Climbing The Ladder Of Social Engagement With Influencers

Climbing the Influencer Engagement Ladder by Traackr

Social Media : The New friend of Public Relations

Barely a week after discussing  with a friend , Michael Owora on the challenges I was having with regular blogging, he sent me an email notifying me that I was to make a presentation on the role of social media in fostering  Public Relation. 

Basically, my role was to define what PR 2.0 was, its impact on our profession and how one could use it to enhance the organisation’s communications strategy.

You can follow the presentation below.

                                   

Well, despite the negative comments that have been mentioned in various boardrooms about social media, I firmly believe that Social Media is a friend to PR. All you need to do is to figure out how you can leverage on this platform

All said and done, I picked a few examples of success stories(both local & international) on the brands that have leveraged on social media

Writers block unmasked

After ranting about how I was struggling to create content for my blog regularly, a friend whom I had met in one of the many events organised by BAKE ;the Kenyan bloggers forum responded to my blog with some nice counsel that I thought you should read.

Incidentally, I am not the only one who suffers from this blogging fatigue; James Murua an ardent blogger echoed my sentiments. potentash explained several reasons that could be causing my writers block. She mentioned  that the subject matter that I had been writing on had probably become boring **** that am not sure bearing in mind that I spent three hours talking about PR and Social media in a PRSK forum last week.

She however made an attempt to solve my problem by mentioning several forums that she had been deriving the inspiration to regularly blog.

Follow this link Writers block unmasked and see how my irregular blogging woes were solved.

Let’s face it blogging is a chore

It is now close to two months since I posted a blog, all this time I have had great ideas, I have several drafts on my desktop but I have had no drive to finish the posts. I recently allocated one hour every Sunday for a blog but two weeks down the lane no blog had been delivered.

Hard at work figuring out what to blog about.

From last week I tried doing a  paragraph per day but still I could not hack it, probably to tired after the agency  bustle , or too uninspired, or two much work from clients—the other day I actually found myself blaming one of the telcos for my limited number of blogs. I convinced myself that their fluctuating internet service was the reason my blog had become dormant.

But what exactly, am I suffering from? I still afford to sneak into facebook, I can comfortably post fifty tweets per day, in short, I have enough time to blog. So the only viable excuses would either be my streamlined thoughts on PR centered articles only or lack of inspiration. This two excuses have probably contributed to the unfinished drafts, a frustrated wanna-be blogger and a dead blog awaiting burial in one of the Kenyan cemeteries, thank God majority of the cemeteries around Nairobi are full.

How do I break out from this chains of not blogging, what’s inspiration do I need, are their spirits that I need to exorcise to renew my blogging energy?

Let PR pros handle Social media;It ain't you Strength Marketers

Last week was a challenging week for this young flack.In a bid to win business that we had pitched.I requested the company to let our PR team manage there social media account including the facebook page and their twitter accounts.

The advertising team thought that they were in a better position to manage the sites;their reason being that they spear head campaigns,we in PR only come in to support the campaigns.

All the same, I strong believe that PR should take the lead in social media.Here are my thoughts.

PR’s heritage isn’t selling. It seeks to influence and build relationships. This makes it more suited and better equipped to initiate, engage and hold a conversation.

PR is expert in content creation. They can’t be blamed for trying to get involved with social media but what expertise do media buying agencies have in content creation? Content creation is a central component of marketing and specifically social media.

The PR industry is subtle. The sector gets a lot of flack for spinning but subtlety is at the core of spin. Digital media requires subtlety, including the ability to understand context and respond accordingly.

The PR industry is close to the business leaders. The advertising team will always calls on PR in a crisis and is reliant on PR when the organisation’s reputation is threatened. PR has a central role to play in educating the top management about the benefits of social media and is a trusted advisor on reputation management, unlike other marketing disciplines.

Strategy is at the heart of good PR. It could be argued that PR has a been a little slow to come to the party. There are lots of reasons for this. PR’s approach is always circumspect, it has to add value when your dealing with corporate reputations otherwise its not worth doing. I think, this will play out well for the PR industry in the long term.

The culture of the PR industry is to allow others to create content. i.e. journalists. The industry has been built on this fundamental characteristic. The key message is designed to assert as much control as possible over the process of content creation. The approach changes in the context of social media but I think this is one of the strongest arguments in PRs favour. PR has never had control of the message when it comes to the end result.

Finally I think organisations need to adapt culturally to engage their customers in authentic conversations. I genuinely believe that the businesses that most effectively listen to customers and is able to incorporate their insights into product development and services will be the most successful. This, for me, is PRs biggest opportunity as the function that advises and implements change management strategies. PR has a great opportunity to take the lead in making this change happen – the outbound social media campaigns will become the natural output and realisation of this cultural and organisational change in business.

Over to you mobile telephony companies,FMCG's,banks and insurance companies.

Face book; yes it attracts but it doesn’t prompt action

Every new day comes with new inventions on social media. Just when some social media early adopters are starting to leave Facebook, the mainstream majority who reached a record breaking 500 million seem to be more hooked on the world's favourite social network than ever.

But here is the paradox; I’ve discovered a problem with Face book dependency amongst ‘first year students’ on the treasured site. A few weeks ago we tried organizing a burial fundraising on facebook; we became so confident because scores of people had indicated their commitment on Face book.
Little did we know that showing interest on social media is not in any way linked to committing to a certain cause? Did anyone show up for the fundraising day? No….We resorted to old-fashioned word of mouth to salvage our noble cause.
While Facebook's success is based on its recreation of the real world of friendship online, the process doesn't work so well in the other direction. It’s easy to get people to click but where's the commitment in this? Where's the engagement? Barring a few posters, the old-fashioned means of publicising an event were missing: personal invitations, stunts (forcing the staff members to contribute), media publicity (death and funeral announcements), even celebrity endorsement (inviting your local MP).

It appears the real world is an increasingly confusing place for Generation F (facebook).
This was a real life experience….

We have no alternative, Social Media is here to stay.

Ignoring social media is like the early nineties secretaries who refused to enroll for computer classes saying that computers would never see the daylight while offices will never operate without typewriters.
Anyone who’s had just a passing experience or two with social media engines like Facebook and Twitter could pretty fairly conclude it’s a big swamp they don’t need to wade into. BUT, there’s strong reason to start heading in. The waters get clearer over time and the value grows more evident.
This sector is a community of common interests and concerns, and technology is enabling companies to build industry awareness and relationships, distribute information and solicit feedback rapidly, and at no real cost other than time.For instance Tahidi High,the local production on Citizen TV has over 58,000 members on its group.
If you think Facebook is for birthday photos and seeing what your high school buddies are up to, you’re right. But many, many, many major brands have strong Facebook fan sections set up with hundreds of thousands or even millions of people hooked in to them. It’s a forum to talk to customers, distribute information like videos and product launches, promote events, promote your people, and do recruiting. And a lot of other things.Look at Google Chrome the new product launched by Google a few months ago, I was surprised there group on Facebook has slightly below two million comments from users across the country.
With Twitter, a little knowledge and the right tools allow you to fine-tune the “stream” of content to your interest area. I use it to flag interesting articles I’ve read online, and read things that people I follow and respect say are worth my time. I know people who follow others for industry intel.
In other words, social is not going away, and if you’re not using it, you need to start.
But have a strategy and rules going in. I’ve seen a few corporate accounts run by junior staff, who think nothing of blending their personal lives into the messages. That can go sideways on you.