Tag: social media

PR and Social Media Measurement

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I get a lot of questions about measurement of social media. One of those questions came in response to a recent post on my ‘PR  and Media’ blog on GRBJ.com.

So I followed up with another post about the evaluation and measurement of social media efforts by organizations. Keep in mind that many professionals in a recent survey said they do no measurement at all, and others only a routine count of “friends” and “followers.” The reason for that may have something to do with how busy people are, but others simply say they don’t know where to begin.

Read my follow-up post on social media measurement on GRBJ.com.

How Do West Michigan Organizations Use Social Media?

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While professionals in businesses and nonprofits are using social media more often on behalf of their organization, there could be more to “like” about why and how they do so. 

A recent study I completed, along with Mike Yoder of LinkedUpGR and Jeff Gartner of Gartner and Associates, shows that West Michigan is not unusual when comparing our local study results with some national studies about social media use. It’s also interesting to note that college degree, job description and authority in an organization are associated with using social media for conversations as opposed to mere promotion.
You can learn more about the study in my PR & Media Blog on grbj.com. 
Or, you can come Monday March 4 to a LinkedUpGR event at 6 p.m. at the Ramada Plaza Grand Rapids to see a presentation of the study and participate in a discussion of the implications. The event is free, but please RSVP.

The Danger of Assumed Ubiquity in Social Media

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I was talking to my graduate communication management class  earlier this week about deciding on if and how to use various communication technologies. A text we were discussing stressed the importance of weighing the difference between benefits  and costs  to determine the value of a communication technology.

One point I made to them was to beware of assuming that because something is popular with you and your friends, or seems to be getting a lot of buzz in the tech media, that it is the best medium to reach your intended publics, be they employees, customers, investors, B-to-B partners or others. I called this “the danger of assumed ubiquity.” In other words, just because a bunch of public relations people are raving about the latest social media platform, don’t assume that it is everywhere, that everyone uses it, or more importantly, that the specifically segmented public you want to reach (you DO segment your publics, right?) is using it.

The day after that class  met, Pew released a new study on the demographics of social media use by Americans. The study is useful to see  which platforms appeal to which demographics, such as gender, age, college  education, and race.

But what is also interesting is the fact that overall use of even the most popular and established social media sites is quite low as a percentage  of overall population. Two-thirds (67%) of Americans say  they have used Facebook, especially  women and the 18-29 age group. But other social media platforms are  not as popular as those of us who use them like to think:

  • Twitter — 16%
  • Pinterest — 15%
  • Instagram — 13%
  • Tumblr — 6%
Generally speaking, your tweet may often fall in the woods when no one is there. Also, keep in the mind that the study doesn’t get into frequency or purpose of use. So we don’t know how often this small minority  of people are using certain sites, or why they are there (i.e. are they just socializing with friends, or do they really follow brands?) I know from other studies that engaging with organizations via social media is happening, but the reality is there are not a lot of people there to begin with, they are not there often, and they don’t go there to keep up with your company or nonprofit organization.
I still think PR pros absolutely have to have a social media presence, because the study shows upward  trend lines from 2010 to 2012 in use. But there are several lessons learned:
  • Don’t use social media for mass reach, use it for interaction with specific segments;
  • Remember that social media supplements, and does not replace, other traditional forms of owned, earned, and paid media;
  • Your content has to be conversational, not promotional. Think engage, not just inform;
  • Keep monitoring for which platforms are growing, which are useful for your targeted public segments, and which are best for meeting your organizational objectives.
And of course, don’t assume ubiquity of any medium.

Millennials and Media: Barometer of Future PR

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Two recent studies show some trends among the millennial generation and their media use that may be a barometer of things to come in the larger population in years ahead.

One study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Communication Inquiry  offers interesting perspective about teen news consumption based on interviews with 61 racially diverse high schoolers. It’s easy to parrot the complaint that young people don’t pay attention to news like they should, but this study shows a more nuanced understanding of youth and the news.
The fact that teens are not reading traditional newspapers and tuning in to conventional television news programs does not mean they are indifferent to news. Rather, they are skeptical about the notion of “objectivity” in the news, both in the sense that it isn’t always so objective but also that objectivity does not necessarily inform them fully. For example, they prefer Facebook and social media, where they are exposed to links from “friends” as well as multiple comments. In interviews, teens said this better enables them to hear real pros and cons on issues and not the obtuse glaze of objectivity (the words “obtuse glaze” are mine:-) ). The young people interviewed probably don’t realize they are embracing the old concept of a public sphere of dialog about issues but that’s what they are doing. It’s the peer discussion more than the formal presentation format of news that excites them. As others have said, news is now a process, not a product.
For the same reason, teens gravitate to blogs, fake news shows like Jon Stewart, talk radio, and opinionated current events shows because they feel the discussions that ensue are more substantive and the implications more evident than in conventional news sources. 
One note of evident critical thinking from the teens: they criticize news sites for content that seems more entertaining than informative. In other words, they notice the appeal to reach audiences for advertisers can overwhelm a public interest motivation. 
Meanwhile, another study in Australia, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald in late November (hat tip PR professor colleague Tom Watson who shared this on Twitter), showed that 61% of Facebook users aged 18-29 feel they spend too much time on the social media site. This sentiment among the young people was nearly double that of the 753 Australian Facebook users surveyed in the study. What’s more, 47% in that 18-29 age group considered disliking Facebook for good because of feeling that it has become a time waster.
Could it be that the young are starting to think of Facebook as “so five years ago?” 
Well, probably not. They also said they would feel left out if they disconnected altogether. My sense is the reason that the young are more likely to say they spend too much time on Facebook is because they young actually DO spend way too much time on Facebook. As the study concluded, users will probably keep their Facebook (and other social media accounts) but usage will probably go down in the future.
The take-away for PR pros about both of these studies is that we should pay attention to “leading edge” studies like this. There may be contradictory studies, since generalization is always a matter of degree. But these studies could be a barometer of a change in news and social media use in the future. People may  use social media less, and when they are there, it will be for more substantive and functional reasons than what has been the case for many in the past. 
So PR people will have to consider:
  • the reach of publicity is not based on subscribers and viewers, but on shares and comments;
  • the comment sections of news sites are not an after-thought to the article, but the place where the real PR action is;
  • providing content that is specifically relevant and genuinely substantive is more important than catching eyeballs with anything that titillates;
  • allowing for not just dialogue, but debate if the content put forth is about contemporary issues;
  • public relations is once again about the “public sphere.”

Assets Laid-Off Journalists Can Leverage for PR Jobs

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It’s a common expression in business to talk about “leveraging assets.” That’s just the way people in pinstripes talk about taking advantage of skills and resources to achieve your objective.
I’ve been talking to a number of laid-off, outsourced, terminated, bought-out journalists over the past few months who are looking to transition to a new job. Many of them are understandably upset, because they have spent 20-30 years acquiring skills that don’t seem valued in an industry that is collapsing under their feet.
But those skills aren’t entirely irrelevant. There’s no doubt that journalism is adapting radically to respond to the confluence of changes in technology, culture, and economics (see Steve Rubel’s “Clip Report”for a nice overview of the emerging news media landscape. But that doesn’t mean “old-school” journalism skills are irrelevant. It just means they’ll be applied in different ways, across different platforms, and for different organizations, even those outside of journalism.
Public relations has been a refuge for former journalists for centuries. In fact, in 1926 Editor & Publisher decried the number of journalism school graduates going directly into “this new field called public relations.” Many have debated whether journalists can make the transition to PR. Some joke that they have to “sell their soul” to go to “the dark side.” But this merely shows a misunderstanding of what PR really is, and that there are different types of PR jobs out there, based on different models of PR practice.
Journalists can make the easiest transition to the type of PR known as “public information”. Public Information Officers (PIOs) often work for a government agency or state university, and the job involves disseminating objective information, primarily one-way. That’s not too dissimilar from what a journalist does. A recent example would be Ed Golder, former editorial page editor of the Grand Rapids Press, who is now the PIO at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. 
Journalists may struggle a bit more to work in PR roles known as “two-way symmetrical” or “two-way asymmetrical.” The former involves listening and engaging with publics in dialogue and advising management to adapt to public concerns. The latter is still two-way but more driven to be persuasive in ensuring the organizational goals are met. This can be more of a challenging transition for journalists used to writing objective information and distributing it one-way (although editorial writers have an edge here). An advanced degree in PR or organizational communication, or at least attending local chapter meetings of the Public Relations Society of America, could be helpful to make the transition.
But there are base skills that good journalists have that they can leverage for PR jobs, especially since the landscape for PR in corporate, nonprofit and government institutions is changing for the same reasons, social media and otherwise, that journalism is changing. Those skills include:
  •    Writing. This sounds fundamental, and it is. But a common complaint I hear from employers is the lack of writing skills among the work force. Even the most brilliant strategy or communication plan can fail if it’s not well articulated.
  • Storytelling versus catalog copy. Consumers and other publics these days need to be “engaged,” not just informed. Journalists who are experienced in writing more than meeting reports but getting to the essence of a story and stressing its relevance can be an asset in PR. Those reporters who have been active on Twitter and Facebook and other social platforms, building their own brand as well as their media outlet’s, are a step ahead here as well.
  • Reporting. Reporting is more than asking questions. It’s knowing what to ask, who to ask, processing the information quickly and re-presenting it in a way that is accurate, clear, understandable and compelling. A reporter transitioning into PR can be a “quick study” in learning the organization quickly and well enough to represent it to the public. They just have to remember they are no longer a reporter but actually have to keep organizational objectives in mind.
  • Multi-media. Print reporters who also did page layout, photography, or video for a newspapers web site—not to mention former broadcast reporters—bring an increasingly valuable tactical skill to organizations. “Every organization must be a media organization” is a common mantra as corporations, nonprofits and government offices have their own blogs, YouTube channels and other online and social platforms requiring more than simple text.

Former journalists have other options besides working in public relations for an organization. One is to continue to be a journalist. The radical changes in news media are demonstrating that it is not necessary to work only for a traditional newspaper or TV station. Citizen media like the Rapidian and online media like RapidGrowth continue to grow. As mainstream media are diminished, the opportunities for these alternative, online-only media outlets may grow.
Another likely option is to be a journalistic entrepreneur. This is more than the old notion of being a freelancer. Journalists could be self-employed and provide content for a variety of news media and other organizations. While newspapers are diminishing, the online media environment has a burgeoning number of outlets. Add to that the nonprofits and companies and gov
ernment departments that need to feed the content beast, and a good journalist could stay comfortably busy. This will be even more true as the demand for quality versus quantity of information naturally rises as the public is overwhelmed and seeks credible, timely and relevant information.
Who knows—a group of former journalists could even start their own agency, not unlike Editors at Large, formed by former Grand Rapids Magazine editor John Brosky years ago, or the Wordsmiths whose staff has changed over the years but the agency continues today. They could even start a new news media outlet–either broad based or niche focused by audience or subject–to compete with the one that laid them off.