Elastic Thought

Social Media in Government

I'm sure the Internet is filling up today with a myriad of opinions on Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the Democratic candidacy, and even as I write, the Republican pick of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. This is not an opinion on either. Rather, it was a good excuse to talk about how the government and politics is using social media.

Currently, I've moved from a large PR agency working to communicate messages for mostly Fortune 500 companies to a smaller social marketing firm focusing on government, non-profit, and healthcare communications. And, wow, do these new clients "get it." We've always known that politics has been an innovator in the use of communications methods, but sometimes that can get buried in the rhetoric of all that is negative with policy and public institutions. Though this will look skewed towards Democrats, they do seem to use technology more--from Howard Dean to the latest use of text messages to announce Barack Obama's VP candidate, etc.

More importantly is the the campaign speak of conversation, "you're campaign," straight talk and other ways of including the public into the dialogue. Though we may be cynical about these promises, the foundation of what is being said there is important. People want to be heard. People want a stake in something, and feel they had influence on the outcome. Now imagine if companies had to go door to door to ask you for your purchase instead of marketing to you. Imagine if they wanted to include you in the dialogue and give you a stake in the outcome. This is social media marketing.

We've seen plenty of examples of companies use the mash-up concept to allow their audiences to create User Generated Media that could be aired on TV (even the Super Bowl). But imagine if these same people had access to the development of the product? Take a look at Dell Ideastrom or My Starbucks Idea for how this can work.

But not all social media ideas can work in the same manner. One thing that always struck me as odd is how agencies feel that active communities and "robust" conversations are going to happen for every product their client of the week wants to push. How many people do you know that are going to set up a profile, pick an avatar and daily come to a site to talk about new and better ways to clean the bathroom? Now, given the amount of knitting blogs there are (~10,000), maybe a few will. But put a social network together for community leaders to share ideas on reducing youth violence in their communities and watch just how "robust" a conversation there can be. These tools were almost meant for this. More to come....

Control (Part 2)

Who owns the brand?

I was engaged in a rather lengthy debate the other day on how companies used to have control of their brands, and that the new tools of social media have stripped that ownership and placed the reigns in the hands of the audiences those brands once used to speak to in a command and control manner. We've all probably have heard Chris Anderson talk about The Long Tail, so I had to include this video here:

I've always enjoyed showing that video. However, I've recently been thinking a lot about the sociology behind what we do, and really looking into how communication works. And it struck me how dead on we were a few years ago at a previous company when we said: "It's not about message sent, it's about message received." (If only really really knew what we were saying!)

To bring this concept to the conversation of brand ownership, what people are really saying is that companies used to have control of the message being sent. NOT how the message is being received. They never had control of that. And if you think about it in terms of message sent, they still have all the control they ever had. What they are losing some control over is the monopoly of message channels. Companies controlled the message channels and therefore had a greater influence on message received. Now, audiences have access to some of those channels and voicing their thoughts on the companies and the brands. Thoughts they have always had -- even when the company thought they "owned" the brand.

What's interesting here is that this is not a loss of control. This is not that disruptive of a medium that needs to be feared. What it really is...is a free and easy way to get a glimpse of what your audiences and consumers have thought all along--a glimpse into how the message is being received. And how great is that? They are doing it without paying for a focus group.

So what does that mean for brand ownership?

Well, it's still a collaboration of audience perception and company messaging. But if used right, the social media tools that exist are a great barometer to test how messaging is being received. Heck, think of it as an umpire calling balls and strikes. If it's a little high and inside, change the tone of the conversation and see if you can get it back in the strike zone.

Control Freak (Part 1)

It seems as if control is becoming the center of conversation when it comes to communications strategy planning lately. It could be a debate on who "owns" or "controls" the brand. It is referenced when talking about how audiences want to control how they consume media. It most certainly is a factor when talking about how a company (or brand) will or will not relinquish control when strategizing on a viral or social media communications campaign. And herein lies the struggle of the social media communicator. How do you balance the control issue?

I've spoken to groups and have attended others' presentations and have found that this is still an unanswered question. I've had people comment that they won't work with companies that just don't "get it." But what if your top client has requested that you provide a strategy to them utilizing social media to blend into the integrated campaign you are already doing for them? You can't simply say "No, thanks."

I've heard others comment that they limit the campaign to blog activity since you can better "control" the conversation. And though I agree that you can moderate comments that would be damaging, or otherwise just in poor taste, heavily censoring blog conversation defeats the purpose of doing a social media campaign in the first place. And what do you say to the PR firm that wants to focus group test viral videos? My suggestion is to assume that firm doesn't know how to engage in social media and can only end up hurting the reputation they have been paid to protect. How many bloggers have been turned off of the young PR flack who did not bother to read anything in their blog and fail to engage in the conversation?

On the other hand, there are those that want to relinquish all control to the audience. We've seen this in mash-up applications and companies in the "vanguard of communications." I applaud the willingness to let go, but think that if we look at this as a conversation, we will see that it is a gentle ebb and flow of control. Companies and brands need a voice in the conversation. It adds credibility and often times can be the rudder that steers the billowing sails.

So how do you "sell" an executive that doesn't want to relinquish any control of his/her brand to the world? Well, case studies and ROI are definitely one way. However, if carefully walked through how to steer the conversation--how to "let go," only to quietly lead the conversation in the direction you generally want it to go--I've found that people are willing to listen. Otherwise, the audience will gain control and probably not in the way you want.

Case in point: a local utility company passed on a reputation management project recently to focus on a message they could better "control" with the general public. (shunning dialogue for monologue). They wanted to show how they are spending over $1B to trim trees and bury power lines. Part of the response was a backlash in the social networks with photos and blog posts on how the company is butchering their trees and lowering home values. So audiences are going to find control in their ways. Companies just need to engage in those conversations to bring the healthy tension and back and forth that an engaging conversation will have.

You Can't Win if You Don't Play

I've been in several meetings and presentations lately where I find myself hammering on the point that there is a conversation going on online with or without you, and that the best way to engage and benefit from it is to participate yourself. "It's a participatory medium," I keep saying.

I find that this is still a hard point to drive home. I've developed Social Media training for clients and companies I've worked for and found resistance to the parts of training where I include a) comment on a few blogs first, b) set up a page in one of the social networking sites, c) write a blog entry for someone you know that has a blog (or start one yourself) or even d) contribute to a wikipedia entry on something you know a lot about. (there are several other exercises we could include here) My favorite was when the big PR firm asked, "can't you just give us the bullet points so that we can get this in front of our clients quickly?" Really?

Well, ironically enough, I noticed that all my blog activity was on company blogs aimed at internal communications, or personal entries on another site. I didn't have a voice in the online conversation that surrounds what I do professionally every day. So this is the beginnings of what I hope will become my voice in the conversations that mean the most to me and my profession. In the footsteps of Now is Gone, it will speak more to how to engage and get others engaged in business beyond the theoretical of social media.

I also hope to bring questions that don't get answered in presentations and panel discussions I speak at here and continue the dialogue. Be on the lookout for topics on social media in social marketing, reputation management, training, how government and non-profits engage in the conversation, elastic marketing, why the big agencies are struggling, and others.