Six lessons learned

This blog has helped me to reach some useful conclusions about how public relations should make best use of the internet. Here are some of the main themes that have emerged:

1) Get to the point
Whether for better or worse, much of the blogging community is beginning to naturalise the "Tweet ethic"- limiting one's message to 140 characters. Some bloggers specify that even press releases should be kept to this length! Whether taken to this extreme or not, the amount of data on the internet is such that that if you do not keep your messages short and sweet, it is likely to be filtered out.

2) The breaking edge
Twitter is a very useful tool for environmental scanning. Not only is it very easy to search, but news, gossip and feedback breaks on this format before it appears anywhere else. PR professionals trying to establish an online voice should not underestimate this increasingly prevalent communication medium, especially given it's recent use in reporting world events (eg. in Gaza and Mumbai).

3) Transparency and honesty
PR agencies and their clients will be smoked out and punished if they try to dupe their online audience, and since new laws were passed in the UK, flogging or astroturfing will carry a legal penalty as well. Therefore PR professionals must exercise utmost caution when trying to create online 'buzz', and must make every effort not to misrepresent themselves or their product.

4) Let go - The best buzz comes from others
Corporate efforts at creating a 'viral buzz' with a carefully sculpted marketing message are likely to backfire. The best buzz is created by those who take your product and interpret it themselves. In the nomenclature of Wikinomics, mashups and remixes are what the internet does best, so let it happen!

5) Social media aren't for everyone
Different products and different messages have different amounts to gain from social media efforts. Some products (like the Wii) are well suited to this communications environment, while others will seem out of place.

6) Learn what works
Scan Digg, Delicious and other sharing sites to see what kinds of articles are being given preference. The online rules of newsworthiness are a little different from print and broadcast media!

I'm sure I haven't covered everything here, so please use the comments to add some more observations of your own...

Wii the People

The whole point of PR is that a message is best coming from some elses mouth, not yours. Offline, this can translate to endorsements by celebrities and media outlets - which is all well and good, if we grant that these voices have credibility.

However this Christmas, Nintendo had the good fortune to receive one of the most glowing, energised and downright newsworthy endorsements of the season for their Wii computer games console on videosharing website Youtube. The plaudit, uploaded on Christmas Day, came from a child who is being called The Wii Scream Boy. Before you watch this video, I advise that you turn your computer speakers down a little.



Perhaps "glowing" isn't the best word to describe what you have just seen. There is actually something quite spinechilling, even evil, about that noise and that devilish little dance. But this is precisely why the video has become the viral holiday hit, receiving nearly 200,000 Youtube views in only ten days, ample online and offline press coverage (including airtime on ABC and Fox), and of course the obligatory Youtube remixes - all without PR execs at Nintendo having to lift a finger. Compare this to the flopped PSP viral, where Sony staff worked a little too hard only to have their efforts lampooned across the net.

The Wii Scream video is a media/press win, an authetic hearts and minds triumph, and in terms of sending out a crystal clear marketing message (ie. your child will go absolutely spare if you get him one of these) it really couldn't be any better. So have Nintendo PR people simply been sitting on their backsides waiting for Web 2.0 to give them a lucky break? Or is there something more calculated about all of this?

I was undecided until I saw another viral win for Nintendo from earlier in the year: Why every guy should buy their girlfriend Wii Fit.



After watching the video carefully - and painstakingly tracking its spinoffs - I have had to conclude that Wii Underwear Girl (and to a lesser extent Wii Scream) must be the result of intelligent design.

I'm not saying that Nintendo set these videos up - they are, broadly speaking, authentic*. Rather I'm referring to the way in which the design of the product itself has impacted on its media exposure. Unlike most other consoles (which to me connote teenagers sitting alone in darkened rooms) the Wii's "space stick" and pressure pad controllers spark the imagination and encourage outward expression, lending the product particularly well to these kinds of web 2.0-friendly displays and to media interest in general. Its almost as if the Wii's unusual interfaces were designed specifically with its reputation and future media-worthiness in mind.

Indeed it seems like environmental tracking played a real part in the design of the Wii, even down to choosing its name. When Nintendo's American public relations manager spoke about the console back in 2006, the sentiments were of participation and revolution - strongly echoing the "We the people" ethic of social media websites like Youtube and suggesting that the PR brains at Nintendo knew where they were going long before the product hit the shelves.

So which other products are particularly well suited to our modern media environment? And are there limits to the sorts of products which social media can help to promote? Comments if you will...and a Happy New Year to you all!

*although, the people in the Wii Fit vid do actually work in advertising, and the video was intended as a portfolio piece demonstrating how to make a kick-ass viral. However, neither were in the pay of Nintendo nor was the company aware of its making. And the girl is actually the guy's girlfriend. Either way the video has had over 7,000,000 hits.

Holy f***ing s***t – I was just in a plane crash!

Not my words, but those of one Mike Wilson, as he records his brush with death on Twitter. His message, sent via mobile after his Continental Airlines flight skidded off the runway at Denver Airport, seems to have been more widely reported than the crash itself, and is being held up as evidence that the tide of news reporting is in some ways turning. This use of Twitter follows its widespread use during the Mumbai terror attacks, to bring front line experiences to a worldwide audience before conventional news outlets.

In the case of the Denver crash, it is significant that first comment on the crash did not come from a spokesperson for the airport or the airline but straight from a member of the public via the increasingly reported microblogging site. Indeed Loic Le Meur comments that when a Continental Airlines spokesperson was questioned on CNN, he had few answers for reporters (annoyingly I can't find this footage on Youtube).

Public relations practitioners will need to adapt to this new form of news reporting by recognising the need for greater transparency, accuracy and speed in their interactions with the media. Also key in this new reporting environment will be the need for swifter resolution of issues as they occur on the ground.

Of course, when it comes to relatively unmediated content like Twitter, there are obviously issues of trust and professionalism. There are no codes of conduct and no formal professional standards because everyone who posts on Twitter is doing so in an amateur capacity (to illustrate, have a look at the photo above, taken on the scene by Mr Wilson - not amazing is it?). For this reason Twitter is unlikely to replace traditional news outlets any time soon .

However, noone is really talking about one type of reporting replacing another. The most exciting opportunities lie in rich, multi-layered content, and the relationship between user generated and traditional news agency content should be complementary. Along these lines, Dan Thornton over at 140Char.com, makes the case for news websites to integrate microblogging into their reporting of stories - something I personally find a very exciting prospect.

Is news fine as it is, or could it benefit from more interactivity? Would you trust a member of the public to bring you front line news or would you rather wait to get it from a journalist?

My Christmas reading

There seem to be quite a few trendy books about social media and web 2.0 doing the rounds, so I really have been quite spoilt for choice when its come to choosing my Christmas reading. Luckily, lots of these seem to be practical manuals written for business people who have never used the internet, which has helped me narrow down the pile somewhat. The technicalities and realities of social media are no mystery to me; I'd just like to understand the bigger picture. Right now, if you ask me what social media is good for, I'd say "being sent pictures of dogs dressed as other animals", and that isn't going to get me anywhere fast.

So I've opted for Wikinomics, by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams, which was a widely acclaimed "must read" from last year. From the blurb, I gather that its about the internet, specifically user generated content, allowing disparate amateurs to create value outside the traditional framework of profit-driven business. You might want to check out this video of Mr Tapscott discussing his book (it's long but good).



What has Wikinomics got to do with public relations? Well the prevalence of user-generated content means that everyone on the internet is potentially a news outlet, turning the traditional media and communications model on its head. If the book's thesis is correct, successful PR increasingly will require an appreciation of the publishing powers unlocked by the so called Read Write Web and an understanding of the impact this has on conventional PR practise.

People don't trust corporate blogs

Li and Bernhoff, the authors of the book Groundswell have just published research showing that only 16% of people. trust what they read on corporate blogs. A summary of their findings can be found on their blog (which looks to me like a corporate blog of sorts but ho hum), or you can have a look at this bar chart (click for a bigger version):

















Several things about this data. Firstly, it is from the US, but I'd guess that figures in the UK would be roughly the same. Secondly, the numbers are really quite low across the board for all communications channels - people really are very discerning when it comes to absorbing information. Thirdly, personal blogs fare little better than corporate ones.

The main lesson seems to be one which the PR industry learned some time ago - that messages are most effective when they come from a trusted and non-partisan source. It should come as no surprise that people don't trust the voices of strangers in the blogosphere. Nor should it be a massive shock to the system that corporate blogs are perceived as prone to bias.

So what are the most trusted outlets of information? Well traditional (ie print and broadcast) media ranks more highly than most social media, which should provide web 2.0 PR gurus with some food for thought. But ranking highest of all are good old fashioned friends and family, and consumer reviews.

The appearance of consumer reviews is interesting in this context because in theory the source is exactly the same as that of blogs (ie the general public). However, the difference as I see it is that unlike blogs, consumer reviews are aggregated, depersonalised, focussed and usually very brief. There is also a tangible honesty and credibility in consumer reviews that stems from having just shelled out an amount of money on something, and if the barchart above is to believed, this really seems to count.

Consumer reviews can also be very funny.