Micro Persuasion

Now Can We Please Kill the Phrase "Social Media"?

On December 28, 2006 I wrote...

"As we conclude 2006 and head into the new year it is my conviction that the phrase 'social media' is moot....In 2006 all media went social. Pretty much every newspaper, TV network and publication has wholeheartedly embraced these technologies."

I followed this up a month later by saying...

"With the democratization of media we've come to rely on a bunch of terms that are now completely unnecessary. These include "social media"... Do any of these matter any more? ... The reason is it's ALL media. The lexicon will hopefully change."

Flash forward 15 months and I was beginning to give up. However, finally, people seem to me coming around to this idea, which is hardly new. Eric Schonfeld, a former journalist and now TechCrunch blogger (we need a white paper to describe "the difference"), writes...

"Some people question whether TechCrunch is even a blog anymore rather than a professional media site. But that distinction is becoming increasingly meaningless. The truth is that we are both."

Amen! So true. Tons of journalists are pulling double duty as bloggers. So, now can we kill the phrase "social media?" It's irrelevant. Another moot phrase is "the social web." The web has always been social because that's how people operate - as Chris Brogan notes. It's just that the Internet can scale such social connections more than the offline world ever could.

Alas, there are no more boundaries any more between such "species." On the Internet, a cat is a dog is a Snuffleupagus. It's all inbred. All media is social and all social is media. End of story. Whether content is created by the Pros or the Joes it all has influence, even if it's small.

Follks, it's time for all of us, especially "The Joes," to give ourselves the self-respect we deserve by calling all of this work "media." Otherwise, by continuing to propagate the term "social media" we're just reserving our seat at the kids table for our little cut up pieces of chicken. it's time to feast on drumsticks like the adults do. Google doesn't delineate. So why should we?

Media's Rising Digital Acuity Puts Agencies at Risk

The following is also my column in next week's issue of Advertising Age...

It wasn't the most talked about session at the IAB Annual Meeting this week in Phoenix, but it should have been.

In a series of fascinating frames peppered with statistics, Christopher Vollmer from Booz Allen Hamilton laid out how media companies have increased their digital skills, added new services and are winning over marketers. In the process, they're disintermediating agencies - even as they all downplay it.

Three data points from the joint IAB/Booz Allen Hamilton study are particularly noteworthy:

* By 2010, 53% of media companies surveyed expect to do more business directly with marketers. The majority of marketers (52%) feel the same about publishers

* Only 27% of marketers expect to be doing more business with agencies two years from now

* Today nearly every media company (91%) offers some kind of "agency-like" services. This includes former untouchables like idea generation (88%) and creative development (79%)

The image of media companies as lumbering dinosaurs lingering toward extinction in a world of infinite content is downright wrong. They are more in sync with consumers than any other contingency in the marketing ecosystem. Their entire DNA is digital.

Consider too the bubbling innovation taking place across the Chinese Wall on the editorial side. Almost every single media brand has embraced a spirit of openness and collaboration that was unheard of a few years ago. New York Times Tech section editors curate and link to relevant posts from the blogosphere. Reporters at BusinessWeek are re-writing three-year-old cover stories with the help of readers. CNN's new iReport.com site solicits contributions from around the world, all without filters.

The digital rallying cry that started in the executive suite is being executed flawlessly across almost every media business. Digital editors and salespeople are fully integrated with their print/broadcast counterparts. However, the same cannot be said for agencies. During his keynote at IAB, Group M CEO Rob Norman outlined how the company just recently became more digitally integrated. (Note this related story on agency Web 2.0 skills that ran in AdWeek)

Still, Group M can't be blamed for starting late since the clients too are behind. The Booz Allen Hamilton study found that only 26% of marketers believe their organizations are "digitally savvy." Nevertheless, as the media remain in the vanguard and closest to the ever-changing habits of consumers, it's clear that as they get smarter the risk to agencies has never been greater.

Newsrooms Struggle with Wikipedia Citations

The Editors Weblog reports on the mixed attitudes of newspaper editors citing Wikipedia articles. Some, like the LA Times, are liberal. Others, like the Journal, use it for research. The American Journalism Review goes into more depth. A Google News search shows the practice is rampant.

The big question in my mind is this: when journalists cite Wikipedia articles, what happens when the facts they reference from the wiki entries change (assuming they do)? Do the reporters go back and update their articles? The news reports call more attention to the articles, potentially opening up a can of worms each time they source WIkipedia.

Seems like a big vicious cycle. Perhaps in the future these stories will carry some of the same disclaimers that WIkipedia lists.

Purported Steve Jobs Keynote Leaked on Wikipedia

I have been an Apple watcher for years. I freelanced for Mac pubs in the mid 1990s. Now that doesn't make me more of an expert than anyone else. However, I am inclined to believe this alleged Steve Jobs keynote leak. It sounds real. Jobs' keynote is tomorrow at the Macworld Expo.

Don't take my word for it. There's additional soft evidence from Twitter's co-founders here, here, here and above all - here. Twitter is reportedly part of the iPhone SDK and part of the keynote, the Wikipedia leak says.

We'll find for sure out tomorrow if this all true, but I bet it is. Go read it and you will pretty much get a rumored run down of everything Steve Jobs is announcing tomorrow at Macworld - widgets for iPhones, new Macbooks, candy canes and lollipops.

The reason I believe it's real is because it leaked on Wikipedia. And Wikipedia promotes anonymity. So it's very hard to trace who placed the item and his/her motives. I could be wrong. But my gut is, this is the real deal and it's a big moment in the history of public relations.

How big? Very big. This is like Fort Knox getting unlocked. Apple has long operated under a universal code of silence. And this event - again if it is true - shows that those days are gone.

So come back tomorrow and then either a) we'll talk more about what this all means or b) ya'll make fun of me for being gullible and believing stuff on Wikipedia. (Note: Apple competes with several Edelman clients.)

The Dawn of the Hyper-Networked PR Era

The old axiom in business is that it's not what you know, but who. With so much collective knowledge now available online for free, the saying holds more than ever. Pure-play PR professionals must invest heavily in strengthening and expanding their networks for the industry to remain vital.

Public relations practitioners, especially those who work inside agencies, know relationships count. Over time many agencies specialize and/or develop practices. This deepens their knowledge of the sector as well as the journalists who cover it. But this alone won't sustain the profession going forward.

For starters, nowadays every public-facing employee has a PR role, even if it's not their trade. In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, a video of a single repairman asleep on the job can spread around the world, eroding a company's reputation. On the positive side, grassroots or sanctioned corporate bloggers inside giant and small corporations have built tremendous goodwill for their businesses with key stakeholders and press.

In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, journalists (pro and citizen) have done a great job building relationships with all kinds of stakeholders directly. This - arguably - reduces the need for PR professionals to fulfill this role and helps them get scoops too. They're turning to social nets, conferences and, above all, a transparent dialogue with their audience. Read Dwight Silverman's blog and first hand you will see what I mean. In addition, check out this recent post by Penelope Trunk on how journalists can use LinkedIn.

Marketers too seem to be adapting nicely to the hyper-networked environment. The ANA, which represents the largest marketers in the world, is advocating that advertisers become more collaborative. And they are. Don't believe me? Read Wikinomics.

The situation in the PR biz is less heartening. What I have seen at my own firm is terrific. However, I feel differently when I look at the pitches I receive from others in the industry. It feels as though many just expand their media lists to include bloggers, podcasters and other online opinion leaders without trying to build relationships. They spam us with meaningless information, just like they do with the media.

If this continues, these firms will see their networks devalue. They must not just focus on generating coverage. That's a byproduct of good relationships.

So as you go out this weekend and invest in your personal circle of friends and family, think about how to do the same in business. My advice? Proactively focus on becoming more networked. Join social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and others. Start a blog. Go to conferences where the influencers flock. Get to know us as people and you will expand your network and your value to clients.

In the Hyper-Networked PR Era, this is the most essential skill you need to thrive.

Congressional Bill Advocates Shield Law for US Bloggers

A section of the proposed Free Flow of Information Act advocates that certain bloggers receive a key legal protection that is currently reserved for journalists. This would relieve some of the legal risks that bloggers face every day. The Columbia Journalism Review and OJR both have more.

The bill, which has been submitted in both the House and Senate, expands the definition of journalists to news-gathering bloggers. This means that a federal judge would need to approve any subpoena any information that protects a blogger's confidential sources - what's commonly known as the Shield Law. There have been previous efforts to pass such a law.

The Editor's Weblog notes that until now, only bloggers who work for "a newsgathering organization" were protected. This bill, if passed, would extend such protections.

Now, I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but on the surface this all feels mushy. For starters, what's a "newsgathering organization" in this new environment? For example, the TechCrunch network, Gawker Media and other big blog network all actively chase news and break it. Are they protected under the current law in such a scenario where there is a confidential source?

Further, if the new act passes there is the open question of what is a news blogger. Some bloggers break news and then in the next post go back to talking about what they had for breakfast. The lines get even blurrier when you consider social news sites like digg and, of course, entirely new animals like Twitter.

I don't envy lawyers or lawmakers right now. There are lots of shades of grey here and I suspect courts will test any law over and over again with various decisions - should the bill even pass. Any legal eagles out there? Please weigh in.

ABCNews.com Relaunches with Citizen Journalism

ABCNews.com is marking its tenth anniversary with a bold new redesign that features increased use of video. Beyond the new skin there's not a lot that's new with one key exception - ABC is opening up to contributions from citizen journalists.

According to Michael Clemente, Senior Executive Producer, the new site, which it launched last night, is designed to harness the power of what they call "citizen reporters." Viewers and readers can now help ABC help report the news by feeding in news and leaving comments. The new site also supports video uploads from cell phones and video cameras, some of which will make it on to air.

ABC isn't going as far as the BBC, which allows remixing, or USA Today, which turned its site into a social network. However, it's certainly a step in the right direction. The comments that are streaming in (118 as of this writing) are mixed and mostly focus on the design, not the ability to contribute.

Pew: 1/3 of US Online Adults Consult Wikipedia

According to a new report (PDF) from the Pew Center for the American Life Project, some one-third of online Americans (36% to be exact) regularly consult Wikipedia. This reflects 8% of the broader population.

Drilling down further, Wikipedia is more popular among the well-educated. Some 50% of those with at least a college degree consult the site, compared with 22% of those with a high school diploma. Pew also looked at demographics: 44% of Americans ages 18-29 use Wikipedia to look for information, while just 29% of users age 50 and up.

The Pew Report also includes fresh data from Hitwise that reveals just how popular Wikipedia is and how Google and search engines factor in.

The Participation Ladder and Its Impact on Marketing and PR

I'm back from a brief blogging hiatus. This was my first extended break since I started this blog (Micro Persuasion turned three years old on April 19). I read a lot and thought about where I want to take this site in the next two years. If you have thoughts on this, send me an email or leave a comment. It was very refreshing to be off the treadmill for a few days. Now, it's time to get back in the blogging saddle.

One of the things I want to get back to is writing more about technology's impact on media, PR and marketing and a little less on just Web 2.0 by itself. Charlene Li from Forrester gave me just the starting point  I needed. She is out today with a new fascinating report on social technographics.

Forrester segmented the online audience into several different stratas - what they call a ladder of participation. They found that "Inactives" are by far the dominant group (52%). They're followed by spectators, joiners, critics, collectors and last but not least creators. This last cluster, according to the analyst firm, dabbles in lots of different activities but few do all of them. See the chart below for more.

This is the first report I have seen that really delves into what drives and motivates people to engage with the web. It's worth purchasing and it really has got me thinking about its impact on PR and marketing.

While extroverts get all of the attention, the thickest part of the ladder is in the vast majority of people who have no desire to participate. I imagine this number will shrink some in the years ahead, particularly as the generation that grew up with the Web enters the workforce. However, there will always be a meaty portion of the online audience that remains just that - consumers.

This got me thinking: what can the Participation Ladder teach us about PR and marketing? The answer is a lot.

If you work in either of these professions, cut the above chart out and stick it on your wall. For each program, assess where your audience sits on this continuum. Are they inactives, creators or somewhere in between? The key is to then devise the right kind of communication strategy depending on what you discover. Let's put this into action.

For example, let's say you have a start-up that has a new piece of blogging software that bloggers will love. Then you should execute a peer-to-peer program that primarily targets creators, collectors and critics while largely ignoring inactives. This means you can go guerrilla with peer-to-peer program that taps into social networks, blogging and other Web 2.0 communities. Place your chips there. Mainstream media coverage can help here too. Focus your attention on outlets that bloggers read.

However, if you have a tech product or service that has value say for all users, then clearly you want a broader mix that combines the best of new media/mainstream media, all while reflecting the ladder.

This is why I think we're really in the golden age of PR. Technology is flattening the marketing landscape, but there's always a need for smart agencies that can help guide clients in the dynamic two-way world. PR is best suited to thrive in this environment and getting the mix down is where it all starts. I am glad to be working with the leaders who are driving "PR 2.0" and this new landscape is what drives me to give my all.

The Forrester guide is the perfect skeleton, now it's PR's job to add the creative muscles and get the body moving in the right direction.

Paparazzi Face Stiff Competition from Camera Phones

The professional paparazzi have for years had a lock on the market for celebrity photos. However, now that we're all armed with camera phones and tools like Flickr and Twitter, the game is changing. They face a lot of competition. Just wait until the image quality starts to get more sophisticated. (Hey Twitter dudes, start supporting MMS so we can upload photos and videos too.)

Exhibit A: Apple CEO Steve Jobs at leisure. He's just enjoying his kid's soccer game and, oh, talking on an iPhone you can't buy yet. Had the snap been higher quality it could have been worth a lot. It is a sign of where things are going. Of course, the privacy implications are massive and some celebs are banning camera phones from key events, like weddings.

The ramifications here are significant for PR. Nothing is hidden anymore. If it's in plain sight, it's game to be hunted. (Via TUAW)

Peers vs. Pros: Who's Faster on News?

One of the most fundamental shifts over the last several years has been the incredible acceleration of the news cycle. Today information travels faster than it ever did before. The pros and peers not only compete, they complete each other. Clearly technology is enabling this and mobile devices and cameraphones are giving it serious juice. 

These changes are at the heart of why the PR business needs to adopt a whole new way of working. As my CEO Richard Edelman is often heard saying, we need to now facilitate horizontal peer-to-peer communication even as we continue to rely on the traditional top-down media centric model that built our industry.

Here's an example that shows how pros and peers work in the wild and how the latter can help the former distribute information faster.

Over the past few weeks I have become totally addicted to Twitter - a micro blogging platform that is tied to IM and SMS. I am using it to actively lifeblog wherever I go. I share bits that include everything from meeting Carmen Electra yesterday to SMSing bite-sized nuggets that could one day be blown out here as posts (or perhaps not). The fact that the platform integrates with my mobile device makes all the difference. If you're interested, you might want to subscribe to my Twitter feed.

Twitter does more than keep me closer to my friends. It allows them to share news with me. Take a look at the screen grab below. I learned about Scooter Libby's conviction from Jason Calacanis minutes before I did from CNN and using the same channel of information. In this case, a Twitter IM.

Now I don't expect my friends to beat the pros on a big story like this. After all, the news media was there at the courtroom. Still, news big and small travels across all channels and this little anecdote shows that sometimes the peers are a lot faster because of the technology.

USAToday.com Refashions Itself as a Social Network

USA Today is unveiling a massive overhaul of their web site that adds a number of great features. The notable additions include: reader comments on every story, the ability to create a profile page that can be shared with others, citizen journalist photos, story tagging and digg-like recommendation buttons.

This is exactly the direction USA Today needs to follow. However, it doesn't go quite far enough. In addition to building these features, the media need to bridge their communities to the ones where we already spend our time. RSS, widgets and embedded content would help here. For example, USA Today should let us add our blog, Twitter or Facebook feeds or even embedded YouTube vids to our profile pages.

Connecting communities is so easy today with web services and it would go a long way toward making the their site - or any site for that matter - stronger. Hopefully we'll see this happen soon.

Cymfony Sold

As usual, Rafat Ali got the scoop. Cymfony is being bought by Taylor Nelson Sofres. Cymfony does deep mining of blogs and other new media channels. The company, founded in 1996, serves the marketing, research and PR communities.

Majority of Americans Feel Bloggers Play a Valuable Role

According to a new poll by iFOCOS and Zogby, a majority of Americans (55%) feel bloggers are important to the future of American journalism. Further, 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role. I am not quite sure of how they distinguished the two in the poll, but the results are certainly positive. The survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.

Wikipedia Implements Measures to Prevent Vandalism

Wikipedia has instituted a new system to protect the home page from vandalism. The technology, dubbed "cascading protection," was developed by Andrew Garrett. The system extends current measures to protect the home page to all media it features as any articles it links to on a given day.

Tags: Wikipedia

NBA's Dallas Mavs Ask Fans to Wiki Every Game

The Dallas Mavericks have broken new ground with a wiki that allows fans to catalog every single game. The wiki is powered by MediaWiki - the same software used by Wikipedia. However, it is moderated.

According to the Mavs, the team is also hoping fans will use the wiki to chronicle historical games. To that end they are soliciting fan photographs.

MavsWiki is the first in professional sports, according to the team. The Dallas Mavericks are owned by Mark Cuban, a long time basketball fan and Internet pioneer.

Tags: DallasMavericks, MarkCuban, NBA, basketball, sports

Verizon to Bring Citizen Journalism to TV

Frank Barnako reports that Verizon will bring citizen journalism to subscribers of its FIOS IPTV service in Washington DC. The new station will included original features shot in high-definition. Other markets will folow as the FIOS roll-out progresses.

Over the holiday break I was in a Best Buy. It's amazing how the prices are coming down on all camcorders, but even high definition video recorders as well. You can get one for $1000. Pricey? Sure. But they're going to come down and a lot of video going forward created by individuals will be HD quality.

You, the 2.0 Citizen, Is Time's Person of the Year

Well, it looks like we were off by two years. Compare the two images below. The one on the right was created by Hypergene back in 2004. The one on the left came out today. Eerily similar eh? We needed the two years. This is a shift that's bigger than blogging and citizen journalism.

 

Yes, "You" were named this year's "Person of the Year" for 2006 tonight by Time magazine. Citing the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing sites and social networks and digital democracy, the magazine picked us this year Reuters reports.

"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," Lev Grossman wrote. 

More on Time's Web site: cover story, sidebar on 15 who matter, story on citizen journalists, the Web 2.0 boom, taxonomy and a Second Life piece. Let's give ourselves a big round of applause!!!

::Later: Josh Hallett has a different take saying the cover should read "Them" as in I don't know anyone who posts on YouTube. That's all them kids.

Edelman Debuts StoryCrafter Two-Way Press Release

My colleague Phil Gomes has been hard at work redefining what a press release should look like in a two-way world. We launched our first iteration yesterday. It basically breaks down a press release into its core parts, leaving it up to you - the journalist (citizen or pro) - to decide how it should be put together. Most importantly, every press release gets feeds, tags, del.icio.us/digg buttons, trackbacks and comments.

If you take a look at the comments on our first release, you'll notice that some of our harshest critics are there commenting. This is what the two-way world is all about. Put ideas out there and then engage the community in a conversation.

We're really excited about StoryCrafter and feel that the social media news release, which others have worked quite hard to pioneer, is going to evolve. We're looking forward to working collaboratively with our colleagues in the PR industry, journalist and bloggers to further this concept as well as working with our clients to adopt this new format.

Virtual News at Seven

As progress marches forward, lots of different industries have understandably feared disintermediation. Journalists, naturally, are one such bunch. However, they have adapted nicely to the rise of citizen journalism and bloggers. Witness, for example, Gannett's move to crowdsource. But what if news could somehow be automated and delivered in a compelling way?

That's the idea behind News at Seven, a project out of Northwestern University's Intelligent Information Laboratory. It's an automatic system that puts together a custom daily news show by pulling together images, videos, and blogs into a report delivered by a virtual news team. All of this takes place without human intervention.

News at Seven is completely customizable based on the user's preferences. The characters can be altered too. For example, you can elect to have sports stories presented by a player. The project will also buid custom avatars to present the news.

Virtual news reports are going to become popular, but we have a long way to go. The reports still look too much like Max Headroom. Once the 3D imaging becomes more fluid, they will take off. The key question that runs through my mind is this. If a virtual reporter can report the news in a compelling way and it's all all automated, what does that mean for PR professionals? Here's today's News at Seven report. If you're reading this in your RSS reader, click through to view the clip.