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Google+: How Social Media Will Fall (Updated)

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This post first appeared July 16, 2010, and what prompted me to head back through the archives to find it again was this post by Antonia Harler about Google — A Successful Road to  Failure. She shares all the write ups about Google + that we all have seen. And, she hit on what I suggested a year ago — no one has more time to develop yet another social network, do we?

See if this resonates from a year ago with you…I felt pretty strongly about developing more networks a year ago; I may be less against it today, but my time is more limited. Share your thoughts!

 

It’s all about community, connectivity and social networking, and people are joining in droves. Apparently, 96 percent of GenY have joined a social network. The fastest-growing segment on Facebook is women 55 – 65 years old.

The more cool social networks, publishing networks, and professional networks that launch to accompany Stumble, Posterous, YouTube, Friend Feed, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN and the like, the more consumers will weary. No one has time to find friends to add to a network. Do you?

I learned today that Stumble requires a network of Stumblers who share cool sites with one another. I’m always interested in seeing cool sites, but I’ve no time to develop a network of connected Web site lovers. When I launched Friend Feed, I thought I could consolidate my social media into one platform (which I can), but it, too, wants friends to connect on the same platform and be networked. On Twitter,  new followers invite me to join them on Facebook. Why? I don’t even know them.

And, that’s it.

That’s the reason social media will fall flat on its pitoot. People cannot spend eight hours a day creating community and populating it with more and more friends. There are only six degrees of separation from all of us, but seriously, folks, who has that many “friends” for real?

Not I.

The Last PR Frontier — Sales

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There’s not too many departments within an org chart that public relations hasn’t already touched. Methinks sales is the last frontier for public relations to influence, and it’s going to take some serious work.

My day-to-day with several clients is as a strategically aligned member of the marketing team where I blend public relations squarely into the marketing mix. The offering is much like content development, event strategy, creative brainstorming to influence lead generation and, in turn, the support of sales teams who bring in the bacon.

While logically explained, there’s no simple logic behind this mash up (PR and sales). In essence, public relations has swung so far from the sales team that we’re essentially non-existent to frontline sales. Here’s how:

  • PR has no standing among sales.
  • Sales depends on marketing.
  • Marketing beats to its leadership drum.
  • PR aligns communications strategy to business goals (which are sales goals, too).

In a perfect world, here’s what I envision a highly successful business model to look like:

  • Public relations and marketing form a cohesive team with PR feeding program strategy, content, event strategy, social media, media relations, and sales collateral into the team.
  • This marketing/PR team meets regularly with sales, and PR gets a chance to educate sales about its contribution to ROI, results.
  • Public relations attends sales meetings and even conducts trainings on what PR needs from sales to do its job.
  • Sales slowly begins to understand how PR works, and when marketing asks for customers to interview, sales will open InterAction CRM and allow PR to speak with customers for a story.
  • Sales is equipped with a message map completed by public relations so everyone says the same thing to key audiences.
  • Public relations is regarded as high value to the integrated team, and everyone wins.

Is this reality or un-reality to you?

A-Lister Bloggers: New Print Feature Writers?

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I get inspired by the amazing talent of the A-lister bloggers (at least in my book) to day-in and day-out craft thought leader social media content. How can this much provoking copy be created and most of it not begin to sound the same?

You know, there are only so many dresses on the rack; eventually, you’ll see another woman with the very same dress walking ahead of you on Michigan Avenue. (You get my drift, guys!)

Segue to the daily newspaper suffering from the demise of advertising, subscriptions and fewer journalists. It got me thinking about feature sections and pull-out special sections of the daily newspapers I read. Don’t you think these pages are chock full of a lot of nothing?

Here’s the brainstorm. A newspaper should contract 2x/week with some hot tamale bloggers and publish a new feature section with content that resonates a whole heckuva lot more than what print subscribers are paying for.

Here’s my list who can fill the queue; who else comes to mind?

  • Jason Falls, , who is so prolific and wordy hot that I shake my head and marvel.
  • , who launched 12for12K and has numerous awards as a Canadian blogger and is also of the set.
  • , , who has become a B2B social media thought leader with his lively and thoughtful community.
  • who pens a daily storytelling blog with a roundup of what’s going on across the 2.0 world
  • David Meerman Scott of and a keen author of public relations blended social media works.

These gentlemen are noteworthy in their leadership in this social media space. I’m sure they’d appreciate your attention to tell them so, too.

The Great American Content Mashup

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I’m reading Jason Falls’s blog, Social Media Explorer, and if you’ve not subscribed to him, you’re missing the boat. In 500 words, Jason packs a punch with tips and lessons galore about social media and of late, content.

I predict the great American content mash up is ready to collide in our faces.

Everywhere you turn, Facebook pages are coming alive launched by companies that want a piece of the pie. But, look closely, the content is el stinko on many a fan page. How about Twitter? It’s not easy for some to write thoughts in 140 without littering the characters with “and” plus “that.” Thank goodness teen tweeps aren’t texting on Twitter although in those circles, I’m sure texting content exists.

And, then there are the blogs. I’m appreciative the bloggers I follow can write and write well. Sometimes you have to wonder who is doing the writing especially when the “author” is one popular dude (i.e. Seth Godin who posts the shortest blog fodder I’ve ever seen hit day light).

Content is king and having a content strategy will get you farther than a turtle with six legs.

Think about the numbers of people and companies engaged in content development today. Danny Brown wrote a recent blog post “52 factoids about the big 4 (and he didn’t call it that)” You’ll want to keep it for reference. It provides the user data for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.  In a nutshell, users and traffic are astronomical and growing.

So what do I mean by the Great American Content Mash Up?

Writers from all walks of life have an opportunity to ghost write blogs, Facebook pages, Web sites, tweets, and more. It’s the next social media revolution as content needs collide with a limited number of high-quality writers.

Imagine the vertical markets that require specialty writers. Are there enough to go around to produce these communications? Probably not.

So, those self-employed, unemployed, newly graduated, or semi-retired, think about the opportunity facing the online world today. We need good writers, and we need them now. Is that your calling?

BP, PR and The Fall

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It’s not too often public relations is visibly on the frontlines of a national crisis. When the client, BP in this case, is less than transparent and is deep into a situation (since April 10, 2010) with no immediate resolution and none foreseen until perhaps August, it is imperative public relations does everything possible to position a solution as genuine, train the spokespeople to be genuine,  and execute action-oriented and timely response.

In the June 7, 2010 Advertising Age, the story “Brunswick put to ultimate test as BP grows increasingly toxic,” references a global public relations firm that is most comfy as a financial communications agency and not an environmental- disaster crisis-communications shop.

Reporter Michael Bush references the good relationship with an early start in London 23 years ago between Brunswick and BP while suggesting the Washington D.C. office of the former is ill equipped to manage the crisis and perhaps its New York office would fare slightly better.

It was only a matter of time before the finger pointing began to swing in PR’s direction.

The work we public relations practitioners do on behalf of clients indeed includes counsel for behavior on the frontlines of a crisis. (Not sure why BP President Tony Hayward forgot his media training half of the time; was it due to pure exhaustion?)

No PR firm the size of Brunswick with HQ in London should manage a crisis of this proportion independently, regardless of the D.C. politicos on staff from the U.S. Treasury and White House who have foreign policy expertise.

This situation is similar to what happens to a past president of the United States. With all the earned expertise, he is relegated to the back burner to build a presidential library and author books rather than aid and abet the new admnistration. There are public relations agencies galore on the global scale with crisis communications expertise who can help the current situation with a fresh approach.

I am not one of these agencies nor am I a crisis communications expert who would even consider tackling a situation of this magnitude. (Levick Strategic Communications is doing a bang-up job with its own PR about this debacle; I’m seeing the firm quoted in a number of stories proffering counsel to BP on how it ought to manage this crisis.)

You can bet, however, that were I in the shoes of a Brunswick and internal BP corporate communications department, I’d scramble to invite illustrious public relations leaders to the boardroom to propose high-level solutions to this never-ending crisis.

It’s ludicrous local public relations firms in Texas at command central and the Gulf states have not been invited to the table to strategize strictly about regional people affected by this calamity who have lost their generations-old livelihood. How do you elect politicians? Karl Rove knows. You erupt the grassroots machine, one vote at a time.

Now that the pendulum has swung into anti-BP mode and it’s sticking, public relations is going to suffer trying to make change in this ever non-transparent debacle.

 For what it’s worth, BP and Brunswick, at this late date:

  • Call in the PR experts for some fresh ideas and begin to repair the damage that will take 10 times as long because your public face has been under water.
  • Invite regional PR expertise to the table to develop a Gulf States public relations campaign directed at the locals who live day to day off the sea for food and tourism.
  • Swallow your pride, cough up the dough, and tap the global PR community who work with oil companies on a daily basis. In fact, contact the Exxon-Valdez PR team for counsel on this situation. They’re still out there waiting, I’m sure.

And, if you’ve already done all this and I just don’t know about it, well, forgive me. Glad to hear it.