Asking Questions: Fresh Content

One of the most critical components of strategic communication is situation analysis. Simply put, you cannot move forward unless you have an understanding of where you are (and sometimes where you have been). To gain insight into the present, someone has to ask the right questions.

We found five fresh content posts that accomplish this goal by asking that people ask the right questions. Sometimes they lead to the right answers. Other times, they scratch the surface, leaving others to share their varied thoughts and opinions. Take a look for yourself. There is something compelling about reading questions (even when they are written as statements) that not enough communicators ask.

Best Fresh Content In Review, Week of March 15

• The Dichotomy Issue: “Social Media Marketing” Vs. Classic Marketing.
Beth Harte pinpoints the truth about social media. Some elements are not as new as most might think, but many have been given the "wrong impression or direction when it comes to social media." All too often marketers think of social media as an either/or proposition when it really is a question of inclusion and integration. Social media needs to be integrated as opposed to being treated as a replacement. Perfectly said.

• Social Media Isn’t Conversation, It’s Publication.
While I might have chosen the words presentation over publication, the point Joel Postman makes is pointed. Conversations are face to face between a limited number of people, without regulation or permanent record. Sure, we can point out that telephone conversations are not face to face, but the reality is that social media shares much more in common with publishing and sometimes people might lose sight of that.

• 10 Dead Dudes Every Entrepreneur Should Follow (But, Not On Twitter).
Generally, lists of people wouldn't qualify for inclusion in a fresh content, but Jonathan Fields' list is very different. He picks ten former industry leaders that many people in the industry have never heard of. It's an excellent reminder that just because social media "feels" new there is much to be learned by the people who came before social media. This one hit all the right notes, including Stevie Ray Vaughn.

• Are You Getting Typecast?
At what point does the pursuit of personal branding or identity leave online personas wanting to be more than the role they play online? People tend to be more dynamic than the brands they surround themselves with, which sometimes requires that they explore new options without necessarily wiping away the old. Interestingly enough, Valeria Maltoni only misses that most people typecast themselves.

• Hotels and Social Media – The 5 Most Common Mistakes.
Callan Paola offers up his list of the five most common mistakes made by hotels in social media, but he may as well have posed them as questions. With the exception of assigning strategic value to a tactical approach in number three, these are the right quetions that most hotels, and companies, ought to be asking more often about their social media programs.

Writing For Public Relations: Seven Decks For PR

With next week marking the conclusion to my nine-week course in Writing for Public Relations at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, it seemed only fitting to recap seven decks that were included as in-class presentations and after-class supplements. While the decks only represent a small portion of what is covered in class, the entire set helps define some of the finer points related to public relations and the spirit of the instruction.

What's next? While the class ends next Thursday, there was plenty of content that was only covered in passing. So while the frequency won't be at a pace of one deck a week, there are more weekend presentations planned in the near future.

Seven Decks For Public Relations

Introduction: Writing For Public Relations
Originally meant as an introduction to writing for public relations, this deck provides an overview of almost everything that goes into public relations beyond pitching stories and writing news releases.

On Writing And Editing
In addition to 18 key elements for great writing, this deck draws parallels to my five most cited techniques and five amazingly masterful writers: Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Andy Warhol.

What Makes News?
With the help of a little fish with a big story, this deck presents the ten most common traits of news stories that editors tend to love. I learned them as a journalist.

On Spreading Messages
After a brief overview of communication, this deck covers modern communication challenges that are produced as a result of shrinking newspapers and an over-reliance of word-of-mouth marketing.

The Importance Of Planning
By overlaying a Toyota case study on top of a strategic communication outline, the importance of planned communication becomes all the more apparent while introducing various elements within any plan.

Simplifying Messages
Beyond a simplified approach to understanding the strategic planning process of SWOT and a CORE message system, this deck reveals why not all unique selling points are unique at all.

On Advertising
The concept that copy is a direct conversation with consumers didn't originate with social media is the final thought after ten lessons from some of the greatest advertising minds that impacted the industry.

Aside from Writing For Public Relations, I have signed on to teach a half-day Writing and Proofreading class in the summer and a full-day social media class late next fall. Until then, I would like to thank everyone, online and off, who helped get my tenth year as an instructor off to a very memorable start. Thank you.

Craving Emotions: Do People Need Negative And Positive Interactions?

Every now and again, someone strikes up a study that is just too interesting to simply bookmark for later. Dr. Imam Saqib of the National Institute of Psychology at Quaid-i-Azam University in Pakistan is starting a Web-based psychology experiment to investigate whether or not human beings have a daily requirement for certain kinds of emotions.

His hypothesis is that human emotions may need to be balanced much in same way the body has a proven requirement for certain nutrients. Or, in other words, is it optimally healthy for a person to experience a certain amount of love, creativity, connection, competition, or even aggression as part of their daily routine.

The study is sponsored by the World Mind Network and is co-moderated by Irina Higgins of the Oxford Foundation for Theoretical Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence and Melissa Mendoza of the University of La Verne. For more information, visit Daily Emotional Balance. (The public may join the discussion.)

What It Might Mean For Marketers

Given that some secular and spiritual practices have found that serenity improves the human condition, it seems unlikely that an emotional balance is required. However, there seems to be ample evidence to support that while the need may not be there, people do learn to crave oxytocin, cortisol, adrenaline, and other chemical releases that occur with emotions.

Where this study could be interesting, if not important, for marketers is that it could dispel the belief that positive advertising always plays better to audiences. On the contrary, it could illustrate how emotionally-driven advertising could appeal to specific demographics, depending on environmental conditions.

For example, lighter and more nostalgic advertising played better during the most recent Super Bowl, but more aggressive and darker advertising was well-received during better economic times (much like musical trends). Such understanding could become a critical component in communication. Cool stuff.

Studying Influence: Epsilon Targeting

Last year, we suggested what real influence might mean. This year, ICOM, a division of Epsilon Targeting, conducted a study that reveals much the same: there is no universal influencer and there are few commonalities exist within demographics for influencers.

Really? Well, there are some characteristics. Influencers, online or offline, tend to make recommendations more often. Forty-five percent of influencers will always recommend brands they like compared to only 36 percent of consumers. Fifty-six percent of influencers believe people follow their advice compared to 45 percent of consumers. The summary concludes that the primary difference is that influencers are talkers, primarily propped up by the frequency they talk.

Key Points From The ICOM Influencer Study.

• Consumers are influencers strictly within product categories, not across them all.
• Few commonalities exist with influencers across gender, age, income and channel.
• Influencers have a tendency to talk a lot in person — at the table, in the aisle, and on the phone.
• Marketers need to understand influencer behaviors as much as demographics or channels.
• Influencers are best engaged across multiple channels (online and off), not just one.
• Influencers are highly motivated to provide feedback to brands and manufacturers.
• Influencers like to be the first to try new products so they can give their opinions.

The ICOM study reminds me of another study conducted by Pollara, a Canadian-based public opinion and research firm. It found nearly 80 percent of people said they were at least somewhat likely to consider buying products based on real-world friends and family, but only 23 percent reported they would at least be somewhat likely to purchase a product by 'well-known bloggers.'

"This shows that popularity doesn't always equate to credibility," said Robert Hutton, executive vice president and general manager at Pollara said then. "Marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there."

The difference is in the intent. One of the most compelling parts of the study suggests 68 percent of social network participants use tools to connect to friends. The remainder, which includes most influencers, use social media tools to be heard. So much for two-way communication.

Experts and businesses are working too hard to be heard, honestly.

We see the ICOM study differently. Marketers don't necessarily have to find influencers as much as they need to help create them, and not by measuring popularity. As mentioned last week, branding is a function of relationships. Influence is equally reliant on relationships.

An online influencer who is privy to reviewing the latest product releases only maintains any semblance of influence as long as they are privy to being the first source of information. An online influencer who writes for a major publication, such as The New York Times, only has influence as long as they write for The Times. A company that relies on establishing a brand culture, only succeeds as long as it remains unwavering in its support of that culture.

When the relationship shifts, such as a self-proclaimed influencer exchanging dialogue for one-way communication because they cannot keep up, they experience a decline in popularity unless they successfully shift to a new relationship. Some can. Some cannot. (This is the very reason MyBlogLog began to fail shortly after being bought by Yahoo. The relationship changed and participants didn't accept the new paradigm.)

The point to consider here is simple enough. Influencers need to understand the relationship they have with people if they hope to retain the moniker (whether they really influence anything at all). And marketers need to reconsider how they think of influencers because social media "experts" aren't hand soap "experts." In fact, among hand soap consumers, they don't even exist beyond being busy talkers.

Marketing Public Relations: Publicity On SM Steroids

Did you ever open a book and want to like it? Gaetan Giannini Jr., chairman of the business, management and economics department at Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pa., delivers exactly that when he attempts to combine marketing, public relations, and social media into Marketing Public Relations (MPR). It's a book you want to like.

Wanting to like it wasn't always the case for me. A few months ago, I didn't want to like MPR. I alluded to as much when I first mentioned it after listening in on a webinar.

So I have to give Giannini credit for contacting me after that post. He put Marketing Public Relations: A Marketer's Approach to Public Relations and Social Media from Pearson into practice, believing that if I read the book then he might sway me from the light of collaborating professionals and toward the dark of combined disciplines. He was partly right.

When I opened the shipping package and thumbed through it for the first time, I immediately wanted to like Marketing Public Relations. I really did. And I still do.

Why you'll want to like Marketing Public Relations.

Marketing Public Relations is packed with content, skipping across the varied subjects of marketing, public relations, and social media. As a comprehensive textbook, it reads several generations ahead of anecdotal pop trappings that tend to masquerade as marketing and social media books nowadays.

There are ample models, studies, and diagrams. Giannini introduces classic concepts such as The Business Strategy Diamond from Carpenter, Mason, Sanders, Gerry, Strategic Management and Maslow's "A Theory of Human Motivation" alongside studies by PEW Charitable Trusts and the Keller Fay Group.

There are adequate applictions. Some of the suggested assignments would even benefit working professionals, helping them rethink how they apply communication. For example, in one chapter, Giannini suggests that students think of the most expensive purchase they made, track their purchase decision-making process, list all of the connectors (influencers) that contributed to the purchase, and identify what messages they delivered to the student.

There are ample tip lists tucked inside every chapter. In writing press releases, Giannini suggests illustrating real-life examples, sticking to the facts, picking an angle, writing in active voice, and using correct grammar. But then he also advises to never write a release in all uppercase letters, never writing the release online (use a word processor), never include html links, and never write a release that is less than two paragraphs. (I shook my head at a couple of these tips too.)

The case studies that precede each chapter seem fresher than inclusions in most books. He offers up snippets from Ecover, Red Bull, Hannah Montana, and Ben & Jerry's. About Harry Potter, Giannini frames up J.K. Rowling alluding to the demise of two familiar characters on a British talk show. He attributes resulting mainstream and social media frenzy to marketing public relations in action, which departs from what most public relations professors might call it. Most would call it publicity.

But that is the point. All of these elements are used to underpin the premise of Marketing Public Relations. And although Giannini doesn't provide a crisp one or two sentence definition of what MPR really is, you can surmise it is the practice of delivering planned marketing messages to very specific and targeted intermediates (connectors and influencers), with the intent that they will carry a closely aligned message forward to the audience you want to reach.

While I'm not certain how this differs from how communication has always worked, whether marketers recognized it or not, Giannini works diligently to consider this the cornerstone of MPR and then aims to cherry pick principles as valid under the new construct. When it works, different disciplines will benefit from a perspective they may have neverconsidered. When it doesn't work, everyone will be even more confused.

Why Marketing Public Relations is a dangerous book.

While I could write extensively about the sometimes painful organization of Marketing Public Relations, there is more pressing problem. And, unless the reader understands this problem, it could lead to some very dangerous conclusions. You see, for all the excellent material, it's difficult to forgive the initial definition of public relations, which is not public relations. Here is the definition:

"Traditionally, PR is defined as a firm's efforts to build good relations with its various publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good 'corporate image,' and handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, or events."

This disaster of a definition is not Giannini's fault. It belongs to Gary Armstrong and Philip Kotler, from Marketing, An Introduction, 9th edition. That makes sense to me in that Kotler, who is a brilliant marketer, has always aligned public relations under sales promotion. In fact, it is Kotler who originally coined the term Marketing Public Relations, but with very different origins than the one proposed by Giannini.

In Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation, and Control, 6th edition, Kotler outlines public relations as handling press relations, product publicity, corporate communications, lobbying, and counseling. Marketing PR, he wrote, is an advent of companies developing departments to set up a special section that directly supported corporate/product promotion and image making.

The old name for Marketing Public Relations, Kotler says, is publicity. And publicity, as we hope all public relations practitioners know, is not public relations at all. What is even more perplexing, however, is that Giannini calls Marketing PR the birth of a new paradigm when it would really be a rebirth with the inclusion of the more publicity-oriented activities of social media.

Where Giannini differs from Kotler, however, is that he assigns some propaganda duties under the the direction of MPR. Specifically: building the identity, increasing the visibility, establishing subject matter expertise, educating stakeholders, shaping public opinion, maintaining the image during a crisis, and stimulating repeat usage.

In sum, these tasks encompass some public relations and advertising duties under the world view of publicity in order to serve marketing. Except, they generally manifest themselves as "the coverage of a story by media or the recommendation of a friend without a paid solicitation." The risk, naturally, is that the intended message can sometimes be altered, such as the reckless Aqua Teen Hunger Force case study from 2007.

Ergo, if we mistake promotions and publicity as public relations, even under the banner of marketing public relations, it is likely we will further erode the core competencies that public relations could offer today and help it descend back into the ooze of propaganda where it originated. Only this time, it would be supported by social media. Perhaps unfortunately, where Giannini might be right is that is precisely what public relations professionals want to do.

Having a cracked foundation isn't the only issue in the book. There are several other questionable concepts that could mislead practitioners, including the overemphasis of blogger popularity in order to separate top-tier social media outlets from the "chaff," considering "thought-leaders and "influencers" as one in the same, and misdefining promotion as paid messaging.

On those points: never mistake page visits as an indicator because you never know who reads that blog; popular bloggers, influencers, and thought leaders are all very different; and promotion, even from a traditional view, is not confined to paid messages. There is more to vet, but the point is clear. In some cases, Giannini has adopted the mistakes some social media and public relations experts are making because they do not know any better.

What to do about Marketing Public Relations.

There is no denying that there is extensive value in Marketing Public Relations by Gaetan Giannini, Jr. He is a smart researcher, substantive educator, and intelligent practitioner who has presented material proving that the author didn't sit down and write this book on any given Sunday afternoon. Not all marketing, public relations, and social media books are like that nowadays.

As a textbook, it comes with a steep price of admission, retailing at $96. Even the used books are selling at above $60. The price point comes from the inclusion of graphs, charts, and full-color pictures. The three reviews on Amazon all rave about it.

For me, I have to go back to my opening point. I want to like this book. I really do. In a convoluted sort of way, it represents everything that other books on social media miss and leave instructors wanting. And yet, when the very principles contained within would force instructors to vet more than their fair share of material, how can it be sent up with a recommendation? In a word or two or three. It can't be.

Marketing Public Relations is a missing link between the business card books being offered by most publishers and what markers, public relations, and social media experts really need. However, it's only one step in the evolution of the communication chain and, without careful vetting in the classroom, it cannot be certain whether this mutation would lead to what we will one day call modern communication or if it is merely a branch that will see the same fate as the Neanderthal.

Advertising With Apps: Sherwin-Williams

Like many people, I held any number of odd jobs to pay for my education. I did a stint as an assistant manager at a 7-Eleven. I set up, tore down, and worked spotlights at concerts, including Pink Floyd in Sacramento. I painted murals along several college dorm walls; they have long since been painted over as the director allowed students to crowd source the concepts.

And, among other things, I worked as a colorologist at Sherwin-Williams every summer. A colorologist, by Sherwin-Williams' definition then, was someone who could match paint by sight to virtually anything and everything that customers brought in.

Nowadays, most clerks attempt to use computers to do the same job with mixed results. However, despite knowing the shortcomings of computer-aided color matching, the new ColorSnap app for the iPhone from Sherwin-Williams caught my attention.

Why it works as an advertisement.

As simple as it sounds, the Sherwin-Williams ColorSnap application is inspiring in that it allows you to match, coordinate, and save more than 1,500 paint colors. It's an advertisement for Sherwin-Williams, but works hard to add value for customers. And when it comes to apps, ads have to be useful.

• You can find some inspiration anywhere and then save those colors.
• You can browse colors, coordinate them, and save them for future paint jobs.
• You can add purchased colors and save them for future reference or the next homeowner.
• You can use the Sherwin-Williams store locator to find the nearest store.
• You can take a snapshot of a photo and match colors to what you see on the screen.*

It's apparent that considerable thought went into the application. Resource Interactive did a fine job with the design as a source of inspiration for customers. It's almost unfortunate the application falls short on practically, not because it doesn't do what it says it will do, but because it failed to set appropriate expectations.

Where it falls short of a success story.

I added an asterisk to the photo snap feature because what would otherwise be the coolest feature (giving customers the ability to match colors by taking a photo) is flawed. It's flawed for several reasons, but most of all because it sets the expectation too high.

• Much like ink, colors act differently as a light source and paint product. In fact, ink and paint act differently too.
• The matching function is matching to a picture on the screen and not whatever the customer takes a picture of.
• Shadow, dirt, and intense light can all affect photos (the same reason some humans beat computers at matching).

In sum, the app falls a bit short because the coolest feature doesn't really do what it says it can do. And while that doesn't mean it fails as an electronic color deck, it is the primary irritation noted by half of the customers who left reviews. That's too bad, because ColorSync is a handy little app for several other uses.

The human workaround, by the way, is as simple as narrowing down the colors with the app and then cross-checking them against the chips in the store. It sure beats attempting to match colors by memory.

How apps and social media make advertising useful again.

There are several people kicking around publishing as the next direction for marketers. Mitch Joel has been kicking the idea around lately. I kicked it around several years ago, with the focus on program development over publishing.

In 2007, the primary disconnect between marketers becoming publishers was that some marketers felt such measures meant managing a dual business, with one foot in manufacturing and another in publishing. While there is some truth to that, you only need to look at history to find where it worked before like the original Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalog. It was first published in 1888.

The concept that you can add value to the customer experience isn't as new as some social media experts pretend. It's as old as advertising. What's not so old is "attention-getting" ads that fail to educate, inform, or persuade in favor of selling the cleverness of the creatives more than the product or service. That advent in advertising came along in the 1990s with the rapid adoption of Photoshop and SFX. Advertisers convinced themselves that people didn't read anymore.

It wasn't like that during what many people consider the golden era of advertising. Those folks aimed at having a direct conversation with customers in order to add value (despite some of it being contrived) to the lives of consumers. Social media and apps can work just like that.

Although the ColorSnap app doesn't measure up as a completely practical application, it represents a thinking that more advertisers ought to embrace. Marketers need to be thinking about communication that adds value with a bit of persuasion again.