Google's "Wave" next?

In the “Further Proof that just doing a new viewbook isn’t enough” column I file Google’s Wave. The short review on CNN today is enough to both make me salivate with possibilities and give me a bit of panic about how I’m going to keep up.

If you read the Buzzmachine blog or have read “What Would Google Do?” by Steve Jarvis you are pretty well aware of how blogs, Twitter, and social networking and media sites have changed a lot about how information gets transmitted. But Wave has me wondering if it isn’t about time for another game changer. Anyone noticed that friends aren’t “Facebooking” as much anymore? I know it is still growing, but when the biggest current growth is among 50 year plus women, I tend to start to wonder where the 20-30 somethings are going.

It’s an old joke, but I can tell you the exact day Facebook lost its cool - the day I joined. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense to use it, expand it, and revolution it as a platform, but what’s true in the world of communication gurus is that there is always a platform lurking out there.

I have started to envision it as a cold war arms race between the tech people and communicators. For every missile they build, we adapt some new technology to our use, and then they get around our processes by building a new missile. Of course, like all analogies this one is fatally flawed because the tech people don’t really want to destroy us, they are just being creative geniuses who want to build a better widget.

However, sometimes trying to get my arms around all the tech stuff I’m feeling a little crushed.

Tricks of the Trade: Getting your Ideas Repeated on Twitter

Social media researcher Dan Zarrella spent the better part of a year studying messages that were shared via Twitter, then repeated by others. Some fascinating -- and useful -- patterns emerged.

Interestingly, Zarrella identified 20 words that were the most likely to be "retweeted." He also discovered which words and phrases were least likely to encourage others to repeat your message.

Additional observations were made about those coveted RTs, including some that could help shape your Twitter tactics. Zarrella's research covers message topic, time of day, readability, punctuation, novelty -- even esoteric details like the URL shortener most likely to be retweeted.

His full report is available here (if you subscribe to his blog). A synopsis was reported by Fast Company.

Direct Public Relations

Back in the classroom in Public Relations class, I’m confronted with how much the reality of public relations has changed. This was pointed out by a friend who sent me an article the other day about media bias and the current ACORN scandal.

There is a bit of bias in the commentary, and if you are upset by the current state of political rhetoric, just stop after the second paragraph. The bottom line of the opening is this; people don’t trust the media and that distrust is getting worse.

This takes me back to thinking about a foundational concept of public relations. We have been taught to focus on getting our stories in the media because people see the media as a more credible source than advertising. While I would agree that because of cost and several other factors public relations is still a worthy goal I have to ask if the world of social media begin to take some of the shine of that particular golden apple. Since most of us read, “The End of Advertising as We Know It” we focused on public relations.

What I’m seeing today though in reality, and I think the theory needs to catch up, is that direct public relations is the new path. Maybe I’m coining a new term, but direct public relations isn’t exactly public relations because it ignores the media, going straight to the “public”. For instance, websites that post press releases that aren’t really press releases. They are never intended for the press, they are actually news items intended for stakeholders of the organization.

It is also not advertising, because there is a veneer of reporting and it doesn’t rely on some other vehicle to carry the advertisement. The item is controlled by and appearing in a company or organizational vehicle.

I know I’m not the only person thinking about this because I hear versions of it in a lot of places. What is missing is that foundational book like Sergio Zyman’s that helps us quantify this new phenomenon.

What I think would be important about quantifying this theory is that it may help explain and is some ways solve resource issues that we are all facing. Many of us still have shops built heavily around a traditional public relations and traditional print public heavy mix. Some (including some of my fellow bloggers) seem to have solved these resource issues, but for Presidents, Deans, and others it would helpful to have a broader discussion on this so that we can retool the offices around the actual functions that need to happen.

Facebook username helped double university's fan base in 6 weeks

In June, Facebook enabled page managers to establish intuitive "usernames" for their pages. This made it possible for companies, celebrities, and organizations to create short, intuitive URLs for their Facebook content (e.g. www.facebook.com/username).

At first, this service was only available to Facebook pages that had been set up prior to May 31, 2009, and had attracted at least 1,000 fans by that date. On June 28, Facebook enabled usernames for other pages with at least 25 fans.

I got up early on Monday, June 29, and claimed the intuitive address www.facebook.com/huntingtonuniversity for my campus. Our Facebook page had been set up for a full year, but despite regular updates and some pay-per-click advertising, it had only attracted a few hundred fans.

However, once we established the easy-to-type (and easy-to-remember) URL, our number of fans began to climb steadily. Critical mass accelerated this growth when students returned to campus on August 28 and made new connections with each other and with the university. Throughout this period, content updates and promotion strategies stayed about the same, but the shorter URL made it easier for fans to share the site. After setting up our Facebook username, we doubled our fan base in six weeks. The chart below demonstrates the dramatic results.



Now that there is an easier way to direct people to the page, we expect to continue expanding our fan base through promotion in other media. We have not yet mentioned the new Facebook page URL in our alumni magazine or mailed any postcards, but these are obvious next steps.

If you manage a Facebook page for your college, university, or campus organization, give serious thought to creating an intuitive URL for the site. Guidelines are available here: http://www.facebook.com/help.php?page=900.

Actual Discussion

The discussion on Tweeting below is great. Here in my world we are a little behind the times and are just getting into blogs in a bigger way. I see blogs as a key to telling the "Mission" part of the story. People often see the value in having my help in getting information out about the event, but sometimes I get glassy stares when I start to talk about the importance of using marketing communication plans to communicate the vision.

At any rate, two blogs are launched on our site today. Comments, love letters, and advice always welcome. The blogs are for our MentorExternship Program and to highlight Social Justice issues on campus.

7 Discoveries of a Newly Fledged Tweep

In my last post, I described my belated adoption of Twitter. I promised then to share some of my discoveries as a Twitter neophyte. Here goes:

1. Twitter is supposed to be fun. Like any business communication tool, Twitter deserves to be taken seriously – but not too seriously. Twitter users expect your tweets to have personality, to reflect the people behind the brand. Letting some individuality show in your tweet stream is not only acceptable, it is expected. If your tweets are boringly institutional, your following will shrivel.

2.Twitter is two-way communication. In PR school, they teach that public relations is supposed to be a two-way street, enabling companies and publics to understand each other. Twitter is well suited to this purpose. Some companies are using Twitter as part of a careful customer-service strategy. Their reps have branded Twitter accounts (e.g. @ACME_Joe) that they use to respond to complaints. I tweeted my dissatisfaction about a particular software product recently and was surprised (and pleased) to get a prompt response. Twitter makes it easy to give and receive feedback. When my university set up a new Twitter account for its alumni association, we simply asked the first few dozen followers what they wanted us to tweet about. The replies shaped our communication strategy.

3. Twitter doesn’t require a fancy phone. Our sports information director uses a regular flip phone to text-message scores and stats to Twitter immediately following competitions. She loves the mobility and immediacy of reporting via Twitter. Of course, if you do have a smart phone, there are additional possibilities. I had fun last week tweeting photos from our campus move-in extravaganza and orientation festivities. (Contact me @johnpaff and I’ll let you know what apps I currently favor on my Blackberry Storm.)

4. Twitter is more satisfying than RSS. I've deleted feed readers and most news apps from my smart phone. Twitter gives me a better way to catch up on news in those odd moments between meetings. I follow a few carefully selected news sources that are important to me: regional newspapers and television stations, niche publications serving higher education, and journals on marketing and advertising. Their headlines are mixed in with updates from friends and colleagues in an endlessly customizable stream.

5. Multiple accounts make a lot of sense. My small campus has four official Twitter accounts. Each has an intuitive name that describes the content of the feed: @HU_News (selected headlines), @HU_Alumni (accomplishments of grads and events of interest), @HU_Sports (brief scores and stats), and @HU_EXCEL (for our adult students). Some constituents follow more than one of these streams, so we try not to cross-post.

6. Twitter tools abound. There are many good third-party software tools available to help you juggle multiple accounts. I began with Tweetdeck, but recently switched to HootSuite because it is web-based (and therefore portable) and because it allows me to authorize several authors for each of our tweet streams without sharing Twitter passwords. Neat trick. Other tools allow you to import updates from other sources into your Twitter stream. For example, I use TwitterFeed to share U Marketing Guru postings instantly. (Caution: Do this sparingly.)

7. Live a life worth tweeting. As ConversantLife blogger Won Kim posted earlier today, “Truth be told, it doesn’t matter whether you’re on Twitter or not. It's whether we're living a life worth tweeting.” If you do decide to join the Twitterverse, do so in a meaningful way. If you waste your 140 characters tweeting pointlessly about what you had for breakfast, no one will care. But if your Twitter updates reflect a life well lived -- sharing good cheer, enlightenment, and real value -- your following is sure to grow.

Responding to Blogs

If anything shows the changing nature of communications jobs, it’s the strategic decisions related to responding to blogs. Today, I had pretty much planned my day around writing and projects, but I got sucked into responding in the blogosphere which makes me think on a few lessons.

1. Not all blogs are created equal. Today, I wrote a response to a post at MN Lawyer. I haven’t responded to a number of other posts on other blog sites on this same topic. However, the audience reached by MN Lawyer is just too important for us to ignore. Additionally, I have always found the dialogue on the MN Lawyer blog to be relatively respectful and the editors tend to get involved when something goes too far off the track. I’m not sure I ever made thought of this before today, but there is a separation even between the “good” blogs and the “bad” ones and we can’t chase them all, but we better be chasing a few.

2. Good news is viral, which means so are mistakes. The other part of my day was spent chasing down some news that appeared good but the data was wrong. By the time I submitted a posting saying, “Sorry, the wrong data was submitted” two prominent blogs and probably others had trumpeted the news. Thus, I had to correct the facts as many places as possible meaning the damage was tripled because we couldn’t fix the problem fast enough to get ahead of other bloggers. On the flip side, in the old days of print we wouldn’t have been able to get in front of it at all.

3. Responding to blogs requires trust from senior level administrators. I have a good relationship with the top administrators and can typically get ahold of them, but responding to blogs is a “now” thing. Responding in 30 minutes as opposed to 90 is a big difference.

So – did I get it right?