Once college came around, I learned that participating in a focus group was the quickest, and sometimes fun, way of making money.  So what is a focus group?  It’s an opportunity for brands to hear feedback directly from the consumer about a product/service to then evaluate the product and possibly change it according to what was said.

Focus groups take time and money, and brands today are scarce on both.  However, if brands listen to the conversation about its product/service via various social networks, they would be uncovering a huge resource, a free focus group.  In my opinion, one of the most vital ways a company can enhance its product is by paying more attention to the negative feedback during these sessions.

Here are a few examples:  

TripAdvisor. As a travel publicist, this is one site I believe has the most influence on travelers.  Personally, whenever I begin planning a trip, I immediately go to the site looking for a) options of places to stay and b) feedback to get an overall feeling of the hotel/resort.  There is always controversy over whether reviews are truly from guests, but at the end of the day, most travelers will take into consideration what is being said.  A guest isn’t going to comment from just an average experience.  They’re more inclined to leave a review if they had an over the top amazing or extremely bad experience.  General Managers also have the opportunity to join the conversation and comment on reviews, both bad and good.

Yelp. Founded in 2004, this site aims to connect “real” people with local businesses from restaurants to hair stylists.  According to its site, more than 38 million people visited Yelp in the past 30 days as of August 2010.  That’s a lot of people.  Active users on Yelp have written over 12 million reviews.  Personally, I’d rather go to a hair stylist or dentist recommend by others than just blindly picking someone.  Hopefully the owners also listened to the feedback.

Amazon. One of the largest sales forces on the web, this site attracts   approximately 65 million customers to its U.S. website per month.  The simple mass of that traffic and the ability to post product reviews provides a wide net of customers of all types, visiting the product pages and leaving reviews.  Not all products will have a large number of reviews, but many will.  For example: A leather Kindle cover with a light is a basic gift for the holidays.  On Amazon, it has over 1,800 customer reviews of the product.  Enough said.

Twitter/Facebook. These are together because they are most commonly used by consumers to discuss experiences with companies.  We see it all the time.   The only downside is the brevity of comments.  Typically the consumer will tweet about service without explaining why it was good or bad or write a short post on Facebook that may even be private from the public.  Nonetheless, brands should still listen to the comments; they simply need to validate it elsewhere.  Use the feedback as a tip to inquire deeper internally.

If a company doesn’t take the time to actually evaluate its product after listening to feedback, then why listen?  To enhance customer service and your product, take reviews seriously.  Empower your staff and teach them the importance of these reviews on social networks.  If an employee is singled out for going over-the-top, recognize them internally.  This will encourage other staff members to do the same.  If there is a trend within the customer complaints, take action and talk with the staff on how to improve and make the experience better.

What other social networking sites do you encourage clients to listen to?  How do you empower your staff and educate them on the importance of social network reviews?

(Note: A version of this post also ran on the Purple Lounge, official blog for Quinn & Co.)

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

(CC) Image courtesy theritters

The social aspect of  communications is one of the many reasons I was attracted to working in public relations.  It’s also one of the many reasons why I love Twitter.  I’ve attended many tweets up and happy hours simply to meet some of my favorite people.  Heck, I even drove with Kate and TJ to visit some fabulous friends in Boston who at the time I only knew via Twitter.

It wasn’t until recently that I noticed an excessive amount of “word vomit,” the act of putting one’s foot in thy mouth, at these tweet ups and happy hours that made me second guess the information I divulge when first meeting someone.  We may talk to each other every day but do we really trust each other?  How much word vomit is just too much before others start judging?  When networking or socializing with new friends here are some topics you may want to exclude:

• Politics/Religion. We work in communications so chances are we have an opinion and have no problem voicing it.  These are topics I would keep behind doors until you really know someone.  Often times conversations that involve politics result in a heavy debate.  Unfortunately too many people like to debate without letting bygones be bygones.

• Why you hate your job. Are you having  a bad day?  Did you only get four hours of sleep?  Stop.  We have *all* been there.  It’s exhausting to listen to someone complain about their day.  If you have to a) don’t use names and b) ask for ways your colleagues can help resolve the problem.  At least that’s a constructive conversation.  (Note: be careful who and what you talk about.  You never know who will find out.)

I’m sure there are other topics that we should avoid when meeting for the first time, so I encourage you to add them below.  If you find yourself in a sticky situation and you don’t like where the conversation is going here are topics that can help:

• Hobbies. Are you in a band?  Do you love Elvis Presley (I do)?  If we’ve connected on social networks chances are it was due to common interests.  Everyone likes to talk about things they’re passionate about.

• Pop culture. We’re in PR.  We need to know about pop culture and everyone loves to gossip.  Just don’t do it about people you really know.  Famous people are fair game.

• Your bucket list. So many people today are creating their bucket lists.  It’s amazing to find out the little and big things people want to do before they die.  Chances are you’ll find out new and exciting adventures you’d like to try too.

So friends, how did you survive an awkward conversation at a tweet up or meeting your social media buddy for the first time?  Please share your advice below!

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

If you are attending, remember two things:  Rick likes Lipton Tea and played guitar for 20 years in a heavy metal band.  Do us all a favor and grab a flip cam, get this man some tea (preferably spiked for coaxing), and find him a guitar.  If you get him on camera performing, there will be a prize waiting for you from PRBC (just kidding…maybe).

What makes BlogWorld different from other social media conferences?

The first thing is that it is the biggest.   BlogWorld was born before Social Media became the de facto term for the new media revolution.   That’s why the event is called BlogWorld & New Media Expo.   Most people didn’t even know what blogs were when we announced the event in 2006 and no one had ever heard of Twitter.

BlogWorld is about content first and foremost.  Content creators, not marketers, are our primary audience and our goal is to help them create, distribute and monetize their content no matter what form that may be; audio, video, still photos or text.  Marketers are our secondary audience. We think educating them about new media, teaching them how to create their own content, how to interact with bloggers, advertise and communicate with their customers using new media creates more opportunities for content creators.

How do you choose topics/seminars to provide unique workshops without being overly generic?

This is by far the hardest thing we do.  Originally BlogWorld was built for me so the topics in the conference were all questions I wanted answered as a blogger who also wanted to begin creating audio and video.   The largest part of the conference really remains that way.  We develop sessions we would want to go to ourselves.  Our new Conference Director Deb Ng has attended every BlogWorld as a speaker, attendee and sponsor so she has control over those sessions and they are really built to address the questions she has with her own blogs.  Of course we ask our community what they want to know.

Over the last few years we have learned so much more about the intersection of PR, marketing and advertising and how it relates to new media that we created Social Media Business Summit.  The Social Media Business Summit is a conference within a conference that we developed specifically for marketing, communication and business executives to teach them how to use these social media tools, but all from a content creators perspective.   First we ask those professionals what questions they need answered, then we curate those questions and turn it into real content they can walk away from the event and use the next day in their business.

We also live this stuff every day creating content for our own blog, doing our radio show, engaging our community on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and whatever comes along, and we will soon be launching BlogWorld.TV.  Every day we either come across our own questions or members of our community ask “how do I do that?”  And that develops into a session at the show.

Honestly the hardest part is turning down hundreds of amazing session ideas from our community.  Our industry is so all-encompassing it is literally impossible to cover every topic that everyone wants to know.

What topics are typically the most popular?  How long have you been using the interactive schedule and why did you start?

The most popular sessions are always monetization for the content creators, measuring ROI and basic social media education for the marketers. We started using Sched.org last year.  Marvin and his team over there are fantastic. They actually created this on their own to manage their personal SXSW schedules a couple of years ago. They shared it with some friends and everyone loved it so much they turned it in to a business. They are constantly adding new functionality and we give them feedback all the time about how to make it more useful to our attendees, exhibitors and in managing the event.

What’s your advice on attending conferences with so many seminars that one would want to attend but can’t see them all?

Plan ahead of time but it’s okay to double book some sessions in advance and then make up your mind on those conflicts at the show. You may attend a session earlier in the day that convinces you that one session is more important than the other. This year we will have all the sessions archived so for a small additional fee attendees can access every session on demand for up to a year after the show.

What type of planning goes into creating the conference?  How much post conference work do you do?  When do you start planning the next event?

I’ll answer the last question first.  We are planning next year’s conference now.  This is a year round job for several people now.  My partner Dave Cynkin works on marketing and overall planning with me.   Deb and I work on the conference content, Patti and Chris working on sales, Nikki helps Dave with Marketing and is our Editor In Chief of the blog. We also sub out quite a bit of the conference operational stuff but we are planning to bring that in house after this year’s show and add a full time show manager to the team. We have more than a hundred people working on-site in several different aspects of the show. The AV, the labor, signage, the hotel, the food and beverage, the evening events, electrical, internet, registration, and all sorts of other stuff you would never think of if you weren’t organizing an event.

The day after the event we have what’s called a Post Show Analysis or PSA.  We all get together and go over every item line by line, there are literally hundreds of items on this list and everyone’s opinion is welcome.  Did this thing work right?  Did we fail somehow? Is there something we can do better?  We take detailed notes during the meeting and compile that into a document with PSA recommendations on how to improve the next show.  We also maintain all year long what we call “the running PSA” to jot down anything we think we can improve as it happens and we review that with the group and compare the notes.  That all goes into the final document. We send out surveys to the attendees and exhibitors and thank you notes to everyone we can.

I’ve noticed in a lot of chats the witty banter, especially in the beginning, “Hey John, haven’t seen you in a while.  How ya been? How are the kids? #chat”.

Please explain to me why the chat hashtag is used?  Does this benefit anyone trying to participate in the chat?  I’m all for making small talk with the simple “How are you and glad you made it!”  but when you start asking about personal stuff or throwing in inside jokes and using the hashtag, it becomes noise.  Simply remove the hashtag and continue the conversation on Twitter without clogging up the stream.

My other pet peeve: cursing.  Now my family’s from NYC and I grew up around friends/family members that would fit right in at a party of drunken sailors or perhaps the Real House Wives of New Jersey.  That doesn’t mean I curse all the time.  There’s just a time and place for such language and a chat is not one of them.  It simply takes away from the point you’re trying to make.  If you’re trash talking about the upcoming football game, go right ahead and bring out your potty mouth! (Go Jets!)

So here’s my question, do you agree or disagree?  Am I just being nit-picky?  And to all my friends that do moderate chats, how do you make sure that chats are lighthearted and beneficial to all parties?  Are there rules that you set prior to beginning the chat?  Chats should be fun but sometimes having fun can just be noise.

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

Recently I came across an interesting article by Sarah Nassauer for the New York Times, “I Hate My Room,’ The Traveler Tweeted. Ka-Boom! An Upgrade!” The article discussed how customer service is changing now that we have a million eyes at our finger tips.  This isn’t new information as we all know that a company’s reputation can be hurt by a simple tweet, status update, Flickr image, YouTube upload, or TripAdvisor review.  And that’s only naming a few of the various platforms we use on a daily basis.  In the article a guest tweeted about his unsatisfactory room.   The front desk employee was watching and immediately went into damage control offering an upgrade.  Kudos to the front desk for monitoring the social network.  But does every guest that complains/whines about service need to receive compensation or a resolution?

Working in retail we learn that the customer is always right.  This is pretty similar in PR.  In the travel industry we stress the importance of interacting on social networks, especially with guests.  Every guests wants to know they are being heard even more so when in a situation that should be rectified.  However this is relevant for all industries and unfortunately it’s not realistic for every person that complains to receive an upgrade or even correspondence.   Shocking I know.

Curious what others thought, I asked around and here are some comments I received:

• Rich Pulvino: Quality customer service doesn’t differentiate between valid complaints and the whiners b/c customer should be #1 priority.  You need to prioritize the complaints and see if the resolutions are reasonable/feasible/doable
• TJ Dietderich: If someone can help, that’s valuable customer service.  If there is NOTHING that can be done and someone is just venting = whining.
• Jeff Esposito: Its good for customer service, however you can’t help everyone who complains with upgrades as it is not sustainable for hotels

These are all great points that lead back to the importance of qualifying a complaint.  When in this sort of situation decide what action steps need to be taken and what compensation/resolution can you give that is feasible for your company.  Although no one will readily admit this, also look at where the complaint is coming from.  Unfortunately I don’t believe the Southwest debacle would’ve been as big of a deal if it wasn’t for Kevin Smith having a big influence on his community.

So how do you treat these situations for your companies?  How do you train employees and associates on managing and responding to customers to give valuable customer service?

If you need two hands to count I suggest you stop.  A wise PR professional once said (during one of those redundant PR conferences) to stop going where the PR people are and head to the trenches.  Go where the journalist are and get to know them.  Last month I had the opportunity to attend the 2nd Annual Travel Blog Exchange, a two day “conference” of travel bloggers/writers looking to learn from each other and share their experiences.  Overall it was the perfect chance to meet some of the people I’ve gotten to know via Twitter, just like every other conference, but more importantly it also gave me an inside look into the life of a travel writer.  In case you’re unaware, this is important to me as I recently started my career as a travel publicist.

When you’re in the trenches you’ll receive the best unedited and blunt feedback.  When attending a journalist meet up or seminar, you are on their territory.  There is no beating around the bush.  During this specific seminar, I learned what travel writers love/hate about press trips.  For example, the next time I’m planning a press trip I’ll remember to add more down time to make sure they can explore the destination on their own instead of creating back to back activities.

Relationships, relationships, relationships.  Maybe I’m biased to travel writers but they sure know how to have a good time no matter where they are!  Like any great conference/tweet-up you get to meet some of your favorite Twitter peeps in real life.  It’s always exciting to meet some of your favorite writers in person especially when you’re a fan of their work.  The relationship building doesn’t stop once the conference is over either.  I’ve connected with great writers after the conference from reading and commenting on posts recapping the conference, and following the hashtag.  If you continue the conversation, you’ll continue to grow current and new relationships.

At the very least, journalists will appreciate the PR professional that invests his/her time to learn more about them and their work.  Go the extra mile and I promise those journalists will remember those who take the time to get to know them over the average Joe.

So before you head out to the next PR related event, I suggest researching non-typical events that relate directly to your client.  You’ll make great connections and get a better understanding of the industry as a whole.  As always, if you’ve attend events like this before please share your experiences below!

One of the most valuable things I learned from my previous job was how to own a five and,  if Iwas lucky, ten minute interview.  I worked as a publicist for a book publicity firm and scheduled  Radio Tours.  For those of you who don’t know what that means, imagine having twenty back-to-back interviews with radio hosts all over the country for approximately six hours….starting at 7:00 a.m. EST.  Sounds exhausting and intimidating right?  In addition to scheduling these interviews, I also coordinated the radio tours.  I ensured that every interview ran smoothly, connected on time, and ended on time.  More importantly, I made sure to give feedback to my client as I listened to every interview.  This helped me coach my client throughout the day and I also learned what worked and didn’t work when it came to having a successful interview.

Here are some tips I’ve learned along the way:

Prepare. Inform your client about the outlet, host, market, and if you’re lucky the questions that will be asked (don’t count on it).  Note: no matter how much you prepare, prepare for the unexpected and plan for possible damage control.

Draft no more than three talking points. If there are more than three, clients feel rushed to make sure every point is discussed and it makes the interview seem less conversational.   Work with the client so that he can discuss the points comfortably with improvisation instead of memorizing them.  This will help create a more genuine interview.  If needed, index cards are beneficial but should only have key words instead of phrases in case your client forgets something.  And if he does,  it’s not the end of the world.  Stay positive, give feedback, and move on to the next one.

This is not an advertisement. Be careful how many times your client mentions his product.  If the audience wanted to watch informericals they would turn on the TV in the middle of the night.  No one wants that during prime time.  My rule of thumb, especially for short interviews, is to mention the product twice.  Once in the beginning and once at the end as a call to action to communicate where or how to purchase/experience said product.

Smile. It’s easy to sound monotone on interviews especially if they are over the phone.  By smiling clients can change the entire tone of their voice and people are more inclined to listen to a voice that is inviting.

Relax, breathe, and have fun. I’ve had clients sing on the radio, tell embarrassing stories, and some hosts have even professed their love for some clients.  Just have fun.  No one wants to listen to anyone that takes themselves too seriously, especially during drive time.

I’m sure this list will grow and grow as I gain more experience as a publicist, but these are just a few things I always remembered.  What are your tricks for short interviews?

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

Last week during the #u30pro chat, hosted by Lauren Fernandez, David Spinks, and Scott Hale, the group discussed pros/cons to scheduled tweets and many users chimed in. Here are some reasons members dislike the feature:

• Lauren: Q3: I think scheduling tweets is defeating the purpose of social networks. #u30pro
• Silver Vasquez: If you are scheduling tweets, you’re probably missing opportunities for engagement. #u30pro
• Scott: Not very genuine. RT @CubanaLAF: Q3: I think scheduling tweets is defeating the purpose of social networks. #u30pro
• Jeff Esposito: Agreed, loses authenticity RT @cubanalaf: Q3: I think scheduling tweets is defeating the purpose of social networks. #u30pro

Like any great chat, members openly disagreed and did a stellar job at explaining the benefits of using scheduled tweets. Here are some other key points:

• David: @jeffespo @cubanalaf Disagree. Depends how you use social. If you want to be an effective content source, scheduling helps. #u30pro
• Ellen Nordahl: I like to schedule links to interesting articles. I want to share but don’t want to share all at once.
• Calvin Lee: @davidspinks: I share links 5 at a time and throw in some convo. #u30pro
• David: Social doesn’t always mean talking. It’s also sharing. Rather than sharing 30 links at once, I space them out. Better sharing. #u30pro

After thinking about what David, Ellen, and Calvin shared, I started to re-think my whole stance. However I was still wondering whether or not this engaged the community. But then I thought, does it really matter?

People use Twitter for a variety of reasons. If sharing content is a major strategy in building your community than scheduled tweets is a godsend. But in addition to receiving great information, communities want to actively engage in conversation regarding what you shared. Sure, you’ll recieve alerts when people respond, but your response will be delayed whether it’s by minutes or hours. If it’s not, than why even schedule tweets when you can simply do it in real time?

I use Twitter to learn, engage, and build relationships. I share links sparingly as do most of the people I follow. If you tweet too many links, how do I know what’s truly interesting or important? It’s been said that the more selective one is with what he shares, the more inclined people are read what was shared. At the end of the day, regardless of scheduled or non-scheduled tweets, when we share a link it’s to spark an idea or conversation and we should be there to engage/discuss.

What do you think? Is it cheating by using scheduled tweets? If you schedule tweets, I’m interested to hear the opportunities / challenges you’ve faced, so please comment below!

(Note: Big thanks to #u30pro a great conversation last week. If you’re not checking in to this chat you are truly missing out. You can find more information about it here: http://davidspinks.com/under-30-professionals/ or join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/u30pro.)

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

Like your typical PR professional he’s a fan of caffeine and is very specific with how he needs it. If you’re going to ask him to coffee remember to get him one of the following: Tim Horton’ english coffee cappuccino, Dunkin Donuts coconut coffee light and sweet, and Coffee Beanery’s crème brulee. So sit tight because this is a long one but I promise the golden nuggets of information make it completely worth the procrastination at work .

As director of global social media for General Motors’s, I’m going to assume you receive resistance but would you say it’s changed?

The resistance today is definitely different than it used to be before the crash last summer. It was mostly people refusing to take it seriously and not believing that blogs, YouTube or Facebook were important. However that doesn’t happen anymore, to be honest. Now we see an opposite kind of resistance. So many people in every part of the company recognize the power of these platforms and want to participate without understanding the space. The resistance I see now is along the lines of “What do you mean you don’t want me putting our new commercial on YouTube or our Facebook page?” or “What do you mean, I’m doing it wrong? Aren’t you the one who’s always said that there’s no hard and fast playbook or template for social media?”

I’ve gone from wishing my phone calls inside the company would get answered more often, to not being able to answer all the phone calls we get from other GMers, to now wishing they’d call a little more often when planning things in the social web. You know, when I set the goal of getting everyone inside GM attuned to the social web and active within it, maybe someone should have told me ‘be careful what you wish for.’ (j/k)

Where does it still come from?

I don’t want this to be a blanket indictment of the entire function, because that would not be fair. But some of the bigger challenges come from people in marketing. I think they largely understand that the social web is a series of important channels with hundreds of millions of viewers/members. But many of them are still intimidated by the idea of actually interacting with an audience; they prefer to just put one-way messages up. We do hear the criticisms within the company that there’s no strategy in SM. It’s all tactics. I respond by telling them that there is in fact a strategy and it works. But they don’t recognize it as one because it doesn’t include many of the familiar or comfortable marketing tactics they’re used to seeing.

On the other hand, some of the most innovative people we have inside GM on social are in marketing. So it really just depends on the individual.

The legal department has been remarkably cooperative. They’ve evolved from being threatened by the nature of the social web, to their first thought being yes. If they ever say no, they always offer up alternatives to help us achieve what we’re setting out to do.

And how do you combat it?
I find brute force and the removal of limbs or appendages to be most effective. But seriously folks, you need a few things to combat the resistance you’ll run into.

First, it really helps to have an executive champion backing you. You’d be amazed how many people suddenly “get it” when the boss or someone with a “C” in their title think what you’re doing is smart and innovative. What personally helped me is having success to build upon. Successes don’t need to be Mashable-headline level wins; the little ones count too. It’s having a tangible example to show that it works. It’s a great arrow to have in your quiver.

If that doesn’t work, scare the bosses. Compare your company with competitors who are involved in SM and ask if they want to be behind the curve. Point out how many people use the social web regularly. Ask them if they can afford to ignore hundreds of millions of opportunities to engage the buying public?

The GM Facebook page has over 90,000 some odd fans and the Twitter account is also impressive. How big is the social media team?

We fluctuate. During summer of 2009 when we had our big crisis, we had five people plus me. That decreased from December through March of this year to just me. Currently, I work with three great people has a team maintaining our social media presence. Plus my boss is very active in the space as well.

Where we’ve really been able to make an impact is increasing the associates within General Motors to see social media as part of their job. Right now, most of the communications people and even some marketing folks are starting to see it as the direction to head regardless if social media is in their title. Buick reaches out to bloggers every time they have a new vehicle launch; Chevrolet invites bloggers and Facebook fans for major auto shows; Cadillac manages their own Facebook and Twitter presence with only occasional guidance from me. My team still counsels and comes up with ideas, but almost everyone’s begun getting involved.

That said, there are four of us with direct responsibility for maintaining the “General Motors” Facebook page, and six of us who, on occasion, tweet from the @GMBlogs Twitter account.

What’s the next platform that GM plans to use and why?

We’re exploring and learning about geo-location or geo-aware platforms. I think that sometimes in all the “what’s the next big thing” speculation, a more important point can get lost. We all do it but the fact is this space evolves too quickly for us to put all our eggs in a particular basket. When I started at GM in 2007, having a blog was still novel, inviting bloggers to auto shows or drive events was unheard of, and casual observers of social were all drooling over MySpace. By 2008, Facebook was the big thing. By 2009 it was Twitter, and this year everyone’s talking about FourSquare and Gowalla. By next year, it’ll be something else.

Instead of focusing on what’s the next big platform, companies need to know if their organization set up on the back end (or internally) to move nimbly to take advantage of whatever emerges. Do the PR and marketing teams work together efficiently enough to explore the new platforms as they emerge? Is our IT department prepared to support new technologies – both inside and outside the firewall – if we want to start experimenting with them? Does leadership accept that early adoption and leadership in a space means learning lessons – and sometimes making mistakes – in public where people can see us do it? That’s more important to me than which platform comes next.  If the answer to those questions is no, then it doesn’t really matter which platform’s emerging, does it?

Now with social media integrated into communication initiatives, is it possible to over communicate? Can we really hit every platform?

I’ve noticed there can be a tendency people to say, “We’ve already issued our statement on that (question or issue). Let’s just refer people to that statement/press release.” I think it’s a mistake to push a message out once and then let it stand. Issue the press release, make the statement but follow up by answering questions you will receive on Facebook, Twitter, or on your blog. Don’t think because you’ve issued a statement, addressed the issue or blunted potential criticism that people have seen or understand your viewpoint.  Statements and press releases are corporate or organizational behavior; ongoing dialogue is a more human behavior. In a crisis, people need to see your company in human terms.  If you sound and act all corporate, you have little hope of winning people over and getting them to listen to your perspective on the issue.

You have to accept going in that you can’t hit every platform or talk to everybody. But also recognize the scale of the social web. Every time you engage someone on Facebook, your fans see the interaction. Every time you answer a question on Twitter, not only do your followers see the conversation but the people who follow that person you’re talking as well.

The social web makes management more challenging and more effective at the same time. On one hand, it’s so much harder to measure everything, given how many different conversations happen in so many different places. And how much weight should we ascribe to the social web? If 400 people on your fan page “like” one of your posts, how does that compare with a traditional media hit in terms of how effective you are at conveying your message? On the other hand, things like Twitter allow you to more directly see whether you’re moving the needle. If you’ve asked me a question or raised a criticism on Twitter, and I respond, and your follow up Tweets reflect a greater understanding of our perspective, or if you’re even giving us credit where you’d previously been critical, I can point to that shift in your thinking as a direct result of our having interacted on Twitter. I can’t draw that same direct cause and effect from, say, an ad on the back of Time magazine or a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal.

Do you plan on competing with Ford, an automaker that is often cited for its SM strategy?

I don’t. That sounds like a flippant answer, but I’m a firm believer that being innovative and being a leader in the social web means not overly worrying about what your competition is doing. I recognize that because we’re in the same industry and based in the same city, people are going to naturally make the comparison between their efforts and ours.

But really, if I spend too much time worrying about what Ford is doing, then all I am doing is following Ford; I’m not leading or innovating. Look, the social web is a big enough place that more than one company in an industry can be successful in engaging it. One doesn’t usually ask “how do you plan on competing with (your main competitor) in the print media?” You just accept that they’re going to do their thing, and you’re going to do yours – and their landing a big article in the WSJ or BusinessWeek doesn’t mean that you’re not successful or that you can’t land similar articles. I’m not sure why we see social any differently.

So, you stay aware of what any competitor is doing, certainly. But you really ought to focus on your own strengths (in our case, our products are better than they’ve ever been, we have a game-changing electric vehicle coming out by the end of the year, and we have a strong team of people active in social), and build your strategies to leverage those strengths. If you’re creative enough, people will be citing your strategy and leadership as well.

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR

I approached Kasey with this post because we noticed a lot of “cheerleading” going on in the blogosphere. Blog posts are flooded with “great post” and “you are spot on” comments. While it’s great to give credit to good ideas and thoughts, these comments rarely add to the discussion. Now we’re not saying everyone should go out and leave rude and obnoxious comments, but dig a little deeper and challenge each other to thought-provoking discussions. Here are some rules that Kasey and I came up with that will help you open respectfully comment on something you don’t agree with and hopefully prevent you from getting black balled in the community.

Respect. Would you kiss your mother with that mouth? Yeah, we didn’t think so. Check the curses, insults and bad-mouthing at the door.

What value are you adding? Comments are meant to add value to the post. Bring new ideas and questions that the author didn’t answer. Create a discussion. When you leave a comment, ask yourself, “How will this add to the post? What will the readers get out of my comment?” If you feel the comment won’t add anything substantial, go straight to the source and hold the discussion off the blog. (Note: If its about spelling or grammar, don’t leave a comment. Go straight to the author.)

Keep in mind it isn’t your post. Remember who’s blog the article is appearing on. Don’t disagree simply to disagree or hear yourself talk. No one likes people who use comments to disagree and then leave linkbait back to a post you wrote or back to your blog.

Length. Short and simple. If you read a post over 600 words, do you think people want to read a comment that is 400 words? Nope. Keep it short to engage the author. Hopefully you’ll create a dialogue and if your questions aren’t answered you’ll use the next tip:

Follow up.Don’t be afraid to take the discussion off the post. E-mail, instant message, Skype. These are all communication platforms I use daily. My personal favorite is the instant message. This way you can track exactly what you’re saying and perhaps create a follow up post. You never know where the relationship may lead or what you may learn.

A great example of follow up is this co-authored post by Kasey and Rachel Kay. Rachel tweeted that every PR person needed to be active on Twitter and LinkedIn. Kasey didn’t completely agree and responded via Twitter. The topic received a lot of discussion and unfortunately, Twitter limits the conversation that a community can have. In efforts to continue the conversation, Kasey reached out to her and they decided to dedicate a thought-provoking post on the subject. Even though he was in the minority, as Rachel is 100x smarter than him, the post ended up being a great learning experience for him. He took a stance and went against the crowd. Even though they disagreed, they shared mutual respect for one another and went about the discussion in a professional manner.

So often we’re afraid to voice our opinion, whether it be fear of thinking we’re wrong or the fear of angering someone. Forget that. The community at large will benefit from taking conversations to the next level. Today we challenge everyone to voice their opinion and don’t be afraid or hesitant to disagree. We would love to hear about your experiences too.

Note: Special thanks to Kasey, for co-writing this post and brainstorming some important tips.

• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had
• 3 February 2012 : Considering Making the Switch from Agency to In-House?
• 2 February 2012 : Apple’s Positive Earnings Report Creates Bad PR