E-business Briefing: July 2006

Sally Falkow has created effective internal and external communication strategies for both large and medium-sized enterprises for 25 years. Since 1999 she has translated her extensive experience in communication to the internet and is now recognised as one of the leading website and internet marketing strategists in the US.

Her main interest is in the shift in media consumption and how new technology is affecting the practice of public relations. Sally has authored several books on website marketing strategies and the use of new technologies in PR.  You can read her blog at http://falkow.blogsite.com.

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1. You have described the “New Online PR process” as: 1) Listen, 2) Deliver 3) Measure and 4) Interact … Can you expand a little on this please?
 
Listen first: Monitor the online conversations. Find out who is saying what about you, your company, your products and your industry in general. You need to identify the influential bloggers in your space. Just as with traditional media relations, do your homework and read the blogs.

Get to know the bloggers and their points of view. Listen to your employees. Look into your own organisation. What is your culture? How willing are you to be open and authentic? Could you start an internal blog perhaps? Listen to customers. What do they say about your company? Do you have advocates and evangelists? Do you have detractors?
 
Deliver relevant content: Once you feel you have your finger on the pulse you can start to respond and comment – relevantly and intelligently. Contribute to the conversation. Decide whether you are ready to blog. If you do blog then make it genuine and one that will add value to the online conversation in this space.
 
Figure out what content you can provide that has value and could be syndicated to reach new audiences. Optimise your media releases and start to use the new social media sites to extend the reach of your news. Add RSS feeds to your news content. Tag your news stories for del.icio.us, Technorati and Digg. See the new social media release format (Pdf).
 
Measure: Use metrics to measure the impact of your work so far. Use software that can track your online footprint, monitor the blogs, track online mentions and whether they are positive or negative in nature. Track how many other websites are using your content. Track the increase in visitors coming from these sites. Use the metrics package to monitor visitor behaviour on the site and click in articles and media releases, mentions on social sites, so you can see which content is working.
 
Interact: Now that you have a full picture of what is happening online you can put a plan in place to encourage interaction: Encourage commenting on your blogs or articles, Use the social media sites. Build community on your website. Offer tools that make it possible for your site visitors and your customers to add content and interact with one another. A good example is the new wiki for users of the Motorola Q. Another example would be travel operators and cruise lines that offer travel blogs where you can write about your trip and post pictures.

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 2. What are the best tools for online reputation monitoring?

Reputation monitoring needs to cover the full spectrum of user generated content. Only searching a few sites will not get you the coverage you need. Before you choose a vendor figure out what you need to monitor. How much you do may depend on your resources. RSS feeds can gather the information for you, but in the end it does take a human eye to evaluate the data. Choose keywords that will give you good information. Identify bloggers you want to follow. Track the social sites and the news sites.
 
Nielsen Buzz Metrics is one of the better known services (formerly Intelliseek and Buzz Metrics). Cymfony is another good service. We use our own tool called BrandTracker which pulls all the data you need into one online dashboard where your team can log in and read and comment on the daily evaluations and reports. 

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3. Why do you think that some companies have been slow to commit to online PR?

Perhaps the reason is that they don’t understand how to get visible online. And they don’t yet get the relationship between search, branding and PR. Social media, blogging and RSS and the changes in media consumption are still a bit of a mystery to them. So it’s easier to do same old, same old – at least they know how to do it.

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4. What sort of companies are ‘ahead of the curve’ when it comes to Online PR?
 
Stonyfield Farms: they instituted blogging right after the 2004 presidential elections after their CEO saw the power of blogs in that process. They were a small organic yoghurt company that had, until then, not generated much media attention.
 
SunMicrosystems: CEO Jonathan Schwartz attributes the revival of their brand entirely to their blogging.

Microsoft: tech evangelist Robert Scoble became a blog star and changed the face of the ‘evil empire’.
     
Skin MD Natural: a small privately owned company that used online PR to launch a new product.
 
StormHoek Wines: launched their wines in Europe and the US using blogs. They doubled their sales in less than 12 months.
 
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5. What kind of mistakes have you seen companies make when it comes to Online PR?

The biggest mistake is to put your head in the sand and not pay attention to the online conversation. When you don’t really understand the radical shift in media consumption - how and where people get their news and information today - there is a reluctance to embrace these new ideas.
 
Once you do take part in the conversation it’s vital to be authentic. Companies that fudge the truth or attempt to put out a fake blogs, or make up a fake blogger, will soon be ‘outed’. In this new world of consumer-generated media you must accept that you no longer control the message. One of the biggest mistakes is still operating in the top-down, one-way broadcast mode.

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6. A specific question about RSS: do you believe in full text or partial text feeds? Why?

Although many people advocate full text feeds there are still those who prefer partial feeds. And some readers will only display a headline and a short description with a link. RSS adoption is growing as more browsers and personalised pages like MyYahoo and My MSN offer the ‘add content’ option. These folk don’t even know they are using RSS.
 
Since RSS is a pull mechanism, relying on the user to request the information, you should offer what your audiences prefer. This also applies to the segmentation of content. If you offer specific content in a variety of feeds, your customers or visitors can choose the feeds they really want to receive.
 
RSS was once described as TiVO for the Web, but if you are only offered one feed with a conglomeration of content in it, it won’t work as well. You wouldn’t TiVO something that had every show from all channels in it and then have to search through it for the one you wanted. The idea of being able to subscribe to only the content you want in the format you prefer is the appeal of RSS.

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7. Can you tell us a bit about your company?

Expansion Plus is an internet marketing and PR firm based in Burbank, California. We specialise in online PR, content syndication and reputation management for both medium and large companies. Our aim is to assist them to increase their online visibility and raise their brand awareness and value.

Sally was interviewed by Linus Gregoriadis, E-consultancy analyst ( linus@e-consultancy.com ).

What are you an expert in? Fancy writing an expert column for the E-consultancy Blog? Send word to  chris@e-consultancy.com  if you want to find out more (and let us know what you want to write about).

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