Even though the NBA hasn’t had a basketball game since June 17th, the league is attracting more attention then any other sport right now, thanks to the 2010 free agent class, which is lead by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
While Bosh and Wade have been publicizing their free agent experience over Twitter and YouTube, no one has taken advantage of the media quite like James, who often refers to himself as King James.
Yesterday James launched a Twitter account which has quickly attracted approximately 250,000 followers, despite only have three tweets (none of which reveal anything interesting). James also launched his own website, which appears to be strictly for announcing his free agent decision.
However, in the most ego-stroking move of all, James’ camp has contacted ESPN to arrange for an hour-long special from 9:00pm – 10:00pm ET tomorrow during which he will make his announcement (which is being called “The Decision”). While ESPN will strike ratings gold with this special, it’s also an example of why the network is unable to cover James’ and his buddies without bias. Simply put, ESPN uses this young group of attention-seeking players as much as they use ESPN. This results in large staged events like tomorrow’s news conference, and constant attention to non-stories like James’ elbow “injury” during the playoffs which miraculously disappeared following the Cavs’ loss to the Celtics.
When people across the country sit down at 9:00pm tomorrow to learn where James will sign his next contract, many will do so with a sick feeling in their stomach, knowing that James has been able to use mainstream and social media to manipulate them, and that ESPN is willing to do anything for “The King.” However, the viewers will be there, which is enough to make James happy (as he lives for the attention) and the NBA happy (as it has never received this much attention during the off-season). However following the announcement, there will be one city of people that love James, while the rest of the country criticizes him for his large ego and inability to win just one game in the NBA finals during his first 7 seasons in the league.
Infographics are quickly becoming a media and public relations industry buzz word / topic. Why you ask? Two major reasons. As corporations continue to shift into their role as media companies and content curators, they’re realizing the opportunity to package interesting data to the media and consumers in new ways. More importantly, media organizations and editors are now focusing on finding new ways to engage their readership. Infographics happen to solve both of these problems by packaging data in a way that makes it both engaging and easy to read.
A few weeks ago I sat down with Sam Whitmore of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey for Racepoint Group’s video newsletter to discuss how brands and agencies can leverage infographics and why they’re becoming the “new slide shows” for media outlets desperate for engaging content. While Sam cautioned that infographics aren’t B-roll (most media outlets like to play a role in building them), he did pass along some interesting insight into how PR practitioners and marketers can leverage the media’s interest in this new category of content.
For more insight on infographics, along with the latest news and trends in marketing, PR and communications in the technology space subscribe to Racepoint’s “The Point: Tech Edition.
Last night Racepoint Group hosted an event about social media and its return on investment (ROI). As social media continues to become a larger focal point in public relations and marketing campaigns, it’s critical to understand how to articulate it’s value to clients.
Last night’s event centered around a panel discussion with three social media experts: Larry Weber, Chairman of Racepoint Group, Erik Qualman, author of Socialnomics and Mike Volpe, VP of Inbound Marketing for HubSpot.
After Larry Weber’s opening remarks, Qualman shared how he first dipped his toe into the digital space by sending a company-wide email instead of the standard hard copy memo. View his story here:
Volpe was up next and shared with the group the origins of his marketing career and the way tracking and reporting on ROI is evolving. Watch him provide tips here:
The evening was full of tremendous ideas and recommendations. The five big takeaways from the panel were:
1) Social media is not about technology. It’s about human interaction. It’s about sharing information and making connections. People who are intimidated by the technology aspect of engaging in social media should not view the applications as a hurdle. It’s simply the current mechanism to maintain relationships and reach out to new people.
2) When it comes to tracking social media, its important to focus not only on the quantitative (number of followers, number of re-postings) but also the qualitative. We need to take into account engagement and tone. Qualman said, “If social media is so trackable, we should just have robots running things. The human element is necessary here.”
3) Everyone and anyone can be a content creator, a publisher, a media property. As we shift away from traditional print and broadcast media, both we and our clients have the opportunity to get innovative and create and distribute our own content. Additionally, content creation should not be isolated to the PR and marketing staff. Volpe shared that, “50% of HubSpot employees have written posts for the HubSpot blog.”
4) Although much of PR and marketing is based in the written word, we need to start thinking more visually. We need to tell stories through pictures and videos. We need to make our content more authentic and dynamic.
5) On a personal level, Volpe stated, “The new resume is what comes up in Google when I type in your name.” As digital and social media continue to play an increasingly vital role in our PR and marketing efforts, we too have a digital and social persona, and that is now what employers are most interested in.
Thank you to Erik Qualman and Mike Volpe for joining us at Racepoint Group last night and providing such pragmatic, realistic, useful and inspiring guidance on the social media ROI frontier. Be sure to follow @equalman and @mvolpe on Twitter for real time updates on their social media adventures. You can also view all the live commentary during the event with the #smroi hashtag here.
And 20 minutes later another: “Think about it this way, the ocean is like rootbeer and oil is like ice cream. We just made America a giant rootbeer float!”
Even though the Twitter account handle account is labeled BPGlobalPR the content being posted during the past 6-7 days has been a nightmare for BP’s actual PR team. Someone (who is clearly having fun) decided to mock BP’s poor handling of the oil spill with witty one-liners such as, “Jesus walked on water and soon you can too! (Please pray for BP, we’re losing a lot of oil).”
The account has become quite popular – attracting over 25,000 followers in this short time, more than double the number of followers for BP’s official corporate Twitter account and Twitter account covering the oil spillcombine. Even more scary for BP is the amount of re-tweets this fake account is getting, which is what’s driving it’s visibility.
This situation provides other companies with an idea of how social media can be used against them during an ugly situation. Quick, honest responses can do a lot in image control and management, which BP is now learning about first hand.
For years now, start-ups and technology disruptors have been trying to change the television viewing experience. Mark Cuban was hypothesizing about the death of channels, with the introduction of Internet TV in the United States in 2005. However, other than a lot of visions and aspirations the market hasn’t really caught on. Change you see, doesn’t really apply to the television industry. After the “Golden Days” of television that saw a man walk on the moon the industry has been set in decades of stodginess with little or no change — innovation shifting to bigger and better things, with all eyes eventually falling on the Internet.
However, with the introduction of Google TV today, which joins the likes of Apple, AT&T and Microsoft in trying to champion Internet Protocol Television(IPTV), there may finally be enough momentum to trigger the Internet to TV avalanche. An avalanche that some analysts believe will lead to million global IPTV subscribers by 2013.
The innovation desperately needed in the television industry is replication of the Internet innovation in search and discovery that has occurred over the last decade. And, there’s probably no better company to replicate that than Google. With more video content and channels available than ever before before, watching and searching for video content between siloed channels, cable and satellite operators just doesn’t make sense. It’s a closed structure that would be like searching and enjoying the Internet without, well, Google.
Of course the introduction of this type of technology on pre-boxed televisions from Sony and others could also mean the holy grail of television advertising, which Google is really interested in. Advertisers have been seeking and gaining access to millions of consumers shifting to the Web to enjoy video content and technologies including personalization and speech-to-text solutions have enabled them to target these consumers with targeted advertorial better than they ever could through televisions. If “Googling” goes to the tube, these technologies and Google’s own AdWords’ system will be right behind it.
Today and tomorrow the 92nd Street Y in New York City will be home to Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conference. The gathering gets its name from the maximum number of characters allowed in one post on Twitter, affectionately know as a tweet.
Unlike other conferences where presentations can last an hour plus, at the 140 Characters Conference panel discussions are 20 minutes maximum and key note addresses tap out at the 15 minute mark.
“At #140conf NYC we will be taking a hard look at something Jeff Pulver calls “The State of NOW” and the continued effects the worldwide adoption of social communication platforms such as twitter is having on a number of industries including: Celebrity, “The Media”, Advertising, Politics, Education, Music, Television, Comedy, Real Estate, Public Policy and more. The take aways from this event will provide the attending delegates knowledge, perspectives and insights to the next wave of effects Twitter and the real-time internet will have on business in 2010 and beyond.”
Seems broad, no? The list of speakers at the New York City event range broadly in areas of expertise as well. The roster includes:
o Alexis Maybank, Founder of Gilt Groupe
o Anny Curry, NBC’s Today Show
o Bruce Upbin, Managing Editor at Forbes
o David Carr, Reporter & Blogger at New York Times
o Dennis Crowley, co-founder of FourSquare
o MC Hammer, Musician
o Ivanka Trump, The Trump Organization
o Joe Randazzo, Editor of The Onion
o Michael Ian Black, Comedian & Blogger
While it may not seem obvious at first what this motley crew has in common, that’s precisely point. Social media is limitless in its reach. It bridges gaps between types of businesses, country borders and even foreign languages. The 140 Character Conference is proving that individuals can maximize the opportunities provided by this event, without even needing to physically be in the room.
The beauty of this type of conference is that it uses the micro-blogging site Twitter as its starting point, which automatically makes it relevant to anyone on the site. Then the conference added a hashtag (#140conf) making updates from those at the event easily identifiable, and more importantly, searchable. All of the best sound bites, images and videos are being fed directly into your Twitter stream right at your desk.
Here is a small sampling of the expert advice pouring into my Twitter feed this morning:
@acarvin: Carr: you’re standing in line w/ mopes at Starbucks and you look at your Twitter feed and you become calm. Makes sbux tolerable. #140conf @SarahCaminker: Twitter is a human enabled RSS, adds a human element where people are curating their own feed. Via @carr2n #140Conf @LaurynBennett: Having a successful brand = having a consistent voice and message across all your businesses and audiences. @ivankatrump #140conf @JulieSpira: Eric Kuhn @CNN says everyone at CNN is tweeting from the CEO/Pres. down. #140conf @LaurynBennett: “Rule #1: Never forget the brand – your message MUST be in concert with your brand values.” ahthankyouverymuch, @Donny_Deutsch #140conf @JulieSpira: @GavinPurcell says Late night with Jimmy Kimmel has been on tv for 13 months. Started as a daily video blog for 5 months before TV #140conf
Jeff Pulver’s goal with this conference was to “explore the state of now” and you can join in, right this minute, with one simple step: logging into Twitter. Some of the most influential players in media and business are offering free advice and all you have to do is listen.
Mercedes Bunz of The Guardian had an interesting piece last week on how media companies and newspapers are evolving into technology companies. It opened with a poignant quote from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller (even if you don’t necessarily believe it).
“The New York Times is now as much a technology company as a journalism company.”
While we might expect this sentiment from other forward-looking media outlets, the idea that the Times values technology as much as quality journalism is telling. Of course they’re hardly alone. Every traditional media company is examining the technology opportunities that lie in front of them. Bunz’s piece also looks at the success that CNN had with driving engagement and crowd-sourcing through its iPhone application and specifically its iReport button. Wired magazine drew praise at SXSW for its technological interpretation of a digital magazine on the forthcoming iPad. Everywhere you look there seems to be another media company testing a new technology.
While the “media meltdown” hasn’t directly affected public relations and communications agencies quite like it has media companies, the same focus on technology is pressing for the industry. After all, communications, and marketing as a whole, are tied at the hip to the future of the media industry. Just as technology is becoming more and more an integral part of doing good journalism, technology is becoming more and more an integral part of doing good PR. I’m not just talking about run-of-the-mill uses of existing and mainstream social platforms, such as: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. I’m talking about re-envisioning how to reach media and more importantly consumers in the digital age. Much in the way the New York Times has to think about the problem.
These are not only the tools and services that agencies should be looking at from vendors, but the technology that they should be investing in to create on their own.
The agencies and practitioners that will be around for the next technology bubble will be those who can honestly say like Keller (without PR spin), “we’re as much a technology company as we are a communications agency.”
Today Racepoint Group is launching a new offering – Racepoint Labs – to help companies, communities, causes and countries leverage the power of social media. To mark this launch we sat down with W2 founder Larry Weber, to get his thoughts on what this means for the overall digital marketing landscape.
Jonathan Schwartz was a trailblazer in leveraging the Internet as the platform for influencing others with his ideas. As CEO at Sun Microsystems, he was the first Fortune 500 CEO to open up his own blog. It seems fitting then that he’s the first Fortune 200 CEO to resign via Twitter.
His short Haiku tweet (pictured above) illustrates both the good and bad of having visionary leaders at the control of their own digital communications. In one sense, it’s incredibly authentic for his former employees and customers. On the other hand, the communications folks at the newly merged Oracle-Sun are probably less than pleased that Mr. Schwart’z haiku beat an amicable separation statement.
As the Internet continues to push ahead as the leading thought leadership platform for both Internet visionaries (have you seen The Gates Notes?), and those looking to leverage the Internet for more power, the question remains – what role do communicators play? Would Schwartz have benefited from communicators that could contribute, shape context and augment his opinions? Maybe and maybe not (At least up until his last tweet). However, there aren’t too many CEO’s willing and able to take the time and effort needed to build the following that Schwartz did online.
In addition to his post as Chief Executive Officer of a major teaching hospital in a world renowned medical hub, he is also the founder and author of a health care blog called Running a Hospital and is an active Twitter user from the handle @PaulFLevy.
We met with Paul yesterday afternoon to hear about his social media success and naturally, to pick his brain.
Paul began his talk by saying, “All communications from a company should reflect that company’s values.” Agree.
He went on to say that, “At our place, the mission is to treat our patients the way we would want a member of our own family treated.” Agree again. As a side note, Paul continually referred to BIDMC as “our place,” giving a sincere sense of responsibility, community and family to the place he drives into each morning for work.
Given his position on corporate communication, and his company’s mission, in 2006 he decided he’d like to start a blog; a blog that reflected the company’s values and furthered their mission. Thus, Running a Hospital was born.
One of the first blog posts Paul published that caused quite a stir, publically disclosed central line infection rates at the hospital. The hospital staff had set a goal to lower infection rates, and Paul wanted to share their progress. He didn’t ask permission, he just posted it. Does that make you nervous?
The response did something miraculous. Knowing that their success was being publically documented, the medical staff felt an additional resurgence and enthusiasm for meeting their goal. Paul said, “That was the moment I like to say I invented transparency as a management tool.”
Not only did he see the blog as opportunity to motivate and reward his staff, but he had another idea. What if all the other areas hospital also posted their infection rates? Let’s just say, the response was not positive. I believe the word Paul used was “hostile.” No surprise here, as the BIDMC team committed to reducing their rates and sharing their progress, other hospitals felt threatened and exposed. Hello, competitive edge.
While they may have started to position themselves uniquely from the other local hospitals by sharing information on the blog, did it impact their business and revenue?
You bet it did. The Vanguard health system began to send its patients to the BIDMC emergency room instead of a competitor they had long been referring their patients to. This referral shift caused a 10% increase in patient volume. Not too shabby.
You bet. When speaking to reporters at the Boston Globe, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Paul will frequently begin to tell a story and the reporter will interrupt and say, “I know, I read it on your blog.”
When I asked why he chose to communicate through a blog, Paul asks, “Why wouldn’t I use a tool like this? I can share my point of view with a much larger audience than I ever could via a medium like say, the telephone.” He also goes on to say, “A blog is a lower risk method of communication. There is no risk of being misquoted.” If you are wondering if he really writes each post himself, he says, “I assure you my media team does not write these posts, in fact, I get in trouble for scooping reporters on stories without knowing it! I get the idea to write about something, and I do.”
When asked how patients have responded to the blog, Paul shares that, “Patients seem to enjoy the blog. Several of them have sent me their personal stories and when I ask permission to share the stories via the blog they always say yes. Then they forward it to everyone they know.” I think we’ve all been guilty of that type of family email!
Paul’s social media reach extends far beyond the blog. He is an active Twitter user with over 2,900 followers. He only follows 170 people which he explains are, “people I trust and who I am interested in. Their tweets have become my news stream. Twitter has become my librarian.”
Paul is also an active user of Facebook. In fact, during his talk he encouraged everyone in the room to “friend” him. He shared that he receives comments and messages from employees and friends in their twenties who he would otherwise never hear from via corporate email. He is on Facebook to reach people where they are, via the mode of communication they identify with.
Paul has also worked with his team on pages on the social networking site Grateful Nation. They have an employee challenge to see who can raise the most funds for relief efforts in Haiti. They also have a team running the Boston Marathon and that team has put their fundraising pages on Grateful Nation.
Paul Levy is a man who rather than fear the uncontrollable nature of social media has decided to dive in, learn, create, and share via the myriad of available social media tools and networks.
He has inspired his staff both inside and outside the workplace, he has challenged his competitors, and he has positively impacted his business’ bottom line. Now that’s called running a hospital.
