PR 101

One of the newest – and seemingly fastest growing – social media trends is the rapid increase in the number of social location sites. Sites such as Foursquare, Scoville, Gowalla, and Loopt seek to allow people to tell their friends where they are 24/7.

The sites are supposed to help people keep track of their friends and what they are doing. For businesses, the idea is that if you or I see a number of our friends going to eat at a particular restaurant or watching the same movie, we will be inspired to do the same. That is supposed to increase the business’ sales.

It doesn’t appear to me that people are using those sites as their creators’ intended. Two things seem to be happening.

The first is that people are not just sharing a new restaurant or a good movie. No, they are listing everywhere they go and everything they do. Some of the things I have been notified about are that people are going for run, stopping to buy gas, grocery shopping, going to their office, and a myriad of other things. I can literally track some people through their entire day.

The only thing I haven’t yet seen – and I assume this will happen sooner or later – is someone will notify the world they have stopped to use the restroom.

The second thing that seems to be happening is many users seem to be dropping out of the services after they use them for a time. I suspect that people out on a Saturday night just forget to notify everyone where they are and what they are doing. I have noticed that some people used to notify of every step they took (my apologies to Sting) seem to have disappeared.

What is happening to these sites illustrates one of the pitfalls of social media. Some people seem not to have any kind of brake on their postings. They tell the world everything they are doing. I am not a psychiatrist so I cannot give you a professional analysis of why they do that.

However, it does seem to me to be a trifle narcissistic to constantly announce what you are doing and where you are doing it. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I really don’t care if you are at the gas station.

This is causing what I believe is another detrimental effect. I get so many notifications from people that they clog up my inbox. I tend to delete them because of that. I just don’t have time to go through all of them.

That means that if by chance someone does go to restaurant or movie in which I am interested, I am not likely to see it. That’s not good if you own a business. It means your message is getting buried.

Yes, I know that social media marketing calls for businesses to cede control of their brand to consumers. However, if I were a business owner, I would not cede my brand to a bunch of people who spend their time clogging up others’ in-boxes. That would seem to be counterproductive.

That’s just one more reason social media marketing has to be carefully targeted toward and audience and a goal. It should be used as a scalpel, not a meat ax.

Although the use of Social Media for many businesses is growing like a weed in my backyard, there is still much resistance and lack of knowledge what about it can do. I run into this all of the time. The chief executive officer wants to see his name in The Wall Street Journal, not in a blog. The chief marketing officer has been using traditional media for his entire career. It seems to be working, so why switch?

Besides, isn’t it just a bunch of tweens, teens and 20-somethings who use those sites? I often hear from executives that my daughter and her friends use Facebook all of the time. My son seems to be constantly playing games online with his friends. Does anyone seriously think I can sell my industrial widgets to that demographic?

After they say that, they are going to lean back into their chair. You had better be able to make that sales pitch.

The first thing you should do is explain pull marketing. In brief, Pull marketing is not about pulling consumers in; it’s about giving consumers a reason to opt into a company. Consumers are in control; they decide where they go and what they experience.

Pull marketing means that companies go to clients, join their communities, give them reasons to voluntarily draw the company into their personal media experiences. They’re opting into the companies, not the other way around. Companies are being forced to give up some control over their brands.

That’s a hard concept of many companies to swallow. For decades, marketers have had it their way. This idea of giving up control makes the leadership nervous. Remember, most leaders are numbers people – accountants, engineers, and the like. They think they can control all the variables that go into selling their product.

Frankly, that’s nonsense. Marketing is an unpredictable thing. Anyone who says differently is naïve, lying, or has their head stuck in the sand. The best that can be hoped for is to reduce the chances of something going wrong.

Social media provides a better chance of that.

Why? Because normally the whole marketing campaign is created at an agency where six 20-something creatives couple their work with a 30-something senior account director, who in turn reports to a 40-something vice-president, who then takes the concept to the client’s 50-something chief marketing officer, who approves it. Throw in a focus group or two, and maybe two dozen people have signed off on the idea. It is then fired like an artillery shell into the general public with the idea that it will hit its target. The hope is the “explosion” will be big enough to sell the product.

Consumers these days, in general, are smart enough to get out of the way. That’s why more and more traditional campaigns fail.

So what needs to be done is to show the company’s leaders the facts on traditional campaign failures. The numbers are out there. I see no reason to repeat them here.

As I said, most CEOs are numbers people. They want everything the company invests time and money in to be quantifiable. That can also be done with social media. Again the numbers are there. I would suggest going to Hubspot – the Cambridge, Mass.-based social media wizards. They have all the facts and figures you need.

Be prepared to gently push back. There will be skeptics. A lot of old line-marketing people feel threatened by social media. As I said, to them it something “those kids” use. Well, I am older than most of the marketers and I think social media is the way to go.

Remember, social media is here to stay. Be gentle, be patient, but be firm when selling it.

There has been a running debate in the LinkedIn group Social Media Today about whether a picture should be included with LinkedIn profiles. So far there have been 612 comments made on this topic. It is one of the largest debates I have seen in my three years on LinkedIn.

Let me tell you where I stand – I am very reluctant to connect with someone who does not include a picture. I am active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, YouTube, Plaxo and a number of other sites. You will find my mug on every site that asks for it. My feeling is the more information one provides, the better.

Although I have not read every comment in the photo debate – who has the time – those taking the time to write something seem to be split 50-50 on the question. What amazes me is that people are writing fairly long posts on the issue. Of course, like most of these discussions, it wanders off course and ends up being filled with invective.

As an aside, I am continually amazed how people are willing to say things on the ‘Net that they would never say to a person’s face. Someone needs to write an “Emily Post” for the web.

Getting back to my main point, providing as much information about yourself and company is extremely important. Let me count the ways:

• A company that would like to do business is going to do its homework. That means they are going to gather as much information as possible about your business. Make it easy for them. It is human nature to favor the easiest path. If you make them search too much, they are going to look at some other company.
• The same goes for those of you looking for a job. The last statistic I saw showed that 85 percent of human resources people go to LinkedIn first. Besides making it easier, the more information you provide, the better. When things are missing, those make hiring tend to get suspicious.
  • A note about running pictures for those job seekers who, like me, are aging. I have heard the argument that we have a better chance with hiring managers if they don’t see our picture. So what are you going to do when you go to the interview? From your resume alone they are going to figure out how old you are. To me, it is a form of lying not to include a picture.
• The more information provided, the higher your company’s search ranking. That is, of course, if you provide the information with SEO in mind. Of course, you want that higher ranking so more people can find your business.

Now I know many people argue that won’t provide some information because of the fear of identity theft. Well, unfortunately, an identity thief doesn’t need your online profile. There is so much information floating around out there about all of us that it is impossible to keep much things secret anymore.

Of course, no one should post such things as their birthday. That’s just common sense. But one of the things you give up when you go on the Web is a lot of your privacy. It is just world we live in.

So lean into it and post that picture and all the other information. It is going to help much more than it will hurt.