BtoB Online ran a story today by Carol Krol on Forrester’s just-released report that says B2B marketers aren’t as blogging as much as they used to. Have you noticed a similiar trend? Is it due to the likely reasons Forrester cited? Are you blogging less these days? Are your clients? The curious minds at Tech PR Gems want to know. We’re making a conscientious effort to blog MORE since we re-launched the site, but we do find that microblogging has taken some of the urgency out of it.

Well, at least we blogged about this…

Technorati Tags: B2B, B2B Blogging, bloggers, Blogging, Forrester, Forrester Research

I have had all these great ideas swirling around in my head for this blog but it seem as though they have already been covered. Instead, I’ll refrain and post an observation about Twitter, reporters, PR people and the number one rule that I see getting violated.

Ever since I started using Twitter a few months ago I’ve found it to be extremely valuable on a personal and professional level. I do follow many reporters to see what types of things they are covering and basically what is bugging them about PR people. Some of my favorites include @phonescooper, @bmorrissey and @mitchwagner. They have all complained about some of the things that bother them about us. Yesterday took the cake, @mitchwagner actually got a direct message that was a pitch. When I saw the post, I actually wanted to scream but then thought my cube-mates wouldn’t appreciate it. First of all it’s insanely intrusive and secondly, it’s bad form.

To all PR people out there: PLEASE, stop pitching reporters on Twitter (unless you know for sure that they want to be pitched)! PLEASE, stop pitching on Facebook and other social networking sites (again, unless you know for sure that they want to be pitched). PLEASE, stop giving us all a bad rap.

Use regular email, and if you can’t keep your pitches short and to the point, then maybe your pitch isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.

Please note: This is just my opinion, not the opinion of others at Topaz or of my employer Topaz Partners. It might offend and for that, I apologize.

Technorati Tags: bad pitch, editors, email, Facebook, pitch, pitching, PR, reporters, Social Media, socialmedia, Twitter

Remember the Conversation Index? BusinessWeek does. According to Sam Whitmore, their new “engagement editor” Shirley Brady is using what Stowe Boyd called the Conversation Index as one of the key measurements of the success of its online engagements. Since she’s been on board the ratio of comments to posts has more than doubled.

All signs point to the fact that BusinessWeek gets it. David Kaplan wrote on paidContent.org in April that:

John Byrne, BusinessWeek Online editor-in-chief, feels most [publishers'] efforts haven’t really gone beyond the introduction of reader comments on stories. Aside from making comments appear more prominently across the McGraw-Hill (NYSE: MHP) site’s channel pages and stories, Byrne wants to elevate some of the most prolific commenters to the level of regular contributors…

This is a very smart strategy. As just one example, BusinessWeek’s reputation in the social media community grew by leaps and bounds when senior writer Steve Baker sourced a microblogging article on Twitter.

I see a lot of outlets relaunch their online presence with new graphics, new looks and new feels. Now you can comment on their articles, but nobody does. Circulation numbers and web traffic stats are all well and good, but they’re only a small part of the picture these days. You need to be able to track more than just eyeballs to see the big picture. BusinessWeek gets this, and is using reader feedback to drive editorial innovation.

This is exactly what was missing from all of the wonderful discussions I heard over at Enterprise 2.0 last week. It’s great that you have a brand new wiki that your employees are using to improve productivity, but what if all you’re doing is delivering what your customers don’t want more quickly? Why aren’t we hearing more about innovation like what BusinessWeek and eBags are doing?

This week’s eWeek heralded in the age of “CRM 2.0″ in an article on how Oracle and Salesforce.com are helping companies innovate by helping improve customer engagement, and I look forward to discussions about dropping other firewalls between the enterprise and the customer. (Incidentally, eWeek could use a little Web 2.0 help by making its print articles easier to find online, for the life of me I can’t find a link to their article about Web 2.0 innovation. Ironic? eWeek needs to borrow a page or two from the BusinessWeek playbook.)

Technorati Tags: BusinessWeek, comments, conversation, conversation index, CRM, e20, enterprise 2.0, eWeek, innovation, Social Media, socialmedia, web 2.0, web20, wikis

There’s been a lot of change at Topaz Partners lately, both on the surface and behind the scenes. While the national economy continues to falter, there are still very few signs of weakness in the world of technology public relations. That means most of the change has been good. This includes the growth of our client base, both in the region and outside it.

We’re happy to announce that Fairchild Semiconductor, a $1.6 billion public company and a pioneer in transistors and other technologies of the modern silicon age, has signed on with Topaz Partners.

We’re really happy to have them on board. We’re still very much a Boston firm, but our reach is much broader than just New England. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming–I promise we won’t toot our own horns very much here, but I just can’t help but be excited sometimes…

Technorati Tags: Boston, economy, FCS, new england, PR, Tech, tech economy, technology

I got a chance to pop into the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this morning, in time to catch Chris Brogan’s session on enterprise social media, as well as the morning keynotes. As I mentioned yesterday, you can see my raw notes and thoughts on my Twitter feed.

Two things stood out. First, there was a lot of talk about Millennials versus Baby Boomers, both about their differences, but also about how much knowledge we’re losing with the inevitable departure of our veterans. Enterprises have definitely caught on to this, and are definitely doing something about it–every single case study I saw was using wikis to capture (and collaborate on) as much unstructured data as possible.

Second, and this may be a “no duh” moment for most of you (it was for Pistachio when I commented about it to her this morning), there were very few references to the customer–at least the end-user kind. Yes, I know enterprise 2.0 is all about what we used to call employee communications, but one of the most interesting discussions that took place during Andrew McAfee’s keynote panel was about–in my words–avoiding groupthink.

I’m waiting for enterprise 2.0 to embrace including not just the voice of the employees, but the voice of the customers too. That’s how you avoid groupthink!

Incidentally, we’ll be running with the theme of social media and the enterprise at Thursday’s Social Media Club Boston event. There are only 25 seats left, so sign up now! Hope to see you there!

Technorati Tags: E2, enterprise 2.0, SMCBoston, socialmedia, socialmediaclub, web 2.0

July 11. A day in the blogosphere and Twitter stream that will live in infamy. Otherwise known as the day the new iPhone is due to hit the streets. The past few weeks there’s been speculation all over the place. Today at 1 pm EST Apple made their announcement.

I’ve never seen so much overload of information in a short period of time. Post-announcement I realize Apple is damn smart. They’ve pulled off a major announcement with no press release and have everyone talking. Here are a few things they did that’s smart:

1. Well, they are Apple and pretty much have re-invented themselves over and over. Today they have a geeky-savvy (if that’s a word), loyal following. I have to say I own two iPods and am thinking of going Mac with my next computer.

2. Apple uses and creates buzz to their advantage. Having Steve Jobs make a major announcement at a pre-determined time gets everyone talking in advance and will continue to have everyone talking.

3. Instant karma. Apple’s site and all related sites were updated at the same time. The blogs went nuts. People went in search of news. I did.

What else would you add to the list? Why is Apple smart? Is this the biggest PR story the first half of the year? Nah…just one of many.

An article in the February 2008 issue of the ironically-named Fast Company places Columbia University Professor (and now Yahoo! employee) Duncan Watts as Chief Debunker of the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell’s popular book and idea about the influence of, well, influencers (or, as Gladwell classifies them, Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen).

Online PR has largely grabbed on to the fact that, rather than worrying about every little blogger out there, if we just find the “New Influencers,” (let’s connect a few more dots while we’re at it. Does this link make me a Connector or a Salesman?).

Viral? Don’t Make Me Sick*
Duncan Watts performed experiments in an attempt to debunk the idea that “influentials” spread memes, but that the key to making word, whether it is news, an idea, a video or what have you, go “viral,” is to, as the article, puts it, “harness the pass-around power of everyday people–and ignore Influentials altogether.”

My big problem with this whole effort- aside from the fact that word about Watts’ theories is spreading in, um, Influential publications like Fast Company. Or, that I could bet that people are flocking to his blog to lap up whatever pronouncements he is making on the non-influence of the Influentials. Well, wait; I actually couldn’t find a blog, so we’ll have to settle for buying his newly-Influential book from the eminently Influential Amazon.com.

I firmly believe that people like to be told what to do, or what’s cool, even if they decide for themselves whether to pass on a meme’s “coolness.” And I also believe that as word spreads, lots of people hang on to a smaller group of, yes “Influentials” who become the tastemakers– or the “A-Listers”– or whatever you want to call them.

Where Watts scores is in the fact that online Influentials are vaguely defined. Who are these people and how do they influence? The everyday people mentioned above? Aren’t they influencers? And blogs and other social media are giving more and more people a voice and a potential audience.

Where he also scores is I have seen, in past clients trying to drive Web traffic, the unpredictability of who exactly ends up driving the traffic. As often as not, a blogger I never heard of drives more traffic than a Robert Scoble. that, however, does not mean we should ignore the acknowledged Influentials and the influence, indirect at times, they likely still wield. It’s just that you can’t stop there.

Influentials aren’t going away, but influence is more distributed, and it is moving. That’s the boig difference today. Some of the “everyday people” are more influential than others, and it is different for every publicity project. That’s the real challenge today.

On a lighter note, I mused recently in a “Social Media Top 5″ post about who thinks they are influencers but aren’t, and unlikely sources of influence.

* Let’s forget for now that The Tipping Point was inspired by the AIDS epidemic, and that the concept of “viral” marketing is literally akin to the spread of deadly epidemics. Maybe Christopher Penn is wrong…

When someone you know asks you to review a book– or you volunteer– one feels a responsibility to be unbiased. The more you think about it, the harder it becomes.

So I come to a look at Join the Conversation by Joseph Jaffe. It is not so much that I have a bias towards Jaffe himself– I have never met him, though I know him well enough through online conversations– but towards yet another book coming out of the so-called “fishbowl” of people who already know social media well, live and breathe it, and can’t imagine why companies would hesitate to use it.

Well, the point is, many companies do hesitate. Many social media tools are brand new, companies don’t understand them, and there is a real danger that a rush to use them with out a strategy in mind will result in disaster. that, coupled with the fear that any venture into “conversational” marketing will result in disaster, is enough to need resources that attempt to explain how to do it.

So, the book: Join the Conversation. One phrase for the social media crowd:

Don’t Read the Book.

JTC is not for you. If you are in the active social media marketing crowd, then you read his blog or listen to his podcast “Jaffe Juice.” Maybe you even drop in on his company crayon’s virtual headquarters in Second Life, for their regular “coffee with crayon.” What struck me reading the book was, There is nothing here I haven’t heard already. This book is not for me.

Well, do I recommend the book? Yes, but not for you. If you are trying to convince someone — a client, your boss, a friend — to use social media and engage in conversations as part of an overall marketing plan, and you are convinced yourself this is a good idea, then by all means pass the book along. It has:

• Examples of successful social media brand engagements
• Examples of poor implementations
• Input from other members of the social media community, researchers and analysts

It doesn’t have:

• Dissenting voices, but there are lots of warnings of the pitfalls of doing social media poorly

If you are passing this book along, also familiarize yourself– and the reader– with Jaffe’s prose style. He does not spare the epithets, and is very comfortable with calling people idiots or losers (or worse) if he doesn’t like what they are doing (listen to his podcast sometime).

So:

Pass the book on. It may help your case.

Note: Joseph recently offered to give away copies of Join the Conversation to marketing bloggers who promised to review the book. I actually paid for my copy, though as i disclosed above, I know him, and told him I would publish my thoughts.

A week ago, we passed on the news– as did many other bloggers– that Blognation writer, and as his business cards always point out, Storyteller– Marc Orchant had suffered a massive coronary in his home.

Sadly, Marc passed away the day of this writing, Sunday, Dec. 9.

I knew Marc only a little bit– we had enough mutual friends that we were both asked to contribute to a roundtable on PR and bloggers. However, I can only begin to imagine the heartbreak suffered by Marc’s closer colleagues, friends and family.

Marc’s colleague Oliver Starr had created a donations account to help his family in this difficult time. I don’t know many details, except what Starr put up on his blog.

*Photo by Brian Solis

I haven’t seen this posted on the web yet, but it was in an email sent out by the Institute for Public Relations, and Paul Gillin, John Cass and Greg PC are talking about it right now at the SNCR event, so I’m going to repost the whole news. These are preliminary findings, by the way. The final report will be published in April:

New Influencer Study Initial Findings Shared At Society for New Communications Research Symposium

Adoption Strong but Companies Struggle to Identify Influentials

Boston, MA – December 6, 2007 – As more companies adopt social media, they struggle to find effective metrics for deciding who are the most influential players. This is among the initial findings of a study, “New Media, New Influencers and Implications for the PR Profession,” presented today at the Society for New Communications Research Symposium in Boston, MA. (www.sncr.org/symposium). The study was funded by the Institute for Public Relations and Wieck Media (www.wieck.com).

Nearly 300 public relations, corporate and marketing communications professionals experienced in social media participated in a survey focused on how influence patterns are changing and how communications professionals are addressing those changes. In addition, several case studies have been collected.

Fifty-seven percent of respondents said that social media tools are becoming more valuable to their activities as more customers and influencers use them. Twenty-seven percent reported that social media is a core element of their communications strategy. Only 3 percent stated that social media has little or no value to their communications initiatives. Respondents believe that social media is most effective for the following sectors: arts, entertainment and recreation; communications; computer hardware; and education.

“Blogs, podcasts, and social networks are changing the way we think about media and influence,” said Jen McClure, executive director of the Society. “We wanted to learn what criteria communications professionals use to define new influencers; how social media is being used to communicate with these influentials; and how to measure the effects of such efforts. The ultimate goal of the study is to offer a set of recommendations to the PR profession.”

Respondents reported that the most effective tools for their social media initiatives are currently:

• Blogs
• Online video
• Social networks

The top three criteria for determining the relevance and potential influence of a blogger or podcaster are:

1. Quality of content on the blog or podcast
2. Relevance of content to the company or brand
3. Search engine rankings

Surprising to the researchers was the fact that criteria that measured online engagement for blogs and podcasts were among the least important to the respondents.

However, for online communities and social networks, the top three criteria for evaluating influence do reflect the importance of online engagement:

1. Participation level
2. Frequency of posting by the community member
3. Name recognition of the individual

Fifty-one percent of respondents are formally measuring the effects of their social media initiatives. The metrics they value most are enhancement of relationships with key audiences, enhancement of reputation, customer awareness of program and comments/posts relevant to organization/products. Close to the bottom of the list was traditional media coverage.

“The respondents are admittedly power users, but their thinking on new media and influencers will be instructive to all communications professionals,” said McClure.

Detailed results of the study will be published in the upcoming issue of the Journal of New Communications Research and a full report will be made
available via the Society and the Institute for Public Relations in early 2008.