Nothing in Life is Free

And when it comes to social media this is one gift horse you should definitely look in its mouth. 

Of course, I'm referencing Facebook and how it manipulated almost 700,000 users' feeds to see if the amount of positive or negative information presented influenced the sentiment in the posts of those users. Guess what. It did. Makes sense....when I worked as a standardized patient the first thing we were told was to go home and watch a comedy to help us break the mood of the pain/depression we were acting out during the day. 

The interest in this study however is less about the findings, and more about the ethics concerning how the research was conducted. What you need to know is that no individual user signed up for this study. Facebook didn't ask people to participate. Think about that. For a week, you may have been fed a disproportionate amount of positive or negative news from your friends, news sites, groups and companies you follow. What you once thought was a fair representation of what was going on in your circle of connections may have been skewed. On purpose. 

Now, Facebook cites within its ToS it can use the information it receives for internal operations including research and service improvement. This section found under policies is named "How we use the information we receive." Wait, WHAT? Based on the policy, information received by Facebook the company can do research. Ok. I buy that. Most companies collects information on its customers/users to help better serve them - whether that's through recommending a new product, developing a new feature, you get the idea.

But nowhere in the policy does it say that in order to receive the information to conduct the research, that the company has the ability to manipulate the fundamental nature of the service itself. Oh wait, I'm in PR. I can't possibly believe this to be true... 

Let's be real. Almost everything online is manipulated in some way. Companies run pricing tests to see which number will drive the most sales. A/B tests may look at how people respond to new imagery. Search engines if not driven by advertising, is driven by teams of marketing experts looking at SEO/SEM. So what's ethical, what's not, and where do we draw the line? Is that even possible? 

When chatting with friends this weekend about privacy and how data is used (not specifically about the Facebook study), I was shocked to find out that not a single person in the group really cared about how their data could be used. The resounding consensus was that it didn't impact their day-to-day so it didn't seem to warrant their attention. 

My question is this, if how information is collected isn't through the natural way you interact with the service, and is instead manipulated to the point of interrupting your behaviour and psychological response to the information presented, is it right? Are you comfortable with it? Should the potential cons outweigh the pros? 

One of the first things a good PR pro builds their career upon is that transparency is key. I'll be the first to admit that while I think the approach taken is unethical, I won't be cancelling my Facebook account. Knowledge is power after all, and because I'm in PR I'm generally quite aware of how my data is used, and what's happening behind the scenes. If nothing else, I hope people will at least give this pause for consideration in how they post, what sites they use, and understand that situations like this do and will continue to occur. It's important to understand that the information you read is being presented to you. It may even be manipulated. It may not be organic. 

I also hope that this study encourages companies to be explicit in their intent. That studies are conducted in a transparent way - with notifications to users. And that those in the legal profession take a hard look at this example to help build legislation around data usage to best protect the people using these services. 

What do you think about the study? Will this change how you view the sites you use? Will you be using them differently or cancel an account? 

Our Generation's Question: To Blog or Not to Blog?

The Inc 500, published by Inc magazine (my guilty pleasure/bible for creative ideas), has brought up an interesting analysis of how these successful companies use social media. Interesting to note is that there seems to be fewer companies blogging these days preferring Twitter and Facebook to engage with customers. As a blogger, Tweeter, and poster I can appreciate this. When life gets busy it is very difficult to make time to compile thoughts in any kind of coherent way that might be interesting to people. On the flipside, the people who follow me on Twitter and Facebook are family and friends with an entirely different taste in the kind of information I deliver. No, my Mum does not really care about defense technology. She only cares that I still have a job (go budgets!).

Frank Reed from Marketing Pilgrim breaks down why this trend may not be something companies in the B2B space should use as a beacon for driving their social media program. He points out that "Twitter and Facebook responses are a mile wide and an inch deep"meaning that real, valuable feedback can't be given. Really, are thousands of "I love my new shoes" and "I hate bananas" all that valuable to you? I know from past experience that tracking the "I love you" Tweets was nice from a quantifiable reporting standpoint. But it was the detailed responses with valuable insight that enabled my clients to foster change and develop better relationships with their customers.

Why Books Should Become More Important

There has been a lot of discussion happening online lately about the influence of social media on Search Engine Optimization. Jeff Sonderman writes in an article for The Poynter Institute that Google has again made a move that will significantly impact the information you receive when you search for something online. Now when you search the information presented to you will be as Jeff writes, "shaped by each user's online friends and social networking history"

I think this is 'neat' and certainly makes the networks we live and work within increasingly tighter and more influential. But should it make our social networks more or less relevant? While I appreciate learning what my friends are reading, listening to or watching, will that enhance my ability to find the right information?

Think about this for a moment. Searching online is now an acceptable practice for almost every student - from public, to high school, to university. The information presented to them is determined by a search engine ... the people at Google ... I mean the advertisers paying Google to make sure that their information is presented at the top. Now, add in this new social element and students are going to be presented with information that is further convoluted by what they did online yesterday.

As much as we know the information on the internet shouldn't be trusted, even someone like me who works in PR has to remind myself every now and again to validate sources and that sites like Wikipedia aren't verified to be accurate. At what point will we not be able to trust any of the information we receive? How will that impact us? Will it matter?

It makes me think that books, newspapers, and magazines that create vetted, peer-reviewed content using multiple sources have a serious responsibility and opportunity to help keep us from ourselves in the land of (in)-convenient content.

Source 

A Jack of All Tactics Won’t Beat Your King

I am a firm believer that content is king and that the vehicles in which you distribute content are your tactics. Yes, that includes you Social Media. You are not a strategy like so many pretend you are; you are a vehicle for dissemination. One of my pet peeves is when the medium becomes the driving force behind what we’re trying to communicate. Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t consider a tool or tactic and brainstorm how it might fit into your programs, what I am saying is that if your message and intent doesn’t drive your overall strategy, you’re going to end up with a lot of tactics cobbled together and your goal ….. well you may reach it if you’re lucky, but you increase the risk that you won’t.

Yesterday I sent out 31 campaigns

And got a response rate of 97 %. Well, that is if you think like SalesForce. 

One thing that I’ve yet to come to grips with is the result of SalesForce’s influence in communication programs. When using the SaaS-based CRM solution, an email distribution is called a campaign. In my world of PR, a campaign is defined period of time in which a key message or intent is communicated using a series of tactics and tools (one of those tactics may be an email distribution in SalesForce) designed to influence an audience. This is nothing more than a language barrier between PR and marketing, but it’s one that can create confusion when discussing programs. My advice, be sure to establish some definitions up front. You may end up talking about to entirely different projects with very different scopes of work!

Sharing Experiences in Afghanistan via Social Media

Michael Yon’s blog is one of my go-to reads. Michael is a reporter that has most recently been writing about events in Afghanistan. Invited to observe missions and take photos, Michael’s accounts of events provide a unique and poignant view that mainstream media often can’t and/or won’t deliver. His writing reminds us that we can’t detach ourselves from the efforts of our forces and must remember that there are many who won’t be home for some time. As Michael wrote on November 28, “there is a high probability that as you read this, someone is bleeding and in the process of extraction from the battlefield.”  

Michael has quite an impressive resume – the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, CNN and others have published his work. He has written two books and his blog is well-followed. For all of this, I actually found Michael on Facebook. He has more than 48,000 people following his daily accounts – and these people actively engage him in conversation through the social networking site. In fact, on any given day thousands of people are “talking about” Michael and his posts on Facebook. While I might have stumbled into Michael’s blog eventually, the power of Facebook certainly accelerated it. My advice? Whether you want to be on Facebook or not, if your target audience is there (and let’s face it with more than 800-million active users they likely are), you will want them to find you.

Check out Michael’s page, Twitter profile, and website – what other best practices can you apply to your social strategy?

I Heart Army Social Media

If you're on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn there is no way you haven't noticed the unbelievable presence that the United States military has in social media. The US is taking social media seriously - more so than many other countries from what I can tell – and it’s a full-time investment. If you don’t know what I’m talking about just check out the Facebook pages for the US Army and Marine Corps. Through social networks the military is able to engage recruits, those enlisted, and veterans as well as their family and friends in a dialogue about the inspiring work and heroic challenges that servicemen endure. 

I find these pages a great resource of news and photos; they provide access to speakers and events I might otherwise be completely unaware of. Yes, the US has certainly embraced social media in a big way and it seems to be paying off. 

Check out this presentation from the Department of Defense about optimizing online engagement in the Army. There are some good best practices outlined and you’ll get a sense of just how much the military wants to engage everyone in this conversation.  

Times They R A Changin!

I came into PR when online news, blogs and forums were dramatically changing how journalists approached their writing. Newspapers were marching online, columnists turned into bloggers, and bloggers were now churning out three to four stories a day. Before I joined the aerospace and defense community, it was rare that I pitched print journalists. In fact, it was often considered a bonus if an editor told me that the online article would be included in the upcoming print magazine. This move to the Web created a few challenges for me: 

1.       Securing Day-Of-Coverage: With a noisy news environment and the need to write several articles a day, first-day coverage was imperative – otherwise you quickly became old news. Forget getting covered a week after a press release went out.

2.       Press Releases Postings: From a search-engine-optimization standpoint, press release postings are a big help. But, when you’re looking for third-party validation (a big reason companies work with PR people….that journalists provide validation to news and you can achieve this without advertising) the drive to cover everything online can leave the analysis lacking.

3.       Did They Read It?:  There’s something to be said for getting a magazine or newspaper delivered to your door. Thumbing through the pages, revisiting stories. When online, it is so much easier to gloss past articles without notice - and I don’t know about you, but I rarely re-read any of them. I always found it difficult to be convinced that people actually read the article and let’s face it circulation and impression numbers are still a far cry from accurate measurement.

One of the reasons I fell in love with the modeling and simulation community was that it still loved, revered, and was holding on with two fists to print. At that time many of the key publications didn’t have an online component, or it was quite basic and corporate in approach. Reporters were dedicated to a craft that had been honed before the internet, stories had multiple sources, competitors were asked to comment, there was time to engage a customer in the discussion, and the resulting article was a lengthy, insightful, and impressive read. I still get chills when I break the spine of a magazine and see the glossy pages that include my company and our spokespeople, that bring forward an emerging trends, or profile an inspiring leader in our community. These features give me a barometer on how we’re shaping the industry.

This is changing however. Even though I am kicking and screaming on the inside. Over the last couple of years we have seen a big push to move our news online. Halldale has come up with a really nice balance to eliminate my #2 concern by summarizing press releases and highlighting news in their MS&T newsletter. Canadian Defence Review is progressively moving online but working to maintain its subscription-based model with a user login required so that the value of its feature article remains known. Military Technology has started a dedicated blog to give news an immediate acknowledgement – if you knew this team’s travel schedule it’s going to be awesome to get updates from the road.  

I have great hopes that the quality of reporting and industry analysis will remain as high as it is now. But, the thing is, these changes are going to influence journalists in their decision to include your news in a press release posting, a news brief, a blog post, or in a feature print story. They may just Tweet it (more on that later). We need to be ready for it. We have to embrace it. And we need to adjust how we value the end result. It’s going to take new conversations with our executive teams on the results that a news pipeline will generate. It’s going to force us to adjust how we write news and distribute it. It's going to change the conversations we have with our fave media gurus. 

Ultimately, it’s going to change how we view the printed word. 

Until We Meet Again I/ITSEC

Ah, I/ITSEC. I have been told I am sick in the head for loving this training and simulation show so much. And while that may be true, I know there are others out there who look forward to this annual event in Orlando as much as I do. To an outsider, the promise of warm weather would make sense, but as the last two years have been COLD, it really isn’t that. For me, it’s a time to catch up with your colleagues, partners, media and friends. It’s a time to put a stake in the ground and claim your territory both in booth space and from your competitors. It’s a time to be brazen about advances in technology and viewpoints on trends for the coming year. For me it's the Disneyland of PR opportunities.

I could write an entire blog just dedicated to I/ITSEC (so don’t be surprised if this topic comes up … a lot). My team starts to hear me chant I/ITSEC, I/ITSEC, I/ITSEC by June at the latest and it is never far from my thoughts throughout the year. What will we showcase, what will we announce, what will be relevant and valuable to our journalist friends, how will we be differentiated? The list goes on.

One thing that I have noticed is that the show is becoming more PR friendly. People are taking notice of the top-tier journalists who attend this show – people like Tim Mahon from his newly launched Training & Simulation Forum, Kristin Quinn who is heading up Training & Simulation Journal (now being rolled under the Defense News umbrella), the entire Halldale team who are out in full force, and Brian O’Shea at MT2 (there are many more…and believe me, they’ll all come up here at some point).  The news environment is becoming more crowded, forcing many of us to get creative - press events, roundtables, online discussions, private customer events. Nothing like a little friendly competition to keep the blood pumping.

The dialogue between industry and media seems to be much more free-flowing than in years past …. Yes, the savvy are creating a two-way conversation! YAY!  The old-school approach of “selling a story” is just not the kind of PR I want to practice and it seems that the industry is moving in that direction as a whole. It’s about the relationship, understanding where you can add value, and how to support our reporters in a way that doesn’t burden their already incredible workload. The ability to contribute to their profession in a meaningful way is what drives me to do better, create better content, and do it first.

What did you do at I/ITSEC to push the needle?