Flipping The Scale: Influencers Are The Most Influenced

You've all read about all the gimmicks. Heard all the pitches. And taken in the all the analysis.

Almost everyone points to the same conclusion. If you want to succeed in social media, you need to find influencers. Right?

WRONG.

Most experts, agencies, and scoring systems aren't leading companies to influencers. They are leading companies to people who are among the most influenced. Sure, this might not be true in every case, but it does apply to a growing collective.

How commoditizing influence turns influencers into influencees.

• Influenced by cash. Many influencers will spread a message for cash. The rates varies, ranging from a blogger who might drop in a link for $25 per insertion to celebrities asking almost $3,000 per tweet.

• Influenced by perks. If you can convince someone to write something positive about your product or service for nothing more than perks, it speaks volumes about how easily they are prone to be influenced. In some cases, a mere coupon for a cup of java could do it.

• Influenced by information. Those pursuing some semblance of a thought leader moniker need the inside scoop to create an illusion of thought leadership without original thoughts. Designating them as the first string of PR-friendly reviewers with every product launch will lift them up.

• Influenced by attention. Since social media places a premium on affiliation, the simple process of sharing their opinions, insights, and flatteries could influence future coverage. Reciprocating with even a few mentions and re-tweets pays dividends.

• Influenced by comments. While some of the top influencers don't respond to every comment, many respond as quickly as possible because comments are still considered important. So who yields influence: the commenter with a two-second quip or the author dropping everything to pander to the commenter?

• Influenced by scores. it seems almost sad that some individuals are so influenced by algorithms, they will change their behavior to accommodate. Even one of these companies recently expressed the danger in overemphasizing such scoring systems.

• Influenced by influencers. As social media developed a hierarchy of influence, it also developed bubbles, which Umair Haque recently called relationship inflation. Like soap bubbles, niche influencers tend to gravitate toward each other, stick together, and prop each other up (regardless of merit) by trading influence.

• Influenced by criticism. Much like brands, influencers tend to be hypersensitive to criticism. Some so much so that no one even knows where the criticism originated before it is responded to with the force of countless minions.

Companies aren't chasing influencers. They are chasing influencees.

When you take the time to think about it, companies don't seem as interested in influencers as much as the potential to influence. And the agencies, experts, and analytic tool specialists point toward influencers as the answer to everything, they seem to be advocating the exploitation of people who are temporarily popular. This tactic is a descent into propaganda.

If you really want to distinguish true influencers from the rest, they are generally people who are unencumbered by the banner of influence currently embraced by social media. They tend to focus on something else in entirety, such as imagination, creativity, innovation, and truth.

You can't buy their love. You can't ingratiate them with praise. You can't inflate their egos. They don't care what you think.

True influencers are innovators, often (but not always) without mass followings of people until the innovation is proven. You know their names. They include people like Steve Jobs, Kurt Cobain, Paul Gauguin, Martin Luther King Jr., Leonardo da Vinci. Alfred Hitchcock, Galileo Galilei, Confucius, etc.

There are thousands of them. But even so, they share some similarities. Generally, while influenced by other individuals (some obscure and some well known) and experiences, the greater weight of influence in their lives came from the ideas that preceded them, eventually leading them to ideas and innovations that transcended their existence.

Innovation alone leads to tangible influence.

Sure, there is something to be said for popularity, persuasiveness, and punditry. Those mechanisms can help a good idea or innovation spread faster than those that never make it to a drafting table. But social media would be remiss to continually place more emphasis on the mechanism of attention — employing propaganda to persuade people that unoriginal, biased, bought, stolen, or otherwise fictional and inflated ideas — than the innovations themselves.

Bad ideas, after all, can be spread just as fast as good ones. We've known this since the dawn of time. And for every advent in communication, there is always an equally powerful mechanism for information manipulation that follows.

The growing evidence seems to suggest that the "influencers model" is a mechanism for information manipulation that follows the merit of social media. Special thanks to Geoff Livingston, Olivier Blanchard, and a few other punks for the conversation.

Manifesting Creativity: Innovative Employees

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” — Steve Jobs.

Simply stated, in business, innovation is an idea that translates into a good or service that people value en masse. It does not have to be a new idea. In fact, the original Latin word meant to renew or change the values onto which a system is based.

Businessweek semi-understood the concept when it listed the 20 most important inventions for the next 10 years. It only semi-undersood the concept because many of the inventions exist, but most of them have yet to be innovations.

Innovation is the most sought after and neglected business asset.

When the McKinsey Global Survey asked corporate leaders how important innovation was to their businesses, 70 percent said that it was among their top three priorities for driving growth. However, most companies did not understand how to arrive at it; many of them even said they hinder it.

In the survey, an equal number of leaders felt their corporate culture inhibited innovation or that they didn't have the right people in place to innovate. But as far apart as those answers seem, they could be the same answer.

Whatever culture they have in place is neither attracting nor stimulating imagination and creativity in the workplace. And it is both of these individual traits that eventually lead to innovation.

“Innovation is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure.” — Albert Einstein

Simply put, imagination is the ability to be able to conjure images and thoughts in the mind. Creativity is the ability to find effective ways to share the thought with others.

Where some companies fall short is most performance measures aren't concerned with either. And, for many measures of professional success, such as a comfortable lifestyle, imagination and creativity aren't critical either.

In fact, Joana Johnson once pointed out that only 10 percent of highly creative people are suburban-living, comfortably middle class. That is not to say however, as she does, that the middle class cannot be creative. Rather, the middle class has very little incentive to be creative.

The challenge may even be ingrained in the national psyche.

I had an interesting side discussion with Carl Sorvino about the human potential for creativity recently. He said he had three children, and could tell before their first birthday which would be and are more creative.

It seems to me that Sorvino's thinking is the essence of what hinders creativity today, twice over. Managers have a tendency to scale the creative assets of their employees, never realizing all of them have the potential under certain circumstances. And, employees tend to scale their own sense of creativity, with most under the delusion that they aren't very creative at all.

I tend to disagree that people are innately not creative, but mostly because I've had the benefit of facilitating several dozen core message sessions that often include a cross section of employees, ranging from receptionists to chief executive officers.

As long as those employees are encouraged to state their ideas, without fear of failure, almost all of them contribute something. In fact, some of the most imaginative answers are from people who often preface them, saying they aren't creative whatsoever. Also interesting is that, for little more than the promise of making their company better, every contribution propels the group to be more creative, even if the group might otherwise classify themselves as noncreative individuals.

Of course, this is only a short-term phenomenon. It takes time to create an innovative corporate culture, mostly because people lean toward complacency. They learn it early on as one of the easiest paths to comfortability.

Manifesting creativity and innovation in the workplace.

Meanwhile, companies that want to become innovative do everything they can to disrupt complacency by adopting different principles, Kaizen among them. If you are unfamiliar with the term, Kaizen means "change for the better" in Japanese.

It refers to the philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes. But the discipline hardly matters. It has been applied to manufacturing, engineering, and management. Simply stated, it is the true definition of innovation.

It is also the foundation of a weekly chat session hosted by Ellen St. George Godfrey. From the session and our own research, it seems that innovation needs to become a priority at every level of a company before it begins to take hold.

• Leadership generally sets the vision and mission of a company. They prioritize innovation.
• Management directly influences corporate culture. It's up to them to incentivize creativity.
• Supervisors are closest to the employees. It's up to them to identify talent and encourage ideas.
• Employees possess practical knowledge. It's up to them to discover new ways to excel.

In such an environment, where creativity is encouraged and time allocated to enhance it, anyone can be more creative in the workplace. No, that doesn't mean that every employee will necessarily become a creative genius within their section. But it would disrupt the belief that complacency leads to comfortability. Instead, it might lead toward the exit.

Ending An Experiment: Best Fresh Content

In 2009, I became increasingly interested in the affect of popularity on the content people choose to read. Specifically, I began to wonder what would happen if popularity was removed from the equation.

The Fresh Content Project became a social media experiment to find out. Every day, staff and I selected one post every day, drawn from a field that grew to 250 blogs written by authors with varied degrees of experience, expertise, and popularity.

These five posts are the final five chosen as part of the experiment. You can find every post listed on Fresh Content Facebook. Next week, we'll list everyone chosen in the fourth quarter, ranked by the frequency their posts were picked. In the weeks that follow, we'll share all the data we discovered along the way.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of December 27

• The Magic Words.
While most people equate the magic words as the power of please, Ike Pigott offers up that they might mean the power of "no." At least that is what he says as it relates to social shopping, against the grain of those who have propelled the notion forward. For Pigott, that does not mean social shopping won't work eventually, only that he sees several other rungs in the ladder are needed before the idea can really take off, at least until there is clear WIIFM. Of course, the company that can make it happen early (or some facsimile) may profit, the reality is that not every small business needs to be ahead of the curve.

• Five Social Media Tips for the Hospitality Industry in 2011.
Although Didi Lutz includes some of the basic tenets of communication in her top five tips for hospitality, the refresher proves worthwhile enough. She suggests that employees know the key messages, are involved in the process, are guided by a professional, evaluate for outcomes, and moderate the conversations. The concepts aren't revolutionary to social media, but they might seem fresh for people in the hospitality industry who were relatively late to adopt social media. They are entering the space now, and most of them are falling short.

• The Retail Social Media Model.
Mark Smiciklas offers up a reminder that retail operations might be fundamentally different than B2C companies. In his list of developing a better retail model, Smiciklas places a heavy emphasis on integration. This includes appreciating that national brands might have a very different feel at various locations. It might be worthwhile to consider while developing any program. More than that, what really resonates within the post is the idea that the physical location and the social media program need to be on the same page.

• Lessons from 2010 and Finding Focus for 2011.
Danny Brown ended the year (and began the new one) with some personal and professional anecdotes. His lessons from 2010 include removing the myth of invincibility, why letting go of bitterness is healthy, and how friendships can build business. For 2011, he intends to focus on strengths while outsourcing weaknesses, living life more fearlessly, and breaking up redundancies. Meant more for the small business person rather than business executives, several of these tips can be applied anywhere.

• Madison Avenue Strikes Back.
Geoff Livingston points out the obvious after reading someone's prediction that Silicon Valley may one day replace Madison Avenue with some day happening this year. His primary argument is that for all the buzz about underdogs unseating the establishment, it hasn't happened yet. One example: individual bloggers that once graced the top of some ranking lists have been replaced by the same media they were supposed to replace. Likewise, advertising agencies will likely buy out or adapt to keep pace with social media or other communication services.

Exposing Yourself: Three Applications For Mirror Neurons

You might have learned it in high school. If you want to be smarter, sit in the front of the class. If you want to have more fun, sit in the back.

Proximity might have only been part of the equation. The other part of the equation might have more to do with who sat around you. Or, more specifically, how you perceived the people you sat next to and interacted with, much like you do today.

The reason has to do with mirror neurons in our brains, which fire both when animals act and when animals observe similar actions performed by another. Humans too. Many neuroscientists believe it's how we learn language, empathy, and inference. It may even be tied to creativity and collaboration, as suggested in Brain Leaders and Learners by Dr. Ellen Weber, who inspired some thinking on this subject. She also sources this PBS short for anyone interested in mirror neurons.

Applying Mirror Principles In Three Everyday Life Scenarios.

1. Creativity. When you look back at history, there are dozens of moments when cultural and artistic expression seemed to leap in unexpected directions, including the Downtown 500 and Harlem Renaissance. Or if you prefer, consider the collective impact of artists like Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse or maybe the postwar Beat Generation.

Marketing, advertising, and even public relations might take some lessons from these movements, which might have been inspired in part by mirror neurons — groups of individuals propelling each other forward much like creatives did during the Golden Age of advertising. It pays to expose yourself to creative pursuits, creative people, and creative explorations.

2. Consumer Advocates. Of course, advertising need not be conflated or confused with art. The best of it, which is only a sliver of it, tends to be tempered by the people it hopes to reach.

After all, many advertisements fail when the work becomes an extension or expression of how smugly clever the copywriter, art director, or creative director is in executing the work. Ergo, advertising that merely celebrates itself doesn't reflect something that consumers can identify with on any level. Mirror neurons can be put to work here too.

In fact, in considering mirror neurons, it might even explain why (with the exception of those creating their own bubbles) social media has an impact. Instead of immersing themselves in the ivory towers of ego that are sometimes erected by communication professionals, social media offers up an opportunity for people to become immersed within the daily lives of everyday people, who do things like buy the products that marketers peddle.

3. Leadership. Appreciating neuroscience isn't necessarily confined to the creative process. It works well within the greater scope of leadership too. If you want to produce a team of visionary people, you have to expose those teams to creative and innovative environments. And, if you want to improve your own leadership skill sets, it might be worthwhile to connect with visionary and empathic leaders as opposed to those who focus only on transactions.

Consider last year's most admired companies, according to Forbes. Apple, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, and Coca-Cola all share some common denominators in their leadership and, even more importantly, their approach to nurturing leadership within their companies. The culture they create is as important to their success as the products they produce or the marketing that introduces it.

There Are Some Limitations To Mirror Neuron Concepts.

Naturally, placing yourself within environments where you can subconsciously mimic or be influenced by others is not the answer to everything. Mirror neurons have limitations, especially in how we interpret the information we process.

Case in point: two children growing up in the same household may develop extremely diverse and distinct personalities that defy any argument that they merely mirror parental behaviors. For example, one child might learn to become assertive and another reclusive despite being raised by assertive (or conversely, reclusive) parents.

Likewise, merely hanging out with creative people or successful leaders isn't a surefire way to become one yourself as much as it can enhance any innate talents or leadership qualities that already exist. (My point being that simply hanging out with a modern day Gauguin doesn't necessarily make you as prolific or artistic as Gauguin.) Still, it doesn't hurt either.

At minimum, it could help you from stumbling about this year or help your career by avoiding things you've convinced yourself you can't do. You know, much like high school, when some kids shuffled themselves toward the back of the room, predisposed in their thinking that they couldn't learn anything anyway.

Rethinking Mobile: The Future Of Advertising Is Portable

There isn't any doubt that mobile will play a big role in the future. And if there was any doubt years ago, there is none now.

Last October, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used mobile devices; 60.7 million people in the U.S. owned smart phones. After the holidays, you can expect most of these numbers soared even higher, and that doesn't consider the tablet market like the Amazon Kindle or Apple iPad. Communication is everywhere — on the desktop, on the laptop, in the living room, and within the palm of your hand.

Mobile Doesn't Mean Mobile As Much As It Means Portable.

Three years ago, I quoted Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group, a Publicis Groupe, to underscore the point. He said "the reality of it is that the future does not fit into the containers of the past.”

But when you look at the way the Web has developed since then, it's becoming much more clear that mobile isn't the answer to the future as much as portability. You see, while there might be an emphasis on mobile phones and tablets, plenty of people still sit in front a desktop or plug content into their television sets to consume everything from entertainment to education and from current events to vintage history.

Sometimes they even use two or three devices simultaneously — Tweeting a comment about the show they are watching on television in real time or throwing out ideas related to an article or post they are working on without ever pulling up a new browser. No, not all of it is obvious. Most of it works in layers.

So what is the reality of communication? The reality isn't that the future does not fit into the containers of the past, it's that the future needs to fit in every container of the future. So if you don't consider portability, your marketing is missing out.

Applying Portability To A :30 Television Commercial.

For simplicity of the conceptual model, consider a :30 television commercial.

Ten years ago, most commercials were relatively niche. Thirty seconds aired in between bits of news and entertainment being viewed by people with relatively specific demographics. On a good day, people might even talk about it around the water cooler at work or perhaps a child might recite some jingle to justify the toy making their Christmas list.

Today, as mediums converge, that same 30 seconds can have a much longer shelf life and reach dozens of different audiences and communities. The most obvious placement might be YouTube. But with some adjustments and a willingness to adapt the content to fit any number of segments, the possibilities are as endless as the strategy allows.

People might see the commercial and comment about it on Facebook (using their phones). Or they might see it embedded in a blog post. Or they might see it on a website, while browsing with a tablet. And then they might see it reinforced in front of the television.

If the creative is sustainable enough, they might even share it with their friends, people who may not fit the demographics of the most likely buyer (but might pass it on to people who do). This only scratches the surface when you include email marketing or hundreds of other social networks or (thinking from the public relations perspective) the thousands of people who write about and review products or production.

“Creative without strategy is called 'art.' Creative with strategy is called 'advertising.” — Jef I. Richards

The connector (with) is where advertisers and other communicators need to set their sights. Creative directors and marketing strategists will do more for their clients by considering multiple platforms and devices, not just one. After all, a television commercial isn't only a television commercial anymore much like a 'blog' doesn't always have to be a blog.

Ahead of the pack, it seems to me that Amazon is getting it partly right. Apple is too. It's only some content publishers (especially newspapers) that are still struggling with the concept.

What makes them different? Apple and Amazon aren't thinking in terms of delivery devices anymore. They are thinking in terms of sensory reception or deeper. And if they are not, they ought to be. Sensory reception is about the person, not the medium.

The two sensory receptors that can be touched online are primarily audio and visual, even if audio is confined to the alliteration of the written word. Everything else — especially the point of delivery — is simply a matter of strategically aligning the content to fit the space, which is why the future is a little less mobile and a lot more portable. Any device, anywhere, anytime.

Running Companies: Best Fresh Content

There are five kinds of companies you can run: innovative, protective, flash-in-the-pan, subservient, or a failure. The choice is yours. The world is riddled with them.

While the innovators take risks, the protectionists attempt to preserve those moments when they had one great idea that gave them a foundation that could be sustained longer than a one hit wonder. Almost all of the rest fail, with the exception of subservient companies — businesses that make their money filling some need that innovators and protectionists have.

These five fresh picks (actually four since one was scrapped) help paint a picture of the protectionists, companies that are trying to hold on to something they have while the world closes in on them. Almost all of them act like dying empires that will eventually become failures unless they are lucky enough to find a leader willing to lead them out of the muck.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of December 20

• Failure To Innovate: Yahoo Loss Someone’s Gain.
Yahoo has had a long tradition of struggling with acquisitions that retain the original brand. MyBlogLog, Delicious, and a host of other social media related sites will be sold or scraped in the weeks ahead. The topics have been covered to death, but Heather Rast pulled something else out of the discussion. The problem wasn't simply treating these services as step-children, but rather a deeper problem tied to innovation. I might go a step further. There seems to be a culture of protectionism.

• How Social Media Boutiques Are Winning Deals Over Traditional Digital Agencies.
Some people will have mixed feelings about Jeremiah Owyang's assessment, but how one feels is separate from the battle between large agencies and social media boutiques. I don't agree with the assessment that immature brands rely on traditional agencies, but I do agree that large agencies need to understand where social media fits or they will allow yet another beach head to establish on the shores of their clients. The last time, agencies eventually won, buying up many of the best web designers or, at least, made them servants.

• Net Semi-Neutrality: New Rules from the FCC
Sometimes compromise is a good thing. Sometime it's not. Gini Dietrich shares her take on the FCC's decision to adopt “net semi-neutrality,” which is a hybrid of the worst kind in that it pretends to preserve some freedoms by giving up a few of them. Yes. It can be likened to offering up 25 percent (or more) of your neighborhood in order to preserve the majority. On the other hand, it does temporarily sooth the savage beast that really built the Internet, companies that laid the wires and the cell lines only to it cut deeply into their primary revenue streams.

• Yuletide Crisis Containment.
Peter Himler covers a just under the radar crisis communication story that was passed over by many, even after it was covered by The Wall Street Journal. The crisis includes a civil suit against Ernst & Young, which has adopted a position of silence. While it is generally acceptable to not comment during a lawsuit (and sometimes prudent), Ernst & Young didn't stop at simply offering one of the few acceptable times to avoid comment. It claims the case has no factual or legal basis, but then refuses to back up the statement. It's hard to say where this might go in the year ahead, but there is no denying they've taken a risky route.

• An Open Letter to PR Professionals.
Doug Davidoff begins by saying "There are three gaps that PR and social media professionals must bridge if they want a seat at the table and to be treated with the seriousness they deserve." Those three gaps include: better processes, better prioritization, and better alignment with the goals of the business. It makes sense. All too often the profession finds itself developing industry best practices when the only best practices that ought to matter are those that directly benefit the business and the publics that the business hope to reach. The same can said about social media. All the buzz is nice, but how does it support the mission?

Looking Back: Top Ten Communication Stories In 2010

This past year has been an interesting one for Copywrite, Ink., especially as it relates to this collection of communication observations. In addition to adopting a different design in early 2010, adding the Disquis comment system, we also changed to a dedicated address.

The dedicated address change, specifically, led to some interesting behind-the-scenes changes. While both addresses lead to the same destination (and there was no interruption for subscribers), traffic is counted separately on some external measurement systems and many well-read posts appear as if they were never read at all (because of the tweet share button).

I only mention it because it fits with some of the content themes written about in 2010. Looks can be deceiving. What isn't deceiving, however, is which stories seemed to resonate with readers. And to close out 2010, I thought I'd share this with you.

Top Ten Communication Stories 2010.

1. TSA Policies Are Not A Privacy Issue.

Some things are not a simple matter of semantics, liberty among them. So while the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Department Of Homeland Security continually make the case that current and future security measures are a choice between security and privacy, liberty remains the real issue we ought to be talking about. This was the most read story of 2010 and probably the most important, given the far reaching consequences of those who will choose the illusion of security over liberty.

2. Unteaching Social Media: Communication First, With A Deck.

While some people were surprised to learn that I spend more time teaching communication as opposed to social media in social media classes, the deck attached to this post generated more than its fair share of interest among communicators, hailing from public relations, marketing, and advertising. I tend to keep social media simple. It's a singular environment where broadcasters and receivers cannot be distinguished and communicators must learn to simultaneously communicate on a scale of one to one, one to niche, and one to many. This post included a link to the deck I used in class.


3. Fresh Content Providers, Quarterly Updates.

What began as a relatively simple question became a year-long experiment of sorts. The Fresh Content Project tasked Copywrite, Ink. with picking a single post per day from a growing field of 250 communication-related bloggers. The intent was to discover whether or not popularity could be an indication of quality content. The experiment will conclude on December 31, with some reveals and loose ends to tie up in 2011. At its close, we'll begin working on the next experiment — the anti-influence project (for lack of a better name).

Interestingly enough, it wasn't the weekly content recaps that attracted the most attention. It was the quarterly rankings, which featured every author chosen during any given quarter. You can also find every post chosen on Facebook.

4. Managing Crisis: Bad PR Is Only A Symptom.

Without question, one of the most captivating live crisis communication case studies that took place in 2010 was the BP oil spill. Of all the posts related to the case study across multiple companies, the initial story that recognized that the BP oil spill was not a single crisis communication event, but rather several across the weeks and months, resonated the most with communicators. I'm glad it did because if there is one thing public relations professionals need to learn about crisis management it's that almost all crises have independent events within them that must be handled on a situational case-by-case basis.

5. Saving Wildlife: Dawn Responds To Oil Spill Crisis.

While there were many stories written around the Gulf Coast oil spill, there was a related/unrelated story that also captured some interest. What made this story important, in terms of reader interest, is that it proves people aren't always keen on simply gravitating to bad news. There was good news to be found in the field of bad news stories. One of them came from Procter & Gamble (P&G) and its product, Dawn, which gently removes oil and helps save wildlife affected by oil spills. Although Dawn has been used for more than 30 years in the field, P&G doesn't push public relations related to saving wildlife. Rather, like most good public relations stories, it allows people to discover it on their own.

6. Pushing Pies: Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's.

While pizza doesn't seem like a captivating communication topic, there is a lot to learn about big companies marketing virtually the same product. The comparison between the marketing efforts of the big three — Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Papa John's — pinpointed how important it can be to find a product contrast that resonates and then stick with it. For Pizza Hut that meant unbeatable value and quick order convenience. Contrast that with Domino's and Papa John's. The former took to attempting to punish the Pizza Hut and Papa John's brands while failing to deliver on its own promise. The latter celebrated everyone's love for pizza, but failed to communicate the distinction that made it one of the big three to begin with.

7. Integrating Communication: PR-Driven Social Media.

Throughout 2010, we offered up several communication models for consideration, the most popular of which was the PR-Driven Social Media model. I'm not surprised. While we believe that social media is a cross-discipline activity that requires an integrated approach that involves marketing, advertising, public relations, and other fields of expertise, public relations professionals remain the most interested in taking the online communication helm. As long as they continue to embrace social media at a faster pace than other fields, it seems likely social media will increasingly be viewed as a public relations discipline, for better or worse.

8. Understanding Bloggers: Why PR Doesn't Get Them.

Having worked with bloggers for multiple social networks and outreach campaigns over the course of five years, it seemed relatively easy for me to break out a list of considerations related to the predominant types of bloggers. While it's an oversimplification to assign "motivations" behind various bloggers, the lesson to be learned was not to categorize bloggers as much as it was to open up the eyes of public relations professionals, helping them to realize that not all bloggers are motivated by cash incentives or the "privilege" of getting the inside scoop of a company. Contrary, bloggers are as diverse as people, which makes sense as most of them are people. Treat them as such.

9. Changing PR: Customers Are Media; Complaints Are News.

Not all crisis communication scenarios happen to big companies. Once of the most interesting mini-crisis communication challenges that occurred this year happened to a relatively small theater operator in St. Croix Falls, Wis. What started out as a private complaint made by a customer, quickly turned public after the theater's manager sent the complainer an email response without a bit of empathy or remorse for the theater's failings, basically telling the customer to "f*ck off." This runaway email became the subject of scorn as a Facebook boycott page took off and mainstream media started covering the story. Sadly, all the manager had to do was apologize and offer a free popcorn on the next visit.

10. Branding: Personal Branding And Reputation Are Illusions.

Despite the growing number of communicators who are joining the fray to question the validity of personal branding, it remains a controversial topic in that people are generally divided between the two schools of thought (with the third group that attempts to find some middle ground). I contributed several posts to the topic in 2010, but the one that resonated with readers was one that included some cognitive psychology into the mix. People who enjoy discussing this topic might be happy to know that I anticipate the personal branding topic will reoccur several times in 2011. It is also the subject of the book I've been writing, which I limp along with from time to time.

And that brings about some of the changes ahead in 2011. Copywrite, Ink. will be turning 20 years old next year and this educational extension will be turning seven with more than 1,200 posts under its belt. It's time to scale it to three times a week as opposed to five, allowing me more time to focus on additional projects.

Those include working with our growing stable of clientele, finishing the aforementioned book that lands on the back burner too often, accepting the occasional guest post on other blogs (usually declined as I hadn't the time), and nurturing our side project Liquid [Hip], which continues to see some exceptional traction.

Thanks so much for finding time to make the Copywrite, Ink. blog part of your busy week. I'll work even harder to keep the content fresh in 2011. But this post closes out 2010. With the exception of one of the last fresh content recaps landing next Sunday, look for the first post of 2011 on January 3. Happy New Year! Good night, good luck, and good fortunes.

Bending Perception: Best Fresh Content

If there is a trend to content creation online, the leading theme is probably perception. As more marketing and public relations professionals enter the space, they seem to gravitate toward it, given the mistaken (but partly true belief) that perception somehow equals reality. It doesn't. Not really.

Knowing this, is it any surprise that professionals who cannot come up with innovative ideas rely on their company's "authority" to propel them forward? Or that people are clamoring for an "online influence" measurement system even though the very notion is silly? Or that, every year, agencies allow themselves to produce campaigns that fail because they don't recognize the difference between a client and a customer? Or that, despite influence and authority, you can find plenty of people at the top who demonstrated that, for all their popularity and promise and entitlements, they still suck at communication?

In the battle between perception and reality, please remember to keep it real. Consider these five posts as evidence.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of December 13

• Where Do Business And Social Meet?
Valeria Maltoni raises some interesting questions about the role of communicators and how some people with corporate roles attempt to leverage their title and company brand in order to gain visibility in social media and reap personal benefits. Her thinking touches very well with what I wrote about personal brands earlier this year. Applied here, we might conclude that those who lack ideas or popularity frequently attempt to leverage their "authority." It's neither wrong or right, but certainly reminds us not to follow people blindly.

• The Top Ten Best (And Worst) Communicators of 2010.
Most fresh content picks tend to stay away from lists, but this one by Ben and Kelly Decker is worth the read. It's well thought out and all the more alluring because it starts with the best and not the worst. Even better than simply dropping in a few names and calling it a day, the Deckers work hard to share exactly why they felt some people deserved to be on one list or another, making the lesson much more fitting. When you read about these 20 people and their stories, you might ask yourself in 2011 whose company you would rather keep.

•How Social Semantic Search Defines People.
Geoff Livingston does an excellent job reminding everyone that search isn't about technologies. It's about people. And just as often, it's about the semantics we type in in order to discover the content we want to cover. One person might type in any number of combination of words to find something. Another could type in something else, even if they want the same content. But even more striking is the next layer of personalization. Worse might be the fact that some of that personalization relies increasingly on popularity.

• Clients Aren't Customers: Why Most Agencies Suck At Project Management.
From our perspective, Ian Lurie has had a banner year in writing content that connects. This week was no exception as he pinpointed the difference between clients and customers. Clients, he points out, typically control the fate of an entire project, whether it's a marketing campaign, a new web site or an application. Customers do not. They only purchase based on the final product. What he points out so clearly, is that most agencies get it wrong. They do whatever the client tells them, thinking of them as customers. Except, eventually, when anyone at an agency does that, they set themselves up to fail because they will still be accountable for the results, even if the client made all the decisions.

• Five Primary Problems With Klout.
Geoff Livingston has since softened his stance on Klout, but the initial post was still right on the money. Somehow, the service has been embraced as some sort of influence indicator to organizational managers who don't know any better. Livingston points out five reasons you might think twice. And those, from my opinion, are only the tip of the iceberg. At the same time, please do keep in mind that I have nothing personal against Klout (although some people say I sound like I do.) Nah, not at all. I have a problem with the entire concept of online influence measures. There is even a post waiting in the wings to kick off the new year.

Wishing Everyone: Happy Holidays

Dear Santa,

A pint of hope,
a pound of love,
an ounce of faith,
a pinch of wisdom,
a dash of perseverance,
and a lifetime of gratitude.

Please deliver generously to our friends and family; clients and colleagues. It's all anyone needs this year.

All my best,
Rich

What else can be said? Thank you for allowing me to be part of your day and you a part of mine. Happy holidays and merry Christmas. Until next week ... good night, good luck, and good fortunes.

Advertising 2011: A Year Of Confusion?

While 2010 may mark the first time marketers put more money into online advertising than newspapers — newspaper spending falls to $25.7 billion and online ad spending rises to $25.8 billion — next year will be one of the most trying for advertising that works.

On one hand, recent analysis from Better Advertising shows few consumers choose to opt out of targeted online advertising programs. On the other hand, consumers will continue to tell marketers, publishers, and pollsters that they don't want targeted advertising.

As if that wasn't challenging enough, some predictions for online advertising are almost too painful to read. Take the six predictions from Jesse Thomas that recently appeared on Mashable. Some are postscript predictions and some will lead to advertising campaign failures.

Why Will 2011 Be A Year Of Confusion?

Earlier this year, I was very optimistic that 2010 would be considered the year of integration. In many ways, this proved to be true. Companies worked diligently to better align various functions of marketing, advertising, and public relations. Those campaigns worked exceptionally well.

Yet, for all the successes, integration has had some unintended consequences as bad practices began to spread from one discipline to the other, creating one wave after another of thinking that is increasingly tactical. The Masahable predictions underscore the problem. Let's highlight some inherent problems with the predictions.

Channel Focus Or Communication Focus?

With increasing frequency, some companies are asking for proven platform strategies like how to get more fans on Facebook or more followers on Twitter. They are asking the wrong question. Or, at least, they are asking questions in the wrong order.

Companies might ask how they can introduce their product to more people or increase sales or become a subject matter expert in the industry. And only then do they need to ask how Facebook and Twitter might fit into that, if they fit in at all.

Global Reach Or Location Based?

This is one of two areas where Thomas contradicts himself in the post. He emphasizes the importance of many, but then provides relevance to smaller segmentations. If the number of Facebook "likes" is so important, why bother with location-oriented ads?

The reason is because location-based advertising isn't new. If a company has a physical location, then it only makes sense that location-based advertising works. Retailers that don't market to the radius around their establishments, whether that includes online advertising or direct mail, are missing what could be their most regular customers. If those people connect to Facebook (and people from the Sudan do not), all the better.

Influencers Or Micro-Networks?

This is another problem with the "many" to "few" networking game. Online influencers are generally considered such because they amass a large following. This seems to contradict an increasing trend where people are scaling back and segmenting the associations they make online.

Riddle me this. If more consumers spend more time in micro networks, then how can "influencers" amass thousands? Simply put, they can't except as a matter of perception. Case in point. I invest almost 40 percent of my Facebook time in one Facebook group. That means even though several dozens of pages count me as a "like," I'm mostly AWOL from their pages.

Predictable Or Professional?

While it is not true in every case, predicting that Silicon Valley could be the next Madison Avenue could have unintended consequences. For one thing, I don't see many creative directors and copywriters lining up to make less money Tweeting blurbs alongside people with two months of customer service experience (one company calls them "web presence professionals").

More likely, if there is a trend to focus more on tactical channel development (social networks) over adding creative into the strategic communication mix, then my guess is creative professionals will jump ship and enter the entertainment, fashion, and product design fields because it seems that consumers appreciate their talents more than some business owners anyway. Once they're gone, you can expect consumers to hate advertising all the more.

Personally, I'm very optimistic about 2011. However, with the influx of contradictory tactics, I anticipate more companies struggling against conflicting tactical ideas and not enough of them developing strategic marketing plans that balance the mix and meet their business objectives. It will be interesting to watch and even more interesting to participate.

Amplifying: Social Media Is Not For Timid Executives

Shel Holtz, principal of Holtz Communication + Technology, recently wrote a thoughtful commentary about why he believes communication consultants (public relations professionals with blogs, for instance) ought to think twice before piling on companies that make mistakes. He alludes to the idea that it turns otherwise savvy professionals into PR ambulance chasers.

There is some truth to this idea. He says there are companies that have been frightened away from social media because of the put-downs and jibes they receive from a growing world of "experts." On that point, Holtz is very right. And yet, I have mixed feelings about the conclusion.

Intent is a powerful ally in the art and science of communication.

Holtz is right in that it is rather unbecoming to create a persona of someone sitting behind a computer screen salivating for companies to get into trouble and then piling on them with links to half a dozen equally verbose colleagues, all hoping to build a mountain of evidence out of cheap shots or colorful prose or campy satire. Do it too much, and it will hurt your business.

Writing about crisis communication to serve up a collection of lessons for students takes much more than a series of fleeting sentences. Even then, there is some risk.

"Did you ever wonder..." asked one of my students at lunch. "...if what you sometimes write about scares away people who might otherwise hire your company?"

I chuckled, telling her that I used to think about it every day. However, despite having the company brand on the banner above, I had to make a decision whether this blog was about attracting business or educating students and discussing concepts and constructs with colleagues. I chose the latter, even if this blog has helped win and lose a few clients (who I never write up).

But not everyone has the same educational intent. I think that is what Holtz is alluding to. If you're thinking about a communication blog, consider the intent. Even then, never leave your readers with a story that ends on some double negative snarky beat down — you have to be thoughtful and do your homework. At some point, you have to provide solutions to the problems. A little bit of empathy doesn't hurt either.

Social media is no place for a company with unmanageable blemishes.

So, why do I have mixed feelings about Holtz's post? Simply stated, I don't have much sympathy for companies that are "afraid" to enter social media. Executives who think every glimmer will be celebrated and every blemish overlooked have unrealistic expectations not only in social media, but life in general.

I had this conversation almost four years ago. And as I roughly wrote then, if companies seek "attention" then the executives and team leaders have to appreciate that they do not get to choose what others find newsworthy or interesting. And, once you invite bloggers and members of the media to take an interest in the company, you cannot "uninvite" them.

It's one of the lessons a group publisher tells my public relations classes every year. If you invite reporters to give their opinions on "X," they might not agree with you. Equally possible, they might decide to write about "Y," especially if "Y" seems more interesting.

It's the one thing that social media has in common with traditional media. Both communication channels have an equal propensity to amplify organizational vices and virtues. It has always been this way, and always will be this way. If you want your company to be something, you have to accept the risks. Or, if you prefer someone much wiser than me, consider what Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) said more than two thousand years ago.

“Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.” — Aristotle

Nurturing Teams: Keep Incentives Simple

Many people had a chuckle after learning about a sales team that was given an all-expenses-paid trip to Fargo, North Dakota, for missing their sales goals. Had they hit those goals, the makers of Hot Tamales would have sent them to Hawaii instead.

But some executives might ask whether or not it was smart. Infinitely so.

Just Born, the family-owned candy manufacturer that has been in business for eight decades (three generations), believes in motivating and engaging employees. One of its many philosophies includes that great things happen when everyday courtesy, kindness, and humor are woven into all our personal and professional interactions. And the Fargo team vacation underscores it well.

While some companies create incentive programs that make employees feel like they lost something, this company simply gave them something else. So instead of having an office filled with people who "lost" going nowhere, about two dozen sales people shared an experience that may even be a better team building vacation than had they won the most luxurious team trip.

Case in point. One of the sales associates told the AP, succinctly in good spirits, "Twenty to 30 years down the road, when we see each other, we're going to say, 'Remember Fargo?'" Whereas nobody seems to be dwelling on how they lost a trip to Hawaii, which is what they would have done otherwise. Worse, they might have even second guessed their sales, which increased by two percent (as opposed to the goal of four percent).

Developing Incentive Programs That Work.

Many employers put significant thought into employee reward programs, but sometimes they forger that employees do too. When faced with a rewards program, many employees ask: do I value the reward, can I realistically achieve the results, and is the reward really related to my (or my team's) performance?

Case in point. I worked with one company years ago that gave employees annual bonuses related to individual store sales, with the managers (up to 5 percent), assistant managers (up to 5 percent), and employees (up to 1/2 percent) receiving a scaled percentage of their salary as a bonus. While store managers seemed to be motivated (they received credit for new clients), it didn't connect with many employees — in-store sales people, stock personnel, or delivery drivers.

Why not? Because the bonuses were not related their performance. They were more motivated to excel in areas related to their job descriptions (and semi-annual raises).

In some cases, the program even split the team because as managers left the store to find new clients, employees felt deserted by management. In other cases, managers would aggressively pursue the bonuses as money they already counted on at the end of the year, sometimes wearing their performance emotions on their sleeves.

Even more daunting, store managers were also competing with outside sales reps. What made that especially interesting, however, is that outside reps' sales had to be filled at stores (and stores received credit for those sales). In sum, it was a mess.

Keep It Sweet, Simple, And Equal.

Now take a good look at the Hot Tamales sales incentive. The incentive was simple, sweet, straightforward, and singular in how it was structured. But best of all, even when the team didn't achieve its goal, they received something that fits in nicely with the company's philosophy, sense of humor, and is a memorable team building opportunity (maybe even more so than if they had received a trip to Hawaii).

Counting Outcomes: Pepsi Refresh Project

When people ask about social media outcomes, one of the best examples comes from Pepsi Refresh. In 2010, the Pepsi Refresh Project directly impacted the lives of 73,000 people and will complete 360 projects that will reach more than 1.1 million.

Better than a "viral video," the company's contributions have sustainability. For an investment of $20 million, it will fund 400 ideas in 2010. Just a few of the outcomes that Pepsi has every right to be proud of...

• 26 parks and playgrounds that have been built or improved
• 54 public and private schools that have been improved
• 3,800 animals that have been saved or treated
• 23,000 volunteers involved in the project
• $3.2 million dollars of additional funding has been leveraged and secured

These numbers only scratch the surface of what the project has helped accomplish. For more ideas, visit Pepsi Refresh Project.

"We’re looking forward to continuing and expanding the Pepsi Refresh Project in new directions," said said Jill Beraud, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo Americas Beverages. "We’ve asked all our fans on Facebook to share their thoughts on what matters most and to provide us with ideas on how to improve the program for 2011. These insights have helped us shape the program next year."

While many companies might look at the total amount of funding and shrug at the deep pockets, it's always best to remember that scale is relative. In 2009, the company's revenues were $43.23 billion with a net income of $5.95 billion. The point?

Every company generating a profit might ask what it could accomplish with a fraction of a percent of its gross profit. With proper planning and direction, it could generate sustainable outcomes, it could engage people within their communities, and it could leave an imprint on everyone involved. In some cases, it might lead back to sales. But more importantly, it will likely do something even more substantial. There are some things people don't forget.

Counting Numbers: Best Fresh Content

The five fresh content picks highlighted this week not only reminded me of colonization as an analogy for social media programs, but they also inspired me to expand upon the concept. After all, once colonies grow up, they often become countries.

So what would happen if we measured countries like social media programs? Well, China and India lead the world in terms of population (followers); Russia and Canada lead the world based on land mass (size and scope); Switzerland and Iceland lead in total employment (engagement); and Korea and Finland beat everyone in education (savviness). And which is the best?

I am sure most people might say their own country, but Newsweek picked Finland and Switzerland based on other criteria. Of course, if those countries were social media programs, some people might frown given those two clearly don't have enough followers, scope, engagement, or renown theorists. But the real lesson here is that people with social media programs, like Finland and Switzerland, probably don't concern themselves with Newsweek.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of November 29

• Opt-In At The Source,
Adam Singer tries to balance public relations' new found love affair with social networks — and how they are investing more and more time on platforms they do not own or have any control over. As they do, many of them are experiencing diminishing returns on people who actually visit the customer's site or blog and opt in. The consequence? While it hadn't happened when Singer wrote his post, Yahoo recently listed several networks it has slated for a sunset. While some might be sold off, offsite platforms are fragile.

• Overcoming Three Crucial Challenges With Content Strategy,
Valeria Maltoni offers up another way to think strategically when it comes to content creation. Specifically, she suggests determining how you are going to keep your company engaged in the conversation over the long haul. It requires resource allocation, workflow planning, and governance. Her three tips actually work as these are often the areas we're asked to help structure most often when we are not personally managing a social media program.

•Commonsense Social Media Measurement.
Kami Watson Huyse, APR, sums up one simplified way to measure social media: attention (reach), attitude (sentiment), and action (outcomes). One of the best reminders she offers up is that business measures do not always have to include sales. They can include any number of measures associated with the company's objectives: registrations for conferences, sales leads, hiring, store traffic, and reduction in customer service costs. Nonprofits, she says, can consider donations, votes (for politicians), new volunteers, return volunteers, volume of donations, and the median amount of money per donation. Outcomes are the most significant measure in any social media plan. The other two — attention and attitude — just help you achieve the third one.

• Online Videos 101: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
As a guest writer, Erin Greenfield shares an amazing first person account of how she was reminded that simple is sometimes better. For a class assignment, students were asked to create a video about the JHU M.A. in communication program (they called it viral, but we'll forgive that). After working with a $50 camcorder, the class learned that the footage was largely unusable despite about seven hours in production. When the class reproduced it, they used a Flip HD camera, which required about half the time and half the price. It's a good reminder that a bigger budget does not always produce the best results.

• How To Spot A Great Social Media Marketing Program.
Although Klout scores continue to gain popularity, add Adam Singer to the growing list of communication pros who are quick to point out that the number of fans and followers (or click throughs) don't really add up to all that much. It's much more effective to create a program that clearly communicates your message, easily integrates with other communication channels, adapts well to including other partners, and creates a passionate team or community around its center. Not only does it make sense, it ties right back into this post's opener.

Spreading Emotions: Two Studies Touch On Social Interdependence

As social beings, people are naturally interdependent. Just how interdependent isn't entirely understood, but one study and one report — one from the University of British Columbia and the other by the American Psychological Association — demonstrate that our ability to share emotions runs much deeper.

At the University of British Columbia, Christiane Hoppmann, professor of psychology, gleaned insights in the Seattle Longitudinal Study. This long-term study has followed more than 6,000 individuals since 1956. Their emotional state, according to the findings, is often tied more to the emotional state of their spouse than their own personal success, good health, and inner peace.

The study was recently covered by the MSNBC. While the study focused primarily on married couples, researchers theorize that it happens the same in friendships or with individuals who share a lot of joint experiences.

Stress Spreads Rapidly Through Immediate Social Circles.

This seems to be supported by a recent report from the American Psychological Association, which reveals that 90 percent of children and adolescents surveyed said they can tell when their parents are stressed based on how they act. The actions do not always have to be direct; people who are stressed exhibit less patience, irritability, and forgetfulness.

But parental stress doesn't end with the parents. As many as 47 percent of preteens (8- to 12-year-olds) and 33 percent of teens feel sad when their parents are stressed. The Dallas News recently spoke with several psychiatrists who believe such stress can lead to stress or even depression in children.

Social Media Magnifies The Emotional Charge.

Dan Zarrella tracked the impact of overly negative remarks and attitudes online over 100,000 accounts. His findings suggest that while negativity might create a spike in attention, negative people tend to lose followers over the long term.

Recently, Zarrella expanded on his tracking to conclude that people don't like spreading negative news on Twitter or Facebook. In fact, he rightly suggests that is why people turn increasingly to social media as opposed to mainstream media for their news. They've reached their threshold.

Marketers Might Consider What This Means.

When you visit a Facebook account like Delta and a Facebook account like Coke, you will find decidedly different experiences. The members of one are mostly positive. The members of the other are mostly negative.

It's pretty easy to guess which is which. What is more difficult to ascertain is how many members don't take the time to "unlike" the account. They just don't go back, unless they have another negative experience to share.

Imagine what this might do to anyone visiting an account looking for positive information about a company. Otherwise happy people could easily become hyper-sensitive in looking for more problems. Ergo, you reap what you sow. And every now and again, it really pays to consider what you might be spreading.

After all, if spouses and parents can spread stress and depression, it stands to reason that they have an equal shot at spreading kindness and happiness too. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean everything you write about or talk about has to be another Kumbaya session, especially if it is faked. But it certainly might give you another reason to remain constructive in your approach while tempering how many "Debbie Downers" you enable or even how often you watch the news.

Varying Story Structures: PR Needs More Than Vanilla

If blog posts had flavors, most of them would taste like vanilla. Public relations can accept part of the blame. By any other name, the vanilla blog post would be called the "inverted pyramid."

"...in my opinion there is nothing more important then applying the 'Inverted Pyramid' to your writing." — Chris Bennett

"The inverted pyramid becomes even more important since we know from several user studies that users don’t scroll, so they will very frequently be left to read only the top part of an article." — Jakob Nielsen

"Structure your paragraphs in the inverted pyramid style. This means stating your conclusion first, then supporting it with the sentences that follow." — Brian Clark

"The ‘Inverted Pyramid’ writing style, where the most important information or conclusion is at the beginning of the post, lesser information towards the end." — Eamonn O'Raghallaigh

"Creating content using the inverted or upside-down pyramid is one of the top secrets for creating content that sticks and gets read or watched." — Scott Scanlon

Vanilla, vanilla. A thousand times vanilla.

So where did the all-vanilla rule come from? Conspiracy theorists might suggest it was planted by the vanilla bean growers, but journalists embraced the inverted pyramid because of the telegraph, and later because it was easier for editors to snip stories to fit whatever space the paper had available with no one being the wiser.

It made sense. As papers grew and people had less time to read, they skimmed the opening content. In many cases, readers were able to get the gist of the story, and then self-select themselves on whether they would read the whole thing. Nobody really cared whether they did or not. Newspaper circulations are based on delivery not readership.

It also made sense for public relations pros to adopt this format for news releases. There is nothing worse for a journalist than reading a dry, boring marketing-laced story that never seems to get to the point because it has no news value except for the owners of some copy and the public relations person. But then again, let's not forget that press releases are not meant to be published. They are meant to be one step up from an outline.

Not everybody likes vanilla. At least not every day.

While the majority of people like vanilla, it's a thin majority consisting of about 29 percent of the population. I suspect the same holds true for inverted pyramid readers too, regardless of what search engines and shares might do. It gets boring.

But more importantly, there are two other considerations to make. Most blogs are not just trying to report the news, giving people the option to read a little bit and move on. Engagement matters. There are not ten news stories competing for attention on the page (unless it is a paper). If they are reading your content on a regular basis, they are already there. And circulation (traffic spikes) ought not to matter as much as your readership.

Of course, that is not to knock the inverted pyramid out completely. Everybody uses it now and again. It especially works like a charm when you have less time to write a post. At the same time, I think we can all agree that scanning half a dozen blogs that read like press releases with the letter "I" sprinkled about gets old. It's gets old writing like that too.

Alternatives to vanilla posts to reward your readership.

1. Focus. Focus on one individual's story before ballooning out into a broader perspective. And then circle back around and conclude on the individual's story to summarize what the reader might take away from the story.

2. Scenic/Anecdotal. Recreate the scene or experience surrounding an event (without a focus on an individual), drawing the reader into the story and then transitioning to the bigger picture. Then, circle back to the opening.

3. Dialogue. Emphasize the speech or confessional of the person or persons in the story, demonstrating their plight or pain or point of view. This doesn't mean starting off with a quote; paraphrasing works too.

4. Chronological. Tell a story sharing a chronological series of events from varying points of view, bouncing back and forth between the subjects. It can be tricky to make it coherent, but it tends to work especially when you have cause to show varied perspectives that unite otherwise very different people.

5. First Person. While it is common among individual blogs, organizational blogs (except consultants) make it more interesting. If you are personally touched by a story, write from the heart like you might tell a personal story, even if it spills into participatory journalism.

6. Analogy. This post is just as much a story about vanilla as it is about the inverted pyramid, and the consequences of having too much of the same flavor.

What public relations professionals need to learn.

Just as many copywriters have to get over writing copy that demonstrates how clever they are as opposed to how clever their client's product might be, public relations professionals need to slowly move away from the inverted pyramid because you're not simply pitching a story — you're telling it.

Right. Public relations professionals communicating direct to public have to realize that they are no longer communicating to a busy journalist who will build upon or kill a story based on the first paragraph (even if story leads still matter).

If consumers are on your page, give them a reason to read past the opener because wherever they might go next will not be on the next page of your blog. It will be the next blog on their list.

Exploring Networks: Two Accounts, One Upside Down

When most people look at a social network account, the first thing they notice is numbers. The general assumption is that someone with 10,000 followers is more important than someone with 1,000 followers than someone with 100 followers.

The thought process is so ingrained, some public relations practitioners even subscribe to the idea that bloggers need to have a certain amount of followers before they will work with them. Some social media practitioners claim there is a follower threshold colleagues must reach before becoming experts (as if). And even otherwise bright individuals seem to be locked into their own notions of who ought to rank where and when; the same people who called for others to throw off authority years ago.

Last week, I had an opportunity to look behind the scenes at two social media programs, using Twitter and Facebook. For the purposes of this post, we will call the accounts Program X and Program Y. Both are relatively new, about three months old.

Program X, by the numbers.

Twitter, 201. Facebook, 184. (TwitterGrader, 83. Klout, 32. TweetLevel, 34.)

The account can best be described as moderately active and reasonably responsive, with more than half of its followers seeming to be a logically connected by common interests. It is obviously still in its infancy, doubling in size every few weeks.

Program Y, by the numbers.

Twitter, 2,567. Facebook, 1,539. (TwitterGrader, 98.7. Klout, 36. TweetLevel, 35.)

The account can best be described as more active than average but not always appropriately responsive, with more than half of its followers seeming to be unrelated to any common interest. At a glance, it seems successful, growing in a much more erratic fashion, with brief leaps and long plateaus.

Program X, behind the numbers.

If you shared common interests that the account Tweets about, you might meet other people who have common interests. While small, there seems to be several areas for common ground that all the followers share. And, when the account is mentioned, it responds appropriately and also engages other people about topics you might expect (beyond talking about itself).

When it links to created content, it has an average number of shares. The visitation percentage to the content, however, is much higher (something 'influence' systems do not measure), around 20 percent. Even more telling, as a location-based business, are social check-ins. People seem to check-in with increased frequency, doubling every month since Facebook added the feature. More frequency would probably propel the account forward.

Program Y, behind the numbers.

Even if you shared common interests that the account Tweets about, you might think twice. Assuming you don't look at just numbers, there is almost no common ground between the followers. While the account is also mentioned frequently, some of the mentions seem to ring hollow, almost as if automated accounts are talking to each other.

Likewise, the amount of RTs seems to have no connection to the frequency of tweets, debunking the notion that RTs are necessarily demonstrative of value. In fact, this is probably why there doesn't seem to be any correlation to site visits and network activity. The number of visits to its content site from networks (something 'influence' systems do not measure) is less than .5 percent.

Value Assessment.

While one account seems to be ten times the size, it has roughly the same value, with Program X undermining its own long-term ability unless action is taken now. One of the side effects from an abundance of low-quality followers (spammers, follower chasers, and auto follows) is that the account creates more noise, but that noise is best described as static.

It's also impacting in that the follow rate of new, unsolicited followers is almost 3:1 between the two. In terms of those algorithms, it's even more telling. Twitter Grader falls right in line with the perception and not reality. Klout and TweetLevel overestimate both accounts in terms of what they call "influence." I am not surprised. Both Klout and TweetLevel tend to perform at their weakest toward the lower and higher ends of their scales (lumping most active people in the middle).

There are dozens of accounts that I follow that have much more meaningful engagement but are 'rated' lower by comparison because they are new, less active, or simply have no aspirations to become "popular" on social networks. You know. They are people, with very different uses for Twitter and Facebook than becoming popular.

So where is the real problem between these accounts? My guess is that one is operating on an erred objective — to create a successful social media program (or the perception of one, banking on the idea it will be real one day). There are a few consultants who do this all the time.

Conversely, what the organization would be better off doing is tying its objective to the organization's output/offerings and then communicating that in a creative and meaningful way rather than wish for buzz and awareness. I sometimes wonder what percentage of professionals know the difference. Or their clients for that matter.