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This Just In…
Social awareness: Transforming your team into social media strategists
March 9, 2009
Copyright © 2009 PRSA. All rights reserved.
By Ryan Zuk, APR
The following Digital Dialogue column appears in the March 2009 issue of PR Tactics.
More people have active Facebook profiles than watch “American Idol” each week. It may seem like “American Idol” has a huge audience, but when you look at the statistics, you can see the growing power of social media. According to Nielsen ratings, some 25 million people watch “American Idol” each week, while Facebook claims to have about 150 million active accounts with 600,000 new accounts opened per day. Large numbers like these suggest that practitioners, agencies and corporations need to embrace social media.
“This means [that] social media, to a degree, is mass media,” explains Jason Baer, president of Convince & Convert, a social media consultancy to corporations and PR firms.
Baer and I recently discussed the current level of corporate social media use, and agreed that businesses are making a critical shift in thinking away from “why social media?” to “how do I incorporate it?” He also shared his advice on why it is important to know the difference between social media and social media marketing.
“Social media is becoming a philosophy,” he says. “It encompasses the notion of brand transparency and changes the historical master/servant relationship between brand and consumer to one of equality. In its [purest] form, social media is an ongoing commitment to engage customers in meaningful and authentic ways.”
Baer likens social media marketing to anything with a beginning and an end: a promotion, an event, a specific call to action or a campaign. He believes that many agencies still have this focus.
Most agencies have not yet defined their role to help clients participate in organic conversations with customers, says Baer, who also indicates that many agencies need to develop closer relationships with their clients. “Agencies need to align with the operational and service sides of each client’s business, which is where the true philosophy of social media resides. Public relations, then, needs to make social media about conversations, not tools.”
And conversations are where Baer suggests that “social media training” should begin. “I would literally reverse common media training perceptions,” he says. “It’s not about talking, bridging and blocking. It’s about listening to your customers’ concerns and interests.”
Getting involved with social media is the best way to learn how to use it, and virtually everyone in an organization needs to come onboard to effectively implement it.
Baer says that assigning special areas of focus is a helpful way to get everyone involved. Try starting with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter specialists.
From here, he suggests setting up “listening posts.” Create RSS feeds based on topics that interest you and your clients. You need to know how to find and monitor conversations before you can participate in and influence them.
Listening is critical even if you’re not yet ready to manage comprehensive social programs for clients. Letting clients know what’s being said about them and recommending ways that they should engage creates opportunities for everyone to grow.
We also agreed that agencies may need to consider this initial monitoring pro bono — accounting for it as relationship development time while you prove the value of social media tools to your clients.
In fact, convincing ourselves, colleagues, clients and executives to embrace social media is a challenge that many of us still face. For encouragement, consider Baer’s theory: “The first agency or department to credibly advise executives will likely be the one that drives social media strategy going forward.”
Ryan Zuk, APR, is a media and analyst relations professional and Phoenix PRSA Chapter member. Zuk can be reached at ryanzuk@gmail.com and @ryanzuk on Twitter. He also blogs at criticalmasspr.com.
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