Social media

How Web 2.0 is changing public relations practice

The Nike memeFrom: "Personalize, NIKE iD" <nikeid_personalize@nike.com>To: "'Jonah H. Peretti'" <peretti@media.mit.edu>Subject: RE: Your NIKE  iD order o16468000

Your NIKE iD order was cancelled for one or more of the following reasons.

1) Your Personal iD contains another party's trademark or other intellectual property.2) Your Personal iD contains the name of an athlete or team we do not have the legal right to use.3) Your Personal iD was left blank. Did you not want any personalization?4) Your Personal iD contains profanity or inappropriate slang, and besides, your mother would slap us.

If you wish to reorder your NIKE iD product with a new personalization please visit us again at www.nike.com

The Nike memeDear NIKE iD,Thank you for your quick response to my inquiry about my custom ZOOM

XC USA running shoes.  Although I commend you for your prompt customer service, I disagree with the claim that my personal iD was inappropriate slang.  After consulting Webster's Dictionary, I discovered that "sweatshop" is in fact part of standard English, and not slang.  … So my personal iD does meet the criteria detailed in your first email.

Your web site advertises that the NIKE iD program is "about freedom to choose and freedom to express who you are."  I share Nike's love of freedom and personal expression.  The site also says that "If you want it done right...build it yourself."  I was thrilled to be able to build my own shoes, and my personal iD was offered as a small token of appreciation for the sweatshop workers poised to help me realize my vision.  I hope that you will value my freedom of expression and reconsider your decision to reject my order.

Thank you,Jonah Peretti

E-mail inquiries to Jonah

• More than 3,600 people e-mailed to ask him questions about the exchange

Six degrees of separation?

• It is shocking that sending one e-mail to a few friends could launch a global campaign

• But if you send an e-mail to 10 friends, and each friend forwards the e-mail to 10 of their friends, after just 6 steps the message will reach a million people

-Jonah Peretti

Web 2.0

• Tools that allow collaboration and information sharing over the Internet

• Allows new relationships between organizations and their publics– Speech cannot be controlled– It can only be engaged in

Web 2.0 tools

• Weblogs• Podcasts• Wikis• “Social media” that

allow collaboration in content creation and sharing

Podcasting

• http://www.forward-moving.com/blog/category/podcast/

Wikis

• http://wikipedia.org/

• http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php

Blogging

• Blog = weblog, a Web site in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. They comprise text, hypertext, images, and links (to other Web pages, video, audio, other files) – Wikipedia

Blogging and job opportunities

• Some PR majors getting jobs because of blogging knowledge, experience– Paull Young, Converseon

• http://blog.basturea.com/archives/2007/03/26/paull-young-joins-converseon/

Blogging and job opportunities

• Some PR majors are NOT getting jobs because of things they’ve posted– Intern posted about Comedy Central– Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube

comments, pictures, and videos– What other people say on their blogs or

Web sites

Successful PR graduates“We need to combine good writing,

communications and analytical skills with the ability to understand our clients’ audience and understand how a well-executed program can help an organization to meet its goals and objectives.

“The emergence and adoption of new online tools from e-mail to podcasts, blogs and search engines doesn’t change the requirement for those traditional skills.

“In fact, it increases their value.”– Tom Murphy, Microsoft

Welcome to the blogosphere

• There are more than 70 million blogs (not all active)

• Technorati tracks about 50,000 new blog posts per hour (updates instantly)

PR uses of Weblogs

• Leverage employee intelligence

• Market through bloggers

• Introduce products• Thought leadership

(position as expert)

• Monitor conversation

• Engage in conversation

• Press release posting

• Crisis communication

Corporate blogs

• Executives at large corporations are unsure how to deal with blogging (May 2006 poll)– A majority are not convinced of blogs’ credibility

for communication or branding purposes– 12% have taken legal/other action against a blog– 20% have no blog monitoring program– 20% read business blogs weekly or more

Corporate blogs

• Only 29 of the Fortune 500 companies reported active blogs written by employees about the company or product (April 2006)

• A few companies have fired employees for blogging activities– Starbucks, Delta, Wells

Fargo, KMart

Hill & Knowlton blog policy

• …remember that others, including your colleagues, may be actively reading what you write.

• …Think of what you say in your weblog in the same way as statements you might make to the media, or emails you might send to people you don’t know.

• Never disclose any information… that is confidential or proprietary to Hill & Knowlton, or any third party that has disclosed information to us…

• There are many things that we cannot mention as a publicly-owned company. Talking about our revenue, future plans, or the WPP share price will get you and Hill & Knowlton in legal trouble…

• You should make it clear that the views you express are yours alone…

Why is blogging different from other PR tools?

– Bloggers write about what’s interesting to them, not to you (PR) or to journalists

– Blogs are not just isolated posts but conversations that build relationships (co-created meaning)

– Opinion is mixed right in with facts (not “objective” journalism)

Pitching bloggers

• Know the blogger– Read the blog and only send things that fit– One size does not fit all

• Know the blogger’s community– Groups of bloggers link together, so know

who else is talking about you and supply links

Pitching bloggers

• Bloggers are experts– They know all about a niche area and can’t

be dazzled or fooled

• Freebies are okay– Journalists have ethics codes against

accepting gifts, but bloggers don’t– NOT buying them, but letting them sample

Pitching bloggers

• “A blog is not about you, it’s about me”– Bloggers don’t write to please their readers

but to express an opinion– So don’t say “your readers will like this

story” as you would to a print or broadcast journalist

Pitching bloggers

• Quality, not quantity– It’s more important to get in the most

appropriate blogs than into many blogs

• A blogger isn’t a journalist, but a story should still be newsworthy and a pitch should still be short and to the point

Why do people read blogs?

• Trust in major institutions is down

• Reasons according to a 2004 survey:– News I can’t find

elsewhere– A better perspective– Faster news

Transparency

• All information is open and freely available

• Opposite of secrecy• Truth = accuracy,

Transparency = openness• People want to look behind an

organization’s scenes and judge for themselves

Edelman-Walmart blogging episode

• New York Times story, March 2006• “Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is

increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.”

Edelman-Walmart blogging episode

• “Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

• “But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.”

Questions raised in PR blogs

• Journalists and bloggers have different standards: objectivity, sourcing. What is PR’s responsibility?

• Did the bloggers understand who was sending them the information?

• Is it okay for an agency to feed information to bloggers, considering that blogs are supposed to be conversations and information sharing?

Questions raised in PR blogs

• Wouldn’t it be more “transparent” for Wal-Mart to have its own blog that other bloggers could link to?

• Did Edelman harm its own client by becoming the focus of the story?

Principles for PR on the Internet

• Present fact-based content– Tell the truth, be timely, tell the full story

• Be an objective advocate– Act as a credible source and rely on credible

sources for expert advice

• Earn the public’s trust– Disclose all online participation, correct erroneous

information that is online– Arthur W. Page Society

Blog monitoring tools

• Google Blog Search– http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en

• Technorati– www.technorati.com

• Example of what a company needs to monitor – http://thewritingonthewal.net/

RSS feeds

• Aggregator – www.google.com/

reader

• Custom search feed– http://

www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=007544657325355175609:3jhbsobmksq