PR 101

Tom Martin couldn’t be more wrong when he states that advertising agencies should own social media. (Why Ad Agencies Should Own Social Media published in Adage.com). It is public relations agencies that should be and are owning social media.

To me, Martin shows that he doesn’t understand social media when it calls “little more than the newest channel on the block.” Social media is not a channel; it is a whole new way of doing things. I think that’s the problem because advertising people such as Martin don’t understand that.

I could fill this blog with examples of how social media has supplanted and surpassed advertising as the premier method of marketing. Just look at the companies whose primary marketing efforts are through social media: the shoe company Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Amazon, Pepsi and a host of others.

For advertising people, social media is a just another way to talk to consumers. It is not. It is a way for brands to talk with their consumers. As I always tell clients, there is a conversation going on about your brand. You should be part of that conversation, but it is going to happen whether you are in it or not. Advertising agencies think they can control that conversation. They cannot. It can be directed, but it cannot be controlled.

Martin argues “social media is the creation of stories, content, photos, videos, information and entertainment.” He says that it is difficult to create strategically sound, effective content. The people that can do that, he says, work for advertising agencies. I have to disagree. The average advertising agency employee is not equipped in either training or temperament to create the kind of things social media demands. They are used to writing six lines of punchy copy. They are not used to making a coherent argument for why one brand should be purchased.

There are numerous studies that show most people don’t believe traditional advertising. If people wanted to view advertisements, they would ask DVR manufacturers to program the devices do they didn’t skip commercials. Every time I talk to some who has just purchased a DVR, one of the things they rave about not having to watch commercials anymore.

A recent Harris poll found some interesting facts about television commercials. The study, as reported by the Center for Media Research, said that 75 percent of Americans have found a commercial on TV confusing. Twenty-one percent often find TV commercials confusing, while 55 percent say that commercials are not very often confusing. Just 14 percent say they never find TV commercials confusing,. Eleven percent do not watch TV commercials.

So, this is a situation where a third of the audience either is confused by commercials or never watches them. Only 14 percent are never confused by a commercial. That means that the message is getting through to the audience must of the time. Not a ringing endorsement of advertising.

“A commercial’s main focus needs to be selling a product or service,” the Center for Media Research reports that the study’s author says. “If consumers watching these commercials are unsure of that main focus, the marketers are doing something wrong. If the ad is confusing, the prospective consumer may dismiss that product from consideration.”

I don’t think I want the people who are not getting the message across to handle my social media.

Public relations people are the ones who understand how to create the kind of campaign that social media demands. PR practitioners know how to use pull marketing, which is the definition of social media.

Speaking as one who has spent approximately a decade in public relations, I can tell you we understand that we have to talk with consumers, not at them. Prior to switching into public relations, I was a working reporter for over two decades. You learn fast in journalism you cannot make people read any story just because you think it is important. You have to give them reasons to do so.

I also always tell clients that consumers control their brand. Social media acknowledges that and uses it to the client’s advantage. Today’s consumers hate being pandered to or coerced. That’s what advertising tries to do. Social media on the other hand gives people reasons to buy a product, but realizes the final decision is up to them.

That goes back to public relations. Traditional public relations is all about creating content that people want to read. A public relations person has to convince a reporter to do a story, or attend an event. Public relations people are used to creating content that people want to read. The idea is to make the consumer want to engage with the brand.

It is not that much of leap from public relations to social media. The tools are different, but the idea is the same. Public relations is where social media should reside.

Bloggers note: I am posting a lesson today because frankly I have seen nothing in the past seven days that makes me want to rant

I received an email Tuesday from Kiehl’s, the New York City-based hair and skin product company. In exchange for reviewing one of the company’s products, Kiehl’s will give the reviewer two of the company’s most popular products. One does have to spend $35 to get the freebies. However, it is very easy to spend $35 at their website.

That Kiehl’s is soliciting products reviews to me is a good thing. It shows its leadership wants to know what customers are thinking. It means the executives understand that positive reviews and word-of-mouth are the best marketing tools. That says that this is a company that knows its needs to jump into the social media stream.

Many companies are doing what Kiehl’s is doing. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of companies using social media to reach out. As I have said before the adoption of social media is like a snowball rolling a mountain. At first, it is just a baseball-sized piece of snow that’s barely noticeable against the background. But it gathers both speed and more and more snow as it moves. Soon it is an avalanche.

I should note that I am a longtime Kiehl’s customer. My wife and I use many of their products. I have no contact with the company other than being a customer.

The request of reviews struck me as very interesting. The company’s leaders have to know that not all the reviews are going to be positive. I think it shows courage and foresight to do that. No company pleases all of its customers all of the time. I am curious to see how Kiehl’s handles the negative comments.

If the company’s leaders are smart, they will use the information gathered from the negative reviews to improve on whatever customers don’t like. I always tell clients the negative comments are as important that the positive ones.

Positive comments pull in potential customers. Those comments endorse a decision a potential customer makes to buy a product. Numerous studies have shown that third-party endorsements are the most powerful lure for making sales.

Negative comments are important because it tells a company what it is doing wrong. Prior to social media often the only a company knew a campaign was wrong-footed is when it didn’t get the results it expected. It and its agency might have created a multi-million dollar campaign. Focus groups might have said it was a great campaign. But it fell flat on its face and cost the company millions in lost sales.

As a note, I do not like focus groups. I have never believed accurate information can be gleamed from six or eight people sitting in room eating donuts and drinking coffee. It is an artificial environment. One person can dominate the room and the research results.

That’s why unsolicited comments are such so more valuable. They are generally honest opinions from real customers. So if something is wrong, they will not be afraid to say it.

The value to a company is that it gives a change course during the campaign. The mistakes can be corrected. Correcting those mistakes shows a company cares about its customers. Customers will generally return the feeling and buy more products.

That’s why comments are important. Companies and customers can share the love.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is both a building block and a goal of social media. I have seen many people embark on social media campaigns without building SEO into their efforts. While not including SEO won’t necessarily doom the campaign, it will make a whole harder to reach the desired goals.

What is SEO? It is a process where key words and links are used to ensure a website shows up on the first two pages of a search engine. Very few people look beyond those first two pages. It might look cool to see that Google found over million search results that matched your search. But so what. No one has the time or inclination to check more than two pages. So it is on those first two pages that you want to your website to appear.

SEO is especially important if you are small businessperson with a limited marketing budget. I don’t know of any marketplace that is not extremely competitive. SEO will help you stand out from your competition by getting your business on those first two pages of the search results.

SEO costs little, if any, money. Probably less than those billboards the farmer put up. There are many tools out there to help you determine which words should go into your copy to ensure better search results. Google has a free one and there are others.

There is also no need to pay for key words. The largest issue with doing that is once you stop paying, your ranking drops back to what it was. Whereas if you do it organically, your rankings will stay in place.

Injecting SEO into a business should start with your website’s design. When you hire a design firm, make sure they know what SEO is and how to incorporate into the website. You should do this anyway, but ask for the names of the some of the design firm’s client to find out how successful previous designs were.

Let me give you an anecdote I use when I speak on social media explaining why SEO is so important. It explains SEO very well. It goes like this:

There was vegetable farmer who had a very profitable business selling his produce from a stand at his farm. Because this farm was out in the country, the farmer placed billboards advertising the stand along the Interstate highway.

Sales were so good the farmer sent all his children to college. His oldest daughter earned both a B.A. and an M.B.A.

One summer the vegetable business dropped off. The farmer had to cut costs to stay profitable. He asked his MBA daughter what needed to be down.

She did an analysis. What made sense to her to cut were those billboards. The cost of maintaining them was dragging profits down. Why were they needed, she thought. People knew about the farm and would continue to come.

Within a month of taking the billboards down what had been downturn turned into a disaster. The customers stopped coming. So the farmer sent his daughter off to a city job and put the billboards back up. Business returned to normal.

Just think of SEO has an Internet billboard telling potential customers about your business.