Speaking SyFy: The Bobblehead Equation

Last week, the Sci Fi Channel became SyFy in what is being called by some "the most ill-advised branding move since New Coke." (It's actually much worse than New Coke because there won't be a black market for the old product.)

The name change was originally floated to disbelieving Sci Fi fans as early as March. But even so, four months must not have been enough time for the future SyFy marketing and public relations team to get on the same page. It must not have been enough time because the excuses behind the rebranding effort are all over the place, enough so that SyFy deserves a Letterman-styled top ten list...

The Top Ten Stupid Excuses "Uttered" For Renaming The Sci Fi Channel

10. Although we love the name Sci Fi, because it's a generic term, we can never own it.

9. It positions the brand for future growth by creating an ownable trademark.

8. Syfy ushers in a new era of unlimited imagination and new dimensions.

7. It will pave the way for us to truly become a global lifestyle brand.

6. Syfy allows us to build on our 16-year heritage of success with a new brand built on the power that fuels our genre.

5. Michael Engleman asked "what if we could change the name without ever changing the name?"

4. It's much more hip and fits better with the new slogan "Imagine Greater."

3. SyFy is how our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd texts the name.

2. We want to appeal to more women and young people.

1. The name Sci Fi was associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements.

So What Is The Real Reason Sci Fi Channel Had To Become SyFy?

The bobblehead equation.

That's right. The only legitimate reason for a successful 16-year-old brand to become something else is an entire room full of bobbleheads.

It starts innocently enough. Someone had nothing better to do. Or maybe they do, but don't want to do it. Or maybe they do, but want to feel like they own something. So they start pointing out problems: the name is too long, the name is limiting, the name doesn't appeal to enough people, especially women.

And then, maybe because people are afraid to lose their jobs in a recession, the entire room of creative guys and corporate shirts start bobbing their little heads up and down, down and up, up and down. Done. The Sci Fi Channel becomes SyFy.

Seriously. I've seen it happen in person several times over the last 20 years. And, I expect I will with even more frequency, in the next 20 years. It happens all the time and the consequences are usually much, much worse than the damage done by some committee on a nonprofit organization.

In this case, even the myth that Michael Engleman asked the question (contradicting other stories shared by the press) and inked out the new name five minutes later is baloney. Some of us already know where SyFy originated, and for a much better reason.

But no matter. Despite all the speculation, most people know the truth now. The only reason we have to endure the name SyFy is because of bobbleheads, with David Howe, according to some, being the biggest bobbler of all after he said no one would remember this in a few years' time. Um, okay. You just keep bobbling, David, and everything will be fine.

The Case For Message Management During Change.

The whole SyFy snafu actually makes an excellent case for message management. Although it often gets a bad rap, being likened to corporate speak and political spin, sometimes it's a good thing.

You see, sometimes message management simply ensures that twenty-some spokespeople don't go around the press circuit with a different excuse. When they do, it makes it look less like you had a bobblehead moment and much more like you're lying because there is no good reason at all.

Breaking Guitars: United Airlines

United Airlines might have already contacted singer/songwriter Dave Carroll to "make things right" after it carelessly broke his Taylor acoustic guitar, but given the extent Carroll and the Sons of Maxwell had to go to find justice is virtually unforgivable. Four days ago, Carroll had introduced a music video about the band's experience. In four days, the video has captured 1.5 million views (one million since yesterday) and shows no signs of slowing down.

Dave Carroll: United Breaks Guitars

Propelled by coverage by the Consumerist, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Sun-Times, ABC News, CBS News, and others; Carroll may eventually have the first customer complaint to go gold and the 13,000 plus passengers who file claims against United Airlines may have a permanent rally cry against broken customer policy.

Inept Customer Service Followed By Bad Public Relations Pun

After the first known acknowledgment from United Airlines' Twitter account, the airline issued a statement that reinforced the pun — "This has struck a chord w/ us and we've contacted him directly to make it right." Here is the extended statement:

This has struck has a chord with us. We are in conversations with one another to make what happened right, and while we mutually agree that this should have been fixed much sooner, Dave Carroll’s excellent video provides United with a unique learning opportunity that we would like to use for training purposes to ensure all customers receive better service from us.

Since, the tone of the tweets have changed from pithy to tempered, with United Airlines offering apologies and promising to use the video for training purposes. Ironically, the consumer crisis is indirectly helping the airline earn more followers on Twitter. We suspect they might not know that 50,000 followers is an empty goal if half sign on to keep the Carroll story alive until changes are implemented. Much like we suspect they didn't realize their statement would fuel more Carroll coverage.

At the same time, United Airlines is also being fined $80,000 by the federal government for not telling consumers which other airlines it has code-share agreements with. United is part of the Star Alliance, which partners international carriers. Other members include US Airways Group Inc., Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines and Air Canada. Incidentally, US Airways is not known for customer service either.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned regarding customer service and communication inside this humorous take on airline travel, but the one that resonates the most is that companies might get used to the idea that they have two opportunities to listen to unhappy customers — either on the phone when they first call or online with the whole world watching as judge, jury, and, sometimes, executioner.

To its credit, at least United Airlines has some semblance of a fledgling social media program to answer some consumer questions direct. While a quick review reveals it's less than perfect by any measure, many companies facing a similar customer-driven crisis communication challenge would have to rely exclusively on the media to tell their side of the story. Sometimes that's what it takes for organizations to finally understand you don't have to engage in social media to be engaged by social media.

This story bumped our third installation of the SyFy branding debacle, now slated for Monday. Have a nice weekend!

Rebranding SyFy: What's In A Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." — Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

Depending on the interview, Howe seems to have a different answer as to why the 16-year-old Sci Fi Channel has become SyFy.

"We want to appeal to more women and young people," Howe told The Washington Post in contrast to the myriad of answers delivered to viewers, fans, journalists, bloggers, and everyone else.

Why on planet earth David Howe didn't stick to the first sentence of the first question in SyFy's FAQ is beyond me. It states the challenge very clearly: "Although we love the name Sci Fi, because it's a generic term, we can never own it."

Never mind for a moment that the Sci Fi Channel already owned the name from a branding perspective. And never mind its global argument (all of its other foreign networks are still named Sci Fi no matter what they say).

Let's take the FAQ at face value. It alludes to the challenge of introducing non-broadcast products, parks, gaming, technology, and online networks that go well beyond broadcast programming. That logic, and only that logic, is boring but sound. The strategy to make it happen, on the other hand, is flawed.

How To Expand Before Rebranding

Rather than rename the flagship, the Sci Fi Channel could have launched its new assets under the new SyFy name, creating a distinct brand over time much in the same way Apple branded Newton and Macintosh. After the new identity took hold, they would have had the option to circle back with a name that would mean something to someone.

In fact, the Sci Fi Channel brand might have protected the network from push back if any of the new products happened to, you know, suck. (Imagine what might have happened if Apple first changed its name to Newton. Eesh.) This expand first, circle back strategy would have been cheaper too, something people like investors usually appreciate.

Instead, SyFy has locked into an expensive top-down rebranding strategy with a name that nobody seems to like. And since they can't really reverse course, the executives are left with nothing to do except push, push, push it. If that isn't bad enough, the Sci Fi Channel will also have to relive the ugliness as SCI FI UK, SCI FI France, SCI FI Germany, SCI FI Spain, SCI FI Japan, SCI FI Italy, SCI FI Australia, and SCI FI Latin America have yet to be renamed and repackaged.

Each of these upcoming events could renew the fuel of fan branding — and that brand is that the new SyFy name as a brand smacks of executive stupidity. It may even set the stage for former Sci Fi enthusiasts to be critical of any new SyFy products in order to reinforce what they seem to the be saying — SyFy is headed in the wrong direction and the name does not smell as sweet.

Branding As Seen By A Guy Named Bill

William Shakespeare isn't often seen as a marketer or brand strategist, but Romeo and Juliet ought to be thought of as a branding primer. Inside the lines of the most-produced play in history, Shakespeare clearly asks all the right questions.

Montague or Capulet? Does the name really make the brand or does the brand encompass the qualities of an individual that one might be but worn with love? Ergo, brands are not names. Rather, names and phrases eventually become an encapsulated definition of all the meaning people associate with the brand. If not, then Juliet may have let herself be plucked by Paris.

So can be said for "SyFy." There is no context to make SyFy a brand. And, if anything, the fans are not only saying the new name doesn't smell as sweet. They say it's kind of stinky. Ho hum. For want of a name, they lost a brand.

For the new marketing or advertising student, it's a good lesson to take hold of and own forever. Say it over and over again: brands are not names and names are not brands. In fact, in the case of a network, the programming and other products make the brand and the name merely encapsulates it. For example, ABC doesn't feel limited to the alphabet.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with renaming or rebranding a company. All I'm pointing out is a that a simple risk assessment might have suggested that you don't want to irritate 5 million Website visitors a month or the millions who helped the Sci Fi Channel climb to the fifth most watched cable network on television.

But alas, SyFy execs have done exactly that. According to Variety, they are even more irritated than they were when the Sci Fi Channel gave Starbuck a gender makeover.

Will they get over it? It's hard to say. Fans might have gotten over Starbuck, but this time SyFy doesn't have Kara Thrace to pull it off over several seasons. SyFy's shrug off of the fans and sell it attitude isn't helping much either. More on Monday.

Rebranding Disaster: Sci Fi Becomes SyFy

After 16 years of branding, the SCI FI Channel has officially become SyFy as of yesterday. David Howe, president of SyFy, announced the change last March, but SCI FI Channel fans seemed reluctant to believe it until the change actually took place yesterday. Some suggested it was an early April Fool's joke.

So why did they change it?

"By changing the name to Syfy, which remains phonetically identical, the new brand broadens perceptions and embraces a wider range of current and future imagination-based entertainment beyond just the traditional sci-fi genre, including fantasy, supernatural, paranormal, reality, mystery, action and adventure." — Sci Fi Wire

Huh?

"Syfy allows us to build on our 16-year heritage of success with a new brand built on the power that fuels our genre: the imagination. Syfy ushers in a new era of unlimited imagination, exceptional experiences and greater entertainment that paves the way for us to truly become a global lifestyle brand." — David Howe

What?

"It also positions the brand for future growth by creating an ownable trademark that can travel easily with consumers across new media and nonlinear digital platforms, new international channels and extend into new business ventures." — Sci Fi Wire

Yeah?

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.” — Tim Brooks

Really?

"When we tested this new name, the thing that we got back from our 18-to-34 techno-savvy crowd, which is quite a lot of our audience, is actually this is how you’d text it. It made us feel much cooler, much more cutting-edge, much more hip, which was kind of bang-on what we wanted to achieve communication-wise.” — David Howe

No one is certain what 18-to-34 techno savvy crowd they tested, but former Sci Fi Channel fans have dubbed the name change the dumbest idea in television history. Comments left across the Web have ranged from disbelief to unrestrained anger.

What Are They Saying?

"Well, it's one step closer to "Spiffy.",

"This is a really stupid move and just goes to show you that the network has lost its way."

Syfy has emphasized its point that it's become a hollow mockery of everything its fans have known and loved.

Anyone else notice how “SyFy” looks like an abbreviation for syphilis?

Artistic misspellings are still hip, right? Isn’t that what the kids are doing on their internets?

Never mind two months of negative comments since the name was first floated. Howe is convinced, and says everyone else from NBC and SyFy is convinced too. In fact, despite saying the test market approved of the change, Howe claimed in another interview that they were totally prepared for the push back.

"We expected fans not to like it. The reaction from fans always same default reaction -- it's that we're going to abandon the genre." he said. "That isn't what its about."

So what is it really about?

Nobody seems to know. Most of the time, employees like Craig Engler, who manages the SyFy Twitter account, are too busy explaining what it isn't about to ever offer up a clear account of what it is about.

"No, we are not changing our programming mix … you pronounce it like 'sci-fi' … [it's not spelled wrong] Syfy is a made-up name, not a word, so it’s spelled correctly as is. Like Wii. Or Twitter …" — Craig Engler

Except, as the author behind the Warming Glow quickly pointed out, Twitter is an actual word. He even looked it up.

Of course, not knowing Twitter is a word seems minor in comparison to the notion that a rebranding campaign might boost interest in the opening of the Syfy Imagination Park in Rockefeller Center on July 12. On the contrary, the rebranding has buried it.

So in what can only be called an avalanche of negative public sentiment and press, the Sci Fi Channel has certainly been rebranded. Unfortunately, it has not been rebranded as Howe, Brooks, and Engler had hoped. But that stands to reason. Brands are not really names. Brands are better described as the relationship between consumers and a product, person, or even programming.

In this case, it seems to me that SyFy is establishing a new brand. And unfortunately, this new brand landing somewhere between silly and stupid or maybe just sad. There is so much wrong here, it will take a living case study to sort it all out.

That's right. This branding disaster is no moon. It's a space station. More tomorrow.

Marching On Taxes: Spirited Minorities

By comparison, Tea Party rallies across the country didn't seem to pack as much punch on July 4 as they did on April 15, which is the date Americans file their tax returns with the IRS. Any why would they, as they competed with one of most revered national holidays?

According to TEAPartyDay.com, 1,504 cities participated, which is down from more than 2,000 reported to have held rallies in April. However, despite asking marchers to give up a few hours of their holiday, the sentiment was still felt in those cities from Boston to Santa Barbara.

The Santa Barbara Tea Party

Led by Buffalo Bill (Rolland Jacks) and Calamity Jane (Patty Engel) on horseback, the Santa Barbara Tea Party & Culpepper Society Contingent provided a surreal and spirited conclusion to Saturday's Spirit of ’76 Foundation Parade, with signs ranging from "Party Like It's 1776" and "Mad as Hell!" Despite being on the roster, the Tea Party marchers in Santa Barbara even seemed to catch the emcee with a loss for words.

"Oh, and let's hear it for the First Amendment," the local on-air personality offered up.

The marchers — concerned with out-of-control government spending, the escalating deficit, and rapid government bailouts — were thin compared to the rally of hundreds at another event held the day before. And although nonpartisan, some the signage sported on Independence Day was decidedly conservative as it included signs that laid the blame on liberals.

Where the Santa Barbara Tea Party & Culpepper Society Contingent wins, however, is in its organization, friendliness, and diversity. Frequently, newscasts tend to lean toward providing older men on-air time. But in Santa Barbara, the marchers were well represented by diverse ages and ethnicities. The crowd was evenly split, with about half offering a show of support (and some joining in) while the other half was more concerned with heading to their cars before the parade broke.

Mixing Independence Day Messages

On one hand, holding Tea Party rallies on Independence Day seems fitting enough. On the other, it adds a sad concluding commentary on a day meant to celebrate a past that some people feel is quietly slipping away. And why wouldn't it?

Even excluding the postal service, the federal government is the largest employer in the United States with between 1.8 and 2.7 million civilian employees. Add in state and local government, and those government employees swell to 22 million, excluding education. Currently, education and health services account for 19 million jobs.

In counties like Leon in Florida, Champaign in Illinois, and Johnson in Iowa, government employment soar to 18 to 25 percent of total employment. When you consider total households, that may mean that more than 50 percent of all households in some areas have at least one government employee. And, when you add in federally funded nonprofit organizations and government contractors, it becomes relatively easy to see why voting against bigger government is not always in the best interest of the majority of Americans.

Of course, there are two sides of the coin. Some people claim that a high percentage of government workers provides a shield against unemployment. Others might argue that state and local government employees earning $10 to $20 more per hour than private employees are the cause, especially because more than 40 percent of those government workers are represented by unions (only 9 percent of private citizens are represented).

If health care is ever nationalized, it would mean more than 41 million people would be directly employed by government or almost 1/3 of the working population. It's an interesting statistic in that 1/3 of the working population would touch the majority of working households. And then what?

Marketing Mainstream: Online Video

Several years ago, we floated the idea that advertisers would be able to produce online videos that would attract as much attention as any broadcast advertisement. Some people thought the idea was very funny (given the frequency in which people insist they hate advertising).

Yet, in the last 18 months, that is exactly what happened as 200,000 tuned in this week to watch the Eyebrow Dance from Canbury, 325,000 viewed the T-Mobile Dance from T-Mobile, and thousands more continue to watch Extreme LED Sheep from Samsung, a video that has already garnered more than 8.5 million views. There is enough interest in online video advertising, in fact, that Video Measures compiles a real time Top 10 Viral Videos Ads of the Week Chart.

"It's not a niche activity anymore, it's a fairly mainstream activity," Matt Cutler, vice president of Video Measures recently told Abbey Klaassen of Advertising Age. Despite more than 20 hours of new video added to YouTube during every minute of every day, there is plenty of room for advertisers to produce an online video that becomes viral.

Viral Videos Are Usually Part Of Integrated Campaigns

During the interview, Cutler also noted that advertisers began to seriously look at online video shortly after the last Super Bowl when their joint study revealed Super Bowl campaigns captured 99 million viewers compared to the 98.7 million viewers that watched during the broadcast. For the first time, marketers realized that a single online video might reach as many people as broadcast television.

However, Cutler also concludes that online video success doesn't happen in a vacuum. The best online videos are usually tied to an integrated campaign that helps connect the video with viewers. Additional advertising support, public relations, and social media all play a role. After that, assuming the video attracts critical mass, its own momentum can carry it forward as popular videos tend to attract larger audiences.

Once A Video Goes Viral, Then What?

While the prospect of capturing several million viewers is appealing, advertisers still need to overcome the notion that "viral videos" can be made. The reality is that while advertisers can make a video, its propensity to become viral is determined exclusively by the online audience.

Of course, there is something else to consider. Even viral video success stories might be empty if there is no purpose beyond popularity. Specifically, making a video is easy; ensuring it goes viral is virtually impossible (most do not); and weaving in a message that has an impact or achieves an outcome remains as elusive as ever.

Celebrating Words: Independence Day

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands, which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Few compositions have changed the course of world events more than the above preamble. If you are so inclined, you can read the rest of the document here. And once you do, let me know if you still believe that mere words might not have the power to shape a nation. Happy Fourth of July.

Be happy. Be safe. Be grateful. And above all, be free.

Messaging: What Is It Anyway?

Any time Geoff Livingston writes anything about "messaging," I had a tendency to put my cup of coffee down. I'm likely to burn my lip or stain my shirt.

So back on June 16, coffee in hand, I started to put it down shakily as I read the headline of a Livingston post. "Conversation Starters: A Modern View of Messaging." Oh boy, I thought, it's still early here on the West Coast.

But as I read on, I stopped short of the coaster. His post wasn't to point out the evils of message control (as some people use interchangeably with message management), but rather the prompts for companies to reevaluate their messages. It wasn't too early after all.

A Modern View Of Message Management

I'm not really sure where message management became entwined with guarding company secrets or spinning away questions to avoid pertinent answers, but what Livingston describes as the modern view of message management is what I always believed it to be. Externally, it's fluid and responsive to the public. Internally, it's just a way for everyone to be on the same page.

After all, it takes 80 impressions (some say as many as 240 impressions) before a message begins to stick. So, simply put, if Bob says the best feature is price, and Sally says the best feature is quality, and Fred says the best feature is delivery, then the consumer — much like reading 20 bullet points in a newspaper ad — won't remember any of it. And frankly, chances are that two of the three are wrong anyway. Who knows? Maybe they are all wrong.

So what Livingston proposes in his post is quite simple. What do the customers say it is? Unless they are factually wrong, that is probably what the message ought to be.

Of course, that's not to say that companies can't start somewhere. Propose any authentic message you want. The lesson here is just don't marry it. Hmmm ... I'll drink to that. Next cup is on me, Mr. Livingston.

Bullying Employees: Organizational Risk

According to Gary Namie, director of the Workplace Bullying Institute (WBI) and author of the new book "The Bully At Work," published in 2000, workers are feeling the heat, as the bulk of workplace harassment cases involve superiors taunting employees. Although the survey sampling is small, some of the findings are interesting.

WBI Survey: Economic Crisis and Bullying

• 75.4% of perpetrators have higher a position than the target
• 65.9% of perpetrators are female; 81% of targets are female
• 27.5% said the bullying has become worse since the recession

"People are more stressed because there's no escape," Namie told The Miami Herald, saying that recessions trap employees to suffer from verbal abuse, humiliation, career sabotage, or intimidation.

For organizations, higher management might sometimes miss the warning signs and symptoms of bad leadership. As a result, the bullying continues with employees too afraid to report the infractions. But according to the International Institute of Management, there are several warning signs that top management and boards ought to consider.

Ten Signs That A Bully Is Leading The Team

• Management that does not allow disagreements and expects agreement in any public setting.
• There is limited or no leadership performance review for employees to provide feedback.
• Recruitment, selections and promotions are based on internal political agenda and personal loyalty.
• Some departments are underutilized while other departments are overloaded to make up the difference.
• Plans are heavy on talk but light on action; management tends to end programs and talk about programs that never develop.
• There is frequent and heated division, with language more focused on point scoring and buck-passing than sharing responsibility.
• Management wastes more time and energy on internal attack and defense strategies instead of executing the work.
• Leaders spend most of their time on fire fighting instead of proactive planning for next-generation products and services.
• Morale deteriorates and employees suffer muted commitment and enthusiasm compared to other teams.
• There is a high rate of absenteeism and a high employee turnover rate, with past employees spoken about poorly.

Sooner or later, key decision makers have to make the argument that the bully's too expensive to keep. In today's communication environment, it is only a matter of time before employees begin to publicly undermine the organization out of frustration because bad leadership tends to stick to the organization as a whole rather than the individual perpetrator.

A Bright Contrast To Bad Leadership

Years ago, when I first began studying leadership, Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI), a global leader in automotive, building efficiency, and power solutions, became a source of fascination for me after I was introduced to it by the book "In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best Run Companies." I was interested enough that I purchased some stock at the right time.

However, over the years, it seemed to me that some of the qualities cited in the 1988 book (especially employee relations) were beginning to erode. So I sold most of the stock, but continued to keep tabs on the company. Last Tuesday, the company reported a second quarter loss of $193 million, or 33 cents a share. It doesn't expect positive earnings until the fourth quarter of this year.

Where's the bright light? Forbes reports that 140,000 employees of Johnson Controls took part in week-long series of discussions at more than 1,000 company locations around the globe one month ago. They were learning and exchanging ideas about how to sharpen the value they bring to their customers.

"Only 10 to 15 percent of our employees are customer-facing," said CEO Stephen Roell. "But our customer focus means examining all the interactions and hand-offs that take place inside and across the company. It's important that each employee see the connection between what they do and the customer experience, that they see that each of them has a vital role in that relationship and the satisfaction of our customers."

Aha. See the difference? Leadership.

Killing Quietly: Social Media Is Often Silent

When most people talk about social media and corporate reputation, they talk about being prepared for social media firestorms, stakeholder perception, and how people are more likely to purchase products from companies they trust. All of these conversations are certainly part of the equation, but what about the subtle stuff? Does it matter? Should we care?

Several months ago, Michael Sommermeyer, court information officer for the Eighth Judicial District Court and the Las Vegas Township Justice Court in Las Vegas, posed his son's question: “If a tree falls in the forest, will it make a sound?”

Sommermeyer then applied the question to social media, asking "If an A-lister Twitters alone in the wilderness, will anyone hear?" He's not the first person to ask. He certainly won't be the last. And yet, more and more, I think it's the wrong question.

We no longer have to hear the tree fall or tweet chirp.

Online public sentiment toward people, products, companies, and organizations doesn't have to erupt in some fiery fashion like the favored case studies among social media speakers. The real danger is that there will never be a sound nor will anyone hear the explosion.

Or, to borrow the analogy I employed on RecruitingBlogs, maybe you don't have to hear the fall when the epicenter resembles the aftermath of the 1908 Siberian explosion. The unaddressed wreckage speaks for itself.

Sure, the Tunguska event took place after a ball of fire exploded about 6 miles (10 kilometers) above the ground. But it doesn't always have to be that way. Social media is much more likely to knock one tree down at a time, slowly eroding the brand. Nobody hears anything.

Since we've started researching online sentiment for several companies, organizations, and industries, we've noticed that most of the damage is subtle, seemingly one tree at a time.

• A public utility with customer service complaints written out in vivid detail, including customers left without heat for a winter weekend.
• A physical therapy practice considered area experts in its market, but with an online presence so thin that prospective patients are more likely to find faith healers.
• A government agency that invests 90 percent of its time answering questions posed by traditional media while ignoring citizen advocates that are 90 percent more likely to adopt the agency's message.
• An entire industry suffering from a labor shortage, with recruitment efforts being undermined as potential employees discover more than 80 percent of all online comments are negative and the remaining 20 percent are best described as neutral.

In all of these cases, there was no thunderous explosion. The challenges are subtle, with one tree dropping at a time until entire forests are laid bare or, if you prefer, the brand has eroded beyond recognition. And this is the way most brands end, not with a bang but a whimper.

Uniting For Iran: Bloggers Unite

News organizations may be restricted inside Iran but various reports still manage to make headlines, ranging from militiamen "carrying out brutal nighttime raids, destroying property in private homes and beating civilians in an attempt to stop nightly protest chants" to several British Embassy employees being targeted and detained.

The turmoil began as a national disturbance shortly after the polls closed on June 12. It continues to escalate as protesters reject reports that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who assumed office in 2005, earned more than 60 percent of the votes cast. The election was rigged, they say. More than 2,000 Iranians have been arrested and hundreds more have disappeared since.

"We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights." — Felix Frankfurter, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1939-1962

Not everyone. People from around the world are uniting for free elections in Iran. Some are sharing their thoughts on blogs and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many of them are asking their readers, followers, and friends to visit Amnesty International or other human rights groups to take action.

But even those who do not take direct action can have an impact as elected officials and government leaders around the world look toward social media to gauge public sentiment. Members of the media do too. Since June 12, social media has hastened the shift of some administrations from painfully dismissive to cautiously concerned.

Of course, not everyone agrees. Sure, Matt Sussman was only penning satire, but not all detractors do.

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." — James Madison, Virginia Convention, 1788

Madison might have been talking about the United States in the late 1700s, but the sentiment can easily be transplanted to today. Sometimes, I think people forget what it was like five or ten years ago when the most action any member of the public took over political unrest was grumbling at a television set.

Does it matter? Of course it matters. It matters just as much as the groundwork laid by Gandhi through the Satyagraha in India. While the exact reasons for the British departure is more likely related to the creation of the Indian National Army and the revolt of the Royal Indian Navy, the foundation for such events and the global perception of British occupation was set much earlier.

Does it matter? The Guardian reports, maybe so. We tend to agree. Silent acceptance and excuse against any action are most often the preferred means of oppressive governance. It's so much easier to rule when the people do nothing, believing themselves unfit.

"Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water til he had learned to swim." — Lord Thomas Macaulay, politician, essayist, poet and popular historian, 1800-1859

Selling You On Twitter: uSocial

“We just signed a contract with a large Fortune 500 company who have invested around $22,000 with us to conduct a continuing Twitter marketing campaign. The package includes some custom-designed tactics for them, as well as some services of ours which are publicly available like our Twitter follower packages." — Leon Hill, CEO of uSocial.net

So what is uSocial’s Twitter follower packages? According to the OfficialWire, its suite of Twitter marketing services includes allowing their clients to buy Twitter followers.

Buy Followers?

Right. uSocial claims for an investment of only $87, "we'll bring you 1,000 brand new Twitter followers to your existing account, or we'll set up a new account for yourself or your business at no charge in order to deliver the followers." If you think that is a bargain, 100,000 Twitter followers is $3,479 (normally charged at $4,970), which makes us all cheap. Cheep.

“Our client has requested anonymity, however I can tell you they’re an organization in the health sector,” Hill told OfficialWire. “I wish I could say more, though I have to respect the wishes of my paying customers.”

We're not surprised. Any decision maker willing to purchase Twitter followers is unlikely to be authentic, externally or internally.

Flirting With Brand Damage: Mark Sanford

"When we do these kinds of things like what happened with Ensign and now with Sanford it hurts our credibility as a party of good governing and of values.” — Ron Kaufman, lobbyist

If anyone is wondering (and some people still are) why marital affairs seem to roll off some politicians and not others, look no further than the Fragile Brand Theory. It has much less to do with the personal lives of political candidates and much more to do with the personal brands they adopt.

Never mind that 90 percent of Americans believe affairs are morally wrong. Conservative estimates suggest affairs are commonplace, with estimates that 60 percent of all men and and women will have an affair. Quantified, that would mean infidelity impacts approximately 80 percent of all marriages with varying degrees.

As for politics, marital affairs became fair game in 1828, with Andrew Jackson's opposition wondering if his wife was legally divorced by the time they married. Since, Wendell Wilkie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy all had affairs. And along with Bill Clinton in 1998, MSNBC reports there have been 23 high profile scandals in the last decade alone, which seems to coincide with increased public scrutiny over personal choices as well as the global trend to place less value on the definition of marriage.

Understanding marriage and extramarital affairs as a definition

While researchers generally break down extramarital affairs into physical and emotional attraction with the root cause being dissatisfaction with their partners, the real reasons are generally much more individualized. They could stem from any number of reasons, including low self-esteem, physical fantasy, geographical distance, pressure escapism, random encounter, intoxication, dissatisfaction in a marital role (with no bearing on the partner), and so on and so forth.

However, regardless of the reasons, extramarital affairs provide a stark contrast to the value most modern civilized societies place on a family to provide an intimate environment, mutual support, emotional security, and personal commitment. In simplest terms, and from a brand perspective, marriage is among the most prized of all partnerships.

Affairs, on the other hand, are generally regarded as the polar opposite, much more so than any other factor that could potentially estrange a relationship (e.g., poor financial management, the assumption a marital contract exempts poor personal choices, etc.). In simplest terms, and from a brand perspective, affairs represent selfishness and betrayal.

Understanding the public figure's ability to survive one

Why was John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton able to mostly survive extramarital affairs whereas John Ensign and Mark Sanford cannot (beyond the apparent hypocrisy)? They did for very different reasons.

Kennedy carried forth a suave and youthful image during an era well suited to ignore it. And Clinton's emphasis was on being human for nearly ten years, and thus more apt to make a human mistake. (Ergo, a man with a weakness for a Big Mac might very well have other weaknesses.)

Of course, there are other factors too. Any infraction made by a public figure is dependent on the company they keep and on how they handle the crisis once it surfaces.

In Nevada, the feeling toward John Ensign is one of disappointment after a somber but articulate press conference. In South Carolina, Sanford's bumbled press conference seems to be facing more backlash for breaking trust and betraying not only his wife but those he governed.

Multiple messages and brands dictate public figure outcomes

While predicting outcomes might be simple, any public consequence is a complex combination of personal branding, organizational (party) branding, definition (marriage) branding, current public sentiment, personal cause, and the ability to appropriately handle the crisis. Case in point, the public tends to see celebrity infidelity as vastly different — with more concern over who the celebrity has an affair with rather than the fact they had an affair.

In contrast, Republicans normally embrace certain core values, which generally reside too far away from the core of being human. And while I'd be the last to suggest Republicans sacrifice the concept of these values in order to curry the favor of more exceptions, they might consider whether it's time to reconsider the construct.

While striving (sometimes unsuccessively) for higher purpose is always admirable, current cultural trends seem to suggest that being human is all too common for any public figure to allow themselves to be placed on pedestal made of clay. In fact, the very dynamic of doing so might make one party seem overly selective (with greater failures), leaving the other to represent everyone else who is willing to admit they sometimes make mistakes.

After all, no one can really place so much emphasis on higher principles or moral ground at the risk of overriding the most admirable of all. Forgiveness.

Going Green: Free Iran

While most people have heard that social media has played a role in the post-election results in Iran, the consequences of immediate communication and online conversation have an impact that is equally compelling to on-the-ground coverage.

While Valeria Maltoni sees the potential for crowdsourcing to surpass CNN news (it can), we also see it as an interesting division. Whereas traditional media has been tending to cover the sentiment of the elected, social media tends to reveal the sentiment of those who elect. And that is making the elected take notice.

Mass Influence Over Influencers

Even in the United States, President Obama has been compelled to step up his stance on Iran. Originally, he hoped to avoid commenting about the democratic process of Iran over concern for future diplomacy with a country known to be developing a nuclear program and backing militant organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. However, his initial hands-off stance had been largely viewed as timid and unrepresentative.

Yesterday, that changed. President Obama, who now says he was moved by the protest images, has called for an end to the violence while advising those who govern that they ought to lead by consent over coercion.

It's equally likely he wasn't moved on his own. Overwhelmingly, Americans have helped make the Iranian elections two of the top ten stories on the Internet — the election itself and the State Department asking Twitter to hold off on scheduled maintenance in order to ensure real-time citizen reporting.

News that used to die in a day isn't so easily forgotten. People all over the world want resolution.

BloggersUnite Hosts Spontaneous Event

BloggersUnite.org, which is a nonprofit platform that encourages bloggers to do good and raise social awareness, has launched an initiative that asks bloggers and network participants to use their blogs and accounts to do exactly that. They are asking bloggers and network members to continue their efforts, drawing even more awareness to the Iranian election and related atrocities in Iran through June 29.

“When we host organized campaigns, they are usually 90 days in the making,” said Antony Berkman, president of BlogCatalog.com and founder of BloggersUnite.org. “This time, the crisis is now, the need for action is now, the initiative is now.”

The event has already received praise by Amnesty International USA, which has its own action page condemning the violence and repression over the elections. Amnesty International says it is important for people to keep Iran in the public spotlight until it ends restrictions on freedom of expression and association, which includes the freedom to receive and impart information and ideas.

Bloggers and members of the media are asked to contribute to the Bloggers Unite for a Free Iran campaign by making it a dominant social media issue once again on June 29. Others are asked to participate by leaving supportive comments on participating blogs, sharing links to posts about this important effort, and/or by turning all avatars green in honor of the campaign. Bloggers who have already posted on the subject are asked to add their links to the BloggersUnite.org event page and post again on June 29.

Serving Bert: Lessons In Customer Service

"Always remember that what might seem like an annoying inconvenience can often be the platform for a long-term positive experience." — Richard Becker

When my daughter requested that Bert, from the long-running television show Sesame Street, join us for breakfast, I had a choice. I could grumble away the request with all sorts of "good" excuses. Or, I could accommodate by setting the table for three instead of two.

I chose the latter, propping up the miniature Bert on a chair twenty times his size. And why not? Bert didn't need much more than a place setting, silverware, and a paper napkin.

As strange as it may sound, minimal effort can produce maximum results. Instead of reinforcing proper table manners, imposing some meaningless rule like "no stuffed toys at the table," or working to hurry my daughter along without "distractions," the novelty of having Bert join us for breakfast set a positive day in motion. It changes the conversation.

It made her happy, and happy children are much more likely to finish breakfast quickly, easily, and neatly. More than that, her happiness was infectious.

It's also a lesson in customer service. Consider the Kinkos employee who invested his time in telling us how couldn't help while my team member and I stood waiting in line or the OfficeDepot employee who seemed put out after he had brought out an office chair. While neither incident is really worth going into detail, it does provide a subtle and all-too-common contrast.

Neither employee risked losing anything, other than a few seconds to service. The first could have looked behind the counter to see if the order was in rather than take an equal amount of time to explain why he couldn't help. The second could have been less concerned about whether I had chosen the wrong retrieval card (it turned out that another employee had mixed two sets together). Instead, their inconvenience was infectious.

Not so much for me, as much as other customers, especially at OfficeDepot. One of the other customers waiting in line chimed up that "he might need to sit in a chair for as long as he has been waiting for one." Then another customer was also quick to express how she felt pushed off while the employee finished with me. And with each passing comment, the employee seemed less happy to be there.

As for me, I had no complaints. Bert, earlier, had finished his pretend breakfast. And my daughter ate all her Honey Nut Cheerios. It goes to show you, customer service is like that. We often have an opportunity to decide which moments in life are annoying inconveniences or opportunities for a long-term positive experience.

Making Sense For Media: PriceWaterhouseCoopers

PriceWaterhouseCoopers released its Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2009-2013 yesterday, and the findings will set the stage for some companies to excel while others will be forgotten. Not surprisingly, the migration to digital entertainment platforms and convergence will accelerate as companies seek advertising distribution efficiencies while consumers want more value and more control over their content streams.

The future is bright, but not for everyone.

While the report shows declines in consumer ad spending through 2011, PriceWaterhouseCoopers sees industry growth returning in 2012-2013. Specifically, global spending on entertainment and media will reach $1.6 trillion in 2013 and then grow by 2.7 percent in digital content, which will eventually offset declines in traditional media revenue models. In the United States, the entertainment and media market will ultimately grow at a 1.2 percent average annual rate to $495 billion in 2013.

The primary challenge, it says, will be that some media companies will struggle to attract revenue from fragmented and mobile audiences. On that one point, we couldn't disagree more. The emphasis on mobile audiences is leaning toward more convergence, not less, with audiences being able to import and make portable their favorite content from their desktops to their laptops and mobile phones.

If any fragmentation is occurring, it's a direct result of consumers finding a continually increasing amount of content that would otherwise be unavailable. More choices simply means not all people will pick from the most popular three, but rather any number of options from a list of 3 million.

The decision that media companies have to make is whether their product is strong enough to capture any audience at all. For example, as one large publishing company reported months ago, its greatest challenge on the Web is competition. Rather than compete with the only other daily in a major market, they have to compete with several more migrating print sources, broadcast news sites, radio news sites, and the seemingly endless supply of amateur op ed blogs and network content.

They're asking the wrong questions. They're searching for the wrong conclusions.

Digital demand is increasing, but not everyone sees it.

"The current decline in revenues is not because of declining demand," Bill Cobourn of PriceWaterhouseCoopers' media and entertainment practice said. "In fact, demand for (entertainment and media) appears to be increasing."

The struggle that some media companies are facing is where that demand is increasing and their own ability to be able to meet that demand. Rather than continuing to find ever-narrowing niches where no competition occurs, they ought to be asking what do they have to do different to demonstrate a clear product contrast.

The right content mix would ensure that the publisher would never compete with other migration print sources, broadcast news sites, radio news sites, and the greater content sources that make up social media, including former advertisers who are finding it easier to develop direct-to-public online programs.

Ergo, today's news doesn't have to be the same on every station. If anything, that is the model that died when consumer choice began to grow exponentially. Consumers no longer have to choose which newscaster or print reporter they enjoy more as much as they choose which stories interest them the most. It changes, daily.

Coupled with the media's focus on preserving old distribution models, e.g., print and broadcast, they miss the bigger picture. While there will always be room for some print (assuming it is not duplicated online), distribution stands to sort itself out.

Even PriceWaterhouseCoopers sees it. It projects mobile and digital platforms expanding at the highest average growth rate of 12.2 percent through 2013 in contrast to a non-digital growth rate of 1.2 percent. So traditional-minded media might ask itself: which growth sector makes more sense to pursue?

Tomorrow's media model will be everywhere or nowhere.

When migrating media learns how to deliver valued content over the same old coverage and shift its one-way communication model into two-way community development, then advertisers will have a real reason to invest advertising dollars in order to capture those communities. However, and in the meantime, right now it makes more sense for companies to develop their own online communities while media struggles to sort it all out.

After all, digital spending is projected to rise to 25 percent of total industry revenues in 2013, up from 17 percent in 2008. And advertisers will continue to shift toward new media, boosting Internet advertising to 19 percent of U.S. advertising by 2013, from 13 percent in 2008. In other words, the hard choice media needs to make today is whether they want to be everywhere or nowhere at all. And that choice will not be made by media alone.

Content Related To The PriceWaterhouseCoopers Report

Digital spending to fuel slower media growth-PwC by James Pethokoukis

Pricewaterhouse Coopers Notices We're Going Digital by Catharine P. Taylor

PricewaterhouseCoopers Study Finds A Positive Outlook For Digital Media Growth by Stuart Elliot

Retooling Spin: MySpace Layoffs

"Simply put, our staffing levels were bloated and hindered our ability to be an efficient and nimble team-oriented company. I understand that these changes are painful for many. They are also necessary for the long-term health and culture of MySpace." — Owen Van Natta, chief executive for MySpace

That is the message being floated by MySpace in the face of layoffs that will leave 420 employees jobless. But one wonders if that is what has really happened to MySpace or whether some observers are right in saying that the portal approach cost the company its lead position in the United States.

Or, perhaps others are right in saying that MySpace was overshadowed by the fast-paced migration of Internet nomads to Facebook, which doubled its membership to 70 million users while MySpace was losing 3.4 million. Worse, lost members only tell part of the story. Tracking MySpace over the last year reveals a steady drop in activity by the people who have stayed.

The trend began late last year after a long period of flatness. Indicators such as reach, page views, and page views per user have all declined by 50 to 80 percent in the last 360 days. It was one of many reasons while some social media tacticians were setting up MySpace pages at a premium, we needed a compelling reason to recommend the platform.

The real issue is probably platform simple over staff nimble; ease-of-use over innovation.

Simplicity continues to be the number one attracter in a country of voyeurs over content creators. So while MySpace was developing MySpace Music, which did less than impress, Facebook focused on simplifying everything from its message service to friend connections. Simply put, it's easy to join Facebook; MySpace takes some work.

While Facebook has also had its share of missteps, usually centered around sweeping changes that prompt members to remind Mark Zuckerberg that Facebook is more their network than his, MySpace is now faced with a communication mess that will be not be cleared up by uttering "whoops." Layoffs, after a year-long lingering decline, are an admission that something ought to have been fixed some time ago and now employees and investors will be left to pay the price.

Assuming MySpace can reinvent itself after what it calls a complete reset, the next question it will have to address is how to overcome the communication damage. It will likely take some time to overhaul the network without alienating its members, which can only mean more trouble ahead while people wait and wonder what's next.

So what's next? Here are a few ideas...

MySpace: After the Layoffs, Here’s What’s What and What’s Next by Kara Swisher

What Will MySpace Become After A 30% Headcount Reduction? by Scott M. Fulton

MySpace Isn’t Done Yet: Big International Layoffs Come Next by Michael Arrington

Spotting Talent: Copywrite, Ink.

While there are many personality and assessment sets that claim to know when someone might show promise as a leader, there is no substitute for spotting top talent than seeing their work. This holds true inside and outside of the organization.

What To Look For In Talent

• Performance. When you're an outcome-based communication company, the numbers don't matter as much as meeting the specified objectives. We look for people who do what they say they can do. It's surprisingly rare to find such people because so many have been coached to tell you what they think you want to hear as opposed to what they can actually do.

• Initiative. Some large firms have positions that are easily taught with turnkey systems, but communication is mostly situational. It requires initiative at every turn, with everyone looking for solutions that have yet to be considered by anyone. The best of them are seldom found in compilations of best practices that litter the net.

• Relationships. Some people mistake the concept of relationships as those who have the largest networks. The irony is that most communication firms benefit from the strength of the established relationships and not the number of contacts in today's electronic Rolodex.

• Problem Solving. Since every communication program is unique, it often requires the best practitioners to find new solutions. With the current state of change within communication, there are plenty of challenges to overcome.

• Work Under Pressure. Some things never change. Communication remains an industry that is built upon increasingly rapid response and a steady stream of deadlines. However, even with shrinking production windows, those who stand to excel are the people who can do it but never show it. As G.K. Chesterton once said "The reason angels can fly is because they take themselves lightly."

Welcoming Hadley Thom

Several months ago, I had the pleasure of meeting someone who exhibited all of these characteristics, first in class and then as a point person for our not-for-profit account. So when she met with me over coffee a few weeks back and said she was looking for a fun and challenging position with our company, it only seemed natural to find ways to make it work.

As an events manager for Aid for AIDS of Nevada, Thom was responsible for fundraising and event planning, including the AIDS Walk Las Vegas and the Black & White Ball. She was also responsible for the organization's marketing and public relations efforts, which included the development of its first social media program. During her time with AFAN, the AIDS Walk Las Vegas set records in total fundraising and individual donations. In 2009, more than 8,000 participants raised over $401,000.

She is now joining Copywrite, Ink. as a communication manager, and will be responsible for communication program development and client services for a diverse range of clients. Over the long term, we envision her taking a lead position for our growing team of communication analysts and specialists.

A few months ago, I wrote a post about what it takes to be a leader during an economic downturn. However, the lessons applied there aren't really confined to management or financial outlooks. They are meant for everyone.

After all, as much as companies can easily energize new employees, new employees can sometimes energize a company. And if you haven't found anyone like that lately, there is a good chance you haven't been looking. You can find our newest addition here (LinkedIn) or here (Twitter).

Reinventing Public Relations: Edelman PR

You don't have to agree with Richard Edelman of Edleman PR, an independent global PR firm, to appreciate some of the finer points of the presentation delivered at Georgetown University. Social media has changed public relations and mass communication in ways that few people ever expected.

From Edelman's perspective, public relations is faced with the challenge to evolve from pitching to informing, control to credibility, from one-off stories to continuing conversations, from influencing elites to engaging a new cadre of influencers.

Yet, for some, in looking at these four points for the evolution of public relations, they might wonder where public relations took the red pill. Was it ever about the pitch? Were they ever in control of communication? Was the focus on one-off stories? And was public relations really a game of expanding influence? Was the public relations world so bleak or is that the tone to make a brave new world seem twice as bright and shiny?

There is probably too much content for the confines of a single post to address those questions. So it might be best to stick with just three.

What Was Public Relations?

Bill Sledzik, an associate professor at Kent State University (and one of the few people I know who has an aversion to online typos like I do, even our own), still reigns with one of the best sum-ups on what public relations might be, assuming it never became what Edelman suggests it is today.

The point is that Sledzik's post has become required reading for my students, specifically because none of the definitions presented include words like "pitch," "control," "influence," or "one-off stories."

Who Owns Social Media?

If there was ever a misnomer in communication, it's the constant question of who owns social media. Does public relations own it? Marketing? Advertising? Social media experts?

While I often share the idea of integrated communication because social media skill sets tend to pull from all communication-related disciplines, the less obvious answer is no one owns it beyond the people who participate.

Why Are Influencers Nouns?

While there is enough good in Edelman's presentation to encourage people to read it, there is plenty wrong too.

The best of it mirrors some recent research we completed. It demonstrated to one of our clients that engaged citizens are much more likely to promote the organization's message than are members of the media, despite the fact that the organization devotes more than 90 percent of its time to media relations.

The worst of it keeps reinforcing this notion that there are new influencers. I used to think so, and might use the term for simplicity on occasion. However, Edelman keeps missing that while anyone can have influence about a subject or within a network for a varied period of time, the bigger picture suggests there aren't any influencers. And even if there were influencers, that noun is seldom permanent.

Selecting Tools: Social Media For Business

The most common question communicators ask about social media is which tools, if any, are best suited for their companies. At least, that seemed to be the consensus among communicators attending the International Association of Business Communicators' (IABC Las Vegas) "Six in Sixty" program last week.

While there seems to be a general propensity to lead companies to the most popular social media tools, platforms, and communities, I provided an alternative solution for attendees with the premise that the long tail of social media need not always wag the company dog. During the 10-minute presentation, I shared a small deck to reinforce key points for three very different organizational needs: B2B, B2C, and nonprofit.

View more PDF documents from Richard Becker.

While there were strategic communication objectives for all three organizations, the simplified answer (given that each speaker had ten minutes) is that most are best served by considering two critical questions. 1. What communication assets do or will they have? 2. What tools, platforms, networks, and communities do their publics tend to use?

For a niche engineering firm presenting case studies and abstracts to a generally passive audience, a blog seemed best suited to help position them as subject matter experts. Within 90 days, the blog attracted a regular readership that included manufacturers, government regulators, and environmentalists.

For a nonprofit organization with an existing but underutilized blog, it made sense to redevelop it before developing a Facebook group to help them establish a sense of community. Within 60 days, the redeveloped blog had a following of 700 readers, which would be later invited to join a Facebook community.

For an independent film that had exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes clips featuring several well-known cast members, YouTube seemed to be the best match (with Revver as a backup in the event YouTube didn't work out). Within 60 days, the various clips earned 350,000 views (with an additional 350,000 views of fan-duplicated videos). Revver proved important too. After a YouTube error caused the account to be suspended, we were able to retain the videos on a production blog until a new YouTube account was established.

All three programs employed other social media tools as well. However, the short- and long-term priorities were determined by considering how each organization could add value for their intended audiences and where those audiences were most likely to find that content. How did we know? We listened, which is the first critical step in developing any social media program.

Riding Coattails: Palm Pre

If conversations are any measure, it becomes much more challenging to say whether the new Palm Pre from Sprint will have a real impact on the smart phone market, especially as it relates to the iPhone. Despite a strong sales start, which some analysts predict to be between 50,000 and 100,000 units over the weekend, the iPhone continues to dominate online conversations.

Specifically, the iPhone captures 67 percent of the conversations when compared to the Palm Pre. When another well-known brand is included, such as Blackberry, the numbers show where the impact might land and it's not on the iPhone. Split three ways, the iPhone captures 50 percent of the conversation while the remaining 50 percent is unevenly split between the Palm Pre and Blackberry. Even then, Blackberry retains a small majority with 26 percent.

So Why Target The iPhone?

From a purely public relations perspective, comparing the new Pre to the iPhone ensures more attention than comparing it to other smart phones. However, from a strategic communication perspective, it might not work.

While the new phone has some distinguishing features, it immediately loses to the more than 50,000 applications offered by iPhone. And, according to Research in Motion, it remains well behind BlackBerry Storm and HTC's G1. The Pre public relations push to compare to the iPhone also loses on price point with the iPhone's new $99 price (the Pre offers a rebate). It also seems to be providing a forum for people to talk about the new iPhone 3G S (which will retail for $199) due out at the end of June.

What Telecommunications Needs To Know

The iPhone has been a strategic communication success story as much as it was a technological leap forward two years ago.

Once its initial branding dispute was settled, Apple not only delivered a phone that was everything but a phone, it also captured 1.1 percent of the mobile phone market in two years.

Where the strategic communication coup shines through is that every other phone maker has struggled to catch up by attempting to adopt iPhone technologies. Ironically, the copycat business model fails because it continually reinforces the notion that all other smart phones still have to catch up.

When consumers consider that fact, the Pre, despite some sales successes, seems to be another public reminder that even though Apple's 1.1 percent market share is much smaller than Nokia's 38 percent or Motorola's 8.3 percent, everyone considers it to be the product to beat.

Long term, as long as Apple continues to stay ahead of the curve, most phone makers will continue to look left behind. Short term, the telecommunication competitors will be hard pressed to win a comparison as long as they continue to define their products against the one with a home court advantage.

In fact, other than trying to ride the iPhone conversation coattails, there wasn't any benefit at all in attempting to cast the Pre as an iPhone alternative. At least, there was no benefit that we could see.

Advertising Still Works: Teen Shoppers

As much as the Internet has had a dramatic impact on way people think about advertising, a new study from Scarborough Research demonstrates that proximity advertising still works. In fact, teen shoppers are looking for it.

"The findings show that teens do in fact notice advertising in the mall, and our study shows that they generally rate it positively," commented Jane Traub, senior vice president of research for Scarborough. "As mentioned previously, teens spend considerable time in the mall, so it is not too surprising that they do notice the advertising that is present in that environment."

Highlights From Teen Shopper Survey

• 91% of teen shoppers notice poster display ads at the mall
• 85% notice hanging advertising banners
• 77% notice sampling
• 58% notice promotional events
• 57% notice TV/video screens
• 48% notice interactive displays/kiosks
• 31% notice moving images projected on the floor or walls

The study also revealed that while 77 percent of teens are concerned about how the economy will affect their families' future, 62 percent said the frequency of visiting malls has increased or stayed the same. On a typical visit, 68 percent of teens spend two or more hours at the mall, with more than a quarter (28%) spending upwards of three hours. More than half of teens (56%) spent $50 or more on their last visit and 29 percent spent $100 or more.

Online and offline communication is integrated.

While proximity advertising (signage, etc.) works, the study also reveals that most teens do not distinguish from online and offline advertising. They perceive all advertising as integrated, with more than 75 percent of males and 69 percent of females chatting with friends about meeting at the mall and purchasing items. More than 67 percent of males and 55 percent of females also went online to learn about specific items before going to the mall.

The full report is available from Scarborough Research/Arbitron Inc. Scarborough Research measures the lifestyle and shopping patterns, media behaviors and demographics of American consumers, and is considered the authority on local market research.

Missing Net Intent: Marketers See Myopically

If Brian Morrissey, writing for Adweek, is right, then online communication has a long way to go before it can right the wrongs of its own success. He correctly points out that the Internet is "blessed because it differentiated itself as more measurable than traditional media — and cursed because it has pigeonholed the medium as an engine of direct-response."

The observation comes from a new survey conducted by Forbes. The survey polled 119 senior marketers and was conducted in February and March. The numbers reveal a surprisingly myopic view of the Internet as a tool to generate direct response as opposed to a critical branding component that could eventually help establish customer loyalty.

• 82 percent identified conversations as a leading objective
• 55 percent identified registrations as a leading objective
• 51 percent identified click throughs as a leading objective
• 31 percent identified brand building as a leading objective
• 11 percent identified increasing reach as a leading objective

"On the Web specifically, advertising has moved into more demand fulfillment as opposed to demand creation. That's not really advertising. There's nothing wrong with it." Jim Spanfeller, CEO of Forbes, told Adweek. "Doing search marketing and point-of purchase displays all works, but it's not advertising. It's not about creating demand and improving brand metrics."

Why Most Top Marketers Still Misunderstand The Internet

The Internet is not as myopic as most marketers would have anyone believe. It's multifaceted, with measurement best tied to communication objectives over the medium.

Clicks, registrations, and conversations are certainly a measurable component on the Internet, but utilizing the medium as a direct response vehicle is paramount to creating a self-fulfilling myth. If you use it as a direct response vehicle, then it's likely to be nothing more than a direct response vehicle, with a diminished return on investment over the long term.

The reality is that the Internet can be all of those things listed in the Forbes survey because the Internet is less of a medium than it is a convergence of media — print, radio, television, direct, display, networking, presentation, public relations, communication, word-of-mouth, etc. And the success of any program is directly related to how you develop that program.

Indeed, its versatility as a communication tool is as varied as any communication vehicle offline, which is why so many people struggle to place it within the various communication disciplines that exist — marketing, advertising, public relations, direct response, etc. All the while, it doesn't really "belong" to any of these disciplines because the medium, or collection of media, is clearly integrated.

Speaking About Social Media: IABC Las Vegas

Tomorrow, I'll be one of six presenters at the International Association of Business Communicators' (IABC Las Vegas) "Six in Sixty" program held at Maggiano's at the Fashion Show Mall. The program starts at 11:30 a.m. and focuses on various aspects of Internet marketing and social media.

Six in Sixty programs are always fun and challenging in that IABC members and guests hear presentations from six different speakers in sixty minutes. The program format ensures each speaker spends no more than 10 minutes at each table of eight before rotating to the next table. For speakers it can be challenging because delivering a similar mini-presentation several times creates an uncanny feeling of deja-vu.

IABC Las Vegas — "Six in Sixty"

Mark Cenicola with BannerView.com will present on the effective use of blogging to drive Web traffic.

Cheryl Bella with The Firm will present on how to maximize LinkedIn.

Ned Barnett with Barnett Marketing Communications will present social media ethics.

Bonnie Parrish-Kell with Dancing Rabbits will present SEO basics.

Megan Lane with Imagine Marketing will present on using Twitter for business.

As the sixth speaker, I'll discuss how to determine which social media tools might be best suited for specific organizations or events, based upon the organization's strategic objectives, existing communication assets, and listening to customers. As part of the presentation, I'll share some recent case studies from very diverse organizations.

IABC Las Vegas is the statewide chapter for the International Association of Business Communicators, which is an international network of professionals engaged in strategic business communication management. The chapter was founded locally in 1978. You can find more information here.