics, which mines through blog data for buzzwords and key phrases, 59% of the conversations related to health care reform were positive, 36% were negative, and 6% were indifferent.

The most important lesson from this data may have nothing to do with health care at all, but rather a sign of things to come in politics. The increased emphasis politicians are placing on social media parallels that of corporations and is emblematic of a broader acceptance of the field and its long-term efficacy.

So, does this settle the health care debate once and for all?

Didn’t think so, but it definitely gives you something else to talk about…

Flying back from a sales call to one of the world’s largest technology vendors, I realized how much our business had changed while our business model had not. We were trying to run our exploding social media practice using pricing models from our legacy public relations business.

I suspect this problem is a challenge for other agencies new to social media. It’s also a struggle for clients used to agency pricing practices that are really just time and materials. Like a lawyer, I’m running a business that sells services by the hour. But the new product I offer is more like advertising agency creative. What’s the cost of a great idea?

Public relations agencies doing substantial social media work need to shift to value pricing (tied to client business objectives and clear metrics) while customers need to understand better where the value is in what they are buying. A surprising amount of the social media value a customer ‘buys’ is a great idea and a smart strategy (developed up front), not the tactics and execution after the contract is signed and delivered through hourly charges on the backend.

Before my team flew in to meet with this client (yes, we got the gig), we probably invested more than 100 hours of senior executive time developing a strategy. It was a lot of effort. But when we submitted the statement of work, there was no line in the contract’s pricing schedule for “big idea” and “strategy.” The pricing in the contract focused on people and time and hourly rates. As a small agency, we don’t have the luxury of using our own paper in contract negotiations. I don’t think there’s any way we will recover our up-front time investment in this three-month project. In this case the client actually threw in some extra money in recognition of the situation.

I struggle with how to manage pricing value right.

I’ve been surprised at the lack of conversation around pricing value in social media. Most of the heated conversations and debate are around ROI and measurement. I think we’ve largely figured out those problems and the social media experts who claim otherwise are disingenuous.

Every social media program that we run is tied to metrics that map back to the client’s business objectives (we blog here frequently on the topic). We measure the needles that social media can move and that the client agrees will also impact their business objectives. We’ve run now more than 100 social media programs to get to this point. So I don’t think the ROI measurement discussion matters anymore. You just do it. And everyone will be doing it right soon enough.

We ran a social campaign (it’s still on-going actually) for a client in the fall of 2009 around the global launch of the products that drive most of the company’s revenues and profits (a $200+ billion firm). We had to coordinate and lead on social media activities across eight different business units. The top objective was to drive traffic to a specific web site landing page. The client invested millions of dollars in other marketing channels as well. Our budget was a single digit percentage of the client’s overall outside marketing spend. But our programs drove one-third of the traffic to the target page. How should I have priced that campaign? Talk about value – and apples-to-apples ROI comparison to other marketing spends!

I’ll confess that in our early days of social media programs we landed some projects with some very big clients where we didn’t deliver the value I wanted. At the time we were so focused on tactics and execution (all this social media stuff was new!) that we failed to focus sufficiently on the strategy at the onset. We also didn’t listen well to what the client really wanted. As a result, we probably over-charged. We also lost that division of the company as a client.

Part of the pricing and value problem also lies with the client. In social media, so much of this work is so new that most clients frankly don’t know what they want anyways. They don’t know what they can get or what is possible. I think our job today is to help clients understand what is possible with social media in the context of their marketing objectives and price that value fairly. And for us, strategy is where we deliver the most value in the campaigns we run. But I still don’t know how to price it right.

If anyone has a good answer to my value dilemma, please comment below, reply back or DM me on Twitter at @p1lonn or email me directly at lonn@pageonepr.com.

Quick access, ease of use and unique interaction capabilities are reasons social networking has emerged as the communication channel of choice. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Myspace are becoming as American as the cheeseburger. In fact, two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visits social networking sites, accounting for nearly 10 percent of time spent on the Internet, according to a new Nielsen report. With so many people online, there is likely to be ethical issues in terms of communication in the professional world.

Public relations and law enforcement professionals have seen tremendous benefits in using social networking in terms of boosting a company’s image and crime fighting. On the other hand, the sport and health industries have struggled with maintaining peace in online interaction.

Public relations often uses social networking to expand news coverage of a company, connect with other professionals and keep up-to-date with trends and national news. Law enforcement officials are also taking advantage of the real-time search capabilities to enhance tactics, disseminate public information, and prevent criminal activity. Mashable recently posted six ways social media is used to fight crime.

However, using the Internet and engaging in social networking is controversial in other industries. The health industry is seeing a large growth in “e-patients” or those who use email and online communities for inquiries about medical issues. Psychologists in particular are sensitive about crossing boundaries and view communicating online as informal and less business-like than making a phone call. Additionally, social media exchanges with patients, carry potential liability in a variety of areas, including confidentiality, timeliness of response, and clarity of meaning.

Social media has also been the cause of concern for sports. Last week, White Sox general manager Ken Williams described his frustrations with social media when manager Ozzie Guillen’s son, Oney made brash statements on Twitter. Oney was forced to resign from his position with the video department because his tweets were inappropriate for a team employee.

The response to social media in sports has gotten so extreme that the NFL has banned Tweeting during games. This harsh reality stemmed from Bengal’s receiver, Chad Ochocino posting updates to Twitter during regular season games. For a first offense, players are now fined up to $25,000. We all know Ochocino doesn’t need any more fines, especially after his last stunt.

Like most things in life, social media, should be regulated. The amount of regulation is under debate for industries where the increase in use of online tools has led to greater privacy challenges. Professionals should try to find a happy medium where they are able to cater to those who prefer online interaction but at the same time don’t cross any important boundaries. In the sports industry, sites such as Twitter are pertinent in reaching out to fans in discussing changes with players and the game in general but should not interrupt the flow or bash other players. Fans from all walks of life appreciate updates about their team and should not be denied this information.

As long as it’s done in a respectful and thoughtful manner, there’s no reason why social media can’t be a part of every profession. What do you think about social media and the professional world? How much of it should be regulated?

Honda Motor Company failed in the marketing launch of its new Crosstour vehicle. People perceived the car as ugly. The perception was started on Facebook, triggered by a failed Facebook campaign that was core to the launch of the new vehicle. Honda made a critical error by releasing pictures of the new vehicle on Facebook first.

Facebook Fans got the pictures before automotive press. There was a large amount of negative comments. Reporters and bloggers went to the Facebook Fan page to look at the pictures and get the initial public reaction. Unfortunately, it was negative.

Honda Crosstour Facebook Page

The Internet is filled with speculation as to why the problem occurred. Analysis includes:

* The pictures weren’t good. The appeal of the car’s unusual shape isn’t represented accurately in the pictures that were put on Facebook;

* The demographic on Facebook didn’t match the target audience the car was designed for. The car is designed to be attractive to people that are older than the average Facebook fan;

* Honda marketing simply made a mistake in giving up control of their communications channel. They would have been better off keeping the photos secret until they launched the vehicle with a press conference and working with reporters that the PR people had relationships with.

Of course, pointing out errors after a failure is always easier than designing a successful marketing campaign.

I think that the verdict is still out on whether or not an official Facebook Fan page is a good platform to leak product photos. However, if I were hired to manage the Facebook Page to launch photos, here is what I would have done differently:

* Identify key Facebook influencers prior to the creation of the Facebook Page. Identify and prioritize influencers based on their reach on Facebook and in other social media channels;

* Use PR techniques to provide these influencers with organized information, special attention, and rapid responses to questions prior to giving them access to media like photos;

* Work out a process to let them see the car, either the physical car itself or a photo that they agree won’t be reposted;

* Use feedback from the influencer group to adjust the pictures as needed;

* Expand out the influencer group over time. By the time the photo got leaked, there would have been enough of a positive impression of the car to either weaken the negative sentiment or drown it out.

If a marketing campaign is run on Facebook, the platform becomes a marketing tool. By applying existing marketing techniques, such as those developed by PR experts, the risks of a failed Facebook campaign can be reduced.

Craig Oda, managing partner and product launch enthusiast

This week the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston launched a PR campaign around the 20th anniversary of the largest art heist in history.  In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two men disguised as Boston Police officers entered the museum, subdued the guards, and escaped with 13 priceless pieces, including masterworks by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet, which were cut out of their frames.  Two decades later, the crime remains unsolved, and the empty frames still hang on the museum walls as a haunting reminder.

Historically, stolen art is often recovered.  This is because famous pieces are instantly recognizable and virtually impossible to sell.  Someone happens to see the artwork, realizes it’s stolen, and alerts the authorities.  With this hope, the Gardner museum and the FBI are now offering a $5 million reward and guaranteed criminal immunity for information leading to the artwork.

The traditional PR campaign has resulted in placing hundreds of stories in publications and blogs around the world.  But surprisingly, the social media presence has been nil.  Considering that art crimes are often solved through crowdsourcing, social media seems to be an ideal platform for this type of campaign.  Followers on Facebook and Twitter could retweet about the stolen art, and their friends might retweet it, and eventually someone who knows something might see it.  A recent survey found that 75% of Americans learn about news through social networking sites and email.

The Gardner Museum actually does have a Twitter feed with 1,421 followers, but they have posted nothing about the stolen artwork.  They also have a Facebook Page with 3,516 fans, but they are not publicizing the $5 million reward there, either.  On the anniversary (March 18), I searched Twitter for the terms “Gardner” and “art” and found fewer than 5 posts per hour.

The continued disappearance of the Gardner masterpieces is a tragedy, and I hope the renewed publicity finally results in the artworks’ return.  In the meantime, social media is a critical missing piece in the campaign to raise public awareness.

The Page One team is growing. We added two new staff members to our roster this week (welcome Katherine and Jessica!) and we have at least two more new hires on the way. And on top of that, two very special people have joined the Page One family – I am pleased to introduce to you, Penelope and Percival, the Page One Penguins.

Penny and Percy (as they are known in the office) will be traveling with the Page Wonders on our various social media adventures. You can follow them every step of the way on our Facebook Page. Photos will be added regularly to The Adventures of Penny and Percy photo album, and they’ll also soon be checking-in from Foursquare.

Currently, Percy is away on an important social media business trip to Vancouver. Want to know how he’s doing? Become our fan on Facebook to receive updates!

Journalists and PR folks alike had a good laugh (at the expense of the PR industry) when a viral video about embargoes recently made the rounds on social media channels.   In the video, a PR flak calls a journalist in order to pitch her with an upcoming announcement, but first she has to agree to the embargo.  Annoyed, the reporter agrees, only to be hit with a generic, buzzword-filled pitch.  To top it off, it’s not even in her coverage area.  The journalist tells him as much, but undeterred, the PR guy stumbles on.

PR Pro: And you’ll honor the embargo?

Journalist: Yes, I’ll honor the embargo.  In fact, I’ll make you a better offer.

PR Pro: Oh.

Journalist: I will honor the embargo for the rest of my working life.  As I have no intention of writing about your new revolutionary software as a service for social media companies that will change the way social media marketing is done forever.  So, yes, I’ll honor the f**king embargo.

This video struck a nerve because the embargo conversation takes place all the time between PR pros and the media, especially in science and technology.  But are embargoes really necessary?

Back in the old days, news cycles moved more slowly, and journalists were happy to honor embargoes.  The advantage of the embargo is that it allows journalists time to research the topic, conduct interviews, and write up the story before it breaks.   Ideally, at the precise moment the embargo lifts, stories from multiple journalists go live at the same time.  The client gets lots of clips, and multiple journalists get to “break” the story.  Nobody wants to publish their article second and give the impression that another outlet scooped them.  In addition, sites like Google News prioritize the first article published, rewarding them with increased traffic.

In these dark days of media layoffs and publications disappearing altogether, journalists are under more pressure than ever to be the first to break a story.  The 24-hour news cycle never stops, and stories and rumors can spread across Twitter and Facebook almost instantly.  The media landscape has changed dramatically, with traditional news sources being eclipsed by blog-oriented news sites like the Huffington Post, ReadWriteWeb, and Mashable—sites that tend to post many short stories throughout the day, but don’t take the time for interviews or in-depth research.  Even at traditional outlets, with fewer writers to carry the workload, reporters often don’t have time to jump on the phone for a briefing.  They want to be emailed with just the facts, ma’am, along with a quote or two that they can quickly package up into a story and send out the door.
Taking a jab at bloggers’ tendency to slap together basic posts (in lieu of more-substantive journalism), someone in PR posted a video response to the famous “Embargoes” video:

Blogger:  We are in the business of breaking news here.  Our readers demand it.

PR Pro:  Do your readers also demand quality in your posts?

Blogger:  That is less important.

PR Pro:  So, short of an exclusive, you would rather I just send you the information the morning of the announcement and let you scramble with the rest of the world in a race to see who can crank out the quickest, shoddiest, slapped-together blog post with no context, background, or in-depth information?

Blogger:  Yes.  I will fill in the blanks later, or not.

In the worst-case scenario, a reporter will agree to the embargo and then break it, which rewards the embargo-breaker with increased web traffic and, thereby, more revenue.  On the flip side, the broken embargo throws the PR person into frantic crisis-management mode, and angers the other journalists who were honoring the embargo.  For the client, a broken embargo can affect the amount of media coverage the announcement gets–usually for the worse.

These days, some bloggers and journalists are refusing to honor embargoes altogether.  A prime example is TechCrunch, which acknowledges the benefits of embargoes but complains that too many embargoes today are broken, putting reporters who play by the rules at a disadvantage.

So, what’s a PR pro to do?  It’s part of our job to make the reporter’s job easier, and increasingly that means avoiding embargoes and providing content via email instead of telephone interviews.  My approach is to avoid embargoes as much as possible, using them only occasionally for my client’s most important announcements, particularly where there is a lot of dense subject matter for reporters to slog through.

What do YOU think about embargoes?  Please participate in our poll, or leave a comment below.

“When will NBC learn: the Internet is not Jay Leno’s friend.”

So ends the Gawker piece on the latest guerrilla skirmish between Team Conan and Team Leno.  Basically, a moderator on the NBC forums created a thread for people to post things they want Jay Leno to see.  Which was more or less a siren call for Conan O’Brien’s veritable Internet army to give it to Jay on the chin.  Conan propaganda, photoshops, and just straight-up vulgarity appeared by the page.

Like any high school grad that had to read 1984, NBC was quick to remove the rapidly spiraling thread.  But the Internet really is forever, and you can still see the fallout floating around as screencaps.

The New Late Night Wars dominated not just the shows in question, but the entire mediasphere, both online and offline.  That’s not surprising, nor was its extreme virality, as exemplified by Jimmy Kimmel’s January offensive.  What is amazing, however, is the difference in reaction between the online and offline audiences.

When Conan joined Twitter barely a week ago, the blogosphere went crazy.  As of this morning, with just ten tweets to his name, Conan had amassed over 500,000 followers, decimating Jay Leno, who’s been kicking around for some time now.  This along with his immense online grassroots support paints the picture that maybe NBC was in the wrong on this one.
Until you take a look at the numbers of Jay’s comeback show.  “Leno Crushes Letterman in Return,” goes the headline, and the stats don’t lie.  Despite all the hemming and hawing on the Internet, the liveblogged takedowns, and the Hulu tag commentary, NBC made the right business move.  Go figure.

What the Tonight Show debacle speaks to is a much broader cultural issue on which the schism between real world and Internet world audiences touches.  Businesses are increasingly dealing with generational differences that are not age-specific.  Understanding of technology and early adoption mean that it’s not just the message but also the medium that has to cater to different demographics.

Can you afford to burn bridges with the vocal minority?  In this case, playing to the network audience, older and more staid, with Leno’s everyman persona far outweighs the outcry from the highly active online Conan camp.  But should something happen and the scales swing the other way, it’s unlikely that NBC could save face.  By betting on a real world audience today, they may be sacrificing the online audience of tomorrow.

Regardless of industry type, this is an issue that is going to impact strategic and marketing decisions for all businesses.  And if the meteoric rise in use—and valuation—of social media institutions shows us anything, it’s that online consumer tendencies will hold more weight than real world tendencies.

The influx of corporate interest in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and engineered virality is proof that most forward-thinking companies already see where they have to go in the future.  But, as in the case of NBC, when it comes time to put their money with their mouth is, it becomes pretty clear that the main tenets of social media haven’t been fully integrated into how these companies operate.  Something both admirers and detractors will be quick to point out.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering where my allegiances lie:

The other day, the Israeli army canceled a planned operation because a soldier posted a status update with details on the mission. He was relieved of duty, court-martialed, and sentenced to 10 days in prison. And now the military is cracking down on soldiers’ use of social networking sites.

An entire military operation was scrapped due to a post on Facebook.

Social networking sites like Facebook are often soldiers’ primary means of staying in touch with people back home. Security vulnerabilities are no doubt a major concern, but shouldn’t soldiers be able to stay in contact with family and friends?

While the soldier clearly didn’t exercise much discretion, or confidentiality, this action raises a powerful point: social networking sites empower every single community member to post virtually anything they choose. Doesn’t matter if you’re a PR flack or general in the army, you have the same abilities on social networking sites.

This “freedom” has gotten some high profile athletes in trouble. It’s commonplace now for entire stories to be written about what a player said (er, wrote) after a game. There’s been fines handed down by the NBA based on athletes’ tweets. Both the NBA and NFL have explicitly outlawed tweeting during games. A football player at the University of Oregon was even kicked off the team recently because of what he wrote on his Facebook account. Where before it only mattered what athletes said at a game or press conference, now they must be conscious of what they say off the field as well.

Similarly, a woman in Chicago was sued last summer by her realty firm for tweeting that her apartment was moldy. “The company claims her tweet was published ‘throughout the world’ and severely damaged its good name.” Yikes. No complaints, no grievances, better watch what you’re tweeting or you might end up with a lawsuit on your hands.

Where do you draw the line? Isn’t the point of social media to have a free flowing, unfiltered conversation among any number of participants? But not when that conversation jeopardizes a business or lives… It’s a fine line. Whatever the case, social networking sites are a public forum. People are easier to access. Messages are broadcast to a wide audience – everything is on the record. And the record is rolling 24/7. It’s a whole new ballgame. Better adapt.

The social media campaign we just completed for the SAP Open Tennis match was especially challenging since we only had a month to get 22 million impressions for their Twitter content on a brand new feed. Starting from zero, we got 3,500 Twitter followers, a 30 percent engagement rate on the feed, and more than 500 visits from the feed to the Ticketmaster site for online purchase of tennis tickets.

Many of the activities involved leveraging existing tennis communities, including fans of the Australian Open which took place a few weeks prior to the SAP Open.

This is a great example of how social media can be used to acquire new customers.

In 2009, most of our experience was with social media campaigns designed for customer retention or customer engagement. For example, the @CiscoGeeks Twitter feed engages existing customers of Cisco routers and switches. Right now, we’re running fun contests for existing Cisco customers to share pictures of networking equipment with each other.

Typical social campaigns are based on self-publishing models that push out product information, discounts and prizes from central places like a Twitter feed or Facebook Fan Page. For example, we’re in the early stages of a campaign with VMware to manage content and interaction on Twitter, Facebook and the corporate blog. Since most customers of VMware’s vCloud Express product are still in beta, initial efforts have focused on publishing information to people that are either using the beta product or a related VMware product.

Some social media campaigns are similar to opt-in email marketing campaigns where the target audience is already familiar with the product.

However, new types of social media campaigns are targeting new “green field” customers. The SAP Open Tennis campaign is a good example of the new type of social media campaign designed for new customer acquisition.

Some of the techniques we used included:

* leveraging existing tennis communities and engaging with people interested in related topics like the Australian Open;

* joining discussions around famous people like Andy Roddick who won the SAP Open Tennis tournament in 2009;

* managing contests, including one with a prize of a signed Andy Roddick tennis racket;

* getting people that were going to the tennis tournament to pass the word on to their friends that weren’t going to the tournament.

The last technique is the key to success of any social media campaign designed for customer acquisition.  We’re tracking message distribution by counting the number of ReTweets and hashtag use on Twitter.  On Facebook, we’re focusing more on measuring user-generated content.

Although I think that the majority of social media campaigns in 2010 will still be focused on customer retention and engagement, I’m really excited about the opportunities to work on more customer acquisition campaigns as well. I’ve already started developing a new campaign for a secret client to acquire new customers from a competitor’s base.

Craig Oda, managing partner and product launch enthusiast

For the past year and a half, Page One’s social media team has been rapidly expanding.  While this translates into a lot of great new business opportunities, it also means we’ve been doing a lot of hiring.  A common question I run into every time we start a new round is “what am I actually looking for?”.  What does the ideal social media candidate look like?  After thousands of resumes and interviews, here are the top 5 traits I look for when adding someone to my team:

1. Driven.  The social media world is at the height of “start-up mode” right now, which means although there is some process coming together it’s still pretty much crazy and chaotic.  I hate to be so dramatic, but really only the strong and scrappy will survive.
2. Ability to go with the flow.  In the morning you’re running Cisco’s Twitter feed, in the afternoon you’re developing a video script for VMware, tomorrow you’re coming up with a Facebook campaign for SAP…who knows what tomorrow evening holds in store.   The ability to go with the flow and take on any challenge with a positive attitude will get you far.
3. Brilliant.  No, not just your average smart cookie, we’re talking brilliant.  You have to be able to take those smarts one step further though – it’s the ability to translate brilliance into innovative, cutting edge campaign ideas that will help the team in the long run.
4. Organized.  At the end of the day, it’s all about metrics and ROI and if you can’t keep an organized excel sheet or Google Doc, you will get left behind (and probably frustrate your manager and the client).
5. Ability to deal with uncomfortable situations.  The Twitter feed got suspended.  The client smiled and nodded when you said quality is more important than quantity, but they still want 10,000 Twitter followers by tomorrow morning.  It’s the night before the big pitch and your managers are still arguing over what angle to take.  You get the point.  Being able to trouble shoot, not give up and frankly have the “I need to fight to live another day” attitude helps.

Social media is by no means a perfect science, making hiring for a social media position even more tricky, but have faith hiring managers!  I’ve tested these criteria over the past year and have found some extraordinary and very talented team members.

Companies in Silicon Valley are starting to leverage the personal Twitter feeds, Facebook profiles, and blogs of their employees for corporate promotions.  By integrating employees into social media influencer campaigns, companies are acknowledging the value of their employees as spokespeople.

Twitter feeds for employees are uncontrolled, filled with personal information such as pictures of pets, boyfriends, and the lives of their kids.  However, since work is a big part of their lives, the employees often include information on technology or products that they  are involved with.

Big brands contract with us to map out which employees have Twitter feeds and to rank the value of the individual employee’s Twitter feed for marketing purposes.  We then pitch the employee and try to get their cooperation in getting the word out about a marketing asset such as a YouTube video.

We use the same process with blogs.  However, very few employees have blogs that are influential.  Leveraging Facebook profiles is still in the beginning stages.  However, we’ve seen some success with getting employees to join relevant Facebook Pages as Fans and then interact with the community on Wall posts.

Message boards are another hot area to get the help of employees.  We map out the most active employees on relevant message boards and forums.  Many of the forums are off the main corporate site.

These techniques are highly effective in companies with thousands of tens of thousands of employees.  However, they can also work for smaller companies if the executive team gets behind the effort.

–

Craig Oda, managing partner and product launch enthusiast

Two weeks ago (I know, in social media time this translates into two years), I attended the Building Brands on Social Networks event sponsored by Sprout as a part of San Francisco’s Social Media Week 2010.

During the half-day summit, representatives from companies such as Facebook, Altimeter Group, and Technorati gave presos that illustrated great examples of marketing and creative advertising campaigns that implemented social media tactics to yield significant metrics and results. But I recognized a trend in the case studies: they were all campaigns focused around consumer products.

Much of the consumer strategy discussed could not be directly applied to B2B companies. In fact, when an audience member asked the Building Brands panel if they could offer any successful examples of B2B social media campaigns, no one could give an answer. After a few moments of shifty silence, the best the panel could do was, “We’ll get back to you on that.”

Perhaps I should have jumped up from my seat and rattled off our clients to that audience member, but instead I will provide an answer in the form of this blog post. Page One specializes in social media strategy for B2B companies. So if anyone from the Building Brands event is still waiting for a response, take a look at the following case study videos to see the social media work we’ve done for B2B companies such as Cisco:

For two more Cisco examples, head over to Page One’s Case Study page to access videos about the IT Innovations Forum and the ISR Product Launch: Cisco Case Studies.

Say what you will about Google Buzz (and plenty of people have), one thing is clear: it’s doing what any new technology aims to do.  Be disruptive.  The main question that people have been grappling with since its launch is whether or not this particular brand of disruption has necessarily been good.

From my vantage point, there are two areas that have seen the biggest disruption from Buzz.  The first is our own personal identity.  And I’m not talking about the privacy issues.  Yes, these are big privacy concerns, and Google doesn’t deserve a pass, but they’ve already started to take steps to rectify the privacy situation.  The deeper sociological implication that the privacy issue strikes at, though, is how we treat different segments of our online personality.  Until now, email was always the most private.  It existed in a separate realm than social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter.  The email address was the most direct, most serious, and most intimate way of interacting with someone online.  Google’s integration of your contacts into chat and reader applications made sense because these communities were very private.

Buzz immediately broke down these walls; not just with privacy snafus, but by attempting to aggregate your online identity in a place that was linked to your email.  Literally.  Content from sites like Google Reader, Picasa, Flickr, Twitter, and Gchat can now appear in one aggregated stream.  Which forces people to look at their email not just as an address, but as a full-on social network profile.  In fact, when people rushed to change their privacy settings, it was the first time a lot of people really understood that such a thing as “Google Account settings” existed.  It’s a somewhat understated and nonmaterial difference, but it is a tidal shift in our personal conceptions of our email and contacts.

This dovetails with the issues created from the second major area of disruption, the disruption of share communities.  This happens on two levels.  The first is that of the major social networks, which were already suffering from concerns as far as differentiation.  Buzz now offers yet another avenue for real-time information updates, which should create a period of confusion for communities as they try to figure out where in the online social landscape this newcomer fits.

Which causes issues for the second level of share communities, which are our personal networks that we have built up over time.  A flood of new, undifferentiated information threatens share community ecosystems by creating burnout or backlash not just against technology but individuals, as well.

In the end, though, these theoretical concerns might be overwhelmed by the potential for Buzz’s content generation.  And this isn’t just conjecture: by the end of week one, Google pulled in over nine million posts and comments. At best, Buzz will find acceptance and a niche in terms of sharing and aggregation that will become a vital part of people’s Internet tendencies.  At worst, it’ll be seen as a misstep, but will probably continue humming along despite the disappointment.

Or at the bizarre, maybe Brazil will find a use for it.

Page One PR is a Silicon Valley public relations and social media firm that caters to the B2B industry. We are currently looking to add an account manager to our Social Media Team in our San Francisco office.

We are looking for a brilliant, enthusiastic and highly motivated individual who wants an opportunity to impact companies’ business decisions with social media. The ideal candidate would be able to manage social media accounts (large and small), keep the accounts and grow them over time.

Job Requirements:

* 3-5 years experience in marketing, public relations, advertising or related communications field;
* Account management experience and strong track record of retaining accounts with outstanding results;
* Ability to successfully manage large tech accounts such as Cisco, SAP and VMware as well as smaller start-ups;
* Experience designing and implementing social media campaigns and a proficient understanding of social media techniques and strategy;
* Exceptional organization, writing and verbal communication skills;
* Ability to contribute individually, and lead, manage or participate in cross-functional teams;
* Ability to grow account retainer sizes;
* Four-year university degree.

At Page One we’re corporate, but collaborative and laid-back. People at Page One come from all walks of life. We like that mix and we look for initiative, intelligence, humor, integrity, creativity, risk taking, fearlessness, management skills and a track record of success.

Since Page One’s culture is all about great people doing great things, we reward our employees with exceptional pay, matching 401K and 20 days of paid time off from your first day on the job.

* 20 PTO days (even in your first year)
* 11 paid company holidays
* Medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependants
* Matching 401K
* Long- and short-term disability insurance
* Life insurance
* Flexible spending account

The salary for this position is up to $70,000 annually, depending on experience.

If you are interested in a career as a Social Media Account Manager at Page One, email a resume and a cover letter outlining your account management and social media experience to socialmediajobs at pageonepr dot com.  Take a look at our website, the social media services we offer and our clients – please outline your experience and explain how you would be a good addition to the team.  Applicants without a cover letter will not be considered.

Learn more about us: http://www.pageonepr.com

Follow us on Twitter: @pageonepr

Become our fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pageonepr

Read our blog: http://www.pageonepr.com/blog/

By now, most of you have heard about the launch of Google’s real-time search, which pulls live updates from websites like Twitter and Facebook and features them alongside traditional search results.

From a social media professional’s vantage point, Google’s real-time search is a big step forward in illustrating the true impact of social media. Inclusions of live Twitter and Facebook mentions for a Google search stresses the value of having a social media presence to foster positive conversations about a brand or product. Hopefully this will convince companies who have not yet dove into the social media pool to jump in head-first off the high dive.

As real-time searches become accessible to a much wider audience, monitoring and tracking also becomes an invaluable service provided by social media professionals. Social media was once believed to be a setting for casual conversation. More and more, it’s becoming an official space for brand management and monitoring. If a person searching on Google instantly sees a negative comment about their search term, they will form an initial impression about the term before visiting its official website. It’s also noteworthy that people are more inclined to be influenced by a fellow customer than a corporate website.

Google’s real-time search is definitely a legitimizing move for the social media industry. Now it’s up to the social media professionals to develop the best strategies to leverage these new functions, and of course, be prepared for the next thing in social media.

“Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent,” said Bertrand Russell. And while his words are typically poured over by philosophers as opposed to the Technorati, his idea can be applied to pretty much every part of human history. We are an inherently skeptical population, it seems. Especially when it comes to technology.

Feature adoption is often met with an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude. But two new pieces of technology, one big and one small, from Google and Twitter respectively got me thinking recently about what it really takes to change people’s social media habits.

Twitter’s official retweet function has been met with a lot of fanfare, but hardly the kind Twitter wanted. Until now, “retweeting” was always an unofficial function, a meme perpetuated by users who needed a system with which to quote one another. Seeing this user behavior, Twitter took steps to codify retweeting by making it an actual feature. In doing so, however, they’ve inadvertently disturbed the flexibility and editability inherent to the unofficial function. People have protested on Twitter in two ways: by voicing their hatred for the new function, and by continuing to retweet the old-fashioned way.

Old-fashioned communication is what Google is trying to evolve, as well, but on a much more grandiose scale. Google Wave has been billed as the next evolution in online communication, a highly collaborative and expandable platform that will “bring together e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking.” And as with every new Google product, there’s been a scramble to procure beta invites. But from my personal experience, excitement quickly gives way to confusion. The first line of any wave is almost always something resembling “I’m in the wave,” quickly followed by “I don’t get it.”

So are the official retweet and Google Wave failures? Hardly (if history has taught us anything…). I was recently Gchatting with a friend about Google Wave. There were a lot of questions about why it exists, what it does, and whether or not we’d ever use it…the only conversations that really seem to be going on about Wave right now. Then she forwarded me her very first Gchat from a few days after the Gchat feature was launched:

My Friend:
testing…
i just saw the green light.
and this is the first time i’ve used this moderately silly feature.

Her Friend:
yeah it doesn’t seem like a winner to me, but i tend to accept google’s ingenuity unconditionally

Almost three years and literally thousands of chats later, her friend’s words ring true with a sort of prescience. And my friend’s conclusion about Wave? “[I] may have to continue to hold judgment on Wave.”

Such patience when it comes to technology is certainly a virtue, especially given the social media public’s tendency to rapidly warm up to new shiny toys. After Facebook implemented the newsfeed, there was a tremendous backlash (as every Facebook redesign has experienced since), but Mark Zuckerberg stood his ground. Now it’s a central feature. Looking back on this event, Zuckerberg summed up social media users’ skepticism-turned-adoption quite lucidly and succinctly: “A lot of this is just social norms catching up with what technology is capable of.”

That said, the only sure bet that can be made is that the final draft of Google Wave and Twitter’s official retweet will have to go through a number of revisions before people consider mass adoption. But human stubbornness works both ways. Google and Twitter will be just as determined to perfect these new features as people are reluctant to start using them. And if history’s shown us anything, it’s that time is on their side.

Social media makes a lot of noise. In order to sift through all this noise smart marketers need to use monitoring tools to prioritize the most relevant information. I recently conducted a review of four monitoring tools for Page One PR: eCairn, Overtone, ViralHeat and Sysomos. The most important information I can share isn’t which tool was best but rather that no one tool will meet all your specific social media needs. Each tool I reviewed performed different functions with unique strengths. If you’re doing serious social media monitoring, pick the mix of tools that best meet your needs. There’s no way – yet – to automate monitoring. You still have to do manual work to fill the gaps. A smart marketer will select multiple tools that, when used together, will provide the right level of data to develop an effective social media strategy.

eCairn

eCairn specializes in the blogosphere. Their Conversation application is a tool that maps out blog communities. Users manually create a list of blogs they wish to track. A proprietary algorithm ranks these blogs by “influence,” largely by measuring how frequently the blogs cross reference other influential blogs. The tool’s functions are less about search, and more about text mining.  For our agency, identifying key blogs and conversations is important, but if the tool also worked for Twitter and other social media sources it would be much more valuable.

Overtone

Open Mic by Overtone works on a platform that operates on keywords, and does a great job of analyzing data from search terms. I especially liked their emerging trend alert function which identifies potential spikes in a keyword that could lead to future trends or issues. However, Open Mic seems designed to focus on single brand topics for companies to manage online forums or customer service surveys more than for use as a general purpose monitoring tool. It’s not well suited for agencies.

ViralHeat

We signed up for a free ViralHeat trial after Mashable described them as a sophisticated, yet affordable social media tracking tool. ViralHeat pulls data from Twitter, websites, blogs, and YouTube from search profiles we create in the tool. It can tell you specific information such as the number of total unique authors who tweeted about your search term. They also pull together a convenient summary of daily metrics activity. However, a downside of the tool was that the search capability wasn’t as user-friendly and flexible as other monitoring services. Our account was limited to 10 profile searches, and it was difficult to figure out how to compare multiple keywords in the same search. Starting at $10 per month, ViralHeat is priced aggressively. But for Page One, ViralHeat would best serve as a secondary tool that would complement a primary monitoring service with better search functions and less rigidity.

Sysomos

Sysomos offers two main products, the Media Analysis Platform (MAP) and Heartbeat. MAP is an in-depth tool useful for historical analysis over time. The tool is able to identify key influencers in social media communities and uses text analytics to determine tone and sentiment. One attractive feature is that MAP’s database reaches back to 2006, and the data can be effectively categorized by geographic location. It can also monitor across multiple companies.

Their second product is Heartbeat, and is targeted for real-time, day-to-day monitoring, usually for a single brand/company. This tool tracks social media mentions instantaneously, determines sentiment and key influencers, and lets users view their current competitive landscape. Heartbeat also allows multiple users to log-in to the website at one time, which facilitates the sharing of information with your colleagues. Like most other tools, the social media data only goes back 30 days, which is hopefully something that could be tweaked in the future.

Because of its flexibility, search functions, easy-to-use dashboard, and the real-time component, MAP and Heartbeat from Sysomos appear to be good choices right now for our agency (we also plan to more extensively test drive eCairn for its blog capabilities). But we understand that social media monitoring is still an evolving service, and our monitoring needs as an agency will change over time. One thing to remember about choosing a social media tracking tool is that what’s right for our agency may not be right for you.

If you have any insights or questions, please feel free to leave a response in the comments.

Happy tracking!

New Page Wonders Susan Chang and Haley Hebert

Susan Chang came into the conference room and handed me a list of 200 influential people on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook. This was a list of routing and switching people. Tough assignment. Great list. Susan had been working at Page One less than a week.

Haley Hebert gave me a 19 page social media analysis report on her second day on the job. The report covered blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and forums for cloud computing infrastructure.

Their work was based on over a year of intensive social media monitoring, measurement of metrics and our experience with The Page One Process. The quick turnaround on their work shows how social media campaigns can be quickly scaled by adding new members and giving them responsibility for tasks with well-defined steps.

The foundation of each of our social media campaigns is the monitoring of activity and measurement of results. We use dozens of tools, both commercial and free tools. There is no single monitoring system that meets our needs. The combination of a replicable process, monitoring, and measurement allows a single campaign manager to divide work among a group of people and quickly scale a social media campaign, delivering rapid results at lower cost.

I feel really fortunate that Haley and Susan joined our social media team. We reviewed more than 400 applicants and chose the top two people. Haley left her position with a large communications firm in Boston to join our social media team in San Francisco. Susan had to leave a social media job with Turner Communications in Los Angeles. Silicon Valley, the area between San Francisco and San Jose, is attracting top communications talent from around the nation because it is the new center for the development of social media marketing techniques. All the web companies – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google, Yahoo! – and all the social media vendors are right in our area. And now, Silicon Valley is getting all the social media people.

——–

Craig Oda, managing partner and campaign launch enthusiast

Telling the story of the product

“And, action!” The director’s hand goes down. The talent speaks. The story begins. In the midst of bright lights, the whir of camera motors, and the smell of coffee, a tale of a new product is brought to life.

At Page One PR we tell stories about products. Today, Lonn Johnston, the founder of Page One, and I were using video to tell our product story. In the coming weeks, we’ll use a newsletter, web page, Twitter, and Facebook to distribute and amplify our story.

Lonn and I are about six months into a journey to extend the reach of public relations techniques using videos that are tightly integrated with social media campaigns. This was our first experience with a real studio, one that had all the gritty, hip flair of the San Francisco art scene. It was also our first attempt at making a video of our own product.

We’ve learned that techniques for product production and PR are different, joined together mainly by the story and the messages our clients want to communicate. The world of video production has traditionally been more expensive than the social media world of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Over the last six months, we’ve learned what it takes to merge the two worlds, taking the best elements of social media viral distribution and video production to create extremely effective marketing campaigns.

Video director and acting talent work together

Here are the top two lessons we’ve learned about video production:

1) You need a script. The script should follow a production movie format that your company customizes for its own style. Both the video production people and the marketing people need to understand the cues and direction of the script. Before writing the script, we prepare marketing guidelines that identify the target audience, goal of the video, and main messages that the campaign is trying to convey. The exact dialogue does not need to be in the script. We’ve tried making videos without scripts and with loose scripts. It is more efficient, and therefore cheaper to produce a video, if you create a script for your videos and enforce standard conventions.

2) Clarify roles and responsibilities. There are many roles that must be filled to create a video: video director, producer, audio manager, lighting manager, writer, set director, art department, acting talent, and many others. In order to reduce costs, we compress multiple roles into each person on the set. This works most efficiently when the roles and responsibilities are clear to each person. Efficiency on the set translates into lower video production costs and better marketing results per dollar.

—–

Craig Oda => http://twitter.com/codawork

Craig Oda, managing partner and product launch enthusiast

Selling into the US market has always been the ultimate challenge for Japanese software companies.  Make it here and you’re for real.  It’s the only legitimate way to claim success.  Succeeding only in Japan — ask Just Systems and their long-forgotten Ichitaro word processor — is not enough.

But the US market is big and geographically diverse, and linguistic and cultural barriers make it expensive and time-consuming.  What can a Japanese software startup do?

Leverage social media.

The landscape is constantly changing, but as of mid 2009, there are three main services you should be using: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

Twitter

In Japan, Twitter is known as the “mumbling blog (つぶやきブログ)” which is an unfortunate translation.  Thinking of Twitter as unimportant things you’d say under your breath is misleading.  In the US, because it is a fast, quick way to get news, hints and links — in real-time — it is quickly overtaking blogging as a preferred way to communicate with users and the media.  It grew 3712% in April 2009, and it has become a major source of news and information for millions of users.

Twitter has several major advantages for Japanese companies:

1. It’s short.  The 140 character limit helps non-native English speakers.

2. It’s lightweight.  You are not allowed to write a full blog post.  Just a thought, a link, or a quick answer.  This makes Twitter easy to continue.  Corporate blogs always end up being too much work.

3. The US media reads it.  Twitter has two important audiences: The US media and your potential users.  Even just one would be good enough.

Case Study: Japanese software company Lunascape

Lunascape, an unknown commodity in the US through the end of 2008, was developing a “triple rendering engine” web browser.  Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome have virtually unassailable market share.  However, Page One PR helped Lunascape announce their alpha version, which garnered coverage in Tier 1 technology blogs like TechCrunch, Slashdot, Wired and many others.  Traffic spiked 30,000%.  (No joke.)  We then set up the Lunascape Twitter account.  Lunascape was able to attract over 150 followers, many of whom regularly talk up Lunascape, ask support questions, and recommend Lunascape to others.  As an important bonus, Lunascape is able to ask questions directly to its main users this way as well.  Even more valuable, several important bloggers and journalists now follow Lunascape and have established very direct channels of communication with the company.  This has helped keep Lunascape web traffic elevated long after the initial “big bang” press release.

Facebook

Facebook is the way to connect into a growing audience with a mix of static corporate information and live updates.  It is the largest social networking site, growing 700% over the past year.  It has a bigger and more professional audience than MySpace.  Automatically bringing your Twitter updates to Facebook requires no extra effort to keep your Facebook page up-to-date and interesting.

YouTube

Owned by Google, YouTube is the biggest video site in the US by far.  For explaining complicated software to the media, there is nothing better than a short, clear video.  Don’t think HD and clear lighting.  No, it’s “down and dirty,” just screenshots of the most interesting functionality.  Videos like this can explain complicated software clearly and catch viewers’ attention.

Will all of these social media sites be active and popular in a year or two?  Probably not.  The landscape is changing quickly.  But why wait?  You can gain access to US media and potential customers very quickly and easily.  Social media can be an important stepping stone to making it in the US.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and blogs present resource problems for corporations that want to use these channels as marketing tools. Managing multiple channels that lack unification requires more time, resources and specialization than most companies can afford internally. Firms like Page One PR have benefited from this problem because we specialize in the unification and management of social media marketing programs.

At the same time, we’ve learned that proprietary corporate portals that combine video, forums, reviews and blogs can serve as an alternative to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. A corporate portal is more integrated and easier to navigate than individual social media sites. Social media channels are wide and shallow, but the corporate portal is narrow and deep. For customers who want depth of information, the corporate portal may be the better answer.

A good example of a corporate portal is the SAP Community Network (SCN)*, an online community that doesn’t use Facebook or Twitter. SCN is based on proprietary technology developed at SAP. The community consists of more than 1.7 million people, 9,000 companies, 60,000 wikis, and 3.5 million forum posts. The corporate portal offers an efficient way to get product-specific information that can be searched and managed from a central location. However, even a corporate portal that is enormously successful such as the SCN portal can’t contain all discussions. Online discussions will bleed over to other channels such as Twitter, Facebook or whatever tool may be hot at the moment.

While there are excellent examples of corporate portals — just as there are excellent examples of social media campaigns — even companies at the cutting edge of marketing are only just beginning to integrate their efforts at managing peer-generated content that originates in the ‘wild’ with content in their portal. Today there is a great opportunity for smart marketers to leverage the strengths of both the corporate portal and social media channels by integrating a corporate web site with popular tools such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This will mark the dawn of Social Media 2.0.

I see this next stage of social media marketing consisting of the following elements:

* There is a central hub for online communication where customers can get updates. The infrastructure for the central hub could be a simple tool like Twitter, or it could be a more complex corporate portal.

* Careful deployment of a central hub helps corporations streamline the official communications spokes linked to the hub. It’s much easier to eliminate redundant channels, clearly define goals, and manage messages. Many corporations are running too many similar corporate Twitter channels and Facebook groups that focus on the same products. Eliminate the redundancy.

* A much larger network of community-generated content is freely created around the “official” hub and spokes.

* Online conversations are monitored at all levels – hub, spokes, and community networks.

Social media, with content generated by peers, is now an important part of our daily communication, not just for technology hobbyists or businesses, but also for everyday people making decisions about how to spend their time or money. We are at the cusp of a moment of great change in how real people find and assess the value of information. I look forward to seeing how companies merge the great content and infrastructure they have on their corporate web sites with the amazing opportunities presented by vast amounts of unfiltered content produced on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

*Disclosure: SAP is a Page One social media client.

So just how big is the World Wide Web 2.0?  13 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. 900,000 blog posts are written per day, which are read by 77% of the active Internet users.  Facebook has a population of over 250 million people, making it the fourth largest country in the world.  There are almost 4 billion Tweets to date (that’s 560 billion characters or so…and counting).  These numbers are sure to have shot up even higher by the time you get to the end of this paragraph.

Whether you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid or gone off the grid, there’s no denying that there are huge, new forces changing the way that we consume and transmit information and there’s a whole new set of tools whose potential we’re only just starting to understand. This is social media. This is Page One PR.

We are a Silicon Valley public relations firm that caters to the B2B industry and we are currently looking to add consultants to our Social Media Team in the San Francisco office.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

Page One is looking for brilliant, enthusiastic and highly motivated individuals who want an opportunity to impact real companies’ business decisions with social media.

Social media is constantly evolving, so we don’t expect you to be a “social media guru”.  No previous PR or social media experience is necessary, but if you’ve got some, we won’t complain. What we’re looking for are people who understand what social media is and how it can be used for the good of our clients and their customers alike.  If you can see yourself executing strategic PR projects and developing never-done-before social media campaigns, you could be who we are looking for.

WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR:

Ask yourself if you like who we are. It’s important.

We are 100% about our people: over-achievers who get the job done better than anyone else and still have fun doing it.

As a new Consultant/Page Wonder, you’ll learn from the best: our Sr. PR people have developed social media strategies for Cisco, reported for the Los Angles Times, managed social media campaigns for SAP, placed cover stories in BusinessWeek, taught graduate journalism at UC Berkeley and even created the first ISP in Japan.

We’re corporate, but collaborative and laid-back. People at Page One come from all walks of life. We like that mix and we look for initiative, intelligence, humor, integrity, creativity, risk taking, fearlessness, writing skills and a track record of success.

When it comes to work/life balance, we don’t just work. We are marathoners, salsa dancers, music enthusiasts, avid travelers and more. Page One gives us the time to do what we love, and even incorporate those interests into the work we do.

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING:

We don’t look for gutsy people just to take up space. There’s no paint-by-numbers or auto-pilot.  By-the-book at Page One means going off-script.  Social media is constantly evolving, so our processes have to constantly evolve with it.  That’s where you come in.

Page One’s Social Media Consultants help design social media strategy and execute innovative campaigns for some of the most well known technology brands in the Valley.  Daily activities could include social media monitoring and analysis, video production, blog writing, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn management, and social media strategy development for our clients. Every Page Wonder actively engages in developing clients’ PR, marketing and brand management strategies. As a PR agency we specialize in company launches, product launches, media relations, messaging and positioning, analyst relations and (of course) social media.

WHAT YOU’LL BE GETTING:

Benefits? Want 20 days off? OK.

Since Page One’s culture is all about great people doing great things, we reward our employees with exceptional pay, matching 401K and 20 days of paid time off from your first day on the job.

• 20 PTO days (even in your first year)
• 11 paid company holidays
• Medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependants
• Matching 401K
• Long- and short-term disability insurance
• Life insurance
• Flexible spending account

If you are interested in a career as a Social Media Consultant at Page One, email a resume and a note telling us about yourself to Shelly Milam at socialmediajobs@pageonepr.com.

Let’s end the fantasy. Social media monitoring tools (and I’ve seen a lot of them) do not produce comprehensive “reports” or “dashboards” that are all that useful to marketing executives. At least not to the type of marketing executives who have a deep understanding of social media. Tools don’t determine strategy or provide usable analysis. People do. Tools dig up a ton of data and information. In order to build a strategy around a set of findings from that information, you need to drive your own process informed by ultimate business goals.

At Page One PR, we’ve assisted companies like SAP and Cisco with their various monitoring campaigns. We’ve learned over time that useful “monitoring” really means in-depth analysis of a problem, using data from our own manual observations and social media keyword searches, to achieve a specific result or make a strategy recommendation to a client. While these campaigns come in all shapes and sizes – from an assessment of a client’s existing social media implementation to an analysis of a competitor’s online marketing programs – we believe that most monitoring projects can be performed according to a five-step process. Blame our public relations pedigree, but we believe a message-driven approach to monitoring will produce the best results.

Step 1: Audience Segmentation

At the beginning of the monitoring project, whether your focus is your own company or your competitors, it’s important to gain an understanding of the various audiences that the observed marketing or PR activity is attempting to reach. Ultimately, you will want to know whether or not content is positioned and delivered effectively for specific target audiences.

Step 2: Message Categories

Dividing monitoring parameters by major conversation themes and marketing messages focuses the monitoring project on organized, actionable data. You don’t need to know about every John Doe or spam bot that happened to mention your new product. You do need to turn a wild social media jungle into key findings that lead to specific strategic recommendations.

Step 3: Origination and Delivery

After discovering and building a list of key themes and messages, it is important to determine the location of those messages, who originated specific conversations, and how messages were distributed. For example, some of the questions you may ask yourself include:

– How is your company driving messages through its own social media channels?
– What social media channels contain important conversations?
– Do conversations link across multiple channels?
– How are external actors changing the focus of conversations or seeding new message themes?
– How are messages spreading virally?

Step 4: Goals

What are you or your competitors trying to achieve through marketing or PR activities? In order to determine the effectiveness of messages, it’s important to understand the purpose of those messages. At the end of the day, social media needs to achieve a business goal or it’s not worth doing.

Step 5: Effectiveness of Marketing/PR Messages

Try and answer two questions: did the messages reach the right target audience and what action did the target audience take upon exposure to the messages? These questions will help you determine if your campaign or a competitor’s was effective. If key influencers are commenting on blogs, “retweeting” messages, and making content go viral across multiple social media channels, you need to have a deep understanding of this process and how conversations are framed in specific contexts. Understanding effectiveness in this sense requires the kind of careful analysis that an automated tool simply cannot perform by itself.

The Page One social media team now starts every social media campaign with some form of monitoring to ensure our developed strategy and plan is based upon detailed research and analysis. Although this process seems simple enough, monitoring is by no means an easy task. Especially on complex projects, it’s important to have a team that carefully deliberates on analysis and strategy and remains vigilant in linking the findings to the ultimate goal of the project.

What do you think of this process? Have you used a different approach successfully for in-depth analysis of social media campaigns and monitoring results? I’ll even invite the plethora of tool-makers in the space to share their thoughts. Although if you say your tool is a cure-all for PR and marketing professionals, expect a robust debate!

The Page One video service has really started to ramp up, and one of the things that we’re learning is how often people forget that video is an audiovisual medium. We get so wrapped up in planning for the video shoots themselves that we often forget to give ourselves enough time or energy to find the right soundtrack to accompany the visual elements. Given the complications of licensing from major music labels, we have a need for an easy, but still stimulating, solution when it comes to browsing song libraries and deciding upon music.

There’s no shortage of stories about resistance from the Music Industry™ to change. Since Metallica and the RIAA successfully killed Napster in 2001, there’s effectively been a war on the new age of readily available digital music. And with the rise of streaming video technology, sites like YouTube have become the latest battleground. Videos using copyrighted material are being systematically muted or removed. We’ve even noticed this with some of our earlier video work. Most recently, ASCAP won a licensing suit against Google to the tune of $1.6 million, and has started sending collection letters to website owners for embedding YouTube videos without properly licensed songs.

The problem with taking aim at your customers is that you end up shooting yourself in the foot. Especially when what you’re fighting against are the big forces of the modern Web: collaboration, interactivity, and social media. Backlash against giants such as Warner Music is becoming much more visible as users continue to fight for their right to usable, remixable content.

These responses are intended to protect copyright holders and official videos. But the term “music video” no longer applies to MTV-quality productions. Video art collages, karaoke jams, re-enactments, interpretive dance routines, and home videos by the artists themselves give the listener-viewer access to the songs they’re looking for with a feast of visual accompaniment.

The real take away here is that it is in the copyright holder’s best interest to allow greater use of their content. Something the major music industry stakeholders are refusing to acknowledge.

Creative Commons, Social Media, and Sharing

So what’s to be done? Enter Creative Commons, a nonprofit corporation bringing the rules of copyright into the 21^st century. How? By providing new types of licenses “to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.” This model provides more robust possibilities for licensing to create new opportunity for creative work. It also gives independent artists the ability to use the power of social media to create new modes of distribution. Now songs can be released directly to the public through Twitter, MySpace pages, blogs, and artist websites. All you have to do is find it.

There are some new online tools to simplify this search process. Aggregators like Hype Machine’s Twitter Music Chart are now emerging to unify the independent music mediasphere and assist in the search for the Next Big Thing™. The Free Music Archive, directed by legendary freeform radio station WFMU, goes a step further. Their highly interactive, highly legal audio library offers free music downloads through openly licensed content “inspired by Creative Commons and the open source software movement.”

Cure for the Common Video

By working with these tools, we’ve found that the end result is an increasingly accessible independent music industry with a wealth of possibility for collaboration. We can now engage directly with independent artists and labels to find new music to soundtrack our videos. It increases production values for us, provides bands with promotion, and gives both parties access to a larger audience. Which means more opportunities for cross-promotional outreach and interaction through social media channels.

It’s a win for everyone involved: our clients, the bands we like, and the new concept of digital media rights in a social media world. Be on the lookout for interesting new sounds paired up with interesting new corporate videos in the future. Look out for a short stop-motion project we’ll be doing in the coming weeks to really show our video service’s potential, using the music of Lucky Dragons or Cornelius, or maybe both. Stay tuned.

Social media programs are increasingly being rolled out with Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and PR campaigns.  Social media and SEM share many similarities, including broad online reach and quantifiable metrics that can be tracked with web-based tools.  To get a better understanding of what SEM experts think of social media, I sat down with Ralph Hibbs, principal at Red Apple Marketing, an online lead generation company based in San Francisco.

Ralph Hibbs – A smiling face in the search engine marketing space

You’ve planned. Storyboarded. Worked with company spokespeople on messaging. Identified goals. Spent three hours filming and 24 hours editing. And now you have a concise video masterpiece of corporate vision. What’s next?

Surprise! The success of a video often depends on the promotional campaign that a superstar PR team creates around it even more than the original content. However, part of a strong promotional campaign is identifying, with your client, the goals of the video and then finding the right site on which to host a video to help achieve those goals. Where you host the video matters. Sometimes a lot.

There are a variety of hosting sites on the Web nowadays, but YouTube, Viddler and Vimeo have emerged as three of the best. More a bit later on why they make my top three list. (Readers, feel free to disagree with me or suggest others in the comments.)

First, all three offer similar basic services and offerings (public and private viewing options, statistics about how the video is faring on the site, etc.) and most agree that choosing one comes down to what you hope to achieve with your video.

Every company has different specific hopes for a video, but there are a few broad goals that we PR folks always aim for:

- Reach a wide audience. Even if the video is targeted at a specific group of people you still want access to the highest contingent of that group.

- Present that audience with a quality viewing experience (i.e. smooth playing, clear visuals and sound, etc.). No one wants to watch a choppy video.

- Have an easy back-end experience. Hard-working, time-crunched PR reps don’t want to deal with a lengthy, complex or buggy upload process.

With that in mind…

Until recently, I used to hear people say “If you want to tell the world, use YouTube. If you want to show the world, use Vimeo.” Early on, YouTube was known for an extremely large and active user community but also for shortcomings in video quality. Fuzzy images, choppy sound and other performance snags were common.

Vimeo differentiated itself with higher quality viewer experience by becoming the first site to enable HD video sharing. However, uploading videos to the site – a slow process – made reaping the benefits inefficient.

Viddler, when it launched, was knocking socks off – and being praised favorably over YouTube — with its clean UI, ease of use, speedy uploading and easy browsing. But it lacked (and still does) the enormous community of YouTube.

Over the past few years, and especially as more and more hosting sites cropped up, it seemed that compromise was the name of the game. You could have a wide audience, a quality viewing experience or a smooth back-end process, but not all three.

However, YouTube changed all that – and in my opinion justified its position as the number one video hosting site — by enabling HD video sharing last year. Add to this jump in quality the fine-tuning they have done on the uploading side and the unparalleled user base, and YouTube became my one-stop shop for meeting almost all client PR goals.

The important thing to remember, though, is that the success of a video depends on the time and energy taken to put it together, and the traction of a video depends more on the PR campaign than on where the video is housed. You can’t go wrong with any of the three sites discussed above, but having access to YouTube’s vast potential audience – and recognizable brand name — at your fingertips is nothing but an asset.

I’m curious, though. What do you all think? Anyone have great (or terrible) experiences with these sites you care to share?

Social media embodies Silicon Valley values. Social media communities are collaborating in innovative ways to create entirely new approaches to business and communication problems. It’s no wonder then that many Silicon Valley companies have embraced social media as a platform to engage with users and customers. But Silicon Valley also values pragmatism and ROI. Many PR professionals and social media marketers shudder at the thought of fielding this question in a new business pitch: “Social media sounds like something we should be doing, but how does it measure up to other marketing activities that I use to support critical business goals?” At Page One PR, headquartered in Silicon Valley, we understand that this question should not only be expected, it should be welcomed.

From a public relations perspective, the value of social media is greater than any one ROI metric can capture. Digital communities are providing avenues for scaling the kinds of close customer relationships that weren’t possible just a decade ago. But especially in today’s economy, we need to reach for more defined metrics in discussions with marketers who prefer to speak in terms of ROI.

There’s another field that has made this shift with a great deal of success, moving from more abstract impression estimates to more concrete action-based metrics: advertising. Internet advertisers understand the power of the click. With the advent of Google Adwords and other search ad networks, the Cost per Click (CPC) metric has become a common method for determining the success of campaigns in influencing target audiences to take specific desired actions.

At Page One, we have started the process of converting Twitter and YouTube ROI into CPC metrics. My colleague Craig Oda wrote on his personal blog about this topic recently. A major goal of social media promotional campaigns is to drive traffic to content pages where potential customers can gain rich information about the company. The content pages may include corporate websites, registration pages, blogs, and videos. To give marketers a comparison to advertising activities, we can use the cost of Twitter and YouTube campaigns along with the number of clicks on unique URLs or video views to determine social media CPC. While I’m not saying social media campaigns should replace advertising, the comparison will be highly useful to marketers attempting to justify spending a portion of limited budgets on social media.

Let’s first compare advertising to Twitter CPC. Our client base is largely business to business high tech software companies. Although CPC in search ads for this sector can vary widely depending on the competitiveness of the bidding process for keywords, the $1 – $2 range is typical. In the month of May, one of our clients, an open source software company, averaged about $1.50 CPC for Google Adwords. For a fair comparison with Twitter ROI, it is important to include the entire cost that companies incur for ad campaigns – this includes the initial set up and testing of messages, keyword selection, and management over time. Many service firms charge about 15% of the advertising spend for basic management costs. This number can increase depending on the level of testing and analytics. Companies with small ad spends often pay up to 30-40% due to minimum fee policies. Including management fees, a $1.50 CPC could easily increase to $1.72 – $2.10.

Since Twitter is a free tool, the cost of a Twitter campaign is solely comprised of the people-hours that go into activities such as determining strategy and voice, updating the feed, engaging with followers, monitoring the Twittersphere, and reporting results to clients. We include all these services within the cost for the CPC, because even Twitter activities not related to unique URL linking can grow the feed and contribute positively to click rates. To make a fair comparison to the content of advertisements when calculating Twitter CPC, we only include clicks on unique URLs that point to the client’s corporate website, blog or other content that gives a prominent impression of the client in a positive light (e.g. a feature story on an external news website).

We are in the process of collecting data across several accounts, and an initial measurement based on the Twitter feed of the Linux Foundation, the non-profit Linux consortium, yields a $0.12 CPC. The Linux Foundation Twitter feed is highly popular and has been in existence since July 2008. We’d expect that younger feeds for less well known companies would yield more costly CPC rates. Rudimentary and partial data from June for the Twitter feed of Appcelerator, an open source application development platform, shows an approximate $1.00 CPC. The Appcelerator feed is another popular, high quality feed.

Now, let’s compare advertising to YouTube video CPC. Page One offers professional video production services. In the past, projects have included short client vision videos and comical videos at technical conferences. We host these videos on YouTube and other platforms, and track the number of times that people view each video. This process is similar to tracking clicks on a search network advertisement or interactive ad, but the content in YouTube videos is arguably richer than that of internet ads. The cost of a video campaign includes messaging strategy, scripting, professional videographer production costs, direction and promotion. In some cases, the cost of promotion may be difficult to determine when the campaign blends with more traditional PR services, resulting in overlapping costs. For instance, media relations activities may result in an article that links to the video. Since this increases the number of views, these activities should at least be considered in the CPC metric. We’ve seen that campaigns are most successful when PR is integrated with social media activities, creating a multiplier effect.

Our initial measurement of video CPC across several accounts shows an approximate $0.32 CPC for strongly developed campaigns. A vision video for Appcelerator yielded $0.14. A vision video for Cloudera, a high-end data storage and processing system, yielded $0.32. Both of these videos were associated with major product launches, so we’d expect relatively high view counts. Conversational videos at a developer conference yielded $0.50. A big difference between CPC for video campaigns and CPC for ad campaigns is that the former tends to decrease over time while the latter tends to remain relatively flat assuming that market conditions remain steady. Whereas the cost of a video is incurred at the beginning of the project, the cost of an ad campaign increases with time. To be sure, clicks for ads also increase over time but in proportion with the ad spend. On the other hand, if a YouTube video goes viral, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. You continue to get clicks without additional cost.

Since Craig’s initial blog post on this topic, we’ve collected more data and can now update our CPC comparison chart. We’ll continue to refine these metrics going forward, especially as we gain more Twitter data from our client accounts. We’d appreciate your comments and thoughts on social media ROI.

More and more headhunters and companies are tapping social media channels to recruit jobseekers. Especially in a recession, companies know their ultimate success depends on the quality of human capital they can reel into their organization. Leveraging social media plays an increasingly key role in making sure your company finds its widest array of candidate choices.

In recent recruiting cycles, Page One got overwhelming positive responses to an open position at the firm when we ran a 7-week recruitment campaign FOR FREE.  Here are our top five tips on how to find the best of the best on a budget of zero.

1. Start with the usual suspects.

Candidates have been given the secrets to pass the social media recruitment test. Since recruiters tend to check an applicant’s personal blog, Facebook profile, Twitter feed, LinkedIn recommendations, Flickr portfolio, SlideShare presentations or even YouTube resume, establish the same transparency for your company with these tools. Creating your firm’s online character attracts the best pool of applicants and indicates to potentials how they stack up to your ideals, culture and caliber.

To keep costs down, companies should start by posting their own creative job description on a company site or blog and then use email, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to pass around the URL. Nine times out of 10, the best candidates are already in your employees’ networks.

2. Avoid CraigsList, Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs and other major database sites for one of two reasons.

If you’re looking to fill a professional position these sites do not filter resumes enough to make the search worth the time. “Employers” on these sites are often temp or placement agencies or even spammers — not actual employers — and good applicants know this.  As a real employer, know that talent is available in excess, but your ideal applicants generally try to target their job search by looking at sites catered to their specific industry and skill set. They’re not spending much time on the large database sites.

Second, the cost of posting jobs on these sites can grow very quickly based on the number of people you’re looking to hire. If you’re a small firm, there’s no reason to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to recruit a few people. If you’re a large organization, your own infrastructure is more suitable for recruiting internally on your own site. Google does this especially well.

3. Recognize that paying for recruitment services is almost always a poor decision.

In recruitment, your fixed costs of recruiter salary is a given, so your end goal should be to eliminate all other variable costs like job posting fees. Again, big sites are not the way to go.

CareerBuilder starts at $419 to post for one month for one job position. A bevy of emails and socially networked messages might not get you as many responses in volume, but rest assured candidates who do respond will on average be more qualified, know more about your specific company and industry, and will possess more genuine interest in being an asset to your firm. In this game Quality: 1, Quantity: 0.

The exception to this rule is niche recruitment. From healthcare to tech, smaller job sites are generally cheaper and viewed by a more industry-savvy audience, so bets are if you’re going open the purse strings, smaller sites are a smarter move in your recruitment strategy. Mashable, for instance, offers a gamut of social media positions. For recruiters using Mashable, the $50 price tag is justified by the hours your HR manager won’t have to spend combing through unqualified candidates who‘ve been spamming their resumes around.

4. Use Smart Tools

Doostang is a smart tool.

Back in 2005, Doostang was created by Mareza Larizadeh as an online career advancement website that connects elite professionals with top jobs. The platform is designed like a social network, which makes leveraging connections easier, but the biggest pull for recruiters is that Doostang is free. We’re talking no fees to post jobs. And since Doostang was started with affiliations to Stanford, Harvard and MIT, many of the applicants on the site come from top-notch university networks.

Just this week, Larizadeh told me their level of “executive recruitment pushes the company out ahead of its competitors.” By my calculations, it’s a winner when it comes to keeping recruitment expenses to a minimum.

5. Use Tools with an Edge

SnapTalent is a tool with an edge.

SnapTalent is a recruitment platform that uses social media to profile and match employers to potential hires.  I give them five stars for creating an interface that comprehensively (and easily) profiles companies all for the low price of $0. Jamie Quint, SnapTalent COO, spoke to me about the company’s vision: “We let companies build rich media recruitment pages that tell the full story of their company in a way the ‘connected’ generation understands.”

With the SnapTalent interface, posting information about your company, your employees, your corporate blog and your YouTube video of the office Christmas party happens all in one place. This approach gives candidates the best sense of who your company is and who might fit in with you. Since its start in late 2007, SnapTalent has adopted a tiered pricing plan (like LinkedIn) that’s based on the number of successful contacts it makes for you, but even if you don’t purchase resumes, you still get all the same exposure for a price that can’t be beat.

If you have some great tips and tools to suggest that worked in your hiring, send me a note or comment below!

Do you know Hadoop? You know, the open source project named for a child’s stuffed elephant that is used to store and process large volumes of data? Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo! sure do – they all use it. So, when Accel Partners funded startup Cloudera needed to make a make a splash for their commercial offering of Hadoop/MapReduce software and services, what did they do?

They turned to Page One PR and reached 1.5 million people within 24 hours of launch, pushing their website traffic up by more than 800 percent. In addition to a feature story in the print edition of the New York Times, Page One PR also secured 4,500 blog placements, including GigaOm, TechCrunch and the New York Times Bits blog. Google search keyword results on “Cloudera” jumped from 9,000 to 23,000 on launch day.

Big data had never been so cool. It was the talk of the town… and Twittersphere. The huge hype resulted from Page One PR’s integrated plan that meshed PR, marketing, and social media.

Twitter alone pushed the news to more than 250,000 people, whose viral impact is known to spread like wildfire. So when people such as Tim O’Reilly (with 100,000+ followers), Robert Scoble (90,000+ followers), James Governor (6,000 followers) from Redmonk, John Battelle (16,000 followers) and Matt Asay (2,600 followers) from CNET tweeted the news, it really took off.

Page One also used YouTube and Viddler videos to quickly give reporters an overview of the product and people prior to the launch. The first video depicted the CEO and founder explaining the technology and product vision. This video has been viewed more than 5,600 times to date. The second video demoed the product and highlighted key features. The videos were also used for viral distribution in Twitter, direct email, and blogs.

The messages and positioning statements that Page One built helped shape two traditional press releases, one focused on the company funding by Accel Partners, and the other focused on the general availability of the product. The messaging was also used to create the script for the video and served as the roadmap for video direction.

To complement the messages, the founder wrote a blog post highlighting the technical features of the product. He took a deeper dive on components of the release.

The entire process – from initial plans through last interview – was carefully crafted and organized. Developing and managing communications messages and a coordinated media effort truly proved to be the key to generating buzz.

First, Twitter erupted on the social media scene.  Then came the flurry of application developers, in a very iPhone-esque way, extending and piggybacking on top of the Twitter platform.  Now there are Twitter applications for pretty much everything.

Working in a social media-intensive field, I’m always on the hunt for applications and tools that help me do my job better. Like many of you out there, I’m on Twitter all day, everyday. At Page One, we place a heavy emphasis on social media metrics and results so I started researching and reviewing Twitter search tools. I wanted to find a few applications that would make my life easier and report better results to our clients.

I first had to think about my top Twitter priorities and the kind of things we monitor, report and deliver to our clients. For me, my work on Twitter varies quite a bit depending on the client. Daily activities include event and contest promotion on @CiscoGeeks, monitoring and answering company or product-related questions on @Jaspersoft and other tasks. What am I looking for in a Twitter search tool? I want:

•    A real-time, comprehensive stream of results;
•    A method to target the right audience;
•    Insights into trends, sentiment, tone;
•    URL-tracking;
•    Twitter analytics and metrics on specified words/terms;

What did I find? An overwhelming number of Twitter tools. Five stood out for what I needed to do. For PR or Marketing professionals, these five tools can help you pinpoint the things you search Twitter for on a daily, or even hourly, basis.

1. Monitter
At first glance this tool looks very similar to the search features on Tweetdeck. In fact, Alex Holt, the man behind Monitter, said he originally intended to “mimick Tweetdeck,” but this tool does so much more and boasts a very sleek UI. Designed to quickly and easily monitor responses to product launches, companies, campaigns, or whatever it may be, Monitter allows you to search up to three terms and it automatically refreshes with real-time results.  The real kicker, which makes the life of a PR/marketing professional SO much easier, is that you can RT content or @reply to tweets instantaneously, from any Twitter feed, without logging in and out of accounts on Twitter’s site. Life changing, right? Do you “man” a client’s Twitter feed on the day of a big product launch? With Monitter, you can address comments, questions and concerns directly through their application, saving you a lot of time and preventing that “oops did I just tweet something meant for my personal feed on a client feed?!” moment.

2. Twellow
The self-proclaimed “Twitter yellow pages,” is the easiest way to search Twitter profiles. Twellow will help you target the right audience for your client Twitter feed or social media campaign. This tool has a laundry list of features and bottom-line, this should be your “go-to” site for searching and reaching your target audience.

3. Twitter StreamGraph by Neoformix
Creator Jeff Clark was too modest when he told me “he doesn’t expect the tool itself to be a commercial success.” Twitter StreamGraphs give users beautiful images of data visualization and I see some real value for marketers. A StreamGraph shows the latest 1,000 tweets that contain a specified search term. Within the image, you can see peaks in chatter, which are segmented by different word associations. You can also scan the actual tweets that mentioned the search term plus each associated word.  What a great way to monitor sentiment and tone, track terms most commonly associated with your brand, and how this changes over time. Twitter StreamGraphs are ideal for monitoring promotion around product launches and events — and to report stellar results back to clients in one beautiful image.

4. Scoopler
Scoopler provides real-time search results for terms in Twitter as well as Delicious, Digg, Flickr and Identica. Are you scraping at the bottom of the barrel for Twitter content? This is an easy way to search content across multiple social media channels and see live results. Scoopler goes one step further; it also shows you the most popular links, videos, and/or images for your search term, so you can pick up the hottest content as it’s posted. I chatted with co-founders AJ Asver and Dilan Jayawardane about this feature and they gave a great example about seeing a video of the Hubble mission shuttle launch, pretty much as soon as it happened. Are you multitasking for clients and don’t have time for a Twitter content hunt? You’d probably enjoy their “peek” feature as well, which let’s you preview any content on Scoopler, without having to leave the page.

*I also need to give Twazzup a shout out, which is another a great tool and a close 2nd. Similar concept to Scoopler, except solely Twitter-focused.

5. Backtweets
Backtweets is a simple URL search tool. What makes this tool so great? It solves one major social media dilemma… The link to external websites and content in a tweet is usually most important, and if you’re a PR or Marketing professional, you’re probably tracking it too. What if someone doesn’t re-tweet your link and shares that tinyURL you tweeted as a bit.ly instead? Backtweets allows you to search for that original link across all URL shorteners. It’s also a great way to see who is linking to your client’s website, but not mentioning our client’s name on Twitter.

These five tools push the limits of Twitter search and I find them to be very useful. Let me know too, if you have found other great applications.

Facebook has changed a lot since I first started using it in college four years ago. New users may be shocked to learn that the “News Feed” didn’t even exist back then.  While college students may have a legitimate complaint about Facebook being usurped and transformed since the “good old days,” I can say that this popular social networking app is becoming increasingly useful for social media, PR and marketing professionals. With each update, Facebook increases the opportunities for content and conversations to go viral and to reach more users.

One of the key things for marketers to understand about Facebook is when to use Groups or Pages to organize a community. When organizations join Facebook, they have to decide between starting a Group or a Page. In basic terms, both Groups and Pages are forums for self-selected users to connect around a common interest. Pages are specifically designed for companies and organizations to reach their “fans.” Groups can be organized around virtually any topic, although there’s nothing stopping an organization from starting a Group as well.

Just a few months ago, I would have declared a toss up between Groups and Pages in terms of their relative effectiveness for marketers looking to make an impact in the social media space. While Groups are more antiquated and less customizable than Pages, Groups allow administrators to send messages to all members, which are sent as emails. Pages, on the other hand, only allow “Updates” to be sent through Facebook itself to the homepages of fans. When Page One PR ran a social media campaign for Wine.com in late 2008, we created a Page and found only limited features available that would be useful for reaching potential new fans (save paid advertisements). The Page was an important part of our campaign, but I wanted more.

Since our Wine.com campaign, Page One PR has set up both Pages and Groups for our company and for our clients. After working on several campaigns, I would now recommend that organizations choose Pages over Groups for their effectiveness in marketing campaigns.

What’s changed? In the most recent alteration of Facebook, Pages took on the appearance and functionality of a personal profile. This means that a Page comes fully equipped with a “Wall” where the administrators of the Page as well as fans can post comments, links, videos, and pictures. Fans can also comment on wall posts, “Like” posts or share them on their personal profiles or through direct messages. Most of these Page interactions will show up on users’ “News Feeds,” making the information more viral.  If fans share information from Pages on their own profiles or engage in conversations on the Wall, their friends see this information on their own News Feeds. Hence, another viral effect is born. Pages also come with traditional applications like “Events” and “Notes”.

Another benefit of Pages is the analytical capability called “Insights”. Measuring the results of social media is crucial if social media campaigns are to demonstrate value and ROI. With “Insights,” organizations can track growth of their fan base over time, unique views of the Page and specific areas such as pictures, demographics of the fans, and even how fans are engaging with the site over time. For one of our current clients, Meltwater, we’re discovering that Insights actually does yield interesting data about fan interaction with the Page. In particular, we’ve noticed the popularity of rich content such as pictures by tracking clicks and views over time.

Finally, the coup de gras that sold me on Pages over Groups was a vital feature improvement called “Suggest to Friends.” Previously, it was difficult for Page administrators and fans to get the word out to other Facebook users. Now, any administrator or fan can suggest the Page to their friend networks AND these suggestion notices are sent as emails.

With all of these new Facebook updates, Pages have become more useful for marketers and PR professionals. Groups have the same largely static characteristics as before. There is no Wall that interconnects content and people through the News Feeds, although Groups include pictures, videos, discussion boards, and events capabilities. This means it is more difficult to spread content virally. The best feature of Groups, from the perspective of marketers, is the ability to send messages that are sent as emails to members. However, this feature, along with Events, is the only way that members learn of Group activities without having to revisit the Group itself.

I’m not saying that the Facebook Page is the best social media tool for every organization, but I am finding that Facebook can play a helpful role in larger social media efforts.

What do you think about the transformation of Pages? Please feel free to comment on personal experiences or give your own take on Facebook as a marketing/PR vehicle.

This week Page One PR celebrated the first birthday of the Social Media Team (SMT).  As I was setting up the cake and lighting the birthday candles in our San Francisco office, one of my fellow Page Wonders asked me if a year ago I would have ever thought the program would be where it is today.  My answer? No way! I was just hoping to hang on for the ride.

Craig Oda and I founded the SMT during the spring of last year. We feared Page One was lagging far behind the industry and had a lot of catch up work to do.   It turns out we were right and wrong about that assumption.  In the past year we’ve worked many long days and nights to figure out how to define and run social media for the agency.  I honestly never imagined we would have come as far as we have though.

Today we are running social media programs for some of the biggest brands in the world and helping our start-ups to become the next big names in the Valley.  We were the first agency to differentiate our services by defining social media metrics and demonstrate that you could measure social media spend and ROI.  We’ve developed a standard process (The Page One Process) that has produced outsized results for our clients.  It’s not all work – we’ve also managed to have a lot of fun along the way!

When I reflect back on the past year I’ve noticed three critical turnings points in the development of our program:

The first was Wine.com.  I was so excited to start working with Wine.com last fall!  They were the very first pure social media play we scored and – just stating the obvious – the product was wine!  We developed a three-month program aimed at increasing online wine sales.  We’d bring wine to the consumer, through Twitter, Facebook and a Wine.com blog, to boost sales.  Meet the consumer at their desired online channel.  Seems simple right?  No.  We found out quickly that it is very difficult to entice people to buy wine through Twitter.  I think the founder of Page One and I single handedly floated the total Twitter wine sales through the better part of the program.  (I still have Wine.com purchased wine at my apartment.)  That’s when we realized the importance of social media metrics.  Metrics quickly became the defining characteristic of our program and the trait that differentiates us from other PR agencies.  Social media is not about the tools you use, it’s about the strategy and campaign you create around those tools. We discovered the value of measuring specific metrics to justify social media ROI.  If you can’t measure it, it’s not worth doing.

The next critical turning point came with Appcelerator, a start-up creating software for developers.  Up to this point we had learned that social media was much more than the tools, but Appcelerator’s launch of Titanium showed us that social media cannot be a stand-alone campaign. It must fit into a larger marketing campaign if it’s going to be sustainable.  For Appcelerator, we really started to integrate social media and PR very closely.  I took the traditional PR skills I had learned in my first year at the agency and combined them with the social media lessons I had learned on Wine.com and previous social media campaigns to produce a new hybrid product launch.   The results we got for Appcelerator’s first launch (an alpha launch, mind you) were crazy!   Imagine a 3,500% increase in website traffic and more than 10,000 product downloads within the first few hours of the announcement.  Craig and I were even in shock.  During the weeks leading into the announcement I had an inkling that we were doing something big, but on launch day last December I realized that by combining social media with traditional PR we had created a service that we could actually sell.

I will be eternally grateful for the clients we worked with in the very beginning and for the programs they allowed us to run – there is definitely something to be said for client trust.  The opportunities to experiment and take a risk are really what allowed us to learn the most valuable skills along the way.

The third critical turning point came with our next big break, Cisco.  I still remember when I got the Facebook message from my old manager from my intern days at EMC, asking if we could talk about Page One’s social media services.  If Cisco had heard about us this was big!  We initially started working with them to support and promote their AXP Developer Contest.  Now let’s just be honest – the client calls were incredibly confusing. There were so many people on every call! There were product-marketing people, PR people, social media people and roles I never knew existed. I quickly realized that the mere task of trying to figure out whom everyone was, what group they belonged to and what that group’s motives were was going to be challenging.  However, Cisco is a very well oiled marketing machine.  We learned during the AXP social media campaign that social media does not cleanly fit into PR or marketing, either as a program or budget item – it sits somewhere in between (I’ll blog about this more in a week or so).  In today’s social media industry, no one group owns responsibility (or budget).  Because of this everyone in a company is a stakeholder and has to actively participate for the campaign to be a success.

While these three campaigns – and dozens of others over the past year – have allowed me to define social media and its role for our agency, the main lesson I have learned is to never compromise.  We have never settled for average results or average campaigns for our clients.  With each passing month and year, we’re steadily improving our social media services. We’d like to share what we are learning with you too.  I hope you’ll sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube to stay up to date on the next year’s discoveries!

I’ve been to several recent client and prospect meetings where we’ve discussed strategies for incorporating social media programs into marketing and communications roadmaps. In most cases, the client or prospect has heard about social media and falls into one of two categories (or both):

1. They want to tap into social media because they recognize it’s part of being on the cutting edge of marketing and PR.

2. They want to use social media to sell more products.

That’s when I feel compelled to start talking about the “underbelly” of the beast. Social media is more than being hip and fun and cool. It’s also more than just another set of channels for making sales. Most importantly – it’s a lot of work.

We’ve spent a lot of time at Page One PR trying to figure out ways to measure the influence of social media programs, and we’ve been pretty successful coming up with metrics and strategies for providing real value to clients who want social media as another set of tools in their marketing and communications arsenal.

If you’re thinking of exploring social media for your company, go for it! But before you do that, here are five important tips you need to know:

1. Social media requires a willingness and readiness to engage.
When it comes to social media, many companies want us to “just do it” for them. Good luck. Social media programs aren’t the same as just writing a press release or developing a media pitch. When you begin to engage with people, they want to interact with YOU – they want to see personalities at a company, not just a corporate image. This requires a level of transparency from the CEO down to engineering that can’t be forged by the PR firm. Be prepared to conduct business this way if you want to be successful with social media.

2. Your audience might not naturally pay attention.
A lot of companies know this but don’t understand the number of cycles that go into running social media programs and campaigns. They think that blogging, YouTube and Twitter are ways to push out their messages without realizing no one will care unless they promote content daily. Maintaining a day-to-day social media presence (and relevance) requires loyally following four key steps: produce content, push content through social media channels, actively monitor the channels you want to leverage and respond FAST. Rinse and repeat.

3. Social media never stops.
Social media demands a fair amount of interaction if you want to build relationships with your target audiences and get their attention. Companies often drastically underestimate the resources required to build successful social media channels. They want to generate buzz around a major announcement, but then want to “turn off” until their next bit of news. They don’t want to respond to questions or create new content until it benefits their bottom line. You can’t do that with social media. Don’t be surprised when people demand that you pay attention to them before they’ll care about you.

4. Social media requires A LOT of planning.
Building your brand with social media can be a lot of fun, but the planning process can be pretty exhausting. In fact, expect any social media program to take at least 2.5x the amount of time and resources a traditional PR approach normally would. You need to plan ahead. After you’ve identified your target audiences and the key messages you want to communicate to each audience, multiply those by the number of channels you plan to use and develop metrics to measure your success. Your content should be cross-linked and distributed in sync or according to a detailed choreography. Then, monitor and have guidelines for response.

5. Social media is everyone’s responsibility.
A mistake companies often make is taking the “it’s not my job” attitude. Executives, engineers, salesmen, product managers, business development employees will often pigeon-hole social media into the marketing and communications bucket. Even marketing directors and VPs will avoid being accountable. Social media enables your audience to ask questions, challenge your claims, offer helpful product feedback and share their opinions with their network of friends and followers. Companies that are successful with social media have resources in every department to immediately address questions and issues that come in through social media channels. If you’re starting up a social media program, share with your company what you want to accomplish and tell everyone how they can help.

Social Media in Action
We recently had an incident where an IT manager was having trouble installing a client’s product and began expressing negative frustration on Twitter about the company’s product. We alerted the VP of marketing at the client who immediately called the guy and put him in touch with a sales engineer. The customer started tweeting about how impressive the client’s customer service was and began offering incredibly positive feedback about the product on Twitter. This is one of several examples of how social media can be effective if you’ve got the right internal lines of communication open and the resources to reach out to your community.

The Takeaway
While social media can have an incredibly heavy underbelly, it provides a remarkably effective way to reach and engage with your target audiences. In addition, as we continue to see traditional print and online media outlets dry up, you’ll notice that the results from social media outreach done well can transcend what you’ve come to expect from traditional PR. Even better, beyond just “counting clips,” you can quantify social media results with metrics and your own Google Analytics. So, as you get on board with social media, remember that the amount of energy, planning and resources required to fuel a successful social media campaign can give you the return on investment you want at exactly the moment you need it. Plus, it can really be a lot of fun.

So, maybe you found out the spoilers to LOST Season 3 on Facebook. Maybe you got your Grand Theft Auto 4 trade secrets from a blog. Maybe you heard John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston broke up for the 11th time on Twitter. Perhaps you didn’t know that an entire prison of convicts in the Philippines could remake the entire Thriller video until you saw it up on YouTube.

Well, whatever you heard, be it entertainment or news, these are the ways information is being delivered today. This is social media. This is Page One.

We are a Silicon Valley public relations firm that caters to the high-tech industry and we are currently looking to add consultants to our Social Media Division in the San Francisco office.

WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR:

Page One is looking for brilliant, enthusiastic and highly motivated individuals who want an opportunity to impact real companies’ business decisions with social media.

Social media is fresh and constantly shifting, so we don’t expect you to be a social media guru. NO PREVIOUS PR or SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERIENCE IS NECESSARY, but if you’ve got some, we won’t complain. If you understand what social media is and can see yourself leading smart PR projects and creating never-done-before campaigns for clients, you could be who we are looking for.

WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR:

Ask yourself if you like who we are. It’s as important.

We are 100% about our people: over-achievers who get the job done better than anyone else and have fun.

As a new Consultant/PageWonder, you’ll learn from the best: our Sr. PR people have reported for the Los Angles Times, managed campaigns for Microsoft, placed cover stories in Business Week, taught graduate journalism at UC Berkeley, written keynote for Bill Gates and even created the first ISP in Japan.

We’re corporate, but collaborative and laid-back. People at Page One come from all walks of life. We like that mix and we look for initiative, intelligence, humor, integrity, creativity, risk taking, fearlessness, writing skill and a track record of success.

When it comes to work/life balance, we don’t just work. We are marathoners, lacrosse players, salsa dancers, avid travelers and more, and Page One gives us the time to do what we love. Sure, you might find a Page One consultant at MacWorld stalking Steve Jobs, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll see a group of us enjoying happy hour in downtown SF.

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING:

No coffee fetching. No press release copying. We don’t look for gutsy people just to take up space.

Page One’s Social Media Consultants design and produce social media content including video campaigns, blogs and social network profiles for clients. They also produce social media for Page One’s internal marketing. Every PageWonder actively engages in developing clients’ PR, marketing and brand management strategies. We specialize in company launches, product launches, media relations, messaging and positioning, analyst relations and (of course) social media.

WHAT YOU’LL BE GETTING:

Benefits? Want 20 days off? OK.

Since Page One’s culture is all about great people doing great things, we reward our employees with exceptional pay, quarterly bonuses, matching 401K and 20 days of paid time off from your first day on the job.

• 20 PTO days (even in your first year!)
• 11 paid company holidays
• Medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependants
• Matching 401K
• Long- and short-term disability insurance
• Life insurance (twice your annual salary)
• Flexible spending account
• Costco delivers the snack food on the first of every month

If you are interested in a career as a Social Media Consultant at Page One, email a resume and a note telling us about yourself to Jasmine Teer at jasmine@pageonepr.com.

Visit us: http://www.pageonepr.com
Read our blog: http://www.pageonepr.com/blogs/thepagewonders/
Check out our Facebook group: Page One PR
Follow us on Twitter: @pageonepr

When I first saw the shortlist for the 2008 Sabre Award silver finalists in Technology Software, I had to look twice. A&R Edelman for Adobe Systems, Access Communications for Intuit, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide for Microsoft and, what? PAGE ONE PR for a small open source start up? Could this be right?

Upon second look, I saw it was true! According to the Sabre Awards, Page One is standing among some global giants, and we are neck and neck. But although we’d like to take credit for coming up with the creative idea behind it all, I also have to admit we couldn’t have done it without social media.

Our nomination comes for a campaign that we cooked up last summer at LinuxWorld Conference and Expo called “Who’s the Next Open Source Idol?” We created a contest to determine which of four popular open source mascots Linux junkies love most and threw in Tux the Penguin, Beastie the BSD Devil, “Foxie” the FireFox and the GNU (also know as Bessie). Even better, we asked people to sing or dance on behalf of their vote.

After stirring up some trouble at the show, FireFox fans rallied and ousted Tux. In the meantime, our client saw a 43% increase in traffic to their corporate website in three days and 1,133 people visited their community portal to vote. We also generated buzz in the IT media community, and people are still talking about it.

The Sabre Awards recognize public relations firms that focus on delivering out-sized results and improving a client’s bottom line through out-of-the-box campaigns. For “Open Source Idol,” we tapped a variety of social media channels to generate buzz, which ended up being incredibly cost-effective to leverage. In fact, one reason social media is so effective is that it puts everyone on a level playing field. Through a mix of social media and traditional PR tactics, we were able to reach the Linux and open source enthusiasts we needed to participate and were able to engage with them directly.

So, I guess the big takeaway is it no longer matters how big your marketing or PR budget is – even a small technology startup can stand out against giants. It just takes some guts, smarts and social media.

Apparent in blogs across the web, social media is the PR du jour. Call the notary public, because it’s that official.

But, the concept of social media as some aggrandizing power play we PR agencies have to master for our clients is still, to me, a question to be answered. How much can really be gained by power-tweeting our clients and answering, “What are you doing right now?” every 42 minutes? I wanted to explore this idea to see what social media has (or hasn’t) done.

I set up a survey for my Page One colleagues and found there are some conclusive benefits to stacking a client’s (Tweet)deck with social media. The Survey Monkey results revealed these social media channels yield the best results for clients:

39.9% – BLOGS
33.3% – TWITTER
11.1% – SCREENCASTS
5.6% – VIDEO
5.6% – CONTESTS
5.6% – OTHER
0.0% – FACEBOOK
0.0% – LINKEDIN

My hypothesis is that social media works when it can entertain as well as inform. It engages in a way that traditional media can’t. Seeing a reporter’s snide comment on a news story trumps reading his rendition of a press release when it comes to dishing out opinions. Delivery of information is faster, sometimes funnier, less formal and a lot more in your face.

Twitter, for example, allows people to find their inner prophet. Having actual followers, yes, that’s right… followers… guarantees an audience who will validate your every thought (or so you hope). As humans, let alone PR agents, how are we not supposed to find the advantages in that?

When asked to rank the purpose of social media on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being most important), my Page One colleagues listed:

9.0 – WEB TRAFFIC
8.5 – GROW COMMUNITY SIZE AND ENGAGEMENT
7.0 – PRODUCT DOWNLOADS
6.4 – MEASURABLE PR
5.5 – REACH NEW TARGET AUDIENCE
5.4 – LEAD GENERATION

So here’s the bottom line. Social media is useful in PR. But it’s not going to completely usurp traditional media. Segmenting social media from its traditional counterpart is as huge a mistake as asking Madoff for investment tips. At this agency, the most successful social media campaigns have intertwined social media and traditional media, because again, what is a video sitting on YouTube without a TechCrunch mention to drive traffic to it?

The future of (good) PR is finding the mix of both. I remain a skeptic about some of the grandiose claims of social media, but I need to better understand how we measure the nominal versus real benefits of social media.

With Google Analytics and a host of monitoring tools, we are getting better at locking in numbers to measure social media. I still don’t think that anyone in social media has gotten close to calibrating those measurements in terms of possibility and percent of market reached. As an economics major, I look (and more easily trust) numbers that reflect not just reach, but penetration. Sure, we can throw parties when we can tell clients we’ve gotten them 1,000 more unique visitors to their site in a day, or even that we’ve managed to increase their web traffic by 313 percent, but I like to look at the macro results. I want to know what the pool of potential targets was. Was it 5,000 or 250,000? And if we reached 1,000, how well is social media helping us penetrate the audiences we’re actually targeting?

I’ll probably be a skeptic supporter of social media until it’s matured far enough to the point where this can be easily measured and assessed. As a CEO or CMO, this is the kind of question I would ask, and though social media is growing quickly, it can’t answer these questions yet. But, it will, and probably soon.

One of the most common goals we hear from prospects is, “We want to be the next JBoss.” The inevitable follow up question is, “How did you do it?”

I like to say “with a lot of blood, toils, tears and sweat,” but that would border on sentimentality. The truth is, JBoss in 2003 had a lot going for it already: good, free technology (or, in more famous words, “It’s free and it doesn’t suck”); a growing community; and a firebrand of a chief executive in Marc Fleury.

What PR provided was discipline, consistency, and a soapbox. The rest was history.

You could argue that open source developers were the original online social networkers. With that in mind, there were three things that JBoss did right that went against conventional PR wisdom at the time, but are more applicable than ever today, especially given the rise of social media usage.

First, JBoss always put the community first. Under the open source mantra of “release early, release often,” JBoss developers didn’t wait for sign off from PR to release code, announce it on community mailing lists, and blog about it. This was initially a major headache for PR, as I often took calls from reporters asking me why I hadn’t told them about such and such a release. And, as JBoss expanded the number of projects over which it had direct stewardship, this disconnect only exacerbated.

The PR team initially tried to control this, but communities don’t work this way. Traditional PR often focuses on controlling the flow of information when it should focus on the content itself, regardless of whether it is delivered through press releases, interviews, blog posts, podcasts, or presentations. Once we accepted that, we used the the blogs (remember, this was 2003!) as another way to get information out that supported messages of innovation, community, and participation.

Second, JBoss did not fear controversy. We never attempted to “censor” Fleury; his strong opinions, enthusiasm, and colorful choice of words gave him an authentic voice that no amount of PR prepping/media training could ever create. But those strong opinions–not just from him but from other JBossians–sometimes rubbed others the wrong way, inviting controversy after controversy. While each episode was challenging to go through, JBoss always came out of it smarter than before.

It’s always a good idea to take the high road, but there are times when it really pays to be scrappy. If you’re the David in a hot market with lots of Goliath players, you can’t always turn the other cheek. Those willing to put up a good fight have a fighting chance.

Lastly, JBoss was incredibly metrics-driven. The company bootstrapped itself for almost four years before taking on venture financing. PR, as Fleury liked to tell it, was JBoss’ biggest investment. To track this investment, we established detailed reporting that looked at every article, every positive and negative word, and every key message we wanted to get across. This was done on a quarterly basis, and when things didn’t track, we adjusted the program.

Fast forward that five years to 2009 and you will see that metrics is more important than ever. We’re in the midst of a recession, so measuring spending vs. results is essential. Though PR is still more art than science, there are sophisticated tools now to make reporting that much easier and that much more valuable to the company.

If you’re doing PR today, you know it’s a changing business. JBoss’ success was a product of its time, though it offers some lessons that stand true today. You have many more tools with which to build community around your offerings and measure adoption and visibility. You may not be the next JBoss; but you could very well create your own category and become the benchmark for startups to come.

Yes, the rumors are true! The Page One Social Media Team is looking to hire a new member to join our expanding team. I have posted a very detailed job description below. It is fairly long, but because so many social media jobs are ill-defined I thought it was best to be very descriptive about who I am looking to hire and what type of work this person will be doing.

Please send resumes to socialmediajobs [at] pageonepr.com.

Want to put your social media skills to the test in public relations, marketing, and the high-tech industry?

I lead the Page One Social Media Program at Page One PR, an international public relations firm that caters to the high-tech industry. The Page One Social Media Team has experienced rapid growth in the past year and we’re now looking to hire a full-time social media specialist to join the team in our San Francisco office. Since the new member of the team will report directly to me, I’ll start off by telling you a bit about myself.

I joined Page One PR two years ago and soon after, founded our Social Media Program. I have a strong passion for crafting innovative strategies to communicate corporate messages and have developed an even stronger passion for social media as the right tool to do this. I live and breathe social media, because I believe, 100%, that social media is the future of the PR industry and if companies do not move quickly to adapt these new techniques, they will go the way of the dodo bird, just like the printing press and now the newspaper. Many people are sitting back wondering what is going to happen to PR in the next few years. I am not one of those people. I am that person running up ahead, trying to help define the solution and pave the path. I feel strongly that there is a right way and a wrong way to do this though. It’s all about metrics and measurement and connecting social media programs to real business objectives. Without having well defined, well thought-out goals and the ability to clearly track and monitor progress and results, social media campaigns are often just a waste of time and money. I really enjoy my job because Page One has allowed me the opportunity to grow and expand a program that has the potential to radically shake things up. I have spent the past year learning, experimenting, observing other PR agencies and developing our social media program and have created a process and set of services that will differentiate Page One PR and put us at the cutting edge of social media. Our results already speak volumes on this. Now I just need to build out the team!

So who are we looking for?

Page One’s Social Media Team has developed a unique, metrics driven process focused on generating great results for our great clients. We are looking for a smart, enthusiastic, highly motivated and driven individual that is looking for the opportunity to help high-tech clients integrate social media techniques into their communications strategy. We are ideally looking for an individual who is already actively engaged in a broad range of social media activities (blogging, social networking, community development, monitoring and response, etc.), has the ability to think creatively and develop strategic solutions, and wants to jump in and get their hands dirty to create and run successful social media campaigns.

Our new team member will have:

• 2-3 years PR experience that includes PR agency or corporate experience working with technology companies;
• Experience running social media campaigns and a strong background in social media techniques and strategy;
• Creative outlook and willingness to think outside the box to find solutions;
• Outstanding writing skills and verbal communications skills;
• Willingness to experiment and ability to deal with uncertainty;
• Ability to contribute individually, and lead, manage or participate in cross-functional teams;
• A team player with the ability to create great working relationships on all levels in the company and with clients;
• Four-year university degree.

What will you be doing on the Page One Social Media Team?

This position, while a lot of fun, will also involve a lot of hard work. We are looking for someone ready to take on the challenge! By joining the Page One Social Media Team you will have the opportunity to work closely with me to help define and shape the structure of Page One’s Social Media Program, work with top-notch clients, come up with crazy campaign ideas and actually receive the support and materials to implement them.

Okay, so what are some of the activities you may be asked to do?

• Develop messaging and positioning for complex high-technology products, many of them in the B2B space;
• Respond independently to engineers, business executives and media about complex business and technology issues;
• Develop strategies to package messages that leverage media and social media trends;
• Develop strategies to enable content to be distributed online through viral word-of-mouth channels;
• Detailed analysis of metrics to track the popularity and viral distribution of specific content;
• Produce graphs and charts of media metrics;
• Independent writing of both short and long content on complex topics. Content must be engaging and able to capture enough attention that a reader will naturally pass the content on to their friend;
• Discuss plans and concepts with both mid-level and executive-level clients in meetings and in face-to-face presentations. Instill confidence in clients that you can get the job done;
• Sell concepts and plans internally and to clients to drive consensus;
• Build Twitter following on corporate channels and develop strategies for content to go viral with retweets, hashtag, and bit.ly use;
• Manage video projects for YouTube and Vimeo, including videos directed and produced by Page One and videos created by the community;
• Manage Facebook and LinkedIn campaigns, including campaign strategy creation;
• Develop and manage blog promotion strategy, including management of content from multiple people that are slow in providing content;
• Establish communication with clients even when they appear to be too busy to respond;
• Have fun and spread the awesome potential of social media throughout Page One, the entire Silicon Valley region, and the rest of the world.

Benefits. The good stuff. Want 20 days off? OK.

Since Page One’s culture is all about great people doing great things, we reward our employees with exceptional pay, matching 401K and 20 days of paid time off per year.

• 20 PTO days (even in your first year!)
• 11 paid company holidays
• Medical, dental and vision coverage for you and your dependants
• Matching 401K
• Long- and short-term disability insurance
• Life insurance (twice your annual salary)
• Flexible spending account

The salary range for this position is up to $60,000.

If you are interested in applying to join the Page One Social Media Team, please send a resume and a note telling us about yourself to: socialmediajobs [at] pageonepr.com.

Learn more about us on: Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook.

I had a CEO compare Page One’s work to a tequila shot the other day. I took it as a compliment.

“I really feel like we’ve turned a corner,” he told me as he drove through the streets of San Francisco, clutching his blackberry. “I like being part of the conversation. And Page One, you guys were the lubricant. You were the shots of tequila.”

So what’s he talking about?

The most important aspect of media these days — no matter what community you’re trying to reach — is participating in a conversation. That’s why “social media” has become the Next Big Thing.

Nothing is one-way anymore and if you’re not having a two-way conversation you’re being left behind.

My two favorite social media tools for dipping into the online conversation are blogs and a Twitter feed. Twitter is great for rapid-fire, real-time exchanges, while blogs provide the opportunity for more thought out commentary, with room for all the blog bling: charts, links, graphs and photos.

Good PR is all about noticing openings in the conversation and finding a place for your client at the right table so they can join in. All these new social media tools are just more ways to grok the seating chart.

So why did this CEO compare our work to tequila? Well in addition to being a good-time guy he’s also smart. And when he piped up with a particularly timely blog post about the growing influence of Facebook online, we made sure the right people saw it and incorporated it into their conversation on the topic.

In one day, his blog saw a 600 percent traffic increase. He’s pulling his chair up to the table.

The work we do behind the scenes doesn’t go in a shot glass. It’s the relentless targeting of the right influencers in the right way, using all the tools at our disposal: A tweet, a note, a link. A few more.

But if the metaphor works for you, what we do is tequila in action. Just enough to get a good vibe going, never so much that you regret it in the morning.

There are many services to shorten URLs for posting on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and LinkedIn. A popular service, bit.ly, recently added analysis capability which makes it much more useful to assess the success of social media campaigns. The basic idea is to apply a unique URL to each specific channel, Twitter, blogs, YouTube. Although the use of unique URLs is an old technique, bit.ly makes it easy to set up unique URLs without having to ask technical staff for help. The bit.ly service, which sees about a third of the monthly visitors as the more popular TinyURL, also presents the data as a set of graphs that are easy to view. Marketers can now set up and track things on their own.

I previously used notlong.com which has a similar tracking capability and the additional advantage of creating unique URLs. For example, I used notlong.com to create and track this URL for a blog posting on social media ROI.

http://mediaroi.notlong.com

Although it is nice to have a custom URL, a feature that bit.ly lacks, the analysis capabilities of notlong are much weaker than bit.ly.

If you set up a bit.ly account, you are presented with a dashboard of all your links. In addition to total views by date, bit.ly also presents charts and tables for Referrers, Locations, retweets on Twitter, and FriendFeed usage.

This level of features is much much better than TinyURL, a service with 1.75 billion hits per month. TinyURL does have a stealth feature that hides the original URL. This is a useful feature that bit.ly lacks, for those cases where you want people to get information but you may not want them to know who hosts that site.

The is.gd service offers URLs that are one character shorter than bit.ly. However, it lacks the tracking and analysis features. The is.gd service has shortened 5.5 million URLs to date.

There are numerous other URL shortening services, including budURL, eweri, hex.io, idek.net, lin.cr, POPrl, snipurl, twurl, and urlBorg. budURL, designed by Andy Meadows, has features for marketing people at small businesses, including a useful dashboard and a clickstream of URLs. However, the level of analysis isn’t as deep as bit.ly right now. POPrl has a dashboard for tracking and a nice web page to view the most popular content that is being linked to.

bit.ly has a edge over the other services right now due to very strong analytics. It seems that they could easily turn their dashboard into revenue by placing advertisements on the side of the dashboard. I think that they should also develop more analytic features and offer a commercial service to marketing firms. There’s an opportunity for bit.ly to become the Google Analytics of URL shorteners, the preferred tool of choice in any marketer’s toolbox.

Here’s another screenshot of bit.ly analytics.

This one shows a view of retweets.

Twitter is everywhere these days, with 11% of online Americans now tweeting (up from 6% in May 2008). The “Twitterverse” is increasingly filled with corporate accounts, including popular examples @zappos, @JetBlue, and @ComcastCares. Before you jump in with a “me too” Twitter account, here are three points you should consider:

1. Is your audience on Twitter?
The average Twitterer is a tech-savvy, urban, 31-year-old male with a college or graduate degree. However, this demographic is broadening as Twitter’s reach continues to expand into mainstream Internet users. Try searching Twitter for your company’s name, your competitors, and keywords from your industry to see what the online conversation is all about. Your customers may already be talking about you, and you’re being left out of the conversation. Alternatively, what if you find few or no relevant tweets? It may be a great opportunity for you to take the lead in your industry and initiate the conversation.

2. What do you want to get out of Twitter?
Twitter is constantly evolving, and there’s no “correct” way to use your Twitter stream. Some companies use it for customer service, some use it to publicize their press releases and media clips, some tweet to drive sales and announce special deals, some monitor what customers are saying and use it for market research, some share links to interesting news, and some companies do all of the above. In our experience, Page One clients using Twitter are most interested in driving web traffic and in interacting with their online developer communities—two objectives where a Twitter campaign can be highly successful.

3. Who will tweet for your company?
Writing an engaging Twitter feed takes time, and you’ll need to designate one or more people to tweet regularly (ideally, at least once a day). In addition to the time spent writing, you should spend time reading your followers’ tweets and responding to the most pertinent ones. This process can easily consume half an hour or more each day. Although some companies run their Twitter streams in-house, many of our clients are turning to Page One’s social media services to manage the process for them. These clients have been overwhelmingly pleased with our track record for developing successful Twitter campaigns and measuring our results. Here are just a few of our clients on Twitter: @linuxfoundation, @CiscoGeeks, @funambol, @sourceforge, and @appcelerator. (Naturally, @pageonepr is also on Twitter).

Once you’ve decided to dive into Twitter, where do you start? Stay tuned: we’ll share some Twitter best practices in an upcoming blog.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve dived headfirst into the innovative world of social media metrics. A tool that’s quite interesting is Radian6’s “conversation cloud,” which transforms statistics into a graphic. It aggregates the most common words associated with your search term and displays the results in the form of a word cloud. The larger the word, the more often it appears in search results on the term you wanted to measure. Simple.

Working all the time with developers for many of our clients, I figured it would be cool to see how Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine stack up in the blogosphere – what key terms are people associating with them and what similarities or differences are there. A little compare and contrast exercise. I set parameters for the last month.

This is what EC2 looks like:

Not a surprise that most terms are developer focused. What about App Engine, where does it stand?

Clearly, there’s considerable overlap. This is to be expected since they offer similar services.

What’s more revealing are the differences. First, “cloud” is much more prominently associated with EC2 than App Engine. The “cloud” in EC2 dwarfs the “cloud” in App Engine. Second, EC2’s cloud reflects a larger enterprise base. “Business,” “company,” and “customers,” to name a few key terms, are all highlighted in the EC2 cloud, while similar terms are either not present or tiny and irrelevant in the App Engine cloud. Amazon EC2 and Google App Engine are closely related, arguably competitive platforms, with key differences that stand out.

This analysis only covers 30 days and is a crude instrument. But it paints an interesting ‘word’ picture. In the blogosphere, people are much more likely to associate Amazon’s EC2 with business and Google’s App Engine with developers.

A picture is worth a thousand words, right?

Eight years ago, my old boss, CEO of a largish software company told me, “Craig if you can’t measure it online, it doesn’t exist.” At the time, I was a hotshot marketer, managing PR and advertising. I thought he was wrong, a bit full of himself, and seeing the world through too narrow of a keyhole. He was an engineer with a PhD in computer science that just didn’t get what marketing was about.

Although my old boss made his statement at the end of the dot-com bust, a recession in distant memory, it still resonates with me as I navigate the current economy.

Many firms that are slashing their PR and advertising budgets are boosting their social media spend. Our social media business continues to grow rapidly, far outpacing the growth of our traditional PR services. In fact, the funding for social media projects rarely even comes from the PR budget anymore. Money often comes from product marketing, business development, or a general marketing fund for a project. After speaking to Cisco, Google, HP, Palm, and dozens of venture-funded startups about social media, I realized that in a recession, money follows measurement.

If the CFO puts an axe in a marketer’s hand and forces some chops to the marketing budget, where’s the blade going to strike first? The most vulnerable things are either difficult to measure or are delivering weak results. If there is no life in advertising click-through metrics, a good marketer views the activity as deadwood and chops away.

Here is what I have learned in the last year about metrics and social media.

An effective social media process starts with a definition of business goals and ends with a continual assessment of metrics to support these goals. I’ve found that goals generally fall into three categories:

1. Increase web site traffic – usually to a specific section like the product page, community portal, or blog
2. Increase product downloads – this is usually a key goal if there is a free or community version of the product
3. Increase registrations – companies usually require registration to access support information, participate in a contest or survey, download white papers, access documentation, or get access to product demos.

Marketers are tracking customer behavior on their website more accurately with lead nurturing systems sold by firms such as Eloqua, LoopFuse, or Marketo. They combine these systems with web site analysis tools such as Google Analytics to make decisions on which marketing programs deliver results they care about.

When we roll out a social media campaign, we generally manage five to ten channels of information simultaneously. A typical process involves blog comment management, community blogs outreach, corporate blog promotion, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook group management, and several other message channels. The information in all the channels is cross-linked. For each channel, the metrics are tracked in real-time. For example, on the day of the launch, we look at Google Analytics and social media monitoring tools to make constant adjustments to how the resources are used.

An example of the metrics we track on Twitter include:

• direct referral traffic using Google Analytics;
• number of followers;
• number of @replies by community;
• number of #hashtag uses by community;

• number of keyword mentions by community;
• number of posts by Twitter channel manager (to show we’re working);
• number of retweets.

Using this data, we are able to fine-tune messages to resonate with the target audience.

In the eight years since our discussion, my old boss has made several hundred millions of dollars in his businesses. In the midst of the current recession, I’m just starting to believe that maybe he was right.

If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t matter.

In September, I wrote a post on Page One’s search for a social media monitoring service. After exploring several commercial solutions, we decided on Radian6 because the functions of the tool and pricing scheme best fit our needs. Since that time, Page One has continued to engage in innovative social media campaigns. Monitoring social media such as blogs, forums, Twitter, and rich media has been a key component in many of these campaigns.

When discussing social media monitoring, many people talk in broad terms about the need for companies to listen and engage in this space. New media channels are becoming more important than ever. In late January Advertising Age reported on a study by the CMO Council which found that many CMOs do not feel they’re effectively tracking social media.

But how does social media monitoring work in practice? Can a tool like Radian6 work magic for companies looking to make headway in this new frontier?

My answer, although it may not be satisfying to some, is that the value of the tool depends on the goals you set and the metrics you’re trying to track. No one tool is sufficient for a successful campaign.

In fact, while the best features of Radian6 are its analytical graphing components, during day-to-day operations I’ll often find myself going elsewhere to monitor social media in real time. For instance, in a lightweight blog campaign, a combination of Google Blog searches may be adequate (and in some cases, even more useful than Radian6 searches, since Google has Page Rank and relevance functionality). For Twitter, hybrid desktop applications like TweetDeck and simple, yet intuitive monitoring interfaces like TweetGrid can do the trick. For determining influencers, I’ve found it essential to complement Radian6 with Google or Technorati searches.

Tools like Radian6 certainly do have strengths that you can’t get for free elsewhere. Radian6 provides the ability to process and analyze information to determine key trends and drill down on contextual information. For example, using the Topic Trends widget, you can not only track trends in social media mentions of keywords through a period of time, but you can also zero in on a particular point of interest and perform additional analysis.

Sure, Radian6 can aggregate diverse information sources into one interface, but its display features are not necessarily optimal for all activities. More importantly, the metrics it tracks are not necessarily the ones that are most useful or relevant to every social media campaign.

This is the big point – Radian6 is a good monitoring tool, but it doesn’t have all the answers (nor do the creators of Radian6 pretend that it does). When engaging in a social media campaign, it’s essential that you drive the metrics and not depend on a tool to do it for you. Fundamentally, Radian6 tracks the number of key word mentions in social media, but you may be interested in different kinds of values or metrics – for instance, how your campaign efforts have affected website traffic, or in the PR world, how successful you’ve been in securing placements in top identified publications or blogs.

Buying a tool like Radian6 is a step in the right direction but success in social media requires smart planning and identifying metrics that are appropriate to the unique circumstances of the individual campaign. There’s no silver bullet in this world, which may explain why it’s so exciting and challenging at the same time.

I recently attended a free webinar, “SEO + Public Relations = Your Secret Marketing Weapon in 2009,” put on by the team at Webmarketing123.com. They made the case that SEO and PR should by joined at the hip.

I have to say, I’m still not convinced (this is my view and not necessarily shared by my colleagues at Page One PR).

While Paul Taylor, the presenter, did a great job of walking us through the benefits of SEO-izing your PR and marketing collateral and results, I’ve had experiences where that just doesn’t work.

Example 1: Optimizing a press release for SEO and PR

You can do this two ways and I’ve tried both:

1) Write a release, then look at a list of key words to insert.

2) Look at the key words, then write a press release with them in mind (try to use each 1-4 times and space them out).

The second worked better for me, but if you’re supposed to insert your URL and keywords ~3 times each for near optimal SEO, it gets rough and the news starts to sound like giberrish. If the release then needs to go through legal approval and potentially partner or customer approval, you’re in trouble.

That’s only one example, but I do think there’s more beyond just blending SEO with PR and, voilà, you’re on page one of wherever you want to be. The challenge often seems to be a classic case of having too many cooks in the kitchen. You’ve got the outside agency teams, such as the PR firm, the SEO firm, potentially the SEM consultant, and then all of the internal constituents, such as the corporate marketing/advertising team, sales, product marketing, etc. Each can have different business goals and be focused on maximizing content value for that agenda. Sheesh.

BusinessWeek ran an insightful article by B.L. Ochman recently, “Debunking Six Social Media Myths.” Though I appreciated every myth debunked, I really feel the writer’s pain with Myth #4: You can do it all in-house. It’s true – you can’t!

With regards to effective and viral social media campaigns, Ochman writes:

“It is rare indeed to find an in-house team that can not only conceive and execute a social media campaign but also drive traffic to it with effective e-mail segmentation, search optimization, blogger outreach, blog advertising, Google ads, and more.” Agreed.

I do believe things like SEO and PR should work together – of course it’s good to have a well-oiled machine running on all cylinders – but I don’t think it’s as easy as simply “working together.” Further, given that both PR and SEO are often outsourced strategic services, is it reasonable to expect both sides to come together without the forcing factor of the client company embarking on a holistic marcomm campaign which takes months of pre-planning and coordination? That’s hard to come by when you’re working with startups, particularly high tech startups.

I remain optimistic, however, that there are definitely lessons both PR and SEO can learn from each other. Throw social media in there, and you’ve got a party!

I’d appreciate any wisdom out there about the evolution of these siloed services and think I will continue to attend free webinars on the topic to keep me engaged in thinking about the right combo of SEO + PR.

We’ve been helping our clients build and maintain their corporate Twitter accounts for so long that we pretty much just forgot about building one for ourselves. Well no longer! I would like to formally introduce you to the new Page One PR Twitter account. Here we will discuss the worlds of social media, public relations (of course), maybe some client news and probably a whole lot about the happenings at our office. And let me tell you, if that doesn’t entice you, this blooper video surely will.

Enjoy! and be sure to join us on Twitter for more fun.

Beta launches rarely attract much hype. But when a company shifts strategic direction and runs onto the competitive playing field with the big guys like Adobe, Sun and Microsoft, then you want some buzz. Okay, a lot of buzz! Would a 3,500% increase in website traffic on the day of the launch be nice? That’s what we did with Appcelerator.

Appcelerator wanted to make a big market splash with their launch of Titanium, an open source Adobe AIR killer. They wanted to reach traditional media publications, but also developers and social media communities. Most PR launches only target three communications channels – media, bloggers, and analysts. Our launch of Titanium targeted seven different communications channels in parallel, relying heavily on a coordinated social media campaign.

We started out securing a strong messaging platform, which allowed us to effectively position Titanium in each different communication channel we targeted and let us build a strong base to launch our social media activities. Following the messaging, we organized an intense media list and began outreach. Page One does media and blogger outreach different than most PR firms. First, we don’t spam. We begin conversations and relationships. We quickly lined up 12 media briefings in the weeks before the launch and we were asked for embargoed launch materials by every publication in our top 20 list. We also directed, produced and promoted a sophisticated vision video featuring the CEO and CTO, and promoted a series of screencasts that gave reporters a more technical look under the hood of the platform with demonstration applications. On announcement day, we coordinated a community email and a more technical blog post for the Appcelerator blog, manned the Appcelerator Twitter feeds, and monitored the blogosphere, directing the CEO when it was necessary to comment on specific blogs.

The results speak for themselves. Not only was there a 3,500 percent increase in website traffic on the day of the launch, but the coordinated PR and social media outreach drove qualified Web site traffic to ‘money’ pages for Appcelerator: 40 percent of all traffic hit the product demos, downloads, documentation, or product FAQ. There were more than 10,000 page views to the vision video in the first week, more than 10,000 product downloads, more than 44 unique stories placed in the media and a four-fold jump in Twitter followers.

That’s buzz for a beta launch that you can bank.

Contests have been a fun marketing tool for decades. Take Theodora Smafield. In 1946, Theodora was the first winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition.

Decades before Jeff Howe at Wired or the folks at Dell got excited about crowdsourcing – Pillsbury saw the power of mobilizing a community around its product through a contest.

Pillsbury wanted to excite a generation of homemakers and chefs about its flour – so it invited people to submit their best recipes for the chance to win $50,000. Theodora won for her “No-Knead Water-Rising Twists,” which involved a unique process of wrapping her dough in a tea towel and submerging it in warm water.

At Page One, we have seen the value that contests have with our clients – especially those eager to take advantage of social media strategies.

In 2008, we managed a number of contests for our clients to help excite and grow targeted communities. A couple of examples:

• SourceForge – When SourceForge, the world’s largest repository of open source software, needed to increase their interaction with their community, they turned to Team Social Media at Page One PR. Before contacting Page One’s social media group, SourceForge’s major award of the year, their Community Choice Awards (CCA) had maxed-out participation at 38,000 people. After launching several contests including free tattoos and yes, a free sling monkey – Page One’s integrated PR, Twitter and YouTube video campaign more than tripled voting participation in the SourceForge CCA contest. More than 150,000 community members submitted ballots.

• Cisco – Shelly Milam and the team at Page One are currently managing the Cisco Developer Contest. Strategically, Cisco is promoting the concept of the network as a platform. So they are offering up big money prizes to have developers build applications based on the Cisco Application Extension Platform (AXP). Much like Pillsbury looked for creative recipes – Cisco is looking for creative software applications for their routers.

These are just two of the exciting contests we ran at Page One in 2008.

As we look around the technology space, we continue to see fun contests that others are doing. Intel is running its “What’s Inside You Campaign” and HP/Microsoft are running the “Magic Giveaway“.

We don’t know who is behind some of the projects we see out there (such as Tac Anderson at HP or Ken Kaplan at Intel?)

But we’d be happy to meet with you and talk about the opportunities that contests and social media will bring in 2009.

We’ve been working to build social media campaigns for our clients this year, but decided to turn the camera on ourselves this holiday season. Get ready for our 15 seconds of fame – lights, camera, action!

Rather than design and print our usual satirical holiday cards, we decided to save a few trees by dusting off our singing voices for your viewing pleasure.

We hope you’ll check out our videos and maybe even smile. And, yes, that is a penguin in the photo! Let us know how we did but, above all, please accept our warmest wishes for a merry holiday season and a happy new year. Here’s looking to 2009 from our team to yours.

Sincerely,
Your friends at Page One PR

P.S.– If you like crazy reindeer, don’t forget to check out this special feature from our Santa Barbara office. Boy, that guy can deck the halls!

The future of PR is being created today, on sunny sidewalks and corporate cafes in Mountain View. The Google campus is germinating the future of information access and the future of public relations. There is no PR super-genius at Google inventing a new type of PR. The innovations in public information management comes from the Google campus itself, the world’s ultimate PR water cooler.

Working in PR, we are in the midst of the social media craze. Tweet that press release. Start that Facebook group about that issue, comment on that YouTube video/blog-post/profile. It makes sense. Our industry, just like many others, is trying to take advantage of the most popular thing on the internet: social media tools, online networks and other types of user generated content in Web 2.0. We were fighting over the last drumstick until just now, when Mom brought out a second whole new Thanksgiving turkey from the oven. With all of the perceived benefits of this new type of communication, I’d like to ask the pundits and experts one question:

How in the heck am I supposed to get anything done?

It is a growing trend for companies to let their employees use social media tools (read: screw around) at work as companies begin to see the advantages and uses of having a connected workforce.

Yeah, social networking sites like Facebook (and LinkedIn, which is growing on me) are a great way to network and extend business contacts, but after I poke/nudge that influential reporter, I’ll spend the next 20 minutes looking at pictures from Marie and Tom’s trip to Hawaii. Twitter, which started out as a way for me to be able to read the current climate and see what the buzz was about at all times has turned into a platform where I can share the latest funny YouTube video with every other member of the 80 million member community who is also procrastinating at work. And Wikipedia? Don’t get me started on Wikipedia… it’s an invaluable resource for someone working in the tech industry, or anyone, but at what price?

When I worked at Goldman, we had personal email and Facebook blocked (for reasons other than productivity), something that can easily be done by any company. It seemed to work pretty well (although maybe if the i-bankers were on MySpace instead of investing in risky loan markets, we’d be doing a little better…). Does the added benefit of the interconnectedness of Web 2.0, where everyone gets to create content (and learn more in the process), outweigh the costs of millions of man-hours lost in procrastination?

Let’s use math to find out. An Arbitrary Procrastination Equation (APE):

x = abs[ b + (p + d/p)/w - (w - 2p)^(d/p) - a] + 100

where…
b = amount of time it took you to read this post (assuming you read 200 words/min)
x = you have to figure that out for yourself! This is mathematics!
p = amount of time you spent following the links in this post
d/p = distraction quotient, your propensity to keep following more links off the main linked page
w = hours you are expected to work today
a = age of your boss

I invite the procrastination experts out there on the Interweb to post their APE scores here on the blog. If x is greater than 100, you are not being productive right now.

What’s your APE score?

On a sunny morning in March 2008, hundreds crowded into the Santa Clara Convention Center to hear the morning’s speeches at EclipseCon. I sat beside Eclipse marketing chief Ian Skerrett and watched him type brief dispatches in a text box at the top of a strange website.

Social media is radically transforming the PR business. But like anything in PR, one of the biggest challenges is measuring and metrics. One of my first jobs at Page One PR was figuring out the best way to help our clients measure the value of social media programs.

Tapping into social media in a meaningful way for clients is not as easy as a Google Blog, Technorati, and Twitter search. To narrow in on the right conversations, we needed an automated system for monitoring all types of social media. I recently led a project to find the best commercial social media monitoring service for our purposes, which we could use to tailor comprehensive analysis and services according to our clients’ needs.

Here’s a brief summary of what I found:
Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Visible Technologies service large clients and charge correspondingly large fees. A Visible Technologies product called Trucast uses sophisticated web crawlers to stay current with the most influential voices on the web and provides an easy platform for engaging social media communities directly through the software. One downside to TruCast – it is difficult to filter information according to different categories of social media. The lack of flexibility in that case, along with the high price tag for both of these services, told us that these are not good options for PR and marketing firms that deal with startups on a limited budget or larger companies with small-scale social media campaigns.

BuzzLogic is a more reasonable value option for startups and smaller campaigns. The interface allows you to divide tasks across workers and search results are easy to filter by influence metrics for blogs and the posts that appear as subheadings. The service includes other useful features like social mapping and recording engagements with bloggers. Downsides – they only offer yearly pricing schemes (too rigid for us) and it is difficult to narrow in on categories of social media.

The Radian6 interface is intuitive and allows you to filter results based on categories of social media, including rich media sites and microblogs (but not social networks). However, the “Influence Viewer” widget requires some manual follow-up. While the widget uses criteria such as number and length of comments and votes on social bookmarking services to determine “influence,” it doesn’t do enough to highlight the blogs that have power or authority in general on the web (as opposed to the ones that have a few comments and are on topic). Other downsides – search results track back only about 30 days prior to the query (other products allow you to get better historical data), and while the product might be affordable for primary research, buying many separate topic profiles after the seven day grace period would become cost prohibitive for many small firms.

There are a few other products I’ve checked out but haven’t mentioned here. But right now, we’re going with Radian6. Any suggestions? Something we’re missing? Feel free to comment below.

Page One PR has used social media tools in our client campaigns since we started the agency in late 2002.

We developed our expertise at companies in the early days of open source and Linux. In open source, the winners are projects and companies that can foster communities of developers the fastest. The more developers you attract to your code, the more valuable your code becomes and that in turn attracts more users to projects. If you’re a company, the more of those users who convert into customers, the more successful your business.

That experience informs how we look at “social media” PR at Page One.

It’s very challenging to attract a lot of different people around an idea. The idea by definition has to be big. And authentic. For us, it was originally open source and the promise to participate in something that would change forever how software was made.

Google came to us in mid-2008 for help on a project. Their big idea was that software would be created in the cloud and run on clients in the browser. No one owns the cloud but Google has great tools for making software in the cloud. They wanted developers to know more about those great tools. Their business interest was to attract more Web developers to their Google I/O conference in San Francisco. I think by all measures it was a huge success. Registrations were so high that Google had to shut down the lines at Moscone to start the keynote address on time. We had onsite blogging from TechCruch, podcasts by Mashable, and twitter feeds from all of the main events. Pre-event coverage was up almost 600 percent from the year before and first day coverage jumped more than 300 percent. CNET alone ran 10 stories.

Many of our agency peers in the PR industry run around all bug-eyed like old Roman statues obsessed with Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Seesmic, Plurk, LinkedIn or whatever might be the latest tool. But successful social media is not about the tools. It’s about the big idea, and then it’s about how you use all of the tools you can to foster participation in the big idea and, if you’re a company, to advance a business interest that you can measure.

A few weeks ago I got a call from a reporter who was writing a book with a section on the use of Twitter in corporate communications program. I was surprised. Up until four months ago, I thought of Twitter as a toy, a bit of time sink to chat about pets, the latest meals, and the latest reality show on TV. Before the reporter called, I had been involved in about three projects to use Twitter for corporate messaging programs. However, I had never taken a close look at how the programs were doing across our agency.

I checked up on Twitter usage across the agency and was given a big wake up call when I learned that one-third of our clients were using Twitter in corporate messaging programs. A well-known open source company that was using Twitter to promote a community choice awards contest really made me think hard about the changes I’m going to have to face with these new tools of online communication. One month into a two month promotion campaign, the number of voters had increased dramatically to 100,000. This was up from less than 40,000 total voters in the previous year. Increasing the number of voters is a primary goal of this ongoing campaign. With two weeks left in the program, we may push the total above 80,000 voters.

What changed? Why was Twitter a tool now for this company, not a toy? Although we’re still in the process of executing the campaign and haven’t finished analyzing the results, I have a few initial thoughts. Twitter is a great way to send short news updates to an existing community several times a day. In this example, Twitter wasn’t used to build a community, it helped to focus the attention of some members of an existing open source development community on a specific action. In this case, they voted on the best open source software in different categories. Twitter was used to give updates on the process for community nominations and finalist selection by the community. Since Twitter helped more people to understand the process, more people felt invested in the outcome of the awards program and decided to take the time to vote.

Getting the phone call from the reporter helped me to think through how Twitter can be used. I’ve started to use Twitter software Tweetr and twhirl on my Mac desktop and recently installed the free application Twitterific on my iPhone. For me, Twitter has finally become a tool.