Online communities: think ‘quality NOT quantity’

Nate Cochrane pens his rules for social media etiquette on iTNews. And in a style true to the very fundamentals of social media which encourage active sharing and participation, he has made a point to list the rules he outlines as a work in progress and has opened it up for discussion on the site.

One of the rules that he points out is one that we tend to forget: ‘Quality NOT quantity’. Too often PRs get flack for doing a last minute dash to sign up as many people in their network to become friends/ fans on their clients’ Facebook groups and pages or on their Twitter handles.

As PRs, we need to continue to educate our clients that the real value does not lie in the sheer volume of people we sign up but rather in the quality of the people we engage (even if it’s only a handful!).

Consider who your target audience is, where do they frequent and how to reach them. Who is in your fans/ friends extended networks. Are they the right audience to target?

Using Twitter as an example, it’s important to do the analysis and drill down into who the person is that you want to connect with, get to know them, follow them for a while and find out what they write about. Also have a look into who follows that person, are they the appropriate person for your client to be reaching out to or is there someone in their Twitter network that is better?

The following tool can help you determine the most appropriate people to follow:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/03/12/17-ways-to-visualize-the-twitter-universe/

If we want to get some real and long lasting results for our clients, the key is to make sure that we’re speaking to the right audiences!

Christopher Graves named new CEO of Ogilvy PR Worldwide

NEW YORK, NY, June 11, 2009 – Christopher Graves, President and Regional CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations Asia Pacific, has been appointed global CEO of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, a global, multi-disciplinary communications leader, succeeding Marcia Silverman who has led the company for seven years.  Marcia will become Chair of Ogilvy PR. Both appointments become effective January 1, 2010.

Since joining Ogilvy PR in 2005, Christopher Graves, 50, has roughly doubled the agency’s size in Asia Pacific, growing the network into the industry leader in the world’s fastest-growing region by any measure, from size, to client roster, to specialist offerings, to awards and accolades.  Under his leadership, Ogilvy PR has seen phenomenal development in scale and creativity across all marketing disciplines.  He has crafted clear goals and made investments to grow the network into the future and built a strong leadership team in Asia Pacific across 15 countries, dominating in major markets such as China and Australia.  Graves collaborates closely with staff and agency leaders around the world and flourishes in the 360-degree marketing communications environment with partner Ogilvy & Mather.

Graves has cultivated relationships with leading such organizations as The World Economic Forum, authored papers and spoken on emerging trends in social media, recession marketing, shifting demographics, and the changing dynamics of influence.  He has also created intellectual properties for Ogilvy PR such as immersive workshops on: crisis management; business model disruption; and effective storytelling for business outcomes.

In making the announcement, Ogilvy & Mather CEO Miles Young, said, “Marcia has done an outstanding job of securing Ogilvy PR’s reputation as a premier, integrated communications agency built on strong client service.  She has earned extraordinary affection inside and outside the business.  Marcia has gathered together a strong and harmonious global management team, and driven new innovations in the critical social media space.  She will be an exceedingly hard act to follow and are delighted that she will become Chair of Ogilvy PR to further develop client relationships and shape the agency’s global strategy.”

Regarding Graves, Young added, “In Chris, we have a successor who will take the work forward with flair and elan.  He is driven by clients and content, and is an embodiment of the pervasive creativity and outward focus which will push Ogilvy PR forward in its resolve to become the best public relations network.  He is truly a citizen of the world; he knows all the issues, and relishes being at the leading most edge, articulating and influencing them.  We are incredibly fortunate to have both Marcia and Chris at the helm of Ogilvy PR.”

Commenting on her successor, Silverman stated, “Chris has an exceptional track record of building business and providing superior client service.  I’m certain he will bring the same focus on quality and success to our global organization.”

The Ogilvy PR and Ogilvy & Mather senior leadership will work to secure a successor to the Asia Pacific regional CEO position of Ogilvy PR between now and the end of 2009.

Graves joined Ogilvy PR in 2005 after 23 years in business news, most recently with Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal.  Chris was one of the founders of Wall Street Journal Television, managing editor of Asia Business News, vice president of news and programming for CNBC Asia, vice president of news and programming for CNBC Europe, managing director of business development (EMEA & Asia) for Dow Jones Consumer Electronic Publishing (WSJ.com) and managing director of Far Eastern Economic Review. Chris’s accolades include an EMMY nomination, the 2007 PR Professional of the Year by PRWeek Asia, as well as a number of awards from Asia PR Awards, The New York Film and Television Festivals and the Asian Television Awards for programming made under his supervision.

Graves graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in English, and from Phillips Exeter Academy.  He and his wife of 23 years, JoAnn Ward, have two daughters and have resided in Hong Kong since 2002.

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin

Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment’s  F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin  launched as one of the most highly anticipated  and successful games of the year. Howorth developed an extensive public relations program with a key focus on media relations work included:

• Scheduling media interviews with the game’s developer
• Managing reviews program
• Scheduling promotional giveaways and
• Planning the media event.

The media event was the focus of the media relations campaign by providing pre-release access to the title. We approached specialist gaming media with the offer to meet with Dave Matthews, a leading producer of the project, as well as an opportunity for exclusive game play and a behind-the-scenes look into the game weeks before the scheduled release. Journalists were able to experience the intensity of the F.E.A.R 2:Project Origin and gain a deeper understanding into the game development process.

Howorth worked to secure over 150 pieces of coverage were secured, including:

• A review and interview on Good Game, ABC
• Video reviews and interviews on CNET, My360, MyPS3 and Games.on.net
• Daily coverage on Nova 96.9 radio and online as part of a promotional giveaway.
• Two articles, including a double page spread in Zoo Weekly
• Alpha
• The Sydney Morning Herald
• News.com.au
• Herald Sun
• MX
• iTWire
• Official Playstation Magazine
• Official Xbox Magazine
• Sea FM and syndications across the Macquarie Radio network
• PC Powerplay
• A number of online gaming websites

Insights

F.E.A.R 2: Project Origin was predicted not live up to its predecessor. Although there was much hype around the game’s release, much of this was plagued with issues ranging for naming rights and classification issues to competition from other first-person-shooter releases at the time.  Howorth was able to overcome this and generate media interest in the title through extensive outreach

Summary

Howorth helped to successfully launched F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin by generating enough media interest to secure over 150 pieces of coverage. The fact that coverage continues to surface 3 months after the game’s release is testament to the success of the media outreach plan.

Steely thought leadership and stakeholder engagement

Steel is strong, yet Australia’s leading steel company, BlueScope Steel, had a less-than-acceptable media presence in vertical industry media. That is before Howorth designed a public relations program built around a thought leadership and stakeholder engagement strategy.

Part of Howorth’s public relations program was a campaign that resulted in over 50 media clippings over a six month period to promote BlueScope’s XLERPLATE®brand.

The importance of this media presence is underlined by key factors:

• All of the coverage was in-depth, rather than merely BlueScope or XLERPLATE® brand ‘mentions’
• The company’s credibility was enhanced through extensive use of technical education and thought leadership articles authored by its staff
• 3rd party endorsement of BlueScope was communicated through the use of case studies, where numerous industry partners and customers were featured and quoted.

Howorth’s public relations campaign successfully enhanced BlueScope’s industry leadership credentials across the vertical industrial sectors of most importance to it: mining, engineering and construction.

Howorth did this by discussing issues of importance to Australia’s steel-using community in the media and value-adding to stakeholders’ knowledge and expertise.

Content generated for media was also used in an upgraded direct mail customer newsletter, which was revamped with stronger, more valuable content. This delivered additional ROI for BlueScope and resulted in an integrated communication program, leading to a more pronounced impact on stakeholders than would have otherwise occurred.

The content was customised to users’ interests, adopted a hard-nosed journalistic approach and featured the perspectives of multiple stakeholders.

As such, the newsletter had more of an industry, as opposed to a purely BlueScope-oriented, perspective. This embracing of different perspectives and partnering with different stakeholders reinforced BlueScope’s collaborative approach to business and its inherent importance and value to the industries it is involved in.

Content developed for the newsletter was of such a high standard that the media embraced and used the copy. Examples of publications that featured coverage were Manufacturer’s Monthly, Mining Monthly, Materials Australia and Building Contractor. Other examples of media coverage included:

• ConstructionIndustryNews.net
• SupplyChainLogisticsNews.net
• International Longwall News

The campaign has generated a considerable degree of momentum with the media’s appetite for BlueScope content being stimulated and stakeholder awareness and advocacy on the rise.

Don’t tweet like a twit: leveraging Twitter

To all the PRs who are regurgitating client messaging on Twitter: STOP STOP STOP! This is NOT what Twitter is all about. Twitter is about being a PART of the conversation. Twitter is not about secretly stalking journalists.

Recently, I was lucky enough to attend MediaConnect’s Kickstart conference in Queensland. Kickstart brings together some of Australia’s most influential technology journalists to meet with technology vendors and their PRs.

I’d recommend the event to any vendor who’s interested in meeting face-to-face with journalists and who has an opinion to communicate about the technology industry that doesn’t involve flogging their own products (there was a lot of product pushing this year, which is never good when trying to cultivate relationships with journalists!).

Possibly the most interesting part of the entire conference was the last session of the event which focused on Twitter. Self-proclaimed Twitter gurus Alex Kidman, Anthony Caruana and Nick Broughall formed the panel of journalists discussing this new communication tool.

I’ve been ‘tweeting’ for roughly five months and it seems a pretty basic proposition to me: think of something quirky to say that makes you sound insightful, busy and fun and sum it up in 140 characters or less.

Easy enough? Clearly not.

Alex, Anthony and Nick gave feedback during the session that PRs need to be more willing to participate in Twitter discussions. No one is going to follow you if all you do is re-post client press releases and announcements.

I was a little surprised that PR colleagues would be doing this, but after doing a quick scan for PR tweets, it became fairly obvious that the journalists are right. Quite a few of us have ‘tweeted’ less than fifty times and the majority of our posts are about our clients. There are way too many PRs who don’t seem to understand that Twitter isn’t just a PR tool, it’s an ongoing conversation amongst colleagues.

I even spoke with a PR person from a local agency (who will remain unnamed) who suggested we develop a ‘statement’ to issue via Twitter in response to some negative tweets about a product. Clearly we’re not getting the Twitter picture!

Upon reflection, Twitter is the ‘technology-of-the-moment’ and will doubtfully last forever. Just as Facebook has left behind its niche audience following in favour of widespread adoption, Twitter will do the same. And, when it does, I venture to guess that our beloved technology journalists will move on to the ‘next new thing’. But, for now, Twitter is here to stay.

I’ve compiled a list of tips and tricks that will help you navigate the world of Twitter smoothly…

1. Engage with Twitter outside of your client work – i.e. tweet about what interests you, what you find meaningful and what you think might be of interest to others as well. Sharing links, articles and asking questions are great ways to get involved.

2. Reply to your followers/the people you are following – If you agree, disagree, don’t understand or want to know more, ask! Or, just drop people a line who you think have said something interesting.

3. If a journalist asks you a question – answer!

4. Use functions like Search.Twitter and TweetScan to find out about what journalists are saying about your client’s brand.

5. Interact with journalists, when appropriate – if you see your client or your client’s products being criticised by journalists, try to work out a way to offer them support or counsel to improve their experience. In this way you can target problems before they escalate and possibly even build brand advocates.

6. Don’t just post links to client press releases! If your client has written a blog/byline that you find particularly interesting, sure, go ahead and tweet about it. No one appreciates constant tweets about press releases and announcements.

7. Use Twitter to pitch stories in a short and concise way to journalists via Direct Message – don’t blast a pitch to your entire Twitter following, rather send it directly to the person who matters most, what a great way to get a quick reply!

8. Be careful what you say! Don’t post anything about clients, co-workers, friends, etc that you would not want them to see. These posts don’t go away people and you certainly don’t want to burn bridges!

Now get tweeting!