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It’s the last day of the year.  It’s snowing.  I’m feeling reflective.

I know that there are lots of things on my mind to accomplish in 2009.  For example, I’d like to grow the business by a solid 15% — downturns be damned! … I’d like to do more public speaking … I’d like to do more for my many friends in the Social Media realm …

As for the blog, I plan to publish an e-book next month (subscribe, if you’d like a copy!) … and I’d like to share more case studies next year … I’d also like to share more practical tips, along the lines of the Blogger Relations Bookmark, the Guide to SEO-Friendly News Releases, and oldies-but-goodies like Edgework with Social Bookmarking and Facebook.

I’d like PR-Squared to not only help you THINK but to help you TAKE ACTION.

But those are just nebulous thoughts on a snowy and quiet day.  And they don’t even matter all that much.  Because I don’t write this blog for myself.  I write it for you.  What are YOUR goals for this blog? 

Help me help you.  What do you expect to learn here that you don’t necesarily expect to see from friends such as Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Kyle Flaherty, Jason Falls, Scott Monty, C.C. Chapman, etc.?

2009 is coming and I am here to serve!

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (3)

Two weeks ago, Peter Kim assembled some Social Media predictions for 2009 from some guru types.  Scraping the bottom of that barrel, he decided to include some of my ramblings, as well.  Hopefully you’ve already read all of that crystal-ball-goodness from the pundits.  I’ll use this space to reflect more deeply on my own thoughts about ‘09…

First up, “The Great How.”  Here’s my original snippet from Peter Kim’s Predictions Project: 

The "best" case studies of Social Media in action,to date, are marked by the introduction of "real" human beings into the customer conversation. As more corporations come to realize the obvious benefits of humanizing their relationships with online communities, they'll grapple with the "how."

How many people need to be hired and trained?

How will they measure the success of engagement?

How will the rise of employee's personal brands be handled, if/when these personalities eclipse the popularity of the corporate brand?  How does a company introduce new voices to the conversation in a way that augments the effort, versus causing consumer confusion?

How does the corporation — by nature a conservative beast — confidently move forward into such a riotous environment, with so few roadmaps to guide them?

All of which is just a roundabout way of saying that in 2009, corporations will increasingly understand that incorporating Social Media into their communications plans is now necessary.  The evangelization is working; the customers will no longer be ignored.  So companies will be grappling with issues related to execution.

I rattled off some questions, above, but there are many more that will be asked — and I think any single one of these tough issues could derail many companies’ ambitions. 

Take this one: “How will the rise of employee's personal brands be handled, if/when these personalities eclipse the popularity of the corporate brand?” 

Harken back to the rise of Scoble.  He became the public face of Microsoft, rivaling the fame of Bill Gates in his heyday at the company.  Then, he left.

When you think about Social Media today, do you think about Microsoft much?  Me neither.  That’s not to say that Microsoft isn’t embracing the whirlwind: they have thousands of bloggers now; they do a ton of “Enterprise 2.0” stuff internally, etc. But Microsoft is not considered a leader in the space, primarily because Scoble had been such an outsized personality.

And that’s something that any major corporation wrestling with Social Media execution is going to want to think about.  Would they want to create another Scoble?  How would they keep the star happy?  Would it help their brand for the long-term as well as the short-term?  Is there a way to promote a variety of voices, to head-off the Scoble Problem — or would the dilution also impact their chance for success?

Then that raises the questions of staffing, in general.  Should the newly-appointed official corporate blogger be the only one to respond to issues and comments that crop up in the socialsphere of blogs, Twitter, etc.?  Or should a handful of non-bloggers — comprised of a mix of marketers and customer service reps, perhaps? — be responsible for that aspect of the comms plan?  Where are the lines drawn?  Who does what?

In 2009, it will no longer be enough for Social Media hotshots to help companies theorize and strategize.  Especially “in these troubled times.”  It’s not enough to question.  It’s a time for answers. 

2009 must be the year in which we answer the questions of HOW.  2009 must be a year of ACTION.  We’ll know that we’ve paid off on this requirement as we read a raft of new case studies in the months ahead.

Happy freakin’ New Year.  Now, let’s roll!

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (2)

It’s the end of the year. There are a lot of ways to deal with end-of-year blogging.

My plan for this year-end period was to expound on my contributions to Peter Kim’s Social Media Predictions 2009 project.  And I still might do that, if time permits.

But the holiday crush is upon us all.  I feel as if we are all careening into the New Year, don’t you?  Finishing up on work projects (or wondering what could be put-off to January!), wrapping presents, shoveling snow, worrying about the recession, prepping for visits to/from relatives, decorating the house, etc.

In addition to all-of-the-above, the Defren family just got a new pup (pictured) — a 2–year old collie/golden retriever mix from Save-A-Dog, an organization we’ve supported as foster parents for a while.  This gal walked in the door as just-another-foster but immediately captured the high ground.  Adorable, eh?  We’re still working on names … which presents yet another year-end distraction!

So can we agree to take a li’l break from Social Media? Re-connect, re-energize, relax?  I might still be inspired to blog before the New Year, but hey, even if I do write something, the posts will still be in your RSS reader in January, so don’t feel the need to check-in until you’re ready.

I hope you have a splendid, worry-free, quiet and fun holiday!  

(Photo credit: the wonderful & talented Branwen Defren)

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (0)

Remember when the tail-end of December was quiet?  Those days are long gone, it seems.  I’ve been flitting about the country with little time for blogging, but I have been trying to keep up with the latest goings-on in Social Media and now offer my quick take on these flare-ups.

Chris Brogan and Izea (pay-per-post): Over this past weekend, Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang wondered aloud about Chris Brogan’s sponsored blog post about K-Mart, which was coordinated by the PayPerPost spin-off, Izea.  Brogan discussed the issue at length, as well. 

Does a well-known, trusted blogger like Brogan sully his brand by accepting sponsored posting assignments?  As Jeremiah originally tweeted: “Transparent, Yes. Authentic? Debatable. Sustainable? No.”

My take:  Full disclosure = carte blanche.  With disclosure “covered,” the community gets to decide how much credence to give the post, and to the blogger.  Jeremiah is right that it is probably not sustainable, i.e., if all of Chris Brogan’s post became paid-for, he’d lose brand equity and readers.

TechCrunch and the Death of the Embargo: Yesterday, Arrington informed the PR industry that TC will now routinely break embargoes.  We’ve been warned.  He also went into the typical rant about shitty PR firms.  To his credit, Arrington does at least seem to recognize that it is often clients’ demands that spur some of the most spurious behaviors… but then again, a GOOD agency will reject those client pressures.  

My take:  We can debate the merits of Arrington’s decision.  We can secretly wish that all PR firms could agree to “cut off” TechCrunch for a month, to see how it impacted coverage.  But it’s Michael’s blog and he can rant if he wants to: the job of PR has always been to adapt to the media’s need.  The PR agency’s only job with regard to TechCrunch is to advise clients of the new policy and plan accordingly.

I feel bad for the PR ninny who tells his client that TechCrunch will honor embargoes and then has to go back and explain why their sacrosanct news was so quickly and publicly unsealed, i.e., they didn’t know about the new policy cuz they weren’t paying attention.  You know that’s gonna happen.

Do Brands Belong on Twitter?  This issue was raised in a Mashable post. Some folks maintain that brands shouldn’t create personality-free Twitter accounts that simply spam corporate news, or that don’t allow fellow tweeps to “know” an individual within the company.  And some misguided purists still just dislike the idea of brands hanging out in Social Media forums at all.

My take:  I am more aligned with the follow-up Mashable post by Lon Cohen.  Twitter is opt-in.  If you care to interact with a brand via their Twitter presence: go for it.  Find it annoying?  Buh-bye.  Meanwhile I’d point to the folks at Dell, Comcast and my friend Lacy at RealNetworks (client) who strive to be helpful, human and creative online.  This can only help a brand’s image.  (Granted, the Twitter audience is still relatively small — but its influence is disproportionate: there are a ton of VIPs on Twitter.)

Tempests in a teapot?  Perhaps.  But these kerfuffles are important in helping us navigate a true course in Social Media.  In an area that is still so new, everything is important.  This is how rules are made.

Posted by Todd Defren at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (4)

Please excuse this break from our usual programming as I celebrate a banner day.

Today is a day that has been eagerly anticipated for 8 long years: the last day of Nursing school for my beautiful bride!  Hallelujah! 

Let me take a moment to tell you about my wife — and why it took 8 years to reach this important goal.

Sian has a pretty crazy life story.  On both sides of her family she is the daughter of sea captains — stretching all the way back to the 1600’s, where family lore suggests direct kinship with one of the most fabled admirals of the Netherlands.  Her paternal grandfather was a Jew who resisted the Nazis in Holland; miraculously survived; and went on to reap a fortune as a European industrialist. Sian’s earliest memories involve indoor swimming pools in Swiss mansions.

Growing up, Sian was something of a violin prodigy.  By the time she was 12, as part of the famed Suzuki School, Sian had played in concerts across the world, including Carnegie Hall and the chamber halls of Munich.  She even played for President Carter!

Then the fortunes were lost.  Sian’s parents — now in San Francisco — were destitute.  At the tender age of 13 she was shipped off to stay with rich friends in upstate New York … who promptly put her to work, mucking the horse stables every day.

She subsequently fell in with a boy who convinced her to ditch it all and live with his family in New York City.  But this wasn’t just any dingy apartment in a city of 8M people:  this particular pad overlooked Central Park.  The boy’s father owned a posh NYC nightclub, where Sian routinely met “regular folks” like Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Richards, etc. 

Pretty wild so far, right?

Then Sian went to Bard College and met me, and I’ve screwed things up for her ever since.  You’ve read before about how we got pregnant way-too-young, about starting out on welfare, etc.  What you haven’t heard about is Sian’s amazing patience and self-sacrifice.  She spent the first 7 years of our marriage as a stay-at-home mom.  Then, in 1999, when our kids were 7 and 5 years old, she decided to go back to school for nursing.

Sian felt strongly that she didn’t want to go back to school full-time; she wanted to raise our kids, too.  So she went back part-time, and for almost 18 months gunned her way through the scientific and medical pre-requisite courses that needed to be completed before applying to Nursing School. 

Then, I went nuts.  Threw a wrench in the works.

The Internet craze was — well, it was crazy — and I got caught up in it.  I convinced my patient bride to raise up stakes and move from Boston to San Francisco.  “Don’t worry,” I said.  “I’m sure you can just transfer all your credits to a new college in the Bay Area.”

OMFG, was I wrong.  Most of the credits did not transfer.  Sian would have to re-take many of the pre-req classes she had just completed in Massachusetts.  Worse, the California community college system was overwhelmed by a crush of post-bubble expatriates looking for safe havens in the healthcare field.  So Sian would sometimes have to miss-out on an entire semester, simply waiting for an opening to take a class she’d already aced a year earlier!

Meanwhile, business sucked.  My dreams of conquest were dashed on the rocks.  “It was a stressful time,” would be an understatement.

But Sian prevailed.  She’s inherited the good ol’ fashioned grit of her sea captain forebears.  When we moved back to Boston in 2005, she reclaimed a spot in her old nursing school; kept her head down; and aced class after class after class.  She routinely nabbed the best grade on every test — but convinced her teachers to stop posting the grades publicly, because she didn’t want to upset anyone else in class who hadn’t fared as well.

My bride is beautiful, brilliant, kind, modest, funny — and luckily for me, she is also endlessly patient and loving.  Twenty years later, I’m still smitten.  “Sian” is Welsh for “gift,” and that’s a perfect way to describe how blessed I feel every time I see her smile.

Congratulations, honey!  You’ve definitely earned it!

Posted by Todd Defren at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (43) | TrackBacks (10)

Peter Kim, the former Forrester analyst, was kind enough to invite me to join several other smart folks in looking ahead to Social Media’s likely evolution in 2009. 

“Community and collaboration are wonderful things,” he says.  And then I realize that the 14 voices Peter’s lassoed into ginning up their ideas could’ve been 15, if Peter himself had hazarded some predictions!  Crazy like a fox, that guy.

Without further ado, with true thanks to Peter, “fourteen great minds on social media have shared thoughts on what 2009 may have in store for us.” Here's some of what they're thinking:

Your feedback is appreciated and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Posted by Todd Defren at 06:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (4)

With General Motors stumbling into insolvency, clearly it’s time to re-evaluate the old chestnut, “As GM goes, so goes the nation.” 

It’s too easy to read the doomy, gloomy economic headlines and suggest that — well, actually, maybe the fortunes of the U.S. are still reliant on its once-dominant automaker.  Because the fact is, the country has changed considerably.  As a share of our overall economy, “manufacturing” is certainly far less influential than it was back in the ‘60s.  Meanwhile, the rise of Information Technology has led to waves of true innovation that have not only created a new sector in-and-of-itself, but has also created beneficial effects and efficiencies in every other industry.

I submit that “Google is the new GM,” in terms of its emerging role as a bellwether for the state of the nation.

Yes, Google itself has been going through a rough patch (as are we all!) but looking at the Big Picture, we see a company that is fiercely, faultlessly innovative.  A company that strives for domination, like a good ol’ fashioned free market capitalist.  A company whose success has spawned an ecosystem of tangent business strategies.  A company that is ruthlessly careful about hiring the right people.  A company that treats its employees well.  A company that cares about its responsibility to do good things for the world.  A company that adapts to market conditions; that is willing to cross its fingers and experiment.  A company that leads by example.

Ain’t that America?  Ain’t that the image of the American Corporation that dominated in the pre-Enron, pre-bailout days?

Posted by Todd Defren at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (8)

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world.  Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

In case you hadn’t heard, this week’s Social Media Breakfast (SMB) in Boston was pretty special.  In keeping with the season, the theme was “Social Media for Social Change,” and indeed, according to my colleague Bob Collins, “It was an amazing event and a real-time proof of concept that demonstrated the power of rallying and engaging a networked community.”  Why all the fuss?

Bob joined Beth Kanter, the expert on social media & non-profit, to ask Ed Nicholson, director of community & PR at Tyson Foods, to present a challenge to Boston's Social Media Breakfast community.   

The Challenge: Would Tyson Foods donate 100 lbs. of food to The Greater Boston Food Bank for every single comment left on their Hunger Relief website?  After all, the idea was not untested — a similar campaign had been successful at the Austin and Bay Area SMBs.  We just wanted to see if Boston could do a li’l better!

Within 3.5 hours of launching the social media experiment during the SMB on December 10th in Cambridge — our local community had rallied their online pals to generate over 550 comments on Tyson’s Hunger Relief website. 

Due to the dramatic first wave of comments, which did indeed outstrip the Austin and Bay Area drives, Tyson decided to double-down on their support.  In the end, Tyson Foods has pledged to provide 70,000 lbs. of food — the equivalent of approximately 54,000 meals — to the food bank.

Truly, Twitter is a wonderland.

To quote Tyson’s Ed Nicholson:  “Should anyone doubt the incredibly powerful community among you, point them to this effort.”

UPDATE:  Also during the “Social Media for Social Change” breakfast, a few great charitable sites were called out that might be of interest to y-o-u this holiday season.  
 
The Give List — 71 ways you can give without opening your wallet.  
 
Network for Good — "Gift Cards."

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (5)

I got into a debate with a client recently about their corporate blog.

The client contact meritoriously defended the idea that folks who visit the corporate blog “expect to read stuff about the company.” 

He isn’t wrong.  Any corporate blog certainly ought to contain a hefty dose of news, information and analysis by and about the company.  But does that need to be the end-all, be-all of the corporate blog?  After all, it’s a blog, not a newsletter.

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester posted on this same topic this week.  He succinctly noted that a “horrible” corporate blog, “exclusively talks about the company.” 

(Jeremiah made a lot of other great points, too.  If the subject of “corporate blogging” is of interest to you, I’ll admit right now that you’d be even better served by hopping over to his blog immediately!)

A corporate blog is intended to highlight the human side of the company. 

Humans have varied interests.  When something goes wrong, they want to talk about it.  If one of their competitors does something brilliant, they might want to whine about it — and exhort their corporate peers to greater heights.  If an industry issue is nagging at them, they want to work through it.  Yea — even in public.  It’s the transparency, the humanity — the willingness to jump off the deep end every now and then — that makes a blog a compelling read.

Posted by Todd Defren at 01:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (4)

Dear PR Person: Excuses for not doing supremely excellent work are dwindling yet again, thanks to a new service called BackType. 

BackType lets you “find, follow and share comments from across the web.” Whenever you fill out the “URL” field in a blog’s comment form, BackType tracks it.  If you’re pretty prolific online, use BackType to keep tabs on your past conversations.

And it goes one better, in terms of Blogger Relations: BackType also allows you to track and subscribe to some of the most influential folks on the Web, as shown in the screenshot accompanying this post.

So now you can NOT ONLY read these influencer’s blogs, but know what other blogs THEY read — and what’s on their minds.  Why wouldn’t you do this?  It’s all about relevancy, recency and respect:  by reading their own recent blog posts as well as their recent comments on other blogs, as a PR pro you show a true interest in your “target.”  You learn how to not waste their time.

Additionally, you get a good sense for the influencer’s own favorite blogs.  So you can try getting a “hit” at one of these 2nd-tier blogs, feeling confident that it will be seen by your ultimate target.

Example: “Michael Arrington posts a lot of comments at Signal vs. Noise, mathewingram.com, VentureBeat and Online Media Cultist, et al. If I get a hit at Online Media Cultist before I even approach Arrington, he may be more likely to listen to my pitch when the time comes, because he’s seen that a blogger he respects has already written something.”

Plus, you can get a good feel for the types of content that inspire your “targeted” blogger to react in the first place.

All of this advice is not meant to create a fresh corps of “stalkerazzi” but merely to supplement the solid research the PR pro should engage in before ever reaching out to a blogger in the first place.

Go.  Do good things.

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (19) | TrackBacks (5)

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.  There’s something about a 4–day weekend that makes me think that every weekend ought to be 4 days long.  It not only allows for DOWN time, it allows for THINK time. 

Here’s what I thought about…

There’s no question: Social Media is having an enormous, life-altering impact on the communications industry.  Everything is changing. 

• The free and ubiquitous power of online publishing has created exponential challenges in relationship management.  We must now contend with thousands of additional voices. 
• The distinct lack of editorial “professionalism” in the blogosphere has ironically forced PR agencies to increase the genuine professionalism of their outreach. Indiscriminate “e-mail blasts” are on the wane. 
• Consumers are ever more resistant to marketing messages that use the old “one-to-many” approach but are often enthused about marketing programs that are useful, empowering and inclusive.
• “Customer Service” has increasingly direct linkages to Marketing, and vice versa. 
• Web 2.0 technologies have made participation more fun, accessible, instantaneous, trackable.

In this brave new world, how should the PR industry challenge itself? 

We must always be able to “get ink” in media outlets that make sense for our clients.  And in the not so distant future, “blogger relations” will be table-stakes for even the most run-of-the-mill agency.  But what comes after that baseline level of proficiency is achieved?  It’s not just about ink anymore.  How else can we show value?  What are our industry’s stretch goals? 

Below are some current examples of SHIFT’s own work on the fringe. 

• For a consumer products company, we work with the Customer Support group to monitor and flag customer comments throughout the Web, including Amazon.com, user opinion sites, message boards, etc., so that a support rep can respond promptly, directly and publicly to user questions and complaints.
• For a start-up video application developer whose product appeals primarily to Apple users, we identified Mac User Groups (e.g., Final Cut Pro users) and introduced company executives to the administrators of these regional groups.  This often led to invitations to have client executives visit and present to the user groups themselves.
• For a Big Pharma client, we’re working directly with Facebook Groups devoted to specific disease areas, alerting FB Admins to guide their members to non-branded informational websites. 
• Along the same lines – but in a very different industry – we previewed some never-before-released video footage of a major rock music icon to a select group of Facebook Fan Groups, to create a groundswell of grassroots interest in an upcoming DVD release.  
• For another Big Pharma client, we created a YouTube channel, in which video content produced on specific disease areas is shared with the larger community.  The informational videos are embedded by other bloggers at their sites up to 15X on average.  The tags and video titles are all created to enhance SEO.  And because the disease topics change regularly, we have fresh opportunities to visit (and re-visit) the topic areas, introducing the videos to external bloggers.  Each video gets about 5,000 views.
• For a division of a major tech company, we’re in talks to create a private online community site for their Value-Added Resellers – where the VARs can interact with each other and with company representatives (via wikis, etc.).  The community site will also house all multimedia assets related to the Sales process, e.g., collateral, ROI calculators, latest product specs.
• And of course you already know about the Movember Facebook app we created for Canadian Club.  At last count, over 4,000 people had used the app.  This was our 2nd Facebook widget developed in-house.

Please note how few of these examples are about “getting ink.”  We get PLENTY of ink: I can point you to numerous, recent hits in outlets ranging from The View and Cosmopolitan to the Wall Street Journal and eWeek.  But as noted above, “it’s not just about ink anymore.”

The cynical types no doubt see this post as “blatant self promotion.”  I will cop to that because it means that the cynics agree that this is pretty cool stuff.  But the larger point is that beyond the pride is a genuine state of confusion: these assignments raise questions with which I am struggling!

You see, as a Social Media geek, I am wildly enthusiastic and excited by projects like these, but as a PR agency owner, I spent the long weekend wondering: does this type of work make us a “different” type of agency? – and if we’re no longer “just” a PR agency, what are we?  Am I fooling myself? – are these kinds of activities now run-of-the-mill? – are other PR agencies doing this type of work? – if not, why not?  Is it appropriate (or inappropriate?!) work for a PR firm? 

You tell me!   

Posted by Todd Defren at 08:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (36) | TrackBacks (8)