STAKEHOLDERS 2.0How to Build BetterSocial Media Campaigns

A white paper from the Council of Public Relations Firms

317 Madison Avenue, Suite 2320, New York, New York 10017

Tel: 877-PRFIRMS • Fax: 877-PRFAXES • www.prfirms.org

© 2010 Council of Public Relations Firms. All rights reserved.

The Council of Public Relations Firms was founded in 1998 and is comprised of America’s

leading public relations firms. Its membership represents the premier global, mid-size, regional

and specialty agencies across every discipline and practice area. The Council’s mission is to

advance the business of public relations firms by building the market and firms’ value as

strategic business partners.

For more information about the Council, visit www.prfirms.org.

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

The opportunity to identify, influence, andmobilize stakeholders is moving into a dynamicnew phase. One recent study of global Fortune

100 companies found that 79% were using tools likeFacebook, YouTube, blogs, and Twitter to engage withstakeholders.1 A late 2009 survey of global businessleaders found that about half planned to increase theirmarketing budgets for 2010, with 60% of those report-ing social media as an area of investment, second onlyto email.2 And a survey fielded by the consultingfirm Deloitte found that “the enterprise’s use of com-munities and social media” is showing “signs ofmaturation,” with “39 percent of the respondents indi-cated that more full-time people are being deployed tomanage the communities.”3

Yet for all the money and human resources spent, toomany social media campaigns don’t achieve break-through results. Sometimes cultural or administrativesnafus occur: The communications team has greatideas for blogs and other social media tools, yet execu-tion suffers as nervous executives in other departmentsback away from campaigns or slow them down withcumbersome legal checks. An even bigger problem hasto do with campaigns themselves. With social media soentrenched, some companies don’t fully comprehendthe consequence of their actions or inactions, nor havethey mapped out and implemented a thoughtfulapproach. Eager for a presence on sites like Facebookand Twitter, companies throw money at a technologyor creative idea yet fail to design a campaign tailored tostrategic ambitions.

Many firms could improve engagement by under-standing audiences better and exploiting differentways people have come to use the technology. As someanalysts have observed, social media audiences are notidentical to off-line audiences. People fall into different

profiles or personas based on their online activity. Per-haps the best known example of such an analysis isForrester’s Groundswell methodology, which identifiesand quantifies seven distinct social media personas,including “creators,” “critics,” “collectors,” “joiners”and “spectators.” Mobilizing these personas, compa-nies can add new sophistication to stakeholderinteraction, thus achieving superior results.

This white paper seeks to take methodologies such asGroundswell to the next level by considering executionsthat support specific public relations campaigns andgoals. What’s needed, we think, is a framework thatrelates the different social media segments to the stake-holders public relations practitioners typically address –customers, employees, analysts, the public, executive

• Social media tactics are part of broaderpublic relations strategies.

• Stakeholder online behavior should beconsidered in its distinctness and notjust conflated with traditional stake-holder behavior. Applying a socialmedia matrix can help to generate athoughtful social media design.

• Successful social media executionsshould mobilize and build groupsaround different stakeholder personas.In this way, they can serve to builddeeper stakeholder relationships withthe enterprise.

| 1

KEY TAKEAWAYS

management, etc. Companies should mobilize socialmedia for public relations challenges by considering in asystematic way not merely howwe connect with tradi-tional stakeholders, but with persona-specific stakeholders.The question to ask is not “How can we engage cus-tomers?” or “how can we engage employees?” butrather, “How can we engage “customer-creators, cus-tomer-critics, employee-critics, employee-collectors andthe like?”A superior social media campaign woulddevise unique roles for each of these subgroups, deploy-ing tactics that motivate these subgroups to work inconcert with one another in the company’s interest.

Applying a modified version of the Groundswellframework, this white paper presents a matrix tool fordeveloping an effective social media campaign. Thepaper describes sample public relations actions thatcampaigns can use to mobilize specific social mediastakeholders, offering examples from successful cam-paigns. We’ll end by introducing principles to guideyou as you apply the social media matrix to your ownpressing communications assignments.

Snapshot of OnlineStakeholders

According to Forrester,“nearly three-quarters ofUS online adults wereparticipating in one way oranother with social media.”Here is a breakdown of thegroups that are analyzed in“Stakeholders 2.0.”

(While not apples to apples,we see many similaritiesbetween our paper’s“Connectors” and Forrester’s“Conversationalists.”)

Adapted from Forrester’s North American Technographics®

Groundswell Heroes Online Survey, Q4 2009 (US)

| 2

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Critics37%

Conversationalists(Connectors)33%

Collectors20%

Spectators70%

Creators24%

| 3

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

In their book Groundswell: Winning in AWorld Trans-formed by Social Technologies, and in related reportsand blog postings, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li

introduced the concept of “social technographics,” amethod of understanding an audience by breaking itdown according to six “levels of participation.”4 Thetwo envision social media participation as a ladderthat begins with inactivity at the bottom, proceedsupward to include spectatorship (people who readblogs, watch video, listen to podcasts) and affiliation(people who join social networking sites), and reachesits pinnacle at creation (people who publish webpages,write blogs, and upload video).

As Bernoff and Li note, social technographics doesn’tdivide an audience into segments but rather into pro-files – the difference being that any one individual cansimultaneously occupy multiple profiles or rungs onthe ladder. Bernoff and Li recommend that companiesnot approach social media as a “list of technologies tobe deployed as needed,” but that they rather take amore deliberate approach: “[A]nalyze their customers’Social Technographics first, and then create a socialstrategy based on that profile.”

Social technographics is not the only attempt to articu-late a more methodical approach to social media; anynumber of other schemas exist for distinguishing sub-groups or personas in a social media audience. Yet asclients and public relations professionals quickly find,these schemas tend to be of limited use, as they aregeneral rather than defined for a particular discipline.To arrive at a more effective public relations strategy,companies should consider social technographics inrelation to traditional public relations stakeholderssuch as employees, customers, executives, and analysts.After all, people don’t stop acting as conventionalstakeholders when they log onto a Facebook page;they retain those identities. We can engage diverseaudiences most effectively if we develop a strategythat considers both their relationship to the companyand to social media technologies.

We’ve created a tool that clients and public relationsprofessionals can apply to guide their strategy devel-opment in a systematic fashion. This matrix setstraditional stakeholders on one axis and social mediaprofiles on the other. Rather than adopt six socialmedia profiles as Bernoff and Li do, we include the fol-lowing five, which we believe better capture essentialsocial media activities:5

• Innovators/Creators – Audience members whoenjoy putting something new – something of them-selves – out on the web for others to consume. Thisis social media as self-expression, potentially indefense or in opposition to a company or brand.

• Critics/Commentators –Audience members whoenjoy critiquing and commenting on the self-expres-sion of others. These audience members tend tosupplement or refine content, rating, ranking, and cate-gorizing it for the benefit of themselves and others.

• Connectors/Communicators – Audience memberswho enjoy spreading word of mouth about contentcreated by others. These individuals are content syn-dicators. They often are storytellers who spinnarratives about other content in the process oftelling others about it.

• Collectors/Curators – Audience members who enjoyorganizing content created by others. These individu-als are content aggregators. Like Critics, Collectors/Curators form judgments about companies andbrands, although these judgments tend to be implicit,reflected in the particular categories Collectors/Cura-tors use to organize content.

• Spectators – Audience members who enjoy viewing,reading, or listening to content created by others, butwho do not engage in more active content creation,refinement, syndication, or aggregation. The majorityof online stakeholders fall into this category.

Again, these five personas are not mutually exclusive;an individual can occupy multiple personas at any onetime, or as is also common, can flit between two or

The Stakeholder Matrix

| 4

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

more personas. Mapping these personas against thetraditional stakeholders with whom clients and publicrelations professionals typically communicate, wearrive at the matrix below.

We can use this matrix to construct a variety of publicrelations campaigns, including Corporate SocialResponsibility, Customer Relations, Investor Relations,Employee Relations, Product Innovation, ReputationManagement, and Crisis Management. We can also

use the matrix to analyze existing campaigns to deter-mine how they are working and how they might befurther developed and optimized.

Consider three stakeholder groups: Customers, Employ-ees andAlumni, and CitizenActivist Groups. For eachof these groups, the chart on the following pages citesjust a few of the many possible actions firms have takenthat employ or consider stakeholders personas.

How to Build Better Social Media CampaignsSocialMediaProfiles

Stakeholders

The Stakeholders 2.0 Matrix

Customers Employeesand Alumni

Media Manager Investor CitizenActivistGroups

Etc.

CreatorCustomer-Creator

Employee-Creator

Media-Creator

Manager-Creator

Investor-Creator

Citizen-Creator

CriticCustomer-Critic

Employee-Critic

Media-Critic

Manager-Critic

Investor-Critic

Citizen-Critic

ConnectorCustomer-Connector

Employee-Connector

Media-Connector

Manager-Connector

Investor-Connector

Citizen-Connector

CollectorCustomer-Collector

Employee-Collector

Media-Collector

Manager-Collector

Investor-Collector

Citizen-Collector

SpectatorCustomer-Spectator

Employee-Spectator

Media-Spectator

Manager-Spectator

Investor-Spectator

Citizen-Spectator

SocialMediaProfiles

Stakeholders

Social Media Campaign Matrix

| 5

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0 How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Customers Employees and Alumni Citizen Activist Groups

Creator

• Engage consumers in producttrials (Doritos)

• Solicit customer feedback viahosted discussion forums (e.g.mystarbucksidea)

• Engage consumers in productdevelopment (Mountain Dew,Dunkin Donuts)

• Employee generated blogs/Twitter (Hewlett Packard)

• Employee generated videos(Deloitte, Best Buy)

• Employee generated productdevelopment (IBM)

• Spotlight employees on companyblogs (Disney)

• Post footage/reporting online(DemocracyNow, Citizen Global)

• Promote citizen Journalism/Blogging (The Uptake)

• Submit/vote on ideas on feed-back sites (AmericaSpeakingOut)

• Encourage defenders to createfresh content that establishesthe organization’s point of view

Critic

• Customer voting about product/marketing preferences(Domino’s Pizza, Mountain Dew,Tropicana, Coke)

• Tools for monitoring andanalyzing independent customerfeedback sites (e.g. bulletinboards, “I Hate” sites, Walmart-watch.com)

• Mobilize customers to answerother customers’ questions(Disney Moms)

• Sponsor customer opinioncommunity sites (Best Buy)

• Employee information websites(glassdoor.com)

• Anonymous employee sugges-tion boxes

• Internal employee ideaexchange sites (Best Buy’s GeekSquad Forum)

• YouTube videos about the “real-ities” of employee experience(Home Depot)

• Crowdsource municipal jobcandidates

• Crowdsource problemsthat require fixing by localgovernment

• Solicit issue-oriented complaints(Greenpeace)

• Create News/Watchdog sites(CTWatchdog, DaveyD)

• Encourage defenders to debatepeople in public forums andblogs, espousing the point ofview.

Connector

• Have customers hold word ofmouth, brand-focused parties(e.g. Brand about Town)

• Host websites facilitatingcustomer peer interactions(e.g. NavyMoms)

• Third party websites thatencourage customer tocustomer interactions aroundbrands (FourSquare)

• Encourage “Tweetups”

• Fan generated websites, fanpages on Facebook/Twitter(e.g. Jim Beam Bourbon)

• Social Responsibility giveawayswith community voting compo-nents (Nike)

• Employee tweets (Best Buy)

• Employee alumni Facebookpages (Myles Pizza)

• Employee Alumni websites(Swiss Re, McKinsey)

• Internal employee communitysites (Best Buy’s BlueshirtNation, IBM)

• Maintain Facebook pages/Twitter Feeds (Ashton Kutcherand Malaria)

• Solicit User-Generated contentbehind social missions (Green-peace’s BP logo redesigncontest)

• Organize events in multiplelocalities (350.org, Iraniandemocracy movements)

• Encourage friend-to-friendemailing (Tcktcktck)

• Volunteer Connection websites/virtual volunteering (volunteer-match.org)

• Encourage defenders to sharethe creators’ and critics’content and point of viewwith others.

SocialMediaProfiles

Stakeholders

Social Media Campaign Matrix (cont.)

| 6

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

Let’s examine these actions in greater detail by developing some examples from actual campaigns. We start

with the social media stakeholder grouping that organizations have sought to engage with the most using

social media, customers.

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Customers Employees and alumni Citizen Activist Groups

Collector

• Nurture relationships with brandevangelists (Coca-Cola)

• Tours/events for brand collectors(Tag Heuer)

• Fan websites (e.g. fanpop)

• Company historians (Coca-Cola) • Collect and display mediafootage on blog (tcktcktck)

• Collect and display other news(OMBWatch, CTWatchDog)

• Encourage defenders to secure3rd party support, aggregate allcontent that supports the pointof view.

Spectator

• Disseminate content that raisesawareness and builds brandidentity (Pop Tarts, Kanye West)

• Disseminate content that drivespurchase interest (Old Spice)

• Disseminate content that buildsbrand community (Mayo MedicalSchool)

• Build morale and support byenabling bloggers to postcontent about the organization(Army)

• Inform employees about thefirm’s policies, including socialmedia policies (Army)

• Private companies can buildawareness of CSR investmentsby providing profiles of worthypublic endeavors the firm isconsidering funding (Pepsi).

• Increase sales of non-profit mer-chandise (Livestrong)

• Raise and shape publicawareness (Obama)

| 7

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

First consider the customer-creator. For several yearsnow, brands have run popular campaigns solicitingthe involvement of customer-creators in product

promotion. With a $450,000 PR budget, Doritos in 2009executed a highly effective campaign in which it chal-lenged fans to becomemarketing communicationsspecialists and create a top-ranked Super Bowl ad. Lean-ing heavily on social media and viral video to reach itscore audience of 16- to 24-year olds, Doritos “reapedaccolades for its prowess in user-generated content, andmedia impressions valued at $40 million in ad equiva-lency from Today to The Tonight Show.Doritos also saw a16% rise in sales for the week after the Super Bowl overthe previous year.”6 Companies can activate customersin a creative role by soliciting customer feedback inhosted discussion forums and by crowdsourcing prod-uct development. A study fielded by Price WaterhouseCoopers found that CEOs globally were especially inter-ested in engaging with consumers in productdevelopment, with 60% expecting that “consumers willplay a more active role in product development in theircompanies, another dimension of value perceived byconsumers and a trend represented by open source com-puting and social networks.”7

Starbucks’ My Starbucks Idea website8 affords con-sumers the opportunity to suggest new products andother changes they’d like to see at the company, andalso to receive company feedback and updates on theseideas. When Dunkin Donuts wanted new flavors for itsdoughnuts, it held a contest to solicit customer ideasand received 90,000 suggestions, including award win-ners like the “Cop Cake,” the “Monkey-SeeMonkey-Donut,” and the “MuchADo about NutThings”.9 In April 2010, Mountain Dew launched threenew flavors co-created by some 4,000 consumers as partof the brand’s DEWmocracy 2 campaign. Consumerswill have a chance to sample the flavors and vote ontheir favorite. During the brand’s 2008 DEWmocracy 1campaign, “more than 1 million people participate inthe product creation and selection process.”10

Beyond engaging customers as creative forces, compa-nies have turned to them as critics. Companies likeDomino’s Pizza, Mountain Dew, Tropicana, and Cokeget the critical juices flowing by asking customers tovote on their product or marketing preferences.11 Com-panies such as Best Buy sponsor customer opinioncommunity sites, while Disney has mobilized cus-tomers to answer other customers’ questions – a taskthat usually involves some critical commentary.12

Finally, analytical tools exist for monitoring and analyz-ing independent customer feedback sites, includingbulletin boards and “I Hate” sites.

Customers become especially valuable to companieswhen they serve as connectors with other customers,thus spreading the word about the company and itsbrands. The firm BrandAbout Town has customersorganize brand-focused parties where they can spreadword of mouth among other key influencers. TheUnited States Navy hosts NavyMoms.com, a commu-nity website for mothers and other family members ofactive servicemen and women. Third party websiteslike FourSquare encourage customers to interact withone another around brands, while companies can alsodrive customers to platforms like Twitter to engagewith one another and hold “Tweet-ups.” Fan generatedwebsites and fan pages on Facebook and Twitter arevenues for customers to connect with one anotheraround brands (an example: Jim Beam Bourbon),13

Customer Stakeholder Personas

Doritos “reaped accoladesfor its prowess in user-generatedcontent ...”

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

| 8

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

while companies like Nike have held social responsibil-ity giveaways with community voting components(consumers vote on which neighborhood groups andinitiatives the company should support with grants).14

Moving on to customers as collectors, we find thatbrands like Coca-Cola nurture relationships with

evangelists, who commonly collect information andmemorabilia about the brand. Watchmaker Tag Heuerholds tours and events for its brand collectors,15 whilecompanies can also monitor and nurture online fangroups, which typically become focal points for thecollection of images, videos, and information. On thefan site Fanpop, the 800 members of Lady Gaga’sFashion group posted colorful images and video of thesinger while also taking on the critics’ role, voting ontheir favorite Lady Gaga’s hairstyle.16

As for customers as spectators, Kanye West buildsbrand awareness by serving up funny tweets, whilebrands like Pop Tarts also use entertaining content tobuild mindshare.17 Content directed at spectators caninfluence purchase decisions, as Old Spice discoveredwhen its Isaiah Mustafa videos yielded a 107% monthover month sales boost.18 Finally, the Mayo MedicalSchool used content on Facebook groups to build fel-lowship among its incoming freshman class. Oneschool official was quoted as saying, “We used toworry about learning [new students’] names becausewe didn’t want them to feel isolated. Well, now theyknow everybody by the time they get here.”19

Content directed at spectatorscan influence purchase decisions,as Old Spice discovered when itsIsaiah Mustafa videos yieldeda 107%month over monthsales boost.

Employee Stakeholder Personas

Employees have generated wide interest as partici-pants in social media. As far as employee-creatorsgo, firms like Hewlett Packard have made use of

employee blogs, while Deloitte has made use ofemployee generated videos to appeal to youngerpotential hires,20 and Best Buy held an internal compe-tition for an employee video to encourage employeesto sign up for the firm’s pension program.21 Firms likeIBM pursue internal crowdsourcing to help generatenew product development, while companies like Dis-ney spotlight employees on company blogs.22 At IBM,businesses identified by internal crowdsourcingbrought in $100 billion in revenue and enjoyed a 44.1%margin in 2008.23

Employee-critics are a touchy subject; many firmshave promulgated restrictive social media policies fortheir employees to prevent them from criticizing thecompany and divulging unflattering information. Thefact is that employees often take on the critic’s roleonline, using such third party sites as glassdoor.com toshare information. Some companies have harnessedthe employee-critic, sponsoring anonymous employeesuggestion boxes or posting employee videos aboutthe realities of working at the company. IBM has areported 17,000 internal blogs and 100,000 employeesusing them,24 while Home Depot’s “Behind theApron” video series on YouTube features employeestalking about both positive and negative dimensionsof working at the company. As one blogger has noted,

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Home Depot employees “are upfront that you will beon your feet for eight to nine hours in some roles,while others will require cold calling. This trans-parency is valuable, especially in the field of socialmedia.”25 Best Buy has its Loop Marketplace, an inter-nal site where employees can exchange ideas, and alsoa game where employees can predict future trendsthat are then “traded,” for better or for worse, by otheremployees, as on the stock market.26

Finally, companies can and have addressed employeesas connectors, collectors, and spectators. Employee-collectors seem to be a somewhat rare species as asocial media stakeholder; very few firms seem to havemobilized them, short of identifying a few as in-housefirm historians. Companies have done far more withemployee-connectors. Best Buy trusts its employees toTweet up the brand – without even laying out formalTwitter guidelines.27 One local pizza restaurant, MylesPizza and Pub in Bowling Green, OH, has a Facebookpage for its young alumni to stay in touch with oneanother.28 Although the concept of tapping into ex-employees isn’t new,29 social media is fosteringrenewed interest in cultivation of university-stylealumni networks.

The global re-insurance company Swiss Re became thefirst in its industry to start an alumni network and asof March 2010 had nearly 1,400 members. As the com-pany explains on its portal, https://www.swissre-alumni.com/login, alumni “have the opportunity torenew old friendships, establish new ones, expandyour professional network, and have access to events,news, and exciting career prospects,” while the firmsees benefits in recruiting, business development andglobal branding.30 Management consulting firms such

as Booz Allen, Deloitte, and McKinsey also featureextensive alumni portals. On McKinsey’s site(https://alumni.mckinsey.com/ alumni/login.jsp),alumni can search for and post jobs, and prospectiveemployees can learn about what former McKinseyemployees have done since leaving the company.Deloitte’s offers an interactive newsletter “dedicated tohelping you keep in touch with what’s happening atDeloitte, in business in general, as well as past andpresent Deloitte professionals.”31

As far as employee-spectators go, the US Army helpsshape impressions and build morale among soldiers(as well as their families and the American public) byencouraging blogging by soldiers, their families, andarmy supporters.32 Seeking to avoid information leak-age of the sort that affected Israel’s military recently,the military also has posted a video urging soldiers tobe careful about what they post. This last executionillustrates something that many organizations now do:Use social media to inform employees about policiesof all kinds.33

| 9

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

The fact is that employees often takeon the critic’s role online, using suchthird party sites as glassdoor.com toshare information.

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

Citizen activist groups are an up-and-coming areaof social media interest. Citizen-creators havecome to the fore in the posting of footage online

by individuals and citizen groups. Examples includethe television show DemocracyNow, as well as CitizenGlobal, a platform that enables everyday individuals topost video footage relating to specific social issues.34

Full-fledged amateur journalism sites and blogs suchas The Uptake offer more opportunities for grassrootscreative involvement.35 House Republicans recentlycreated America Speaking Out, a platform for everydaycitizens to post and vote on ideas.36

As Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has observed,municipal governments are beginning to use socialmedia technology to allow consumers of governmentservices to troubleshoot problems that need fixingusing their smartphones. A civic group in Providence,RI is going online to crowdsource candidates for anupcoming mayoral election, allowing the residents toserve as a “collective hiring manager.”37 In both cases,designers of social media tools are fashioning new rolesfor citizen-critics. Or take Moxyvote.com, a websitethat allows retail shareholders to vote on corporate bal-lots. “Advocates” including a number of non-profitgroups present voter recommendations on the site, ineffect serving as “investor-critics” of expert opinion.Users can in turn serve as investor-critics (a socialmedia group not discussed here) by commenting onthe positions of the advocates. Finally, any number of

blogs and watchdog sites provide critical opinion (agood example: the hip hop site DaveyD)38 and allowcitizens and groups to articulate complaints.39 In thewake of the oil spill in the Gulf, the environmentalgroup Greenpeace gave citizens a voice in a memorableway by sponsoring a contest for the satirical redesignof British Petroleum’s logo.40

Two other social stakeholders to consider here are citi-zen-connector and citizen-collector. Facebook pagesand Twitter feeds are important venues for concernedcitizens to mobilize together; Ashton Kutcher andKevin Rose tapped into two million twitter followersto pressure government officials to tackle the problemof malaria in developing countries.41 Activist groupsare soliciting user-generated content behind socialmissions, thus connecting citizens to one another (as inthe Greenpeace example above); they are encouragingfriend to friend emailing (see theefforts of the global warming activistorganization tcktcktck); and they areorganizing events in multiple locali-ties using online tools, as in the caseof the anti-global warming group350.org.42 Matching websites offervolunteers an opportunity to connectwith social action groups in their areas. As far as citi-zen-collector goes, groups such as Tcktcktck collectand display media footage on their blogs – a commontactic in the activist space.43 Websites like OMBWatch(a group advocating for open government) andCTWatchdog (an activist group around local Connecti-cut issues) also collect and display other news relevantto their favored causes.44

Finally, organizations are profitably deploying a num-ber of tactics related to citizen-spectators. Governmentsand activist groups are mobilizing Twitter to shapespectators’ awareness around events, issues, andpeople. In September 2010, President Obama’s commu-nications team tweeted a denial that Michelle Obamahad ever told the French First Lady that she felt she

| 10

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

Citizen-Activist Group Stakeholder Personas

Facebook pages and Twitter feedsare important venues for concernedcitizens to mobilize together.

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

| 11

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

was in “hell” in the White House. As the New YorkTimes reported, “the remark rapidly boomerangedaround the Internet and threatened to become an issue.That prompted the response from [Obama spokesmanRobert Gibbs], who is followed by 95,446 people.”Activist groups like Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong usesocial media to convince spectators to buy merchandisethat benefits their cause, while private firms have alsoused social media to raise public awareness aboutsocial issues and the company’s philanthropic efforts.45

Pepsi’s Facebook page and its “Refresh Project” web-site allow spectators to learn about philanthropicprojects the firm is considering funding – a move thatpays dividends even if the spectator is not motivated togo further and vote for his or her favorite project, asPepsi allows.46

Pepsi’s Facebook page andits “Refresh Project” websiteallow spectators to learnabout philanthropic projectsthe firm isconsideringfunding.

Other Social Media Stakeholder Personas

Effective campaigns will inevitably incorporateseveral or even many of these actions at the sametime, mobilizing multiple social stakeholder

groups. To understand the full complexity of an effec-tive social media campaign, note that we’ve onlyoffered a few examples of the kinds of actions that canbe deployed. Also, we’ve focused on three classes ofshareholders, but others also represent significantopportunities for engagement via public relations.Managers are venturing increasingly into the socialmedia space (e.g. CEO blogs and tweets), andinvestors, too, have garnered attention recently in rela-tion to social media. As BusinessWeek and theWallStreet Journal recently reported, websites likeMoxyvote.com makes proxy voting more accessible tosmall, individual investors, threatening a wholesaleshifting of power away from management and towardshareholders. “It’s easier than ever to vote the bumsout of the executive suite,” the Journal observed.Excited by this development, former New York State

Governor Elliot Spitzer noted that “bringing the tech-nologies of the new politics’ to the corporate contextwill make information access easier and ultimatelyeven permit direct shareholder-to-shareholder com-munication.” Technology may one day soon “helpstockholders take control of the corporations theyown.”47 In crafting effective public relations cam-paigns, companies and their public relationsprofessionals should think about how they mightmobilize the four investor social media stakeholdergroups to the firm’s advantage.

Finally, we should note that none of the charts in thiswhite paper has covered all the potential social stake-holder groups. Politicians, government officials,vendors, business-to-business partners, industry experts,academics, journalists, and market analysts each givesrise to five social media stakeholder groups, and thesegroups can in turn be mobilized in campaigns.

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

The creative opportunities of social media areendless. Yet to make sure your campaignunfolds coherently and with maximum impact,

don’t just throw money at the new technologies. Thinkthrough your audiences and how best to mobilizethem so as to assure their engagement.

This paper has argued that companies should deploytactics designed to appeal not merely to traditionalstakeholders, but to social media stakeholders withinthose groups. We’ve presented a tool – a social mediamatrix – that you can use to help generate a thoughtfulsocial media design or optimize a design already in exis-tence. And we’ve also begun to explore the many tactics

that companies have used to mobilize and generateenthusiasm across specific social stakeholder groups.

Building better social media campaigns isn’t easy. Intoday’s world, people simultaneously maintain anumber of online and offline identities. They’re nolonger simple stakeholders of the companies withwhom they relate. Rather, they’re social stakeholders,and they require a strategy of appropriate nuance andcomplexity. By deploying a Stakeholders 2.0 approachto strategy, we can make the most of the wild and con-stantly shifting communications environment we nowfind ourselves in.

| 12

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

Conclusion

• Target the right audiences to meet specific campaign objectives.

• Do your best to get a combination of stakeholders working together.

• Don’t just address the most obvious traditional stakeholders. Is there a way to mobilize citi-zen-creators or expert-connectors in your campaign? Can your firm identify additionalstakeholders uniquely relevant to your business or industry?

• Remember that members of traditional stakeholder groups can occupy more than one social-stakeholder identity at once or shift between identities. Look for ways to migratesocial-stakeholders from one identity to another, thus increasing participation.

Key Principles of Social Media Stakeholder Strategy

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTThe Council of Public Relations Firms would like to thank Kathy Baughman, principal, ComBlu,

for her valuable contributions to this paper.

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns

1 Study conducted by Burson Marsteller, reported on Mashable inFebruary 2010, downloaded April 20, 2010 athttp://mashable.com/2010/02/23/fortune-100-social-media/

2 “Email and Social Media Marketing Are Top Areas of Investmentin 2010,” press release, December 2, 2009, found at:http://www.strongmail.com/company/news-and-events/press_120209.php

3 Deloitte, “2009 Tribalization of Business Study,”http://www.deloitte.com/us/2009tribalizationstudy

4 Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a WorldTransformed by Social Technologies, (Harvard Business SchoolPress, 2008).

5 We’ve removed from this matrix the bottom group in the originalGroundswell framework, “inactives.” All the other five personasby definition will engage in spectatorship activities, so it’s notnecessary to define specific tactics to mobilize this group, norwill most public relations campaigns wish to mobilize a group –inactives – who by definition are unmobilizeable.

6 “Product Brand Development Campaign of the Year 2010,”PRWeekus.com,March 11, 2010.

7 Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2010 Global CEO Survey Report: Eco-nomic Outlook, Strategy, Growth,” downloaded April 20, 2010 athttp://www.pwc.com/gx/en/ceo-survey/index.jhtml.

8 http://www.starbucks.com/coffeehouse/community/mystarbucksidea

9 “Dunkin Donuts Reveals Top 12 Fan-Created Donuts,” down-loaded April 20, 2010 athttp://mashable.com/2010/04/19/dunkin-donuts-finalists/.

10 “The Mountain Dew DEWmocracy 2 Campaign EmpowersBrand Loyalists Nationwide to Create and Launch the Next NewDEW,” Press release, April 20, 2010, found at http://www.mar-ketwatch.com/story/the-mountain-dew-dewmocracy-2-campaign-empowers-brand-loyalists-nationwide-to-create-and-launch-the-next-new-dew-2010-04-20?reflink=MW_news_stmp.

11 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-media-to-spur-employee-innovation/

12 http://disneyworldforum.disney.go.com/home.aspx13 http://twitter.com/jimbeamfans14 http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.show

Article&art_aid=10907015 http://www.tagheuer.com/the-

brand/history/collectionneurs/index.lbl?lang=en16 http://www.fanpop.com/spots/lady-gagas-fashion, down-

loaded July 28, 2010.17 Elaine Wong, “How Special K Became a Social Media Star,”

Brandweek,August 29, 2009, found at http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i2a5df3fe cd0d17839d40c63d15910359; http://music-mix.ew.com/2010/ 07/29/kanye-west-twitter-champion/

18 Alexandra Bruell, “Old Spice goes beyond hot-man-in-towelapproach to boost sales,” PRWeek, July 21, 2010. Found athttp://www.prweekus.com/old-spice-goes-beyond-hot-man-in-towel-approach-to-boost-sales/article/175111/

19 “Top Four Colleges in Social Media,” Advergirl.com,August 16,2009. Found at http://leighhouse.typepad.com/advergirl/2009/08/top-four-colleges-in-social-media.html

20 http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/deloitte/29646/.21 http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-

ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/

22 http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/category/cast-member-profiles/

23 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-media-to-spur-employee-innovation/

24 http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-ibm-uses-social-media-to-spur-employee-innovation/

25 http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/blog/5-reasons-why-the-home-depot-is-a-youtube-success

26 http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/

27 http://www.jeffbullas.com/2010/05/26/how-best-buy-energ-ized-170000-employees-with-social-media/

28 http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bowling-Green-OH/Myles-Pizza-Pub-Employee-Alumni/105247319505991

29 Christine Canabou, “Gone But Not Forgotten,” Fast Company,April 30, 2002.

30 “Building the Case for An Alumni Network,” Human CapitalInstitute, downloaded April 20, 2010 athttp://www.hci.org/lib/building-case-alumni-network?utm_source=HCI_Members_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=03-30_DD_Talent_Mem&utm_content=lchristiansen%40kaiserassociates.com.

31 http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Alumni/The-Netw-ork-Alumni/index.htm.

32 Staff Sgt. Margaret Nelson, “Army takes lead in social media net-working to reach families, American public,” found athttp://www.army.mil/-news/2009/04/27/20233-army-takes-lead-in-social-media-networking-to-reach-families-american-public/.

33 Robert Mackey, Israeli Raid Canceled After Facebook Leak, NewYork Times, March 3, 2010.

34 http://www.citizenglobal.com/; democracynow.org.35 http://theuptake.org/ {“Will journalism be done by you or to

you?]. See also http://www.brokenatlas.com/2010/01/19/activist-journalists-bring-citizen-pro-media-together-at-cop15/.

36 http://www.americaspeakingout.com/37 Craig Newmark, “How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and

Governmental Change,” downloaded April 20, 2010 athttp://mashable.com/2010/04/20/social-media-government-change/

38 http://daveyd.com/. Also see http://www.pbs.org/medi-ashift/2010/01/local-bloggers-step-up-to-watchdog-local-government014.html

39 See, for instance, http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=183and http://www.bpcomplaints.com/.

40 http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/gulf-oil-spill/bp-logo41 http://www.casefoundation.org/blog/open-sourcing-innovat-

ion-citizens-community-problem-solving-and-digital-media42 http://www.350.org/oct10.43 http://tcktcktck.org/44 http://www.ombwatch.org/45 Casey Hibbard, “How LIVESTRONG Raised Millions to Fight

Cancer Using Social Media ,” socialmediaexaminer.com, April13, 2010, found at http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ how-livestrong-raised-millions-to-fight-cancer-using-social-media/

46 http://www.facebook.com/pepsi; http://www.refreshevery-thing.com/grant-recipients.

47 Elliott Spitzer, “We Own You!” Slate.com, January 12, 2010.

| 13

STAKEHOLDERS 2.0

Footnotes

How to Build Better Social Media Campaigns