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.

Social Engagement. Today, it’s vital for business sustenance and success. For many companies, social media and other online channels were lifelines that helped them overcome a tough economic climate and, in some situations, allowed them to grow.

Join Sally Falkow, social media strategist and president of Expansion Plus, and Rebecca Lieb, eConsultancy’s VP, North America, for a free webinar and case study presentation on real-world applications and benefits of social media engagement.

Date:    Thursday, February 11, 2010
Time:   10:00 — 11:00 am (PST)
Cost:    Free

You will learn how to:

• Find bloggers and communities that matter to you
• Instigate deep and meaningful exchanges, dialogs and discussions for greater ROI
• Promote idea-sharing through social media forums
• Boost your level of engagement with current customers and stakeholders
• Set goals and measure the effectiveness of your efforts
• And much more…

From B2B and from B2C, corporate communications departments and PR agencies are entering the social media arena, learn about, talk to — engage with — their consumers, clients or stakeholders. Don’t get left behind! Register now!

It’s a communications love triangle. Who do journalists go to most for sources and story research: PR or social media? Actually, it’s not as contentious as it sounds. According to social media strategist Sally Falkow’s summation in a posting on eConsultancy’s blog , a national study found that 89 percent of the journalists polled rely on social media even though nearly half of them believe that it suffers from a “lack of fact-checking, verification and reporting standards” to make those sources credible.  As she puts it, “It’s a supplement, not a replacement.”

This is a good thing for PR. Journalists still consider the tried and true PR professional the best connection to reliable information. Yet, considering many PR departments and agencies are responsible for their clients’, not to mention their own, social media sites, it becomes doubly important to ensure content is factual and transparent. So, the symbiotic nature of the relationship becomes less a love triangle, and more a monogamous partnership — with one spouse being slightly schizophrenic.

Read Sally’s entire article, along with comments from readers.

Note:  This post is courtesy of our guest contributor Sally Falkow, Social Media Strategist at Expansion Plus.

There were many sessions at the recent PRSA conference in San Diego that focused on the need for companies to get involved in social media. Discussions involved the need to move beyond the testing and experimenting phase and put together a social media strategy, the practice of new media relations and how to find the right influencers, the need to treat social media as an ongoing commitment instead of a campaign, and why measurement is so important.

I led a discussion (sponsored by Marketwire) and we took a somewhat different approach.

The session was based on data from two research studies that identified engagement as a core factor for success today: The CMO Council’s Marketing Outlook 2009 and the Wetpaint/Altimeter Group’s ENGAGEMENTdb.

The ENGAGEMENTdb report clearly shows that the companies that were most engaged with their communities were also the ones that weathered the economic storm best.  There is a definite tie between engagement and the bottom line.

What is engagement?  The Wetpaint/Altimeter study defines it as:

“Resembling any in-person exchange, socializing requires more than just being there; you have to interact with others, instigate discussions, and respond during conversations. Our study implies value in social engagement on top of social presence; it pays to actively and continually participate and invest in your networks.”

So, it’s not good enough to just have a Facebook page, a Twitter feed or a YouTube channel.  You have to move to the next level and to actively participate in the online discussions.

Our session covered three examples from the study – Starbucks, SAP, and Dell.

• Starbucks:  With just a small team of six people, Starbucks launched a very active and effective social media program. The person who heads up their social media team was once a barista, and they have a big community who love the product and the culture of Starbucks.  They currently have 530,000 followers on Twitter and have been mentioned on 4,000 Twitter lists – a feature which launched just this fall.
• SAP: In addition to their vibrant BPX community, where community members can have in-depth solution conversations and engage in social networking, SAP has launched social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and WordPress — channels that foster fun and useful dialogue throughout the SAP community. The social media programs are run by a team of 35 people and they manage a community of 1.7 million users.  SAP opened the platform to anyone and everyone, but two-thirds of their contributors represent customers, thought leaders, analysts, and partners from the broader SAP ecosystem.
• Dell: Dell started its engagement in social media from crisis mode – the “Dell Hell” story of 2004. Today, the company tracks conversations about Dell and nurtures customer and stakeholder relationships. It also tracks revenue generation from the Dell Outlet on Twitter (@DellOutlet), which has resulted in more than $1 million in revenue.

This kind of success isn’t limited only to large corporations; our PRSA panel showcased two smaller California-based companies that have had stellar results from deep engagement with their customers.

• Service-now.com set out in July of 2005 to be the “Gmail of big business service desk software.”   They saw themselves competing against Goliaths, namely the “Big Four” of the IT software market. To achieve rapid growth they used the modern Web as the “sling” and customer champions as the “stones.”   Fast forward to 2009 and Service-now.com has been cash-flow positive for two years, and FY 2009 revenue grew 105 percent over FY 2008. Their goal for FY 2010 is more than $50 million, which will represent another year of triple-digit percentage growth.
• Skin MD Natural launched a brand new category in the lotion space based on years of research into the causes and treatment of dry skin, eczema and psoriasis. They called it a “shielding lotion.” The entire launch was done using online PR and social media.  They now have relationships with more than 400 bloggers, who write and have conversations about the product in vertical communities such as gardening, craft, medical, and automotive.  Their sales, revenue, and profits increased every month in 2009, as compared to 2008.

You can read additional posts on my blog, by following me on Twitter, and by visiting my website at  http://www.expansionplus.com.  For the full PRSA presentation and companion white paper, send an email to Monica Nakamine at Marketwire.

San Diego was the designated meeting place for members of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) during its annual conference, November 8-10, 2009, with the theme “Delivering Value.”

Seventy Professional Development Workshops were held, each covering a salient top in PR, marketing communications and/or media relations. Although I spent a good deal of time in the Exhibition Hall (more on that later), I was able to attend a few sessions and gleaned a few (paraphrased) sound bites:

• Make sure your keyword is in your identity, and build from there.
• A corporate blogger has to blend personal insights with those of his/her company.
• Customer service is the key driver as to why we should be engaged in social media.
• The more exposure consumers have to employees of a company, the better the perception of that company.
• Social framing: things don’t have meaning until you frame it with some perspective.
• Infuse drama in your work.
• The “brandividual” is someone who is his/her own brand, regardless of whether they work for Company A or their competitor.
• If content can be searched, it can be optimized.

Read a recap on our own Marketwire-sponsored session, hosted by Sally Falkow, on “Way Above Water: Keeping Afloat During Turbulent Economic Times.”

Exhibition Hall

This Exhibition Hall contained about 30 other companies, universities, and marketing-related departments and organizations looking for new vendors, prospects, or business deals. Students also flocked to different tables, looking for internships or entry-level openings. Our exhibition space was staffed by our Sales team, who were ready to explain how Marketwire is different than our competitors (a popular question) and to talk tools, trends and best practice in PR with those who visited our booth.  We all learned a lot from those discussions and had a chance to meet some interesting people.

Opening Night Party Aboard the USS Midway

Even before we boarded, the USS Midway, a naval aircraft carrier that served tours-of-duty in World War II and Operation Desert Storm, was a striking presence simply because it was so big. Once you stepped inside the main cavity, you soon realize just how gigantic that thing really is! On the lower level, there were flight simulators and fighter planes from various eras, not to mention great food!  The opening night party on the USS Midway was a great way to mingle with other participants and celebrate the beginning of the conference.

2010: Washington D.C.

Next year, the PRSA 2010 conference will move to the East Coast: Washington D.C., October 16-19. The theme is “Powering Progress.” Hope to see you there.

Hear ye, hear ye! New rules of media relations declared!

A medieval town hall meeting it was not. Rather, Marketwire co-sponsored a webcast that took place yesterday (October 28, 2009) on “The New Rules of Media Relations,” focusing on how PR pros can effectively work with today’s journalist in the media landscape that’s morphing right before our very eyes.

Helpful tips, useful facts and insightful questions made the webcast a source of valuable information as we all navigate our way through unchartered territory.

Highlights included:

• Make sure your pitch is relevant to that journalist and closely reflects what they cover.
• In the subject line of an email pitch, mention a recent story that the journalist published and relate your pitch to that.
• Journalists use Twitter as a news source when tweets link to a recent study, an embargoed press release, or when determining what the hot topics are.
• Traditional media kits are obsolete, for the most part, unless they’re uploaded onto a USB drive – and even that’s iffy.
• Even good, targeted pitches fall off the wayside, simply because journalists don’t have the time to review them all. Don’t take it personally.
• Write at an 8th-grade level for a web-based/universal audience.
• Keep headlines under 65 characters to maximize search engine optimization.
• Yahoo! is releasing a web-based editorial style guide in 2010.

See the slides and hear the audio from “The New Rules of Media Relations.”

We posted tweets throughout, and received tweets from webcast participants. The string can be seen at #prweekmarketwire; here are a few of the tweets:

• Great Webcast today. Very informative, thanks!
• Journos agree – Facebook & Twitter relevant, LinkedIn OK, MySpace dead
• Panelists want PR pros to provide short and concise bullet points instead of flowery descriptions
• Interesting webcast today from @PRWeek & @marketwire … we’ve all been assured journalism is not dead, thank goodness
• Listening to The New Rules of Media Relations webcast. Great stuff from #PRWeek & @marketwire on connecting effectively with journalists.

Included in the discussion were Ivan Oransky, executive editor at Reuters Health (@ivanoransky); Chloe Albanesius, news reporter at PCMag.com (@ChloeAlbanesius); Kevin McCormally, editorial director at Kiplinger Washington Editors; and Jessica Strange, executive director of Media Relations at Marketwire (@marketwire). Rose Gordon, news editor at PRWeek, was the moderator.

Next up: Marketwire will be at the PRSA conference in San Diego (November 7-10) and is sponsoring a workshop — “Way Above Water: Keeping Afloat through Turbulent Economic Times” — on the 10th at 3:30 pm, presented by Sally Falkow, social media strategist extraordinaire.  Also, check us out in the Exhibition Hall, booths 63 and 64.