I am incensed.
Two blog posts have prompted me to respond in pretty harsh terms. One is to Tom Watson’s post in which he says “If you think about it, public relations has always been defined as a management activity” and Richard Bailey’s post entitled “Where is PR”.
My argument is that the role of PR as a management discipline is in tatters. The loss of trust, absence of transparency, destruction of relationships, spin and hype surrounding financial instruments and the turmoil in the financial markets demonstrates that PR practitioners in the financial institutions have failed in their fiduciary duty.
The fiduciary duty, in Wikipedia is identified as ‘a legal relationship of confidence or trust between two or more parties, most commonly a fiduciary or trustee and a principal or beneficiary’. If PR is to believe it has a management role it has to recognise that it has a legal duty as well. But what of the arguments about PR as a management activity? I explicated some of my thinking:
To Tom’s post I make this repost:
Of course PR cannot be anything but a management function (all the rest is execution). It must have the regulatory oversight of marketing but much else beside including its contribution to strategic corporate value explication, corporate and operational decision-making, strategy development, realisation, and policing of corporate responsibility if it has a writ in relationship management.
But we have to be wary of what we mean. If PR is a management function then the financial turmoil we are witnessing today is in part (mostly?) caused by poor public relations.
Lack of transparency (notably of the value of paper) poor corporate responsibility (is the organisation able to stand by its responsibilities - if this not so CSR is not a PR responsibility) and spin instead of conversation blind relationships and undermine trust.
These are PR issues. Issues that are hardnosed and at the centre of good governance and public relations practice.
What then were/are the responsibilities of the in-house practitioners in the financial institutions?
The role of PR would be able to strategically develop and deploy radical transparency to enhance trust (especially in derivative bundling and holdings - the very products of these organisations).
The role of PR would also ensure that corporate responsibility would entrust employees and commercial partners with responsibility for their actions and the extent to which transparency could be deployed to underpin trust - and thus deserve the rewards and - importantly - severe penalties.
The role of PR would also apply downward pressure on over-claiming and spin to ensure that obfuscation was culturally unacceptable.
Finally, the role of PR would develop interactive relationships (mutual understanding in Grunig’s world) through effective engagement using tools of internal and external communication.
PR, then, as a management function is pervasive. Its role is at least as deep in the organisation as finance or IT. It reaches into every conversation, transaction and relationship.
This pretence to be a management discipline is all very fine, but are the Universities up to the task? Can they show students how to manage boards and senior managers who have been brought up on hype as a habit and can they show the contribution that trust offers in delivering sustainable development and profitability? Can they then also teach those multiple disciplines that can help students deliver as practitioners?
I subscribe to the PR is a management discipline school and, as a practitioner, have been through the bruising experience of taking on executive boards as a result. Its a very tough job. Its a job that entails close working (and not always agreeable) relationships with board chairmen and a very straight relationship with the CEO and the other members and, in passing, it means that marketing has to answer to PR.
Is this, Tom, what you mean by being a management function or is it something more fluffy like teaching PR as part of communication - or worse - marketing.
It remains to be seen whether the Masters courses will pick up on the failure of PR in the financial sector as a case study. Will they use this experience to help other sectors where, right now, the practice has to be able to deliver trust between organisations and their constituencies as the effects of the credit crunch works though into the ‘real’ world where trust will also determine corporate survival?
For Richard my response follows a similar path.
The Euprera agenda begins with spin because it has the preamble:
"Public Relations and Corporate Communication have been, and are, rapidly evolving and expanding their influence within complex organizations."
Well, semantics first. Corporate Communication is to Public Relations as tennis balls are to Wimbledon. Why not add in press release writing and events management? The highest calling is to be responsible for managing organisational capability in relationship development with publics/constituents. The rest is technique.
The truth is that PR has wimped out of its responsibilities for so long that its premier European education and research organisation can get away with the intellectual equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing. Here we see the professionals and academics twirling around for the entertainment of an audience.
Lets call a spade a spade. The world is going through financial turmoil because public relations practitioners were just not up to the job.
When one banker cannot trust another banker there is a breakdown of not just trust but relationships and an absence of meaningful, symmetrical communication. Who was the manager responsible within the organisation for trust, relationships and communication? Where are the PR practitioners 'expanding their influence within complex organizations'?
I don't really care what the twirling dancers may want to reply, the semantics are but chiffon disguising the stumbling footwork. The fact is that there is only one discipline responsible - public relations management.
As a discipline it evidently has not expanded influence within complex organisations and most notably today, the majority of the whole financial sector worldwide. Today, if you have money from the public or are a government, you can buy almost any bank in the world at a massive discount - if you dare to trust the balance sheet!
The abysmal internal and external relationships that has lead us to this pass has one culprit.
Oh, I am sure that the PR courses taught by the worthies at the conference cover subject matter like ethics, the nature and role of symmetrical and a-symmetrical relationships in developing mutual understanding and the role of transparency in building mutual trust. But do they follow this through with how these elements of PR play out in practice? What are the consequences? Or how these elements are managed (by the practitioner?) in an organisation?
If not, why teach these subjects? Are these elements of PR degrees added to give some form of academic respectability in the courses like sequins stitched on to make a plain frock look like a ball gown?
The insecurity of the profession as it dances an endless two-step between being press releases and a contender for the 'C' suite is down to poor education. It is just not difficult to circulate a memo to the board saying that trust and transparency issues are ruining relationships and will wipe out the company if the board does not get a grip - and I know how to solve the problem. Any junior PR can do it and the 'head' of PR should, knowing how to manage communication effectively, find such a move easy. Its sure route to the 'C' Suite and it is only those who lack courage, doubt, are insecure or ill trained and have not arrived who doubt.
But how to manage that sort of relationship and that sort of programme is not typically part of the PR industry's research or teaching or practice. Perhaps then, PR is not seen in academia as a management practice.
I have not seen, and doubt if we will ever see mass, professional or academic condemnation and approbation of PR management at the UK's Northern Rock and HBOS banks, even though we, as tax payers, are picking up the bill and many will also pay with their livelihoods.
The reality is that public relations, as a management discipline, is tough, hard nosed, institutionally pervasive and offers trust in and through constituent desire for engagement; offering symmetrical relationships to deliver long term stability, and in the case of commerce, consequential trade and profit.
The firm (which, I contend, is the nexus of relationships), will always be better off with good public relations and it starts with answering your question 'where is PR'.
It should be quaking in its boots. It should be anticipating the enquiry into its failures that prompted the Credit Crunch and financial sector melt-down and its consequences.
It should be concerned that the role of its institutions will be subject to academic scrutiny over standards.
It should be examining how future generations of practitioners do not lead us to such a pass.
Unless we see such investigation then perhaps in answering 'Where is PR' the repost will be 'no one cares.'
Is this where we believe that our reputation should be?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
FIR Interview: A Conversation with Jane Rowe
By 1803, having already demonstrated his inventive nature by inventing a new kind of paper for cannon cartridges, John Dickinson started his company and designed and built a new machine capable of the continuous manufacture of paper to replace the handmade techniques then used, notably by the Frenchman Henry Fourdriner. These innovations made the company that bore his name both successful and famous.
Today, his company now merged into Hamelin Paperbrands is adopting Web 2.0 both in marketing and, interestingly, in its products.
Our guest today, Jane Rowe, is the revolutionary voice in this wonderfully traditional institution, bringing modern conversational marketing to a 205-year-old company.
She talks with FIR Correspondent David Phillips about her introduction and adoption of Web 2.0 and how she is introducing it to her department, colleagues and industry.
Jane is a very active member of the FIR community and contributes to the FIR Friendfeed Room and comments by email regularly.
At the end of the interview, Jane reveals on FIR the news that she is to take up new responsibilities in the near future.
Listen to this podcast now:
Get this podcast:
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About our Conversation Partner
Prior to joining John Dickinson Stationery in January 2005, Jane worked for the major service organisation, The Automobile Association (The AA), where she was Strategic Projects Manager responsible for internal communications for a team of 250 marketers, new product development and innovation. Before this Jane worked in a variety of marketing management roles in companies such as John West Foods Ltd, Peaudouce (UK) Ltd and Britax Consumer Products Ltd.
Jane has a BSc (Hons) degree in Food Marketing and more recently won a scholarship to study for an MBA at Henley Management College, graduating in 2007.
As a great advocate for encouraging people to take responsibility for their own personal development, Jane is now focused on developing her own understanding of new media and the value it can deliver across businesses to both internal staff and customers.
In November 2008 Jane moves to a new role as Marketing & Merchandising Director for Spicers Ltd, the largest office products wholesaler in Europe based in Cambridgeshire, where she lives with her husband and son. Jane currently blogs at http://movingstationery.wordpress.com.
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at
fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.
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This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.
Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
The Tesco Story - A little help from online friends needed
I came across a video about Tesco that has been viewed a million times. Even for the biggest retailer in the country that is a bit excessive and all the more so because it was an activist video.
I just had to dig further.
On June 29th 2008, David Smith and Zoe Wood reported on the Annual General Meeting of Tesco. Tesco, like all big, successful companies has its detractors. At the time, the company accounted for £1 of every £7 spent at British shops, was facing the effects of recession, high input costs and resurgent competitors.
Tesco is the fourth most visited retail site in the UK, it had 32 million web page impressions claiming some form of allegiance and its sites www.tesco.com, www.tescoreports.com, www.tescocorporate.com (which had lost the link to the financial consultancy Investis) and tescoplc.com where its press releases and CSR policy statements are published.
According to David Bowen in an FT article in May 2006: "The web is even more important than newsreaders in the area of social responsibility. Whether a company is trying to provide data on waste, to explain how friendly it is to the community, or to lay out its policy on child labour, it cannot do so in sound bites – it needs space, and a website has more space than any other channel.
"Tesco and Sainsbury both understand this, though having looked at their sites I fear they may also believe CSR is a sub-division of marketing. What surprised me more than this is the variation, and in places lack of interest, I found as I wandered round other giant retailers’ websites."
But in June 2008 the message had not gone home. Contributing to the Boards woes were a number of issue campaigners:
Robert Clark, an analyst at Retail Knowledge Bank was reported to likening the situation to the mid-Nineties, when Sainsbury's was the market leader but lost its crown after it was seen to become arrogant and lose touch with shoppers - an environment that enabled Tesco to expand rapidly.
Both sides of the arguments appear in social media like blogs, discussion lists and videos and there were those million YouTube views.... surely that MUST be ringing bells!
The remarkable evidence is that there is a debate and yet there is no evidence of Tesco interacting with the communities engaging in the issues. No press release, no comments in blogs, or video sites. Silence!
That month its shares fell to their lowest level for two months after a trading update showed growth half that enjoyed by rival Morrisons. Tesco also admitted that Asda and discount outlets such as Aldi were 'having a moment in the sun' in the tougher economic climate. The moment in the sun extended month after month.
In August 2008 the biggest private sector employer was concerned about the effects of negative press coverage on staff and hired the Wriglesworth Consultancy following a five-way pitch.
Then PR Week announced in September that Trevor Datson Tesco's head of corporate media relations had "jumped ship" to join Danone as external communications director in the UK.
Is there cause and effect?
Could there be a case for deeper engagement? Could this be achieved without the Board's fundamental approval and involvement?
I just had to dig further.
On June 29th 2008, David Smith and Zoe Wood reported on the Annual General Meeting of Tesco. Tesco, like all big, successful companies has its detractors. At the time, the company accounted for £1 of every £7 spent at British shops, was facing the effects of recession, high input costs and resurgent competitors.
Tesco is the fourth most visited retail site in the UK, it had 32 million web page impressions claiming some form of allegiance and its sites www.tesco.com, www.tescoreports.com, www.tescocorporate.com (which had lost the link to the financial consultancy Investis) and tescoplc.com where its press releases and CSR policy statements are published.
According to David Bowen in an FT article in May 2006: "The web is even more important than newsreaders in the area of social responsibility. Whether a company is trying to provide data on waste, to explain how friendly it is to the community, or to lay out its policy on child labour, it cannot do so in sound bites – it needs space, and a website has more space than any other channel.
"Tesco and Sainsbury both understand this, though having looked at their sites I fear they may also believe CSR is a sub-division of marketing. What surprised me more than this is the variation, and in places lack of interest, I found as I wandered round other giant retailers’ websites."
But in June 2008 the message had not gone home. Contributing to the Boards woes were a number of issue campaigners:
- The celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall campaigning for higher-welfare chickens in Tesco stores;
- Jim McLaughlin, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) in Arizona, told shareholders and the board that 'We are here to inquire why there has been no dialogue in the US, whereas in the UK it is an established practice for Tesco to engage with unions;
- The anti-poverty charity War on Want alleged that Tesco is being supplied by an Indian factory where textile workers struggle to survive on less than £1.50 a day and a 60-hour week;
- Activists had, according to Smith and Wood, also accused Tesco of bringing tons of produce to Britain from crisis-torn Zimbabwe
- The company, it was reported, had become the shorthand villain of the piece for campaigners who blame supermarkets for driving local businesses out of towns and villages.
Robert Clark, an analyst at Retail Knowledge Bank was reported to likening the situation to the mid-Nineties, when Sainsbury's was the market leader but lost its crown after it was seen to become arrogant and lose touch with shoppers - an environment that enabled Tesco to expand rapidly.
Both sides of the arguments appear in social media like blogs, discussion lists and videos and there were those million YouTube views.... surely that MUST be ringing bells!
The remarkable evidence is that there is a debate and yet there is no evidence of Tesco interacting with the communities engaging in the issues. No press release, no comments in blogs, or video sites. Silence!
That month its shares fell to their lowest level for two months after a trading update showed growth half that enjoyed by rival Morrisons. Tesco also admitted that Asda and discount outlets such as Aldi were 'having a moment in the sun' in the tougher economic climate. The moment in the sun extended month after month.
In August 2008 the biggest private sector employer was concerned about the effects of negative press coverage on staff and hired the Wriglesworth Consultancy following a five-way pitch.
Then PR Week announced in September that Trevor Datson Tesco's head of corporate media relations had "jumped ship" to join Danone as external communications director in the UK.
Is there cause and effect?
Could there be a case for deeper engagement? Could this be achieved without the Board's fundamental approval and involvement?
Are we watching a case study on how not to handle social media in the making?
Friday, September 05, 2008
Chrome - user experience and reputation
Using Chrome highlights one other issue. The speed of site download.
Once one is used to the speed of Chrome, slow loading sites are very noticeable. This is going to be an issue and will impact on the reputation of organisations.
Sluggish sites reflect on the overall competance of organisations.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
The Words Don't Stack Up
I now have a capability to search the semantic concepts that describe organisations across the internet. Using http://www.netreputation.co.uk/values, you can join in the fun too.
What it does is to collect the texts in Google news articles, blog posts, website pages, and Google natural search.
Using Latent Semantic Inference, it finds the most to least concepts evident in each corpus.
The theory is that an organisation with a good internet strategy should provide a list of concepts that are similar between these four sources and offer a coherent view of the organisation, its products and services and their merit in a balance grouping of value concepts.
One might at least expect the web site and natural search (with good search engine optimisation) to have common concepts and that these should at least offer a coherent range of concepts (keywords) that describe the values of the organisation.
Here is the good news. If you want to describe your organisation get the blog returns... they tend to be really good. They reflect what even the fussiest marketing man would want to hear. Then try news coverage. Most companies would like that. Mostly, it’s great coverage pointing to a coherent structure of values.
From there forward it goes downhill. The website will be pretty, the navigation flawless and the words – completely at sea. Lacking coherence, the offer of the day ahead of company values and one can only feel for the poor visitor trying to make sense of the content in the site.
Well that is pretty bad. Worse is to come. The top ten citations from natural search confirm only that Search Engine Optimisation is, to most people responsible for it, a place of loathed melancholy, where brooding darkness spreads its jealous wings.
The capability of companies to build a coherent internet strategy is the biggest issue facing PR practice today.
The easy bit, where the practitioner has control like the website, is a mess. The part of the internet which can be influenced using SEO is incoherent and yet where there is less control in press coverage and precious little control, in blogs, life seems flawlessly wonderful.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Who owns your life
ReadWriteWeb covers a whole range of confidentially issues in its post this evening written by Marshall Kirkpatrick.
The problems with Google collecting information abaout us, recording our documents search and reading habits and even owning Blogger.com is not as simple as Google being Big Brother.
It goes beyond this. It is a question of who owns what we are. At present it does look rather like Google.
Google has moer information about more people than most tax authorities and all governement departments put together.
Who will they share this with and for how much.
Is it monet, the freedom of an un-named chinaman or YOU?
Monday, August 11, 2008
Where audience research and PR evaluation is taking us.
Using marketing metrics in the age of the internet is like using napped flints to use in brain surgery.
The concepts of top down, corporate marketing design for market segments, brand values and relationships built on the whim of of a 'marketing director', just does not wash anymore. The ogre of marketing is slain.
I read Jeremiah Owyang's post just after Tom Watson's. The contrast is there for all to see.
In one, Gartner's survey is presented by Jeremiah in these terms:
The interesting part of the former report is that is shows that market segmentation:
In other words, this 'demographic' is self selecting. What is more it is not self selecting by some corporatist measure. It is self selecting by measures that are of the moment and of the publics own devising. This latter concept is, I agree, one stage too far for Gartner and miles too far ahead of Jeremiah who sets out to defend the kind of thinking presented by Tom.
You see, Tom reflects on findings that 'show':
Perhaps one might ask some questions of the research and Jeremiah's knee jerk response which has such resonance with it.
The first is to ask of the study what was the context and environment, the values of the audiences and the ability for them to interact. Without that basic information life is tough.
Next let's consider the influencer platforms that were considered for the study.
Were they an X-box, PC, cell phone or perhaps something more dynamic fun like a Wii or eBook. And if we know that, what influence did the platform (device) have on the channels for communication available?
Such channels could be a web page, blog, or twitter. Perhaps it was a computer game, in Second Life or email. Maybe it was through instant messaging that the interactions were so potent.
Now, once we have unscrambled these influences can we also look at the content. Was it explicit or inferred. Was it the brand or its semantic equivalent?
Then perhaps, the nature of context and environment, the values of the audiences and the ability for them to interact can be examined. The may be we can find out what were the motivations for the audience to select itself with the help and aid of semantically attached, semi detached or just passing acquaintance with the concepts of the minute.
We are beginning to see that the old measures that were flawed even in their heyday are now almost inconsequential.
If a corporate objective sets out:
Buying using a Wii is different to buying on a website - but both are possible.
I know these are ideas that are hard to grasp and well beyond the current thinking in research but we have to put behind us the idea of golden bullet answers. They were great in the 20th century but not now.
The Gartner report is of a generation of marketers who love the idea of a segment ("Generation V") and the SNCR report is is of a generation of PR that loves to think in terms of the 'impact' of 'mass media'. Both are no longer enough.
The notion of values at the core of relationships at a time, in a context and with varying forms of interactivity has to be developed if we are to gain more effective understanding of the ability of organisations to prosper in this age.
The concepts of top down, corporate marketing design for market segments, brand values and relationships built on the whim of of a 'marketing director', just does not wash anymore. The ogre of marketing is slain.
I read Jeremiah Owyang's post just after Tom Watson's. The contrast is there for all to see.
In one, Gartner's survey is presented by Jeremiah in these terms:
Gartner has recently published research on the topic of “Generation Virtual” (Generation V) which essentially define as two things: 1) This generation isn’t specified by demographics (age) but instead by technology usage. 2) There are four major behaviorsMeantime Tom's reports on the findings of the SNCRGartner suggests that Generation V isn’t a demographic categorization, but instead behavioral:
“Unlike previous generations, Generation Virtual (also known as Generation V) is not defined by age — or gender, social demographic or geography — but is based on demonstrated achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights.”
After nearly a decade of social media, a new report from the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) has found that although it is clearly changing “the way we think about media and influence … [companies] are still struggling to find effective metrics for deciding who are the influential players” (p.16).
This is a refreshingly honest appraisal of where we are on measuring the effectiveness and impact of all those blogs, podcasts, websites and wikis. The report, New Media, New Influencers and Implications for Public Relations, also has a set of eight case studies which illustrate a wide range of measurements and non-measurements of outcomes.
The interesting part of the former report is that is shows that market segmentation:
....... is not defined by age — or gender, social demographic or geography
In other words, this 'demographic' is self selecting. What is more it is not self selecting by some corporatist measure. It is self selecting by measures that are of the moment and of the publics own devising. This latter concept is, I agree, one stage too far for Gartner and miles too far ahead of Jeremiah who sets out to defend the kind of thinking presented by Tom.
You see, Tom reflects on findings that 'show':
- Top criteria for determining the relevance or influence of a blogger or podcaster are quality of content, relevance of content to the company or brand, and search engine rank.
- For evaluating a person’s influence in online communities and social networks, the main measures are participation level, frequency of activity and prominence in the market or community.
- About half the surveyed communicators formally measure their social media activities. Their goals are “to enhance relationships, improve the reputation of their businesses, drive customer awareness of their online activities and solicit customer comments and feedback.”
Perhaps one might ask some questions of the research and Jeremiah's knee jerk response which has such resonance with it.
The first is to ask of the study what was the context and environment, the values of the audiences and the ability for them to interact. Without that basic information life is tough.
Next let's consider the influencer platforms that were considered for the study.
Were they an X-box, PC, cell phone or perhaps something more dynamic fun like a Wii or eBook. And if we know that, what influence did the platform (device) have on the channels for communication available?
Such channels could be a web page, blog, or twitter. Perhaps it was a computer game, in Second Life or email. Maybe it was through instant messaging that the interactions were so potent.
Now, once we have unscrambled these influences can we also look at the content. Was it explicit or inferred. Was it the brand or its semantic equivalent?
Then perhaps, the nature of context and environment, the values of the audiences and the ability for them to interact can be examined. The may be we can find out what were the motivations for the audience to select itself with the help and aid of semantically attached, semi detached or just passing acquaintance with the concepts of the minute.
We are beginning to see that the old measures that were flawed even in their heyday are now almost inconsequential.
If a corporate objective sets out:
It is utterly doomed. This is not the ambition of any but a tiny part of any self selecting group. Their ambition is to be able to judge the values of the semantic notions at a time, place (physical as well as emotional context) and environment of the moment and from there interact as availability for interaction presents itself.
“to enhance relationships, improve the reputation of their businesses, drive customer awareness of their online activities and solicit customer comments and feedback.”
Buying using a Wii is different to buying on a website - but both are possible.
I know these are ideas that are hard to grasp and well beyond the current thinking in research but we have to put behind us the idea of golden bullet answers. They were great in the 20th century but not now.
The Gartner report is of a generation of marketers who love the idea of a segment ("Generation V") and the SNCR report is is of a generation of PR that loves to think in terms of the 'impact' of 'mass media'. Both are no longer enough.
The notion of values at the core of relationships at a time, in a context and with varying forms of interactivity has to be developed if we are to gain more effective understanding of the ability of organisations to prosper in this age.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Kids on Hols - Broadband dies - Alternatives?
For a couple of years now I have come to expect my home network will deliver 100 mbs between my broadband modem, computers in my house and at the end of the garden. Beyond the modem, that is, the (virtual monopoly) BT service, speeds are typically 5 mbs. But this week have died.
There are many vendors for my kind of domestic system. I use my electricity circuits and Devolo's dLan.
This means that the feeble BT wifi system that comes with their modem is not a problem and I can access both cable and wifi irrespective of the thickness of the walls or distance from the hub.
However, with kids on holiday, I have noticed that the network, the other side of the BT hub is struggling.
I typically get 5 mbs from BT but the last week has seen a drop as low as 750 kbs mid morning, late afternoon and when it rains. I guess, this is down to kids at home watching online TV or just surfin'.
So, its time to break the monopoly. The BT cables.
This is where the system I have at my home comes into its own. Use power cables. The country is wired up to electricity and electricity cables can and are being used for data transmission but not for the domestic user.
Broadband Powerline (BPL) is not some fancy dream or over the horizon technology. It is a reality and is simple to implement. It does not require fibre to be installed and it could be implemented as a national minimum 100mbs system very quickly.
A combination of BPL and Wimax could wire up the nation quickly and no doubt would relieve BT of the onerous task of providing consumers with what they want: fast reliable broad broadband at an acceptable cost.
So cheer up BT, salvation is at hand!
There are many vendors for my kind of domestic system. I use my electricity circuits and Devolo's dLan.
This means that the feeble BT wifi system that comes with their modem is not a problem and I can access both cable and wifi irrespective of the thickness of the walls or distance from the hub.
However, with kids on holiday, I have noticed that the network, the other side of the BT hub is struggling.
I typically get 5 mbs from BT but the last week has seen a drop as low as 750 kbs mid morning, late afternoon and when it rains. I guess, this is down to kids at home watching online TV or just surfin'.
So, its time to break the monopoly. The BT cables.
This is where the system I have at my home comes into its own. Use power cables. The country is wired up to electricity and electricity cables can and are being used for data transmission but not for the domestic user.
Broadband Powerline (BPL) is not some fancy dream or over the horizon technology. It is a reality and is simple to implement. It does not require fibre to be installed and it could be implemented as a national minimum 100mbs system very quickly.
A combination of BPL and Wimax could wire up the nation quickly and no doubt would relieve BT of the onerous task of providing consumers with what they want: fast reliable broad broadband at an acceptable cost.
So cheer up BT, salvation is at hand!
IMRG Capgemini - online retailing to top 50% by 2011
Online shopping is poised to take 20p out of every UK consumer pound by the end of the year, a landmark milestone that analysts believe will make the channel a critical business for many high-street retailers.
An IMRG Capgemini E-Retail report notes that online retail sales amounted to £26.5 billion in the first six months of 2008, up 38 per cent from the same period in the previous year and projected online retail sales would be as high as 50% by 2011.
In B2B because of the growth of online trading, IT workers, now have to be creative, world-aware and business-savvy to succeed. They are now a central part of the wider workforce and drive future development in sectors as diverse as retail, transport, finance and hospitality, reports Retail Bulletin.
Booming e-commerce means sectors not traditionally linked with IT are creating brand new technology-related job roles throughout their businesses and working much more closely with IT workers to help them succeed.
Of course, this also should include the PR sector. But figures are harder to find here.
An IMRG Capgemini E-Retail report notes that online retail sales amounted to £26.5 billion in the first six months of 2008, up 38 per cent from the same period in the previous year and projected online retail sales would be as high as 50% by 2011.
In B2B because of the growth of online trading, IT workers, now have to be creative, world-aware and business-savvy to succeed. They are now a central part of the wider workforce and drive future development in sectors as diverse as retail, transport, finance and hospitality, reports Retail Bulletin.
Booming e-commerce means sectors not traditionally linked with IT are creating brand new technology-related job roles throughout their businesses and working much more closely with IT workers to help them succeed.
Of course, this also should include the PR sector. But figures are harder to find here.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Next results
The results from retailer Next today suggest that there is a lot more work to be done by the Group to boost its online sales.
The FT reports that Next’s online and catalogue business sales were up 5.6 per cent last quarter with high street sales down 2.4% over the same period.
No one will pretend that online sales can beat the downturn. There will be casualties and for a lot of organisations their online sales still remain only a small fraction of total sales.
So there are things to be done.
The first is to optimise online sales now. This will help with the immediate issues that will plague retailing for a couple of years.
Next is to plan for next year when the online experience and commitment to the brand from the online community has to be of a different order.
And then, as retailing begins to recover, it will have changed for all time because the experience of online shopping will be well established.
The immersive internet will be at hand.
The FT reports that Next’s online and catalogue business sales were up 5.6 per cent last quarter with high street sales down 2.4% over the same period.
No one will pretend that online sales can beat the downturn. There will be casualties and for a lot of organisations their online sales still remain only a small fraction of total sales.
So there are things to be done.
The first is to optimise online sales now. This will help with the immediate issues that will plague retailing for a couple of years.
Next is to plan for next year when the online experience and commitment to the brand from the online community has to be of a different order.
And then, as retailing begins to recover, it will have changed for all time because the experience of online shopping will be well established.
The immersive internet will be at hand.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
Beating the downturn
"If we – as marketers – follow where our customers go, we will need sooner or later to make the mental shift to consumer generated media."
This is a conclusion made by Eric-Kintz over at his HP blog. Oh... this is just bait for a good ol' fashioned rant.
It is a real problem in PR.
Personal experience and as many reports on the impact of the internet on life, commerce and everything keeps passing the PR community by.
It is no good sticking with the press-releases are our bread and butter mindset. Its just not very effective any more. The Internet has roughly double the influence of the second strongest medium — television — and roughly eight times the influence of traditional print media.
Sure, there is a pile of press clips and exaggerated and meaningless AVE's and so called ROI to demonstrate that PR people can get coverage.
So what. They don't sell product and have a relatively low and declining effect opinion and brand success.
But clients are mesmerised by the glare of online and consultants seek a silver bullet.
I guess there is a simple answer as online spending bucks the recession: focus on developing online capability.
I know this means that the average practitioner will have to listen to FIR, join Linkedin, write a blog and Twitter like mad and, at the same time, learn to use and pay attention to experts using RSS.
But the preferred PR industry option is to advise clients (in house or as a consultant), to do more of the same and go down with them.
I am more convinced than ever, that online PR has a future but frustrated that its taking practitioners so long to wake up. If that was not bad enough, I am also alarmed at how bad...... I mean irresponsible .... PR education is when it comes to online anything.
Last week, I had a conversation with two PR tutors who told me that they had difficulty getting PR first degree students to engage with the internet and internet marketing and PR.
In the last month, I have been talking to PR graduates (at least that's what they hope for) from a number of different UK schools and they just did not have a clue about online communication. Sure, they did have a Facebook presence and many had course groups on it.
Some 'Had to blog'. Wow!
Not one used Twitter, none had made a podcast, they could not find an academic paper using a search engine, only one had heard of 'pay per click' the list goes on......
The present economic slowdown means that these young people NEED online capability to get a job this year and survive the next five years in their chosen profession. Failure to provide it in a fun and engaging way is irresponsible beyond belief. Equipping young people with skills in flint knapping is fine for a minority of archaeologists but not the rest of society!
Is it true that when the going gets tough, academia retreats into its ivory tower?
So we don't have expertise among practitioners, who truly can't square the life of tens millions, their own reality and the need to be professional in communication skills and PR students who have been turned off.
If you are a student with online PR on your CV... send it to me. If you are a practitioner who just wants to find out where you career is going, you are too late!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Online Retail - Its a disaster in the making
Today, a crisis broke out in retailing.
The BBC reported "Wedding present firm Wrapit says it is experiencing financial difficulties and is in talks with banks and advisers to avoid going into administration."
This is really bad news for retailers. Online retail has been the one bright light for retailers according to the latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.
It shows that UK shoppers spent over £26.5 billion online in the first six months of 2008 despite the credit crunch – up 38% on the £19.2 billion recorded for the first half of 2007. Capgemini and IMRG report that for the first half of 2008, 17p in every pound was spent online. This is roughly equivalent to half of all supermarket sales and larger than all retail sales for clothing and footwear.
What the online retailers really don't want is anything to shake confidence in online retailing and especially this demographic sector at this time.
This is a PR issue for all retailers and I am happy to hold a meeting next week at the CIPR in London with practitioners to discuss the issue but in the meantime, this is a matter for fast work across the retail sector at a corporate level.
The BBC reported "Wedding present firm Wrapit says it is experiencing financial difficulties and is in talks with banks and advisers to avoid going into administration."
This is really bad news for retailers. Online retail has been the one bright light for retailers according to the latest figures from the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index.
It shows that UK shoppers spent over £26.5 billion online in the first six months of 2008 despite the credit crunch – up 38% on the £19.2 billion recorded for the first half of 2007. Capgemini and IMRG report that for the first half of 2008, 17p in every pound was spent online. This is roughly equivalent to half of all supermarket sales and larger than all retail sales for clothing and footwear.
What the online retailers really don't want is anything to shake confidence in online retailing and especially this demographic sector at this time.
This is a PR issue for all retailers and I am happy to hold a meeting next week at the CIPR in London with practitioners to discuss the issue but in the meantime, this is a matter for fast work across the retail sector at a corporate level.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tiptoe Towards PR Meassurement
This weekend I anticipate being able to analyse all the pages of designated web sites using semantic analysis. The objective is to be able to identify values systems evident in the text in the form of semantic chunks.
Using this approach one can identify those elements of text (such as sentences) that are, by virtue of containing words (concept words) identified as having enhanced value by virtue of their strength of connectedness among the words in the corpus, of greater significance than others.
There are a number of approaches one can take. For example one can identify the strength of concept words by page or from the combined texts of all the pages.
My requirement is to be able to identify those concepts that are most connected throughout the web site to yield chunks of text ranked from most significant to least significant (and to identify the URL of the pages from which they are derived).
This is one of my approaches to help provide empirical proofs to support the Relationship Value Model .
The model posits that relationships are based on values shared between actors and semantic chunks of text have characteristics akin to values. For all intent and purposes, semantic chunks in web sites are expressions of values. They are not the complete set of because other elements such as design, site uptime, photographs, video and other images are also expressions of organisational (and personal) values.
This new development will take the hard work out of identifying the value systems inherent in a web site and is the first stepping stone towards being able to identify common values between organisations and actors.
I guess that a lot of people will be interested in the values their web site presents to the public (and those of competitors ) but this is only the first step in this journey.
Semantic concepts are valuable in other directions too.
Search engines use semantic analysis of web pages as part of their algorithms to match up search terms to web sites and an example of how this works is provided by Yahoo. Its 'Search Assist' service provides lists of semantic concept words to help people using its search engine.
Thus there is a commercial value in my research at an early stage. It can show people trying to optimise web site content how effectively their content has contributed to accessibility of their site to the public through both common values and search.
The next research aim using semantically derived values is the be able to compare the commonality of values as between different web sites. Thus one can combine the web page corpus of two sites to identify all the concepts for both and the extent to which there are common concepts, unique concepts and the relative significance (lets call it rank for the time being) of different concepts and their associated semantic chunks of text.
So far so good. But can this approach go further? Let us imagine comparing the values of an organisation as expressed through its web site (the place where more important visit most often) and the values expressed in, say, the media or blog posts or in social networks.
In theory, and we will be able to test this in a few weeks, we will be able to identify those values that these media have in common with an organisation and the values that are expressed that are unique to either the media in question or the organisation. This will offer a very powerful view of whether the message is 'getting through'.
The extent to which there is convergence and divergence is, surely, a test of how close the relationship is between the organisation and its stakeholders.
Is this a measure of the effectiveness of public relations as a whole?
It certainly has potential.
Using this approach one can identify those elements of text (such as sentences) that are, by virtue of containing words (concept words) identified as having enhanced value by virtue of their strength of connectedness among the words in the corpus, of greater significance than others.
There are a number of approaches one can take. For example one can identify the strength of concept words by page or from the combined texts of all the pages.
My requirement is to be able to identify those concepts that are most connected throughout the web site to yield chunks of text ranked from most significant to least significant (and to identify the URL of the pages from which they are derived).
This is one of my approaches to help provide empirical proofs to support the Relationship Value Model .
The model posits that relationships are based on values shared between actors and semantic chunks of text have characteristics akin to values. For all intent and purposes, semantic chunks in web sites are expressions of values. They are not the complete set of because other elements such as design, site uptime, photographs, video and other images are also expressions of organisational (and personal) values.
This new development will take the hard work out of identifying the value systems inherent in a web site and is the first stepping stone towards being able to identify common values between organisations and actors.
I guess that a lot of people will be interested in the values their web site presents to the public (and those of competitors ) but this is only the first step in this journey.
Semantic concepts are valuable in other directions too.
Search engines use semantic analysis of web pages as part of their algorithms to match up search terms to web sites and an example of how this works is provided by Yahoo. Its 'Search Assist' service provides lists of semantic concept words to help people using its search engine.
Thus there is a commercial value in my research at an early stage. It can show people trying to optimise web site content how effectively their content has contributed to accessibility of their site to the public through both common values and search.
The next research aim using semantically derived values is the be able to compare the commonality of values as between different web sites. Thus one can combine the web page corpus of two sites to identify all the concepts for both and the extent to which there are common concepts, unique concepts and the relative significance (lets call it rank for the time being) of different concepts and their associated semantic chunks of text.
So far so good. But can this approach go further? Let us imagine comparing the values of an organisation as expressed through its web site (the place where more important visit most often) and the values expressed in, say, the media or blog posts or in social networks.
In theory, and we will be able to test this in a few weeks, we will be able to identify those values that these media have in common with an organisation and the values that are expressed that are unique to either the media in question or the organisation. This will offer a very powerful view of whether the message is 'getting through'.
The extent to which there is convergence and divergence is, surely, a test of how close the relationship is between the organisation and its stakeholders.
Is this a measure of the effectiveness of public relations as a whole?
It certainly has potential.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
20 things you need to know about social media
Providing definitive information about channels for communication, keeping it up to date and extending it as media evolves is as important for communication and good governance as the periodic tables are for good chemistry, engineering and pharmacy.
The media
1.Title
what is the generic name e.g. email, wiki's etc)
2.Definition
a description
3.Brief history
wikipedia or another resource)
4.Fast Facts
how would the practitioner explain this channel for communication really quickly
5.Communication platforms
PC, laptop, cell phone, print, TV etc
Interactive elements
6.How do people (the public/s) contribute to this channel
To what extent is this common (past/now/future)
7.How does the public share knowledge of content in this channel using this channel and across other channels?
To what extent is this common (past/now/future)?
8.Risk analysis (nature of the risk, likelihood of occurrence, extent of potential damage, mitigation procedure/s extent of amelioration achievable)
Application
9.What services are available to help the practitioner set up/deploy this channel (software, suppliers and/or contractors; are there expert people that the practitioner could employ on behalf of a client)?
10.How to implement the technology (what are the steps involved?)
Policy and optimisation requirements
11.Internal/external policies (examples of such policies will be needed if the practitioner is going to use this channel)
12.How does the practitioner optimise this channel to help people find/use it (e.g. Search Engine Optimisation)?
Monitoring and evaluation
13.Monitor (what is there out there that can help monitor the effect of work using this channel
e.g. can the practitioner set up and RSS feed or a search engine monitor. Can the practitioner monitor how this channel is affecting its audience and how? Does the practitioner need to use a monitoring company and if so who has the expertise
and how much will it cost?)
14.Metrics: What numbers are available in the public domain? What numbers are available in the private domain? Is this best measured as page views or is it by the number of references it generates in www.digg.com. Or by a combination of measurements? Or are the metrics completely different?
15.Evaluate (How does the practitioner set realistic targets and outcomes; how can the practitioner measure how good she is at using this channel for communication; how can the practitioner evaluate the effectiveness of using this channel for communication as part of a relationship building campaign?)
Buy-in
16.Overcoming objections to implementation (what are the practitioner arguments; how are they supported with real and verifiable evidence; can the practitioner call on quantifiable evidence and case study supported reasoning?)
17.Case studies of good and bad practice. Can the practitioner find case studies and look at the best examples and the worst and then identify the risk mitigation or opportunity optimisation policies when using this channel for communication?
18.Relevance to organisations and practice
Planning and implementation
19.Training (training resources, training examples, etiquette)
20.Timescale for implementation (a Gantt chart to identify processes and time taken to implement)
Suitable investment among the universities using the rigour of academic research into the requirements of communicators practising across the many channels for communication is long overdue and synthesising the range of knowledge needed, from a variety of practice perspectives has implications for social and economic policy well beyond the attention it received at present.
Here is my list of the 20 things we need to know to before using specific channels for communication:The media
1.Title
what is the generic name e.g. email, wiki's etc)
2.Definition
a description
3.Brief history
wikipedia or another resource)
4.Fast Facts
how would the practitioner explain this channel for communication really quickly
5.Communication platforms
PC, laptop, cell phone, print, TV etc
Interactive elements
6.How do people (the public/s) contribute to this channel
To what extent is this common (past/now/future)
7.How does the public share knowledge of content in this channel using this channel and across other channels?
To what extent is this common (past/now/future)?
8.Risk analysis (nature of the risk, likelihood of occurrence, extent of potential damage, mitigation procedure/s extent of amelioration achievable)
Application
9.What services are available to help the practitioner set up/deploy this channel (software, suppliers and/or contractors; are there expert people that the practitioner could employ on behalf of a client)?
10.How to implement the technology (what are the steps involved?)
Policy and optimisation requirements
11.Internal/external policies (examples of such policies will be needed if the practitioner is going to use this channel)
12.How does the practitioner optimise this channel to help people find/use it (e.g. Search Engine Optimisation)?
Monitoring and evaluation
13.Monitor (what is there out there that can help monitor the effect of work using this channel
e.g. can the practitioner set up and RSS feed or a search engine monitor. Can the practitioner monitor how this channel is affecting its audience and how? Does the practitioner need to use a monitoring company and if so who has the expertise
and how much will it cost?)
14.Metrics: What numbers are available in the public domain? What numbers are available in the private domain? Is this best measured as page views or is it by the number of references it generates in www.digg.com. Or by a combination of measurements? Or are the metrics completely different?
15.Evaluate (How does the practitioner set realistic targets and outcomes; how can the practitioner measure how good she is at using this channel for communication; how can the practitioner evaluate the effectiveness of using this channel for communication as part of a relationship building campaign?)
Buy-in
16.Overcoming objections to implementation (what are the practitioner arguments; how are they supported with real and verifiable evidence; can the practitioner call on quantifiable evidence and case study supported reasoning?)
17.Case studies of good and bad practice. Can the practitioner find case studies and look at the best examples and the worst and then identify the risk mitigation or opportunity optimisation policies when using this channel for communication?
18.Relevance to organisations and practice
Planning and implementation
19.Training (training resources, training examples, etiquette)
20.Timescale for implementation (a Gantt chart to identify processes and time taken to implement)
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Is there a relationship between profitability and web presence
I have been looking at relationships between numbers of pages indexed by search engines each year and the financial results of companies.
There are a lots more to do before one can draw conclusions but hear is an example from one company.
The key here is to see the relationship between numbers of pages that include reference to the company and the profit indicators.
Does this mean that having a big online footprint aids profits>
Friday, June 06, 2008
The Online Asset - How Obama won
In the past, I have commented on the relationship between traditional press relations and online content.
The difference between the two is that a press release has a limited long tail value whereas an article online has a long half life and contributes to the digital footprint, Google Juice and visibility of an organisational long tail asses.
The former is best considered in accounts as part of P&L and the latter as a corporate asset on the balance sheet.
The extent of goodwill in the former is less potent than the latter.
Today, with Robin Gurney, I am building a company to help organisations identify this corporate asset in its wider sense.
The argument goes like this:
Lets suppose you are the government minister for a small island in a large archipelago in the middle of the ocean and want to increase its GDP to benefit the people of the island.
You elect to invest in building the digital footprint of the island and work at it until it has an online presence ten times bigger than all the other islands nearby.
Thus when people seek to comment about, visit or invest in the group of islands, your island always comes up first in searches, in information resources and in connectivity. The result will soon see more economic activity.
There is a direct relationship between online presence and economic activity.
In concept, it is an extension of the London School of Economics Reports which showed that a 7 per cent increase in word of mouth advocacy unlocks 1 per cent additional company growth (http://tinyurl.com/aohth).
As for an island, so for any country, company, brand, person or politician.
It is not quite a case of simple counts. There are other factors.
Lets take a very simple look at the US Democratic race and see if we can add to other commentators efforts.
The Google index for Barak Obama is, today 5,3700,000 and Hillary Clinton is 5,4300,000.
If my theory was going to be correct, Clinton should have won the race and, plainly, she did not.
But, if we look closer at the results, we see that Clinton has a couple of decades of commentary that is indexed and Obama only four years worth. He made up a lot of ground very quickly.
Now lets look at blog posts:
Obama blog posts 99,859,318
Clinton blog posts 34,127,553
This is a very different picture. Here we are seeing like for like time scales and the digital footprint shows Obama attracting three times as much comment which, one can argue, helped Obama Google Juice as well as wider visibility. What is more, the digital footprint for Obama had the benefit of a steeper long tail curve (more content was more recent).
Then, again, take photographs. Online Obama has 2,990,000 photos indexed by Google and most of them are less than six years old. On the other hand Clinton only has 2,530,000 photos and hers go back to 1969 (see picture above)!
This is why Robin and I think it is important to have robust methodologies for audition online presence. It affects political and corporate outcomes and the extent of correlation between online presence and success are far too close to be co-incidental.
There are other indicators in the use of evolving channels. Twitter is one. Clinton has 4,019 followers and Obama has 33,069 followers; Obama is following 33,960 people and Hillary is following 0.
Leavering value from online presence is not hugely dependant on other marketing activity unless that serves the online presence in a virtuous circle (as Google, Facebook, eBay and Amazon attest) and so auditing online presence is important to be able to identify the value of an organisation.
In addition, it is a significant element in valuation of organisations and for establishing thier future prospects.
Obviously, there will be much more to follow as our research reveals more information but here are some interesting findings over the last few months.
1. In the UK social media interest in organisations in general changed last autumn. The rate of increase in social media comment accelerated very significantly.
2. The rate of change of inbound links is greater for more successful companies.
3. The long tail effect does have a half life. Content effect decays over time which means that having been online for a long time is not always good in itself.
4. Active sites and active social comment raises the digital footprint faster.
Fun huh!
Thursday, May 29, 2008
BAA baggage handling
Someone might tell BAA that it sometimes rains at Gatwick in may which makes customers baggage soggy when thrown on to the back of an open truck.
And anyone can photo their practices and blog about them in near real time!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The statistics that say you must take social media seriously
Image via WikipediaI have been working through a range of statistics that show how significant social media is for PR and marketing.
While UK internet users are all saying they want to hear from brands and companies on line, with rare exceptions, marketers and PR people cant quite make the leap of faith to do it.
Perhaps this list of links will suggest to them that it is their inhibitions that are the problem and not whether this space is commercially important.
Perhaps this too, will suggest that online PR is a great career move. Perhaps this will show the Universities they need to be able to teach this stuff.
So here goes (and if you want to add any... help yourself)
London School of Economics Reports: a 7 per cent increase in word of mouth advocacy unlocks 1 per cent additional company growth.
http://tinyurl.com/aohth
Internet usage growth out performs all other economic activity worldwide.
http://tinyurl.com/6aaxc2
National statistic office report six in ten Internet users go online dail
http://tinyurl.com/5sky8aIMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. Online retail sales in the U.K. grew 54% in 2007 over 2006, reaching £46.6 billion from £30.2 billion http://tinyurl.com/62ee4x
IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index. 15% of all British retail sales took place online last year. http://tinyurl.com/62ee4x
40,362,842 UK Internet users in Nov/07 http://tinyurl.com/6255h5
66.4 % penetration, of the population http://tinyurl.com/6255h5
Growth in social media
Britain's blogging army is now 4m strong http://tinyurl.com/2uzh2k
YouTube is now the most popular social networking website in the UK http://tinyurl.com/26h7vo
Social Media affects consumer behaviour
Social media is affecting audience behaviour. According to research by Hitwise (Hopkins, 2006) , social networking site MySpace is responsible for more Traffic flow into the HMV.co.uk music portal than both the Yahoo and MSN UK search engines. http://tinyurl.com/58coe9
UK visits to Facebook
http://tinyurl.com/yt6ax5
Top Brand mentions in social media
http://tinyurl.com/5av73g
- Reasons for people going online
(Source: National Statistics Office)
What people do online
5.7 million users were browsing via mobile devices in January of this year. http://tinyurl.com/4xn2z9
Social media affects every stage of the shopping process
A study by DoubleClick shows that the web is the most influential medium in shaping consumers’ purchasing decisions, with shoppers using it at every stage of the shopping process, from first awareness to final purchase. http://tinyurl.com/58coe9
Should be % of marketing spend
Internet advertising has again buoyed the UK advertising industry with above-expectation 41.3% year on year growth in the first half of 2007. This takes the sector to a half-year high of £1,334.3 million – compared to £917.2 million just a year ago – lifting online advertising’s market share significantly, to 14.7%. http://tinyurl.com/2xg2kr
Where is Internet advertising going?
Audience engagement in online advertising is 18 per cent more effective than its print equivalent, and people are also 15 per cent more engaged in magazine articles online than in print. So much for print advertising. http://tinyurl.com/4kzf3c
But is advertising the answer? Nope!
New research into the effectiveness of different advertising mediums has revealed that advertising on social networks has had very little impact on consumers so far. http://tinyurl.com/657yj2
Since July 2006, Topshop has seen more visitors to its site come from its pages on social networks like MySpace than from search engines. Advertising don't work involvement does http://tinyurl.com/5tgpfm
Over 90 per cent of marketing departments are planning to launch a social media campaign in 2008 http://tinyurl.com/66pq63
A survey, conducted by LEWIS PR at PR Week’s New Media Conference, revealed that 75 per cent of attendees are planning to use a blog as a social media asset in 2008 – an increase of 50 per cent on 2007. The number of firms planning to use social networking is tipped to increase from 33 per cent to over 70 per cent. http://tinyurl.com/66pq63
What Web 2.0 is most effective for US companies http://tinyurl.com/57xrgh
Online v’s print media (popularity, growth etc)
Average Time Spent on Social Nets 3X Longer Than News and Media Sites
For any target demographic there are numbers;
What sites are 18 – 35 working women visiting? (not just media)
In all countries except the UK and the US, more men than women use the internet. In the UK, the split is equal (50/50), while in the US 52% of internet users are women, with 18-34 year-old women being particularly active in both countries (Ofcom).
Women outnumber men for the first time among UK residents going online. Females between 25 and 49 spend more time online than males the same age.” http://tinyurl.com/3lac2o
18-34 age group is where women spend more time online than men (57 per cent compared with 43 per cent). http://tinyurl.com/2pms2u
Two thirds (66 per cent) of 18-35 year olds in the UK are actively engaged in social networking and almost two in five (38 per cent) are members of two or more online forums or social networking sites. http://tinyurl.com/5qoksh
Negative comments posted on online forums and social networks put off customers. http://tinyurl.com/5qoksh
Nearly 1.5 times as many 18-35 year olds would rather accept a friend request from a brand than have banner adverts on a social networking profile page. The best way to get users to accept friend requests was identified as through offering special offers and discounts (60 per cent) http://tinyurl.com/5qoksh
In a survey in 2006, 1000 women were surveyed revealing some extremely interesting insights:
70% are 25-44 y/o. 70% are in long term relationships, 83% are employed over half full time.
28% 'couldn't do without it'
More important that TV, magazines and radio
Internet is six times more than nearest rival (TV)
Compared with other media the internet is regarded as the most important, achieving a 37% share. TV followed and only managing 24%. 63% of those surveyed ranked online first or second in terms of importance and 45% considered the internet “very important to me” with 28% of women going as far as to say they couldn’t live without online!
67% regard the Internet strong on community. That three times greater than magazines!
92% of women identified shopping with their use of the internet, over nine times as much as its nearest rival. Buying fashion online is now as important as booking travel, with 63% of women claiming to do both.
The convenience of being able to research products and services before purchase online or in the high street is also valued with 75% of females identifying this as important. The internet is enhancing women’s lifestyles. 67% of women considered the internet to be strong on community, with 84% using the internet to keep in touch with friends and family.
55% of all British users of social networking websites were women. Similar research by Nielsen Online shows that women aged 18-24 account for 17% of all users of the social sites, while men in the same age group account for 12%. http://tinyurl.com/22tlp8
A recent poll by Game-Vision showed that 30% more women bought computer games in the six months to July 31, 2007, than in the same period in 2006. The survey also found that there were more female owners of Nin-tendo’s handheld DS console in the UK than men (54% against 46%). http://tinyurl.com/22tlp8
"Video streams at broadcast network TV websites were nearly two times more likely to be viewed by women age 18-34 than men, who accounted for 22% and 12% of streams respectively. http://tinyurl.com/67qjxu
Different types of products are likely to be best advertised on different types of video websites.
For instance, a female products brand may have better luck effectively reaching its target audience through a network TV website than through YouTube. http://tinyurl.com/67qjxu
Corporate site important but declining
How regularly do folk go online
88% of women who use the internet aged under 44 use the internet daily.
Most adults (59 per cent) who had used the Internet in the last 3 months used it every day or almost every day, with the age group 25 to 44 using it the most (63 per cent). http://tinyurl.com/46u4wc
Where are client target audience currently reading about the brand online?
Its easy to see how far the client has got: Only 16 in Blogs, 26 videos, 288 mentions in MySpace, 14 people and 14 groups in Facebook. A profile in Wikipedia and was last updated 17 days ago (five changes). But it does not figure in Twitter. There are 26,400 indexed pages that refer to the client in Google (Budweiser has seven million).
We cab see where the online communities are active. e.g. Social Networks are the most popular social media for this client.... But how active are they in other media?
Who’s doing digital well?
The web continues to drive sales at PetMed Express. In fiscal 2008, e-commerce generated 65% of sales and accounted for 83% of growth. http://tinyurl.com/437p8
What are competitors thinking of doing?
More than three quarters of company respondents say that the importance of online customer engagement to their organisations has increased in the last 12 months.
The most frequently cited benefits for companies implementing customer engagement initiatives are 'improved customer loyalty' and 'increased revenue'.
More than half of respondents say their companies are either using or planning to use web-based widgets to engage with their customers more effectively.
Around two thirds of respondents say the mobile channel will be 'essential' or 'important' for customer engagement in the next three years.
Here are some examples in the public sector campaigns:
Ministry of Justice - BarCampUKGovweb was an idea for an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.
National Health Service - The Our NHS, Our Future activity is putting a lot of weight on its online engagement components.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office - when David Miliband arrived, engagement shot up the agenda, particularly online. Not content with just the Secretary of State blogging, staff from across the FCO were invited to get involved too.
Government Communications Network - the Social Media Review and associated activities led by GCN.
Downing Street - it’s use of ePetitions
Communities and Local Government - the CLG rebuilt its corporate website using community software.
Defra - the software that runs the CO2 calculator, complete with government data made freely available under general public licence. Google has used it in its carbon footprint widget.
DirectGov - according to the ONS, 6 in 10 of the UK’s web users have accessed government services via DirectGov.
Ministry of Justice - Digital Dialogues, which is in its final phase, has been putting data about government blogs, forums, webchats etc in the public domain.
SS/SIS - a bit of a Is involved in a range of interesting developments.
Do we know or have an idea of how much other brands are spending on digital activity alone?
I hope you enjoy the links.
There are zillions of them and they all point one way.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Seven Strategy Steps for modern communication
I thought it may help to examine how organisations can develop strategies. This is at the beginning of the thinking and in no special order but its a start and I only have seven considerations.
I guess the place most people will start is that place of record. The company or brand web site.
Strategically, for a corporate web site we can imagine it as the place where the most visitors come each day to engage on corporate matters. For an etail site it is the flagship store and the trade site is an invitation into the biggest and busiest warehouse and so forth.
Strategy consideration 1
So our first strategy action point is the examine investment at a level that reflects the opportunity. For example there is significant evidence that corporate web sites are extensively used by financial analysis, investors, prospective employees, NGO's, regulators, vendors and many other stakeholders. Equally, if in general, retail sales on line are 15% of all retail activity, does the etail site offer an opportunity to access this business and will that be incremental business, will it enhance sales at bricks and mortar sites, will the return on investment be recovered at a lower cost to deliver added bottom line profits. All the indication suggest this is the case.
We now have available a lot of information about who, why and how people visit our web sites.
For example, the research is telling us that prospective customers come to a web site for a whole range of reasons through the buying process including, according to the Enquiro study, awareness, research, negotiation and purchase and, one can add, to reconfirm and justify the decision after purchase.
Strategy consideration 2
Our second strategy is to consider each of these instances and have relevant content for each of the visitor's needs. The strategy will set out to resolve the requirements for why people should search for, explore, find information and save it ready for the next visit.
Of course, as part of this process, the strategy will include SEO and will ensure that every page of the web site reflects the relevant company values which will be both obvious to the visitor and to the semantic algorithms used by search engines.
Strategy consideration 3
Our third strategy consideration is one of access.
In an era of user created market, and social segments that change and morph all the time, it is important to maintain an interest in the wider adoption of online media to create access.
Is access only to be through a PC or laptop or will it include games consoles, USB ports, mobile phones, kiosks and the panoply of devices that are available across the market?. How do people keep engaged with the company, product or brand? Is it one device or many and, for the time being, never mind the volume of people or even the number of visits because should the devices engage enough and is interesting for people at different stages in relationship building the pay off will come elsewhere.
For example Twitter. We have some good figures about the number of people who visit its web site But we don't have a clue as to how many people use tools like Twirl, mobile phones and Blackberrys to engage through Twitter. These dispersed metrics are going to be ever more diverse and difficult for the traditional marketing person to manage.
Strategy consideration 4
My fourth strategy focuses on content and content management. Lets take the case of a new product launched in California at 10 am local time. Of course, it missed most of Europe because they are enjoying an aperitif and, by the time the news cycle reaches Stonehenge, the story is so old there is not a journalist on earth who wants to cover it. No, the content strategy has to start at some point and as it goes through the time zones it needs refreshing with new and relevant insights, references to comments about it and to give a reason for bloggers and journalists and Susan and her friends swapping the news in Bebo. At what point in this cycle are employees engaged and those many organisations that work for the company (like consultants, vendors, and commercial partners)?
Strategy consideration 5
This content strategy also has to be able to serve many channels for communication. Can the strategy encompass words for twitter, bloggers, newspapers, feature writers. Does it have capacity for associated pictures, interactive AJAX graphical content, news updates and other mashups or widgets. Is there, strategically, room for video, podcast or an interactive second life avatar that can be controlled with a Nintendo Wii? Does this story warrant its own social media microsite, wiki, poll or user evaluation?
Strategy consideration 6
The sixth strategy are those management imperatives such as rules of engagement for employees and other organisations closely associated with the organisation.
Strategy consideration 7
The seventh strategy consideration encompasses both risk management embedded in the approach and crisis management capability - because we are all professionals.
Of course, there will be other versions. I welcome comments.
I guess the place most people will start is that place of record. The company or brand web site.
Strategically, for a corporate web site we can imagine it as the place where the most visitors come each day to engage on corporate matters. For an etail site it is the flagship store and the trade site is an invitation into the biggest and busiest warehouse and so forth.
Strategy consideration 1
So our first strategy action point is the examine investment at a level that reflects the opportunity. For example there is significant evidence that corporate web sites are extensively used by financial analysis, investors, prospective employees, NGO's, regulators, vendors and many other stakeholders. Equally, if in general, retail sales on line are 15% of all retail activity, does the etail site offer an opportunity to access this business and will that be incremental business, will it enhance sales at bricks and mortar sites, will the return on investment be recovered at a lower cost to deliver added bottom line profits. All the indication suggest this is the case.
We now have available a lot of information about who, why and how people visit our web sites.
For example, the research is telling us that prospective customers come to a web site for a whole range of reasons through the buying process including, according to the Enquiro study, awareness, research, negotiation and purchase and, one can add, to reconfirm and justify the decision after purchase.
Strategy consideration 2
Our second strategy is to consider each of these instances and have relevant content for each of the visitor's needs. The strategy will set out to resolve the requirements for why people should search for, explore, find information and save it ready for the next visit.
Of course, as part of this process, the strategy will include SEO and will ensure that every page of the web site reflects the relevant company values which will be both obvious to the visitor and to the semantic algorithms used by search engines.
Strategy consideration 3
Our third strategy consideration is one of access.
In an era of user created market, and social segments that change and morph all the time, it is important to maintain an interest in the wider adoption of online media to create access.
Is access only to be through a PC or laptop or will it include games consoles, USB ports, mobile phones, kiosks and the panoply of devices that are available across the market?. How do people keep engaged with the company, product or brand? Is it one device or many and, for the time being, never mind the volume of people or even the number of visits because should the devices engage enough and is interesting for people at different stages in relationship building the pay off will come elsewhere.
For example Twitter. We have some good figures about the number of people who visit its web site But we don't have a clue as to how many people use tools like Twirl, mobile phones and Blackberrys to engage through Twitter. These dispersed metrics are going to be ever more diverse and difficult for the traditional marketing person to manage.
Strategy consideration 4
My fourth strategy focuses on content and content management. Lets take the case of a new product launched in California at 10 am local time. Of course, it missed most of Europe because they are enjoying an aperitif and, by the time the news cycle reaches Stonehenge, the story is so old there is not a journalist on earth who wants to cover it. No, the content strategy has to start at some point and as it goes through the time zones it needs refreshing with new and relevant insights, references to comments about it and to give a reason for bloggers and journalists and Susan and her friends swapping the news in Bebo. At what point in this cycle are employees engaged and those many organisations that work for the company (like consultants, vendors, and commercial partners)?
Strategy consideration 5
This content strategy also has to be able to serve many channels for communication. Can the strategy encompass words for twitter, bloggers, newspapers, feature writers. Does it have capacity for associated pictures, interactive AJAX graphical content, news updates and other mashups or widgets. Is there, strategically, room for video, podcast or an interactive second life avatar that can be controlled with a Nintendo Wii? Does this story warrant its own social media microsite, wiki, poll or user evaluation?
Strategy consideration 6
The sixth strategy are those management imperatives such as rules of engagement for employees and other organisations closely associated with the organisation.
Strategy consideration 7
The seventh strategy consideration encompasses both risk management embedded in the approach and crisis management capability - because we are all professionals.
Of course, there will be other versions. I welcome comments.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Agnostic evaluation of media content
Image via WikipediaThis weekend, I have been playing with a sentiment engine and thinking about people's perspectives.
This one does not take sides. It is agnostic. It decides if a press story is positive or negative from a neutral perspective.
All you do is past text into a box and it analyses the content as positive or negative and shows the structure of sentences that leads to this conclusion.
You can try it here.
The returns it makes is an academic minefield. It challenges your thinking about truth.
It has a first cousin, that can add perspectives. For example, it can make similar decisions from the perspective of the actors (company, person brand etc) which is why it was invented but the returns with no perspective are very interesting.
Sometimes this programme gets it wrong but not often.
It is able to glean content that is negative but which contributes to the positive side of the article and you can see how it does it.
I have tried news articles, book chapters, reports and even client presentations to see where the sentiment lies.
So where is the beef?
This kind of development is useful for analysing sentiment of news articles, blogs and other content, which is its primary purpose but it also has applications in evaluating style and and bias all of which are very useful to the PR industry, regulators and watchers of political sentinemt on and off line.
Try it out and be challenged.
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