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What’s Your Avatar Say?

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At Social Slam (yes, there was a bunch of blogging inspiration at this conference) April 13, 2011 sponsored by the Knoxville Social Media Club, there was a lot of chat about an avatar and what it should be. I suggested during a panel presentation that your avatar should not be a dog, a baby, an animation, or a corporate logo.

Because social media is social, and you’re building a network, it’s important to put on a face (I prefer happy, but you may not). People you tweet with especially want to identify with a person and connect with a familiar face. When you humanize your Twitter brand, you create a relationship with your followers; Tweeps are more inclined to follow you back and engage.

If you’re not tracking with me yet, an avatar is the image you use to identify your Twitter account, your Open ID, your comments, etc. You can register the image you prefer at Gravatar.com and it will soon populate when you comment on other blogs via Disqus, LiveFyre, and elsewhere.

We recently gave a lot of grief to Neicole Crepeau who for the longest time (perhaps a year) had a line drawing of her face. When she finally put up a photo of herself as a test, I tweeted it loudly and clearly to everyone “Neicole has a photo, Neicole has a photo, nanna, nanna boo boo.” (She accused me of never sleeping.) Now that I know what Neicole looks like, I feel more connected to her.

During Social Slam, a question from the audience was posed to our panel of Trey Pennington, Anne Deeter Gallaher and me (we spoke about communicating value about social media to the C-suite). What should people who team tweet for a corporate account for which the avatar is a logo do to identify themselves when they are tweeting? Adding initials within a tweet is a helpful solution; if it’s possible to use a  symbol with initials or first name as a signature in a corporate tweet, that may also work.

When I arrived at the hotel in Knoxville to check in, someone in the lobby said “you look really familiar.” It wasn’t a pick up line, was it Billy Mitchell? When I suggested Twitter, he recognized me. What was cool is that I also picked out other people during a reception from having seen their avatar in my stream.

When you look like your avatar, that’s a good thing. It creates ‘raderie, it personifies you, it causes reaction in people, and it’s part of creating a professional brand. If you aren’t sure whether your avatar is a good one, take a poll, but be prepared when Tweeps are brutally honest; after all, you asked!

Content Is Still King (via Social Slam)

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I attended Social Slam sponsored by the Knoxville Social Media Club April 13, 2011, and one thing was clear — content is still king in social media. We sat through various panels and 3-4 keynote addresses throughout the day.

On the panel I sat on (as a substitute presenter), my colleagues Trey Pennington and Anne Deeter Gallaher spoke with me about convincing the CFO that social media had incredible value. My analogy was to compare it to advertising — when you run a print ad, does it garner immediate results, leads, conversions, impressions, sales? Nope.

While everyone was touting ROI (my favorite statement was by Amy Howell of Howell Marketing who said ROI meant “risk of ignorance”) for social media and how to communicate its value add with measurable impact, the thread that binds all of social media is critically basic. It’s CONTENT.

Let’s think about that a sec. Businesses far and wide are jumping on the social media bandwagon, finally. Regardless of how large the company or organization is, each has one thing in common — the need to develop content, a tweet, a post, a blog article, an Internet press release, a website page, a landing page, tips series, white paper, case studies, and more.

Even prior to engaging and creating a community, the message becomes the only thing that matters. And, so, with my PR hat, I encourage each of you, regardless of whether you’re a solo practitioner, corporate communicator, not-for-profit, agency peep, or consultant to do the following:

  • Create a message map for your brand. Within this framework, tell your story much like Trey Pennington, one of the most impressive storytellers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting IRL (I learned that at Social Slam — “in real life!”).
  • Consider using a mind map brought to you by none other than Roy  Grubb, my tweep king of mind mapping who runs a wiki Information Tamers on all things mind mapping. Using this tool, show the progression of your marketing path and where you want to push your message.
  • Knowing social media is a time suck, get in the habit of taking your iPad2 (I’m blogging on one right now while kidlet is in taekwando class) with you everywhere to jot a note about something that strikes you. (You can use the traditional method of pencil and paper, too, you know!) Content development is inspired at the oddest times; I come up with blog post ideas while hiking the trails, just before bed (that’s why I have to read sci-fi and fantasy before I sleep because there’s no chance I’ll think about  business reading that crazy stuff).
  • Hire a junior person to draft 25 tweets on a topic oriented to your work. These can be basic and good filler throughout the week when you’re trying to buy some time back. At the same time, hire some people to research for you, too. I find research time a luxury I don’t have. If someone can pull the studies and review blog posts for me, then I can draft the copy.
  • There is an art and skill to Twitter and Facebook. If you’re naturally effervescent with words, and your personality shines through, then you can get away with engaging naturally. If you’re shy and have trouble with free speak, do a lot of reading, listening and testing the waters. Adopt a topic you’re comfortable with until you find your stride.

It takes a pretty seasoned public relations practitioner to be able to develop all variations of content as mentioned above. Not every department or firm or team is going to find that in house; it’s highly likely you’ll need to hire it out, and the best place to comb the field is at industry events the likes of Social Slam.

Mark W. Schaefer, the event emcee, announced next year’s event is at the end of April in Knoxville. Plan to attend; it was well worth it, and every age group was in attendance among the ~450; that’s darn impressive.

Social Slam Huge Success

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Sitting amongst a sea of iPads, notebooks, Smartphones, MacBooks, and yes, even laptops at Social Slam in Knoxville.

Congratulations to the organizers of this amazing conference and to my dear colleague Mark W. Schaefer for his up-to-minute hosting of the event.

For this first gathering, I’m impressed with attendance (some 400?); age range of attendee (from student to highly seasoned and senior folks 50+); from perhaps 14 states and Canada; and the free Wi-Fi(! — how could they not?).

I got to meet people I’ve tweeted with, and I was recognized by people who knew me from Twitter (via my avatar). I got to hear the A-list speakers present and actually rub shoulders with them, too. I connected live with Erica Allison of Allison Development Group, Jenn Whinnem, Billy Mitchell from Atlanta, Amy Howell of Howell Marketing, Anne Gallaher, Deb Weinstein, and so many others.

I met the vivacious CK Kerley who is the queen of mobile marketing and B2B, and we just heard a fab analytical presentation from Carpathia Hosting. On the dais to come are another panel and Jay Baer’s keynote presentation to go.

I encourage you to come next year; you will NOT be disappointed!

Introducing PR Justice League!

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And out of a tweet was born an idea that’s caught on with caterpillar legs…introducing The International PR Justice League!

Several in the field have been identifying blog posts that blast public relations and shove a dagger in the side of our credibility, and these damaging posts are sometimes from folks within the ranks (perhaps from newer practitioners) who issue broad-brush generalities against the profession at large.

Of late, folks have had their blood boiling more than most (me among them) about this, and a tweet between Beatriz Alemar of BlackCat Strategy spawned her idea, tongue in cheek, for the PR Justice League.  Immediately, it took off:

  • Danielle Kelly, APR, of Canada, signed on immediately even before she knew what the heck this thing would morph into.
  • Someone said we needed costumes (the color pink by Erica Allison); I suggested purple and Shonali Burke said they had to be midnight purple or eggplant to go with her skin tone (who’s not vain?).
  • I put out the call for a logo contest and Steve Lichtie in Scotland jumped in to suggest we call it the “International” PR Justice League and suggested purple spandex for the costumes, ahem, and a location for our first meeting on a desert island.
  • I suggested a badge to recognize members of the PR Justice League, and then I went and registered the domain, just in case.

But, wait! Is the cart before the horse? What exactly will this be and what will it do?

The International PR Justice League

Objectives

  • Uphold the image, credibility and professionalism of public relations
  • Develop a community to “police” the profession for un-justice to the field of public relations
  • Educate while negating content that portrays public relations as unprofessional

Strategies

  • Invite PR practitioners from respective countries to represent their regions
  • Monitor PR community for anti-profession sentiment and provide opposing educational views via a blog squad.
  • Showcase best-practices and case studies to oppose negativity and educate audiences about strategic public relations

Audiences

  • Peers in public relations offering negative views of profession
  • Peer bloggers
  • New members of Justice League to be blog squad
  • Clients, business owners
  • Marketing and advertising sisters
  • Students in PR and newcomers to the field

Tactics

  • Develop a badge for recognized Justice League members; illustrate a cartoon character in passion purple (spandex?) as the symbol of balance and voice of PR.  All suggestions can be delivered to @balemar who is leading the charge on our graphics.
  • Enlist the blog squad when an issue arises and ask for an author to analyze and rebut on this blog or their own; however, everyone will be made aware that a Justice League blog has been published.
  • Address the basics and demonstrate best practices i.e. Public Relations vs. Publicity (there’s a hot crisis about this right now) and other topics – measurement (ad value equivalency), etc.
  • Invite blog posts and case studies about good PR to educate incoming, young and seasoned professionals, clients, and others about what we do.

Membership

To be considered a member, you will need to showcase your passion for the profession by upholding the image of the industry, actively educating others and rebutting unnecessary attacks on the industry.

We’ll soon be building an International PR Justice League page on this site with a membership “application” for your completion.  We’ll want to know what you’ve been up to lately to uphold our profession. And, members can be invited and recommended by peers, as well.

There’s a lot to consider, and because we’re in public relations, someone has an idea to make this even better; what did we miss?

 

We’ve Defined PR, By Jove!

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It was inevitable this journey in frustration and innovation (or innovative frustration) had to culminate somehow. After 15 (?) blog posts in this series where I, supported by you = we, try to earn consensus on defining public relations, it’s time to close phase one of this discussion with the grand finale about What Is PR, or What PR Is (whichever way you’d like to read that).

Now, mind you, we’ve reached a semblance of consensus and that is “no one can agree on a single definition of PR.” And, the sweat equity invested in this exercise by moi and many others has been fierce. I think I lost weight.

In one of the most recent posts in this series,  I tried to take it to a different level…down to fifth-grade understanding. In that article, I included a collection of simplified definitions by Beth Harte (please hire her for her next position); Erica Allison, Heidi Siefkas, Shakirah Dawud, Gini Dietrich, and me.

That blog garnered a high number of comments from the likes of PR credibles including Patty Swisher, John Falchetto, Danielle Kelly, Davina Brewer, JGoldsborough, and nearly all of those folks quoted in the original article.

While no one settled on a singular definition (and the very long one I tried to cull from about 50 different definitions went down in flames as jargon), I tossed out two very simple definitions without much thought:

1. Public relations (uses technology to) creates relationships with everyone, everywhere.

(This one was preferred by Gini Dietrich yet some took an opposing view to “technology” because we can do PR with a simple handshake or posted letter.)

2. Public Relations helps people say the right things to the right audiences at the right time.

This second attempt was made to truly simplify the definition of PR for any audience imaginable; it was acknowledged by Danielle Kelly who is a Canadian practitioner also known as a reputation fiend!

Why I’m bringing up this last simple definition again is this:

Today, many in the PR community gathered over at Waxing Unlyrical, Shonali Burke’s blog, to share disbelief about a young’un in the PR profession who took measurement to task by comparison to ad value equivalency. Shonali wrote a rebuttal to that poor, un-knowing PR newbie that appeared in PR Daily today.

(Please stay with me, I’m getting to the punch line…)

At the bottom of Shonali’s rebuttal in PR Daily she writes: “All of these are examples of impact that can be measured; impact that can be quantified; impact that tells you you’re telling the right story, to the right people, at the right time, and in the right way.”

Let me show you the punch line if you missed it:

I defined public relations on March 28, 2011 as:

Public Relations helps people say the right things to the right audiences at the right time.

Shonali Burke defined PR impact as:

…telling the right story, to the right people, at the right time, and in the right way.

I think we need only to adopt one more “right” from Shonali and make it all alright — please excuse my shouting from the rooftops:

PUBLIC RELATIONS HELPS PEOPLE SAY THE RIGHT THINGS TO THE RIGHT AUDIENCES AT THE RIGHT TIME AND IN THE RIGHT WAY.

By jove, I think we’ve got it…!…?