Facebook IPO. Hello!  More on that in a future post.

Susan G. Komen vs. Planned Parenthood.  Sheesh! Let’s talk about that!

(Caveat:  I am a Blue State progressive; whose mother died of breast cancer; who marched on Washington as a college student in support of women’s rights; and whose dear-departed grandmother spoke with horror of the days prior to Roe v. Wade. Got all that?  You’ve been warned.)

Just as I started writing this post, the news broke that the Susan G. Komen Foundation – which had spurred a massive protest movement by severing grants to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings (for what turned out to be a spurious rationale) – was reversing its decision. Oy!

Shall we count the ways in which this situation got screwed up (from a Public Relations perspective)?

They apparently made this decision back in December, and it led a top exec or two to quit in protest. And when they made the announcement, the Komen Board members were caught short by Planned Parenthood’s immediate (and compelling) response.  Yet the two organizations had been in talks for weeks beforehand!  In other words, there were plenty of red flags raised along the way to know things could get touchy.  Lesson: have a crisis plan ready; this could get ugly.

The decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood would result in thousands of underserved women in minority communities losing access to breast cancer screenings.  Imagine how much grief the Komen folks could have spared themselves if they’d tethered their PP announcement to news of their plans to ensure those communities still got care?  Instead it looked (and smelled, badly) like a cynical politicization of women’s healthcare, that left poor women in the cold…

… And this all occurred during the same week that the GOP’s presumptive nominee was caught up in his “I don’t care about the poor” slip-up… which led to “revelations” of the Komen Foundation founder’s deep ties to the GOP.  Can you say, “down the rabbit hole?”  Lesson: don’t lose sight of your mission.

To make matters worse, not only was the Komen Foundation slow to respond to the hubbub, but they even (allegedly) started deleting negative comments on their Facebook page.  For the record, that’s a no-no.  I brought this up on Twitter and got the following responses in quick succession:

Confirmed: @Komenforthecure is deleting critical FB posts from their Wall. Way to make a bad PR problem worse. #skg

— Todd Defren (@TDefren) February 2, 2012

@socialologist @TDefren We have not, do not and will not delete posts on our Facebook wall. If you click “everyone” they will all appear.

— Susan G. Komen (@komenforthecure) February 3, 2012

@komenforthecure @socialologist @TDefren I was deleted.

— lwiseblau (@lwiseblau) February 3, 2012

Whether they deleted posts or not … the perception was that they were doing so. A more active response policy on their Facebook page would have gone a long way.  Even those who disagreed with them might have given ‘em props for responsiveness in the firestorm.  Lesson: community management principles of messaging, transparency and speed are paramount in a crisis situation.

Could it get any worse?  It did.

The good news is that both Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation got a spurt of donations, from the left and right sides of the spectrum, respectively.  But, this only made crystal clear what was fairly obvious all along: this had been a political decision, and the ramifications for under-served women were thus made all the more stark.  In other words, the mission had been violated.  Which led to the reversal today.  Which led to sniffs of “too little, too late” from the Left and justifiable rage from the the thousands of newly-minted pro-life Komen donors on the Right. A classic no-win situation!  Lesson: “caving” is not always the right solution; Komen could have found alternate ways to serve poor women’s needs, i.e., through different advocacy organizations, and gotten enough credit to walk away bloody but unbowed.

All of this put the Komen Foundation’s many corporate sponsors in a bind.  Many of the sponsors’ own Facebook pages lit up with boycott calls and “for-shame’s.”  Facebook’s thumb’s-up became a wagging forefinger (or a proudly thrust middle one)!

The single best response from a sponsor came from the team at Yoplait Yogurt.  They created a separate tab on the Yoplait Facebook Page, dedicated to letting their fans vent about the situation (and in the bargain, wisely taking the political screeds off their main Wall):

Lesson: an oldie but goodie – “embrace and extend.”  Yoplait knew they couldn’t easily dodge the issue (their Pink Lids campaign was pretty huge), so they embraced that fact and extended it to a dedicated forum.  And, importantly, the Yoplait team didn’t just throw up this tab and ignore it. They continue to engage (rather non-commitally, but that is to be expected from a large corporation … at least they are present and listening).

By the way, there’s a great write-up on all this (if you’re game for even more on this issue) at Kivi’s Nonprofit Communications Blog.

Do you have any further thoughts on the Komen v. PP imbroglio?  I’m still kind of under the weather, but that likely means I’m more likely than usual to get it on with ya in the comments!  Have at it!

Those of you who follow me on other social nets like Twitter or Facebook know that I am pretty opinionated when it comes to politics.  Suffice to say that I am a card-carrying member of the “Liberal Coastal Elites.”  (I try not to over-indulge or bore folks with it; and I certainly can play nice with my right-leaning friends.)

I bring it all up only as a segue to the fact that I am a big fan of Andrew Sullivan’s Dish blog.  Sullivan’s one of the big dogs in blogging; he’s been freshly-empowered by his move to the Daily Beast to experiment with new technologies; thus I increasingly look to The Dish not just for political musings but as a pioneer exploring the future of the medium.

In recent weeks, for example, Sullivan hosted a live-chat with over 8,000 readers, to debate his ballyhooed NEWSWEEK cover story.  He implemented an “Ask Andrew Anything” video series featuring his rotoscoped image waxing on issues large and small.  He’s also live-blogged most of the GOP debates and caucuses — all with the help of only a handful of staffers. It’s a lean yet media-savvy organization that manages to post a mix of original and curated content upwards of 10x a day.

In a post last week, really almost a throwaway, Sullivan notified his readers that he and his team would be live-blogging the South Carolina contest:

“Yes, we’ll be live-blogging the results from South Carolina tonight starting at 7 pm. When I say ‘we’ I don’t mean it royally. We all scour the web and the in-tray for data, ideas, views, reactions, images, as they come in, and I organize it all into a single post and write it in real time.

“The kind of journalism that no one was ever expecting to do until a few years’ ago.”

That may overstate things: while few expected bloggers to become so sophisticated, what’s actually happening is that premier blogs are becoming more like broadcast outlets than websites.  This is not so much a journalism issue as a speed+consistency issue.  As Sullivan has noted:

“Matt Drudge told me when I sought advice from the master in 2001, (that) the key to understanding a blog is to realize that it’s a broadcast, not a publication. If it stops moving, it dies. If it stops paddling, it sinks.”  

Two of the top blogs in the world?  Drudge‘s and Sullivan’s.  Speed kills.

It’s the end of the Web as we know it: the more online we are, the more we expect the web to mirror the real time tv networks.  It’s the beginning of the end of the static web.  We’ll cease to think of it as a text/narrative-based medium soon enough.

With this in mind, if you are a brand considering a more aggressive Content Marketing strategy in 2012 … Will you be able to keep pace?

One of those automated spambots on Twitter informed me that today was my 5–year anniversary of microblogging.  Wow.  Five years.  Really?

What was I up to five years ago?

I was living in Boston, in-between my family’s quinquennial moves to San Francisco.  My brain was on fire, as I’d hit upon a worthy successor to the Social Media News Release concept and was just a couple of weeks away from debuting the Social Media Newsroom template.

As I look back, 2007 was a prolific time for the entire Social Media industry.  It was not only the year Twitter started its remarkable run, but was also a time when Facebook was becoming truly important to the wider world; when bloggers were getting their due; when SXSW was worth attending; when the Echo Chamber was fully formed.  Some of my best thinking was produced in that timeframe, as I do a quick review of my “Jedi Academy” posts.  This was the era before Social Media Experts and dashboards and marketing automation and near-daily must-attend seminars.

Now, of course, everything is so … sophisticated.  The money is flowing.  Much of the ideas come from companies latching on to a sustainable trend vs. individuals sharing a passion.  I don’t bemoan the loss of that more innocent age.  The profit motivations don’t bother me a bit.  I only worry that the best ideas don’t always get a fair shake.

When I learned it was my 5–year anniversary, my next thought was, “Can I envision a 10–year anniversary on Twitter?”  I’ll admit, my gut reaction was, “NFW.”  Then again: why not?  Twitter, Google and Facebook have each done a far more credible job of embedding themselves in our daily lives than old stars like AOL, MySpace, Friendster, etc.  … And they are minting money, with no end in sight.  … And they are cultural touchstones in a way that those bygone services were not.  These three companies – Facebook, Apple, Twitter and Google – are the titans of this new age; they could well outlast us all.  … Which is why I worry that the best ideas don’t always get a fair shake, unless they can show how they complement (vs. threaten) one or more of those companies.

So I guess that’s what I miss, 5 years later: the sense that anything was possible; the sense that anyone could make a difference; the idea that anyone could win this thing.

It’s called growing up.

Unfortunately, the chance of arriving at a standard set of metrics for every brand is small. Brand goals differ, as do the metrics tied to those brand goals. It has been this way in public relations for years, and it’s likely to be that way with social media as well.

Similarly, communications professionals should be leery of approaches that advocate measuring social like we’ve measured advertising, or any other communications discipline. We’ve seen this story before with Advertising Value Equivalencies. Not only do AVEs assume that public relations and advertising carry the same value within an organization, but the math behind some of the calculations is suspect at best. If you would like to read more on the subject, check out Don Bartholomew’s blog. It’s a treasure trove of posts discrediting the use of AVEs.

If standardization isn’t likely and comparing social media measurement to other communications disciplines directly is problematic, what can be achieved?  For me, I think we can do two things to improve social media measurement.

#1 – Understanding basic measurement principles – It seems that with the explosion of social media, we’ve lost sight of proper communications planning. That includes:

• Benchmark research – Through listening and the examination of brand pages, social media provides a wealth of data for analysis. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should abandon primary research methods as well. Surveys and focus groups are necessary to truly understand underlying behaviors before launching a program.
• Objective setting – The objective needs to clearly articulate what the program is trying to achieve. Most importantly, a proper objective includes the behavior you are trying to impact; a rate of change and a period of time you think it will take to change that behavior.
• Identifying metrics – This is a pretty obvious step, but it is often done retroactively when it needs to be considered in each stage of the program, planning included. These metrics should match the strategies and objectives. If they don’t, pick new metrics.
• Strategies and tactics – Again, somewhat elementary, but the number of times that strategies and tactics don’t match objectives would stun a team of oxen. Don’t make that mistake. Keep the broader objective in your passenger seat at all times.

The other critical component of Measurement 101 is understanding how all of this ties back to what the business is trying to achieve. This speaks mostly to objective setting, but it’s worth calling out separately. If your objectives and subsequent tactical elements do not speak to making the business money, saving the business money, driving up intent to purchase, making a customer more likely to recommend your product or increasing loyalty you should consider revisiting those strategies and tactics. I guarantee you it is the only thing your client or bosses boss cares about at the end of the day.

#2 – Integrating communications to create one measurement framework – Recently, FastCompany posted an interesting approach to measuring all digital components using an aggregate score. That approach is certainly useful, but I think it’s time we start thinking about all communications when we’re conceiving a measurement framework. Social media doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and neither does traditional (whatever that means anymore) communications. An aggregate score is likely the best approach, but we have to start thinking about measurement like we think about communications – a strategic and holistic marketing practice tied to business objectives, not a singular tactic. Otherwise we’re measuring each of the channels without any context.

As my friend Tom Webster would say, you have to do the work. The solution to your measurement conundrum isn’t going to be presented on a silver platter. But, if you incorporate the measurement basics and think about how the measurement framework you’re developing can be integrated, you’ll be one step ahead of the competition.

What about you? What measurement challenges have you faced?

Chuck Hemann is currently Director, Analytics for WCG in Austin, Texas. For the past seven years he has provided strategic counsel to clients on a variety of topics including digital analytics, traditional measurement, online reputation, social media, investor relations and crisis communications. Chuck can be found online on Twitter and on his blog.

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post.  I was recharging the batteries. 

In-between sitting by the fire, walking the dog, going to the movies, etc., I got to thinking about Social Media. 

It’s gotten so … big. 

There are something like 800M folks on Facebook.  Walk away from your Twitter account to grab lunch, and there are 1,500 unseen tweets waiting in queue.  Social Media has even been given outsized (if controversial) credit for powering the Arab Spring.

Crazy, right?  And when you are a marketer? — Unwieldy.

Here’s what Mitch Wagner at The CMO Site wrote today, quoting new Altimeter Research findings:

Big brands are managing an overwhelming number of social media accounts, with an average of 178 accounts per company, according to a recent study. (Altimeter surveyed 144 enterprise-class corporations, with 1,000 employees or more, including Applebee’s, Avaya, Caterpillar, Hallmark, JP Morgan Chase, Newell Rubbermaid, and Western Union.)

Companies launched social media with little planning, and without standardized processes, according to Altimeter Group analyst Jeremiah Owyang. Companies that don’t get control are at risk of abandoned accounts, inconsistent experience for customers, and untrained employees creating a crisis…

“Like a disease, social media proliferation will leave companies crippled — unless they develop a strategy to manage now,” the Altimeter Group said in a report. “Beyond coordination challenges, unchecked accounts and disparate customer interactions expose brands to a host of legal, compliance and fragmented brand-perception risks.”

I wrote about this very issue two years ago.  I don’t bring that up to remind you of my prescience (you should be well aware of that by now –  heh), but as a signal that this situation is getting worse.  Here’s an excerpt from that ancient post:

In the end such companies will have hundreds – maybe thousands – of “stray” Social Media sites/accounts.  Inconsistent.  Abandoned.  Off-kilter.  Hardly any of these independent Social Media efforts do a good job of boosting the master brand, yet all of them are still clearly affiliated: dragging down the brand, calling out the lack of strategy.

This is not a call for control for controlling’s sake; it’s a call for planning for brand’s sake.

So, given that it’s the New Year and folks are prediction-happy, here’s a prophesy for 2012…

This will be the year that brands wake up to the need for a sound strategy for Social Media.  And this will mean tighter corporate controls.  This is the year that “engagement” will start to become boring.

There will be many who shake their fists as The Man buckles down (and buttons up) on this stuff.  But never fear, the genie is out of the bottle.  The days when the last resort of an aggrieved consumer was the Better Business Bureau or a letter-writing campaign are long gone. Social Media is inextricably woven into the larger mediasphere: monitored by brands and mainstream media for smoke signals that will never again be ignored.

Meanwhile, hey, even if the brand marketers start self-policing (i.e., become boring), we can still chat at unprecedented scale with each other.  That part’s fun too.