Your own social network?

The interesting thing about the rise of social media is the ever-changing nature of this beast. I'm constantly amazed at all the new channels that are popping up in social media. Granted, not all social media will become the next YouTube or MySpace, but organizations truly wanting to get into social media need to be aware of all that's out there and objectively evaluate whether the various forms of social media will enhance the organization's PR efforts.

The newest thing to come in social media now is creating your own social networks. One of my supervisors here at GM, recently pointed me to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about a site created by Netscape founder, Marc Andreessen. The site, Ning, allows users to actually create their own social networks around a variety of topics. It's an easy-to-use site, with numerous cool features that allow anyone to create a social network surrounding their personal interest. In less than 15 minutes I created my own social network for young PR professionals (similar to this blog) at http://youngprprofessionals.ning.com/.

Your own social network, what's next for social media?

From the WSJ article:

It's unclear whether [Andreesen's] third effort, social-networking site Ning, will succeed. But while entering an established business is a new approach for Mr. Andreessen, there's a chance he'll once again radically change the game.

Think about it this way. Hardly anyone heard of the World Wide Web when Mr. Andreessen developed his browser. And many wondered what he was doing when he co-founded Opsware's predecessor, Loudcloud, in 1999. Automating tasks for servers in data centers seemed a tech backwater. But again, he was ahead of his time. Advances in server technologies have created a lot of work for Opsware, which explains H-P's interest.

...social networking may be particularly prone to revolutions. After all, the first commonly used service was probably sixdegrees.com, started in 1996. Friendster, which led the fray after its 2002 launch, was rapidly eclipsed. Mr. Andreessen's record suggests it would be foolhardy to dismiss his view that the next big social networking trend will be decentralization. If he's right, it would mean hot sites such as MySpace and Facebook may suffer the same fate as their now-forgotten forebears.

Move Over MySpace, Here Comes Facebook!

There's been a great deal of discussion at work lately concerning the viability of MySpace now. I have long said that MySpace is losing (or has already lost) credibility among the younger crowd. We like Facebook. MySpace has unfortunately been infiltrated with spam and other unsavory marketing practices.

While it's inevitable that social networks will be used as another channel to communicate, they should not be used as channels to sell stuff. What I've learned is that you cannot market to social media users. I truly believe (and perhaps I'm biased) that, aside from banner advertising, the only corporate work going on in social networks should be communications/public relations work. Anything else just doesn't work and only serves to alienate those you most want to reach.

Ok, those are my personal feelings, but to help back up what I'm saying, take a look at a recent study that highlights the immense growth of Facebook in terms of membership numbers. According to the study (conducted by comScore), Facebook experienced a growth rate of 89 percent from May 2006 to May 2007!

I have long maintained that my age group (18-30) really doesn't use MySpace as much as Facebook, if at all. I remember walking into my college computer labs and seeing numerous people on Facebook, but MySpace was MUCH less prevalent. MySpace has simply become too commercial. Hopefully Facebook won't allow itself to fall into the same trap.

Blink

Due to a combination of GM's annual summer shutdown period, being sick and a severe case of writer's block, the blog has been relegated to that infamous back burner. Without further ado, here's the latest post.

I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's (author of , The Tipping Point) book, Blink. This was quite an interesting read with a number of important points for all PR practitioners.

According to http://www.gladwell.com/, Blink is "a book about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye." Gladwell seeks to examine what happens in the first two seconds we encounter someone or something.

In my college PR classes at BYU, we were constantly reminded of the importance of doing extensive research before embarking on any kind of PR campaign. We were counseled to not simply go with our gut instincts, but to really weigh all the facts before moving forward. Blink refutes this notion.

To illustrate, let me relate one of the stories in the book. In the early 1980s the Coca-Cola Company began to see its market share slipping away as Pepsi started gaining ground. To further boost its sales, Pepsi began the Pepsi Challenge: a taste test in which cola drinkers were asked to pick their favorite cola after sampling two unmarked cups of Coke and Pepsi. Much to the dismay of Coca-Cola, the majority of people taking the challenge preferred Pepsi over Coke. A number of research projects led Coke researchers to conclude that Coca-Cola's taste was much harsher than the smooth taste of Pepsi. Long story short: Coca-Cola replaced its classic formula with the now infamous New Coke. The rest is history (sorry for the cliche').

Despite all the research that said Coca-Cola needed to revamp its taste (New Coke repeatedly beat Pepsi in numerous taste tests), consumers still wanted the old Coke. To this day, Pepsi still beats out Coke in taste tests, yet Coke remains the dominant soft drink throughout the world.

Sometimes research can lead us in the wrong direction. Am I saying that we should never do research and always "go with our gut"? Of course not. Research is beneficial, but despite what die-hard researchers may say, I have to believe that we sometimes "just know" whether or not something will work. We may not be able to explain the why, but that feeling is there all the same. Blink helps us recognize the importance of rapid cognition.

I highly recommend this book to all PR practitioners.

Who are the media?

I just looked up the definition of media from Dictionary.com, and found the following:

"me·di·a: (usually used with a plural verb) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely"

This definition, however, is a bit shortsighted considering the world we live in today. Media are no longer just radio, TV, newspapers and magazines (though they are still all very strong media). We need to expand the definition of "media" to include bloggers, podcasters and, to a certain extent, users of social networks (i.e. MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). These are what constitute social media.

Last week at work we held a pilot session for what we hope will become on ongoing series of classes on the basics of social media for GM employees. Christopher Barger, director of global communications and technology at GM, was quick to point out that our team (the social media team) is not out to try to tell people that social media is good or bad; people just need to understand that social media is here and we can choose to embrace or reject it.


Professional PR and communications practitioners need to avoid a common mindset that social media people are not really the media. If we only ever think of print, TV and radio as the only media out there then we are doing our organization and our publics a big disservice. When we invite traditional media out to cover events, we should be inviting bloggers and podcasters as well.


Social media is here. We as PR practitioners can either accept it or not, but it's here to stay.

A Tour of The Detroit News

As part of an internship activity yesterday I had the opportunity to take a tour of The Detroit News newsroom. Our host, Mark Truby, business editor at the paper, was more than accomodating when it came to answering our questions and showing us around. Upon entering the actual newsroom we were greeted by piles of different newspapers, stacks of various books, a large collection of Pez dispensers and an even larger collection of bobble head dolls.

One of the interns in our group asked Mark what he thought the future of the newspaper business looked like. Mark replied that while the paper's circulation had decreased (as I'm sure is the case with the majority of the papers around the country), readership had actually increased due to more people reading online. Mark also made a point of saying that news still has value today, and that mass media makes money from the masses. They want to print the news that will sell papers and capture those "impulse buyers" who may buy a paper simply from what they see "above the fold." This has some serious implications to PR practitioners who often engage in "pitching" news to the newspapers. It's important that we not only pitch news, but pitch news that will sell papers. This is a self-interest of journalists that I have never thought of before.

We also had the opportunity to speak with another editor and to get her opinion on what are the best and worst ways for PR people to work with print media. She told us that the most helpful PR people are those who understand what journalists do and allow themselves or their client to be accessible to the media as much as possible. She recommended that we do all we can to help the journalist get the story he/she wants.

One thing she told us to beware of is something I've heard before: stop blanketing journalists with news releases. I've always been taught that doing this is a bad PR practice, but she put a new spin on it for me. By inundating journalists with news releases some of the really important, newsworthy information may be lost in the mix. She also recommended shortening releases and maybe even just bulleting the information out so they can read through it quickly. It seems the news release is becoming an increasingly irrelevant part of the PR industry.

It was a great experience to visit The Detroit News and see more of the behind-the-scenes work that goes on in a newsroom. Now I want to visit a broadcast news studio! I recommend that all budding public relations professionals take some time to tour their local newsroom and visit with the journalists.

Interacting With Bloggers

This blog seems to be morphing into more of a commentary on social media, but, hey, that's what I'm immersed in now, and it is a vital part of public relations.

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to participate in a news conference for Challenge X, an event co-sponsored by GM. Given that Challenge X is a contest for college teams to create more fuel-efficient and decreased emissions engines for the Chevy Equinox, the Social Media Team here at GM decided to invite a group of "green" bloggers to attend the event and news conference. Our guest bloggers included Sam Abuelsamid from AutoBlogGreen, Phillip Proefrock from GreenOptions/EcoGeek, Matt Mayer from Groovy Green . Lyle Dennis from Chevy-Volt Forum, Matt Kelly from NextGear and Todd Kaho from Green Car Journal.

It was interesting to note the differences between interaction with social media and the traditional media. GM brought the bloggers out to Michigan to participate in the events at Challenge X and to attend the news conference where this year's winners were announced. Following the news conference and driving activity the bloggers had the opportunity to sit down with Micky Bly, director of GM Hybrid Intergration, and ask him questions about GM's efforts in alternative propulsion. Later that evening the bloggers joined us for dinner with an engineer and scientist from GM, and were able to ask more questions about energy diversity, the Chevy Volt concept and other topics.

One thing I noticed about the bloggers was how passionate they were about the subjects they write on. The entire conversation at dinner was focused on cars and cars only. There was no small talk! The bloggers all seemed to be very down-to-earth and grateful to be included in this event. More than one of the bloggers told me how honored he was to be there and how exciting it was to see what GM is doing.

Bloggers quite often have day jobs and blogging is just something they do on the side. I was impressed to learn that one of the bloggers, Lyle Dennis, is a neurologist in New York and does his blogging in-between patient visits.

The reason I want to include this in the blog is to show how companies should interact with bloggers. Bloggers are a critical "public," if you will, for all PR practitioners. We can't afford to ignore bloggers and their immense influence on our other publics. This experience showed me how to host bloggers at a media event as well as how important of a voice they have.

Social Media Blunders

My boss sent me an interesting article today that highlights a few companies who have made some big errors in trying to engage in social media. The article, titled "What Kills a Social Media Campaign," goes through a number of blunders various companies have had in working with social media.

Being an intern in New Media Communications at General Motors, I have learned so much about how to correctly engage in social media activities. An interesting thing I've learned here is the importance of being completely transparent about who you represent in the social media sphere. For example, any time I start or participate in dialogue on social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, I have to identify myself as a GM employee.

Another thing I've learned is the importance of being sincere. Anything less than complete sincerity sounds like a cheap marketing or public relations stunt. Social media users do not want to be marketed to and willl not put up with it. Each time I engage in dialogue on social networking sites I try to solicit input and advice from the users, while still identifying myself as a GM employee.

While the use of social media can greatly benefit an organization, misuse of it can greatly harm it as well.