Tag: social media

Insta Thoughts on Increased Popularity of Instagram

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Instagram has reached 400 million monthly users, Adweek reports.

The social site which enables “instant” sharing of photos, as well as video, and of course text, has grown by 100 million users just this year.

It’s easy to get all crazy excited about this, especially if you work in PR and have digital and social media as part of your job responsibilities.  But let me give some “instathoughts” about the news.

  • It’s monthly users.  That means it takes a month to get 400 million people to use Instagram. That means people don’t use it what could be called “regularly” in our hyper mediated world. They could use it daily, weekly, monthly. We don’t have that data in this report. But the use is occasional.
  •  75% of those 400 million reside outside the US. That is fascinating if you work for an NGO or MNC and want to reach a global audience. But if you have a more domestic focus, you are talking about 100 million, or one-third of the U.S. population.
  • Instagram started as and still primarily is a photo sharing site. That means to engage those users–if you still want to, given the above–you need to think and act visually. Does the organization story you have and want to tell have a visual aspect? If yes, go for it. If not, maybe Instagram in spite of its growth is not right for you.
  • It’s a social medium. Just because there are a lot of people on Instagram or any other social site doesn’t mean they are patiently waiting for messaging from businesses and nonprofit organizations. They want to engage with friends and network with individuals mostly, and maybe, if the content is right and not too overtly a marketing message, they’ll pay attention to a brand message. 
  • Sometimes less is more. People are still lured by large numbers, but the growth of Instagram in volume of users may not mean it’s an easy targeting opportunity for brands. Consider networking in person. If you walk into a room of 20 people you may have more meaningful engagement than a room of 200, 2,000, or more. It’s the paradox and tension of digital media and the nature of attention–more people means more chaos. Remember that in social the people are not just an audience, they are the participants and the messages as well. You have to find a way to be relevant, engaging and real. So, work to find niche audiences within Instagram.
All of the above is just some quick critical thinking about this news. There is still rich opportunity on Instagram, but it must be considered realistically and strategically.

Arthur Page–Thoughts on Social Media from a Time Before TV

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Several years ago I received a pleasant surprise in the campus mail. It was a copy of the book “Words from a Page in History,” which is a collection of speeches given by public relations pioneer Arthur Page from the 1920s into the 1950s. The book was sent for free to faculty in public relations around the country by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University. The center is dedicated to research in the area ethics and responsibility in corporate communication and other areas of public communication.

I finally got around to reading it, and is often the case with history, I marveled at how prescient some of his comments were and how much they speak to the field of public relations still today.

But first, a little background. Page was a journalist who became a public relations professional and by 1927 had the title of Vice President of Public Relations at the largest company of the time–AT&T. The “Page Principles” are themes gleaned from his many public speeches and documents and are heralded by professors and practitioners as solid guidelines for PR practiced as ethical counsel to management of organizations. You can learn more about Page via the Arthur W. Page Society, on the Arthur Page “exhibit” at the online PR History Museum, or by reading the excellent biography of Arthur W. Page by Noel L. Griese.

So, as I was reading through Page’s speeches, I got to thinking about the famous Page Principles that summarize the man’s philosophy of public relations practice and how they might apply today to social media. Here’s my quick application of each principle from before the TV era to the social space today:

  1. Tell the truth–always be genuine on social platforms, from your profile to your posts, and what links and other content you share.
  2. Prove it with action–don’t automate and aggregate content. Don’t present an image on social media but fail to live up to it by replying, sharing, and responding to comments. Be sure your offline presence is consistent with your online and social projection. Do what you say and say what you do.
  3. Listen to the customer–don’t blast tweets and updates without first listening to conversations in the social space. And if people respond, reply back in kind, not just with your own agenda but to satisfy the questions and issues of those who reply to your social messages.
  4. Manage for tomorrow–social media is in the moment, but it’s still wise to think long term. Analytics are great, but daily, weekly or monthly numbers of engagement should not be the sole driver or reward of social media management for a brand. Consider how social media is an extension of bigger objectives and a piece of a larger media mix that may not yield results for a year or more.
  5. Conduct public relations as if the whole company depends on it–Consider that all publics may follow social accounts, on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest and others. Do not see social media as merely a marketing megaphone, but an effort consistent with broader organizational goals and open to the views of many. 
  6. Realize that a company’s true character is expressed by its people–many organizations only allow public relations or marketing teams to represent the company on social media. Consider engaging in a “distributed PR” model in which every job function is allowed to tweet and post as part of their job. People engage with multiple publics in many ways. This requires a healthy culture, but in the social space this especially makes sense to allow the organization to be visible in a positive way. As Page said, every employee, active or retired, is involved in public relations.
  7. Remain calm, patient and good humored–this is especially true in social media. Be careful what you say, and don’t resort to anger and incivility. Allow comments, respond to them, engage in other social accounts to represent your organization transparently and honestly.
Clearly Arthur Page never had to handle social media. As I noted, the bulk of his career was completed before TV was ubiquitous in American households. But his principles of PR practice are timeless and a good reminder again to contemporary practitioners. Even the social media and digital communication are new, the concepts of integrity, honesty, ethics in PR practice are timeless and transportable across any medium or platform.

Click or Clique? More Specific Social Sites Trending

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A group of my students presenting a public affairs case study alerted me to GovLoop, a social site specifically for people who work in government and public affairs. It is based on the Ning platform, which, as their tagline says, allows people to build and manage their own community. It’s a “walled garden” approach to social media.

It’s not a really new idea. Ning has been around for a while. In fact, it’s been years since I joined a PROpenMic, a social community for PR professors and students.

But my own observation is that such specific industry or cause-related platforms are becoming more prevalent as people try to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio on their mainstream social networks.

Of course, it is possible to have lists on Twitter, groups of friends on Facebook, groups on LinkedIn, and communities on Google+. But even there, among my lists of students and alumni, PR profs and PR professionals, someone may share pictures of their new shoes or another cat video.

These newer places keep the social but purge the purely personal and increasingly irrelevant content. A mix of personal and professional has always been a favored aspect of social, but with the increase in users it has become harder to keep that blend suitable.

Some studies show that as few as 11% of new Twitter users in 2012 are still tweeting today. One reason is they feel too busy to maintain it after initial curiosity was satisfied. Another reason for social engagement attrition is the lack of return, i.e. there is little relevant information. These content-specific social communities are an answer for many.

I know some colleagues who have refused to jump on Twitter and Facebook, but they have accounts on Academia.edu because it is more interesting and productive for them to engage exclusively with other researchers and educators.

Meanwhile, some managers who don’t want employees “wasting time” (not my view necessarily) on social media and block workplace access to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn will allow and encourage the use of Yammer, an internal social network for employees.

In the end, some may eschew the mainstream social networks for these specific ones. Others may engage in both and use them appropriately for personal vs professional engagement. But for those of us working and teaching in public relations, it’s important to be aware of these sites that are more like cliques than all about clicks. The PR practitioners in particular may need to join ning sites in their industry for business-to-business and other networking opportunities. It may not be a way to get mass reach, but it will be a way to engage a more relevant audience, and one that might not be found elsewhere.

Twtrland Offers Useful Brand Planning and Monitoring

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A representative from Twtrland, a social media analytics company, reached out to me and gave me a test drive of their services.

I’m an academic and not a brand with a huge budget for such PR service companies, so I appreciated the gesture. I took some notes for my classes, and thought I’d blog an overview of the service here.

Twtrland offers analytics for Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. All can be connected for aggregated reporting, which can lead to integrated planning. There is a free version and a pro upgrade option, similar to other analytic services.

Brands can enter their brand handle as well as various versions of their brand name to get a variety of reports:

  • Audience analysis. Data is broken down in several categories–by celebrities, power users, casual, and novice; by age and gender; by top countries and cities. I especially like the breakdown of users’ skills, and the audience interests with percentages in descending order for a variety of subject areas.
  • Fan base. This section gives a quick tiled view of users avatars and profiles. You can sort by followers, recent interactions, or amplifications (retweets, etc). There is also a conversations tab to see in at-a-glance view who is talking to and engaging with your brand.
  • Monitor. In addition to key words and key people, this section allows you to enter the names of key competitors–organizations and individuals–to test your game and maybe show comparison analysis reports to bosses and clients. It’s the ‘share of discussion’ metric for social media.
  • Outreach. This tab allows you to find influencers so that you can strategize ways to engage them. This is also where your lists can be added to do analytics within your own prescribed groups of people.
There are a lot of social media platforms, and even more third-party services to help brands work and measure their efforts in this space. Twtrland is certainly one that could be considered as an option for social media specialists, as well as for public relations pros who have social media added to their long list of traditional responsibilities.

Local and National Perspectives on Social Media and PR Education

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It was an interesting coincidence that the Grand Rapids Business Journal had a local article about West Michigan colleges not offering social media degrees in the same week that the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC) PR Division tackled the subject in the current issue of the Teaching Public Relations (TPR) monograph.

The Business Journal article (self disclosure: I write the “PR and Media” blog for GRBJ.com) noted that it “checked in” with all local colleges and universities and that none offer a social media degree. The article included perspectives from faculty at only two of the colleges–Calvin and Davenport–but the comments were relatively universal–that there is not enough substance to offer a full degree or even a course in social media, that existing theory and practice can and should be applied and adapted to social media, and that social media concepts and assignments can be integrated into existing courses.
That matches the national scale views of educators as well as practitioners as reported in the TPR monograph. Professors are cautioned not to get caught up in chasing “shiny new objects” or bogged down in the tactical how-to instruction for each new app and platform. Some of these tech tools advance so rapidly that professors would have to change syllabi several times a semester. 
It was encouraging to read in the monograph that practitioners encouraged professors to teach theory–existing PR and communications theory as well as recent research on social media use and affects–before blending that knowledge with practice. Students should learn not just how to use social media, but how to use it on behalf of businesses, nonprofit organizations, and other clients. This changes the consideration of how to teach social media–professionally, with strategic insight fueled by empiricism and theory and not mere tactical proficiency.
Some of those “old” concepts that need to be applied to social media practice? Here’s a quick run-down of concepts and principles that have been taught in existing courses for years:
  • Research–students should be taught how to use social media to gain knowledge of public attitudes, issues, trends. 
  • Objectives–don’t just use social media because it’s new and cool. We saw a lot of disasters when web sites were new. Have measurable objectives, as in what you want to accomplish for an organization in terms of public awareness, attitude, or actions in response.
  • Strategy–who you reach out to, how you reach them, what you say, the frequency with which you say it, what platforms you choose–all of these and other questions should be carefully considered given the objectives above. If you don’t have a strategy, you are just pushing content into the crowded social space. Some old and newer theories are the basis of smart strategy in social media.
  • Tactics–we do teach tactics in existing courses. Social media should be seen as supplementing and not necessarily replacing existing communication tools. Also, social can be integrated with them and courses updated to include them, such as a media relations class now including social media and multi-media news releases, pitching bloggers, integrating hashtags at events and other ideas.
  • Evaluation–I would argue that the emphasis on evaluation has received as much buzz as social media in PR circles. Students need to know that clients, colleagues, and bosses will expect this. This is true of all PR efforts, but particularly social media. Research shows many executives still see social as a frivolous waste of time. Students need to know how to prove the affect of their social media efforts in terms of meeting organizational objectives.
Of course, I’m open to change. In 2006 when Twitter was new, I was the one telling students about it. Now students tweet me before I’ve had them in a class, and they reach out on many other platforms. I didn’t see Twitter and other social media coming or becoming this popular. There may come a day when I have to throw out the syllabus and craft an entire course on social media. 
Then again, the time may come when such a suggestion sounds as ridiculous as having a full course on the fax machine.