Last month, Jen McClure, founder and president of the Society of New Communications Research (SNCR), and Don Middleberg, SNCR senior fellow and CEO of Middleberg Communications, presented an informative webinar to discuss the results of the 2nd Annual Middleberg/SNCR Survey of Media in the Wired World, sponsored by Marketwire. The purpose of the study was to examine the ever-changing relationship journalists have with social media. In this installment of Ask the Expert, I had the opportunity to ask Jen a few questions about the advent of social media and its impact on journalists.

1. What kind of work does the Society for New Communications Research do?

The Society for New Communications Research (SNCR – pronounced like the candy bar) is a nonprofit research and education foundation and think tank founded in 2005. The organization focuses on the advanced study of the latest developments in new media and communications, and their effect on traditional media and business models, communications, culture and society. Our volunteer Fellows include a leading group of futurists, scholars, business leaders, professional communicators, members of the media and technologists from around the globe. They work together on research projects, educational offerings and the establishment of standards and best practices. Over the past five years of our existence, we’ve had more than 100 professionals participate in our fellowship program.

2. What would you suggest to people who are trying to reach journalists through social media?

When you say “people,” I assume you mean PR people. I think PR people have a tremendous opportunity in this era of social media and would advise them to take the following steps:

• Familiarize yourself with social media tools and technologies and incorporate them into your work.
• Fuse traditional tools and practices with new social media technologies.
• The first step to using social media in PR is not broadcasting your message, but rather to listen, listen, listen. Then, figure out how and where you can participate in conversations and add valuable insight and knowledge, and establish thought leadership.
• Understand how to use social networking and other social media to build relationships, collaborate, engage in online conversations, and share your expertise, but don’t ignore building relationships through traditional channels such as face-to-face meetings, phone calls and email.
• Become a storyteller. Use photos, video, blogging, and other social media to tell your story in new, interesting, and authentic ways.

3. What tips would you give journalists who are new to social media?

Again, I think starting by using social media channels as a listening tool is the best way to begin to understand how social media works and how it can be a valuable new tool for journalism.

4. What statistic/trend surprised you most in this year’s research?

Last year, our findings split along demographic lines. While younger journalists were adopting social media tools at a much faster rate and were much more positive about their impact on their profession, older journalists were much more skeptical of their value and their adoption lagged. This year, across the the board, adoption soared with nearly 70 percent using social networking, 66 percent using blogs and 48 percent using Twitter. Attitudes of almost all the journalists we surveyed were very positive about the impact of social media on journalism — with 91 percent of our respondents telling us that new media and communications tools are enhancing journalism. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of journalists who stated that their newsrooms encourage and enable them to use social media tools and technologies in their work (78 percent).

5. Are more people considering bloggers to be journalists?

That’s an interesting question. We have to remember that blogging is just a technology platform — one which is increasingly being used by professional journalists. So in a way, the better question is: Are citizen journalists and corporate bloggers considered journalists? And to that I would say, yes and no. A lot of journalists blog. Conversely, a lot of bloggers are not professional journalists, but if they are documenting current events or news stories, they are committing acts of journalism, whether they are aware of it or not. And, journalists are increasingly paying attention to bloggers. As our survey indicated, nearly 80 percent of the journalists we surveyed believe bloggers are important opinion-shapers and, increasingly, we see popular bloggers featured as pundits and subject matter experts in the traditional news media.

In addition to individual bloggers, companies, non-profit organizations and even the government are becoming their own news outlets with their blogs and other social media channels. We’re all able to be publishers of our own work in this new world of social media and online communications, and with that comes a new responsibility.

The line is starting to blur for consumers of information, and many journalists would say that’s a dangerous thing. Traditionally, at least in modern American journalistic history, it’s been the journalists’ role to be the watchdog for the public — the seekers of the unbiased truth. With news organizations in trouble, thousands of journalists laid-off each year, and so much instantaneous news and information out there, it’s sometimes difficult to tell what is vetted as journalism and what it not. This scenario makes new media literacy really crucial.

6. Based on the 2009 Middleberg/SNCR Survey for Media in the Wired World, what trend do you predict will rise, fall or change in 2010?

I think we’ll continue to see Twitter grow in importance both as a listening channel as well as a distribution channel for journalists and media. In terms of distribution, it’s almost like a news ticker — a great new way to share headlines and link to more detailed stories. I think we’ll also continue to see an increase in the use of online video, especially citizen-generated video. As news continues to become more collaborative, I think we’ll see more traditional media organizations incorporating online community elements into their online properties.

A big thank you to Jen McClure for taking the time to participate in Marketwire’s Ask the Expert interview series.

Are you a PR pro? Are you savvy in social media? Are you in-the-know in investor relations? Are you a media professional who’s been transformed by the digital revolution? We’d love to interview you for our Ask the Expert series! The Ask the Expert interview series is Marketwire’s way of delving into the minds of industry leaders and experts, asking them the most salient and pertinent questions that affect PR, IR and marketing communications professionals. Please contact Nick Shin (nshin [at] marketwire [dot] com) for consideration.

Earlier this month, Econsultancy’s Vice President, North America Rebecca Lieb and Sally Falkow, president and social media strategist at Expansion Plus, presented “Engagement: The Key to Success in 2010,” a webinar that highlighted case studies and other research to show how engagement in social media and other online channels is tied to financial success. Appropriately, this second installment of our Ask the Expert interview series features Rebecca and Sally as they answer Nick’s questions  on social media engagement.

What process do you use to test social media engagement efforts against a company’s overall strategy?

Sally: That depends on the goals that have been set for the social media program.  You set a benchmark at the start and then monitor progress.  It could be things like comments/conversation on a blog, whether it is the company blog or other blogs, conversations about the brand online, tweets, retweets, traffic to a site or a blog, followers, fans.

Rebecca: The process is relatively – and somewhat deceptively – simple: Apply metrics to your social media efforts. The trick, of course, is determining what metrics to apply. And you can’t do that until you have clear goals, which are define by your social media strategy. You do have a social media  strategy, don’t you? Once goal and strategy and tactics are determined, you can apply KPIs (key performance indicators) to your social media metrics. And that’s what you need to test, and to measure, and continually refine.

How do you integrate social engagement into a company’s overall strategy?

Sally: Since reaching out to audiences is always part of the company’s marketing or PR strategy, this fits in easily. You align the goals with your overall strategy and use social media to reach and engage audiences where they are congregating.

Rebecca: Ensure that social media engagement is aligned with your overall strategy.  It’s not enough to have “followers” or “friends” or “fans.” You want to create value for customers who are engaged with you, and that value must align with your goals, strategy and value proposition. For a company like Zappos, it’s customer service. For Comcast, it’s customer support. For SAP, it’s enabling a community of users to share knowledge and expertise. Perhaps you’re after loyalty, or sales, or feedback, or word-of-mouth. Once you know what you want and need, and determine how customers can benefit from playing a role in those goals, you’ll be in a position to determine social media strategy that’s in line with your broader company goals.

What is your definition of “innovative” social engagement?

Sally: Making strategic use of new tools to reach and influence your constituents.

Rebecca: “Innovative”? Well, anything that pushes the envelope, hasn’t been tried before, or leverages technology in a new way. But please — don’t get too caught up in “innovative.” You want results, be these loyalty, or sales, or service, or whatever. That doesn’t necessarily mean going all out with bells and whistles and never-before-seen feats of social media gymnastics. It means developing a solid program that’s in line with goals and strategy.

What do you think is the psychology behind active social engagement (i.e., commenting on a post versus passive social engagement; “liking” a post, but not commenting)?

Sally: Forrester Research has identified many “rungs” of the social technographics scale.  Some people are content creators  (13 percent).  Others lurk and read. We have been conditioned for a hundred years to be passive receivers of corporate communication. Standing up and  being counted – just being there and communicating — can be scary for the consumer and the company.

Rebecca: The Pareto Principle, aka the 80:20 rule, applies just as much to social media as it does to the rest of marketing and business and sales. ALL of your target audience is not going to become fully engaged in talking to you, or creating content for you, or commenting, or whatever. You’ll always have those who sit and watch, versus those who actively participate on higher levels. It’s human nature. Watching is good, too — don’t expect everyone to react to your program as avidly as your most enthusiastic and engaged participants. But do think of ways to encourage and reward the involvement of your most active and vocal advocates.

Once a company gets comfortable with social engagement and measurement, how can it use this data to impact its corporate strategy?

Sally: There are many ways – they can tap into the consumers and stakeholders for market research and intelligence that can guide future strategy.  It can inform R&D and product development.  It can improve customer service.

Rebecca: There are numerous ways social media can impact  corporate strategy, given social media is largely a feedback mechanism. Product development, new ways to provide customer support, and any other learnings a company can glean from listening to what people are saying — not only about you and your company, but your competitors and industry in general — are a gold mine of information that should inform moving forward.

On February 25, 2010, join us for a presentation by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR) and Middleberg Communications as they reveal the results of their Survey of Media in the Wired World, which examines the ever-changing relationship journalists have with social media. Stay tuned for a recap and another Ask the Expert interview.

Are you a PR pro? Are you savvy in social media? Are you in-the-know in investor relations? Are you a media professional who’s been transformed by the digital revolution?  We’d love to interview you for our Ask the Experts series! The Ask the Expert series () is Marketwire’s way of delving into the minds of industry leaders and experts, asking them the most salient and pertinent questions that affect PR, IR and marketing communications professionals. Please contact Nick Shin (nshin [at] marketwire [dot] com) for consideration.

Todd Defren, principal at high-tech PR firm SHIFT Communications and author of the popular blog PR-Squared, is the inaugural guest in our Ask the Expert series.  As the PR industry is morphing (thanks in great part to social media), so too is SHIFT with a new office in The Big Apple. We picked Todd’s brain on both fronts:

What spurred the decision to open a new office in New York and how do you anticipate it benefiting the team at SHIFT?

Consumer brands have grown to become a significant proportion of SHIFT’s revenue.

We’ve proven an ability to compete and win against large, entrenched PR agencies.  Meanwhile…

New York City is the Mecca of consumer brands. And,

Coincidentally, many of our Consumer Team staff raised up stakes from Boston and moved there on their own, anyway.

As PR people, we’re not necessarily math-savvy enough to get “2+2 = 4,” but in this case, we saw that 1+1+1+1 = 4!

How has the success and global acceptance of the social media news release met your expectations?  What are your thoughts on its future?

While it’s nice to have the credit for inventing the Social Media Press Release, I have diligently “stayed out of its way” since then – watching the trend grow and cheering from the sidelines.  It was an idea whose time had come, and I still think it is early in the game. As the Web becomes increasingly broadband, multimedia and social, the concept of the Social Media Press Release will likely be absorbed and talked about, merely, as a “typical” news release.

Why do you think it’s important for PR/marketing communications professionals to embrace social media? How might it impact traditional media?

In a world in which every consumer is becoming a stand-alone media outlet, indexed by Google, social media is allowing public relations to fulfill its original mission of creating, mediating, and cultivating relationships with the public. PR already does a ton of monitoring and analysis of both media and social streams.  We can vet the issues, alert clients to rising customer angst, analyze which users need to be ushered into the red-carpet service channel, defend against frustrated claimants, etc. Consumers increasingly expect that their online ruminations will be monitored and responded to in real time. This represents a monstrous scalability problem as the hordes increasingly move online.  For the PR firms who figure out how to help companies attend to this dilemma, the benefits will be clear.

As you may have heard, we recently launched a free Social Media Fitness Program.  What are your (honest) thoughts on the program?

The idea is good but I think you may have a channel conflict here, i.e., PR agencies are likely offering (or hoping to offer) similar services to their own clients.

What is a common misperception you come across about social media?  What is your rebuttal?

The common misperception is that social media is free. It is true that the tools of participation are free, but the amount of time required to regularly create content and interact with people online is immensely time- and resource-intensive.

What do you predict is the next “big thing” to hit PR?

When and if I figure that out, I’ll be posting it to my blog!  Meanwhile, we are all still plenty busy sussing out how social media continues to impact our profession, and our world!

SHIFT Communications recently announced the opening of its New York office. Read the social media press release on the Marketwire website.

Are you a PR pro? Are you super-savvy in social media? Are you in-the-know in investor relations? Are you a media professional who’s been transformed by the digital revolution?  We’d love to interview you for our Ask the Experts series! The Ask the Expert series is Marketwire’s way of delving into the minds of industry leaders and experts, asking them the most salient and pertinent questions that affect PR, IR and marketing communications professionals. Please contact Nick Shin (nshin [at] marketwire [dot] com) for consideration.