I have previously written about selling social media to a company, but that’s only the first step. There is more to be done after completing the initial sale than there was before the sale.

We who do social media full-time forget what a culture change it is for most organizations. Not just for those people in the C-Suite, but for everyone down to, and including, the receptionist. Remember, up until to about six years ago, most employees didn’t have to worry about social media or marketing their company in any way.

“Too often, people from company “A” will recognize great success that company “B” is having by doing XYZ with social media,” Blogger Adam Christensen wrote. “So, logically, they decide to do the same at company A. But the results are dramatically different. Why? Because they didn’t account for the corporate culture variable which is inevitably different between the two companies.”

Christensen is currently the director of social and digital communications and marketing at Juniper Networks in San Francisco. Until April, he worked for IBM in communications and marketing where he led IBM’s social business strategy and execution globally. He worked on projects including IBM’s Watson and Smarter Planet.

So first, what is corporate culture and how’s it formed?

Well, corporate culture is essentially an internal brand. It doesn’t exist until the majority of people at the company buy into it. The company’s leadership and employees who have the same values and assumptions about their place of work create it. Although it can awhile for a company to form a culture, once formed it can be difficult to change.

Why? Because it provides a sense of belonging and safety to the people who work there. Remember, in every company there are the written and the unwritten rules. The unwritten rules are that which forms the culture. By following both sets, especially the unwritten one, an employee can generally minimize surprises and things out of the ordinary.

The problem is that same culture can keep a company from taking the calculated risks they need to stay viable. Consider the bookseller Borders or the video rental company Blockbuster. While I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened to each, I know from being a customer of each that their cultures were wedded to a way of doing business that was clearly no longer viable.

Those examples are not going to stop other companies from making the same mistakes. Staying in one place is usually the normal human state.

So along comes someone like myself telling the leaders and employees they need to adopt social media if they want to remain in business. Yes, they know about Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the other social media sites. They might even say they want to do it. But it still means a huge culture change.

So what do you do? Well, first it takes an intensive education program. You need to show everyone how social media works and what it can do for the company. You need to show each employee how they fit into the plan.

You also need to get their input. You need to find out what they are comfortable with and what they are willing to start with. As I always say, you have to crawl before you can walk.

Once you and the leadership feels that employees are ready to dip into social media, start out internally. Set up internal blogs, an employee Wiki and other applications. Let as many employees as possible play, learn, grow, build relationships, and develop the needed collective awareness. Once the employees are comfortable with it, take it public. It will work then.

Here’s the first thing that we all should remember – social media doesn’t kill careers, people using social media kill careers. Oh and you can add companies into that also. Social media can also wound them pretty severely.

You must be a monk living in a Nepalese cave if you don’t know what Wiener did. According to ABC News Weiner admitted Monday he had “engaged in ‘several inappropriate’ electronic relationships with six women over three years, and that he publicly lied about a photo of himself sent over Twitter to a college student in Seattle over a week ago.”

The overall lesson in all of this is think before you do anything on the Internet. I am not sure why it is, but many people do not consider the consequences of their actions when posting on the web. I mean does anyone think a sitting US Representative would post a picture of his junk on his office wall? Of course not. Yet when people get on the Internet, they seem to think that the same rules don’t apply. They don’t ask that question I always urge clients to ask before doing anything – “what if … ?”

I don’t get it. Research indicates the average post initially reaches approximately 150 people. If each of those 150 people sends out the same post and it reaches another 150 people each, over 22,000 people will see it and so on. You see how fast something goes viral.

So why do Weiner and others do inappropriate things on the web? I think it is because they don’t understand the power of the Internet. A lot of people don’t get it. They think they are somehow anonymous when they post. Well, they aren’t.

Here’s the second lesson to be learned from this: “three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” That is one of my favorite Ben Franklin quotes. I use it when I discuss crisis communications.

Weiner has been touted as one of the more Social Media savvy members of Congress. Yeah, and I am scheduled to perform brain surgery tomorrow. Did he honestly think that those pictures would stay private?

It is hard to believe that anyone doesn’t know that once you enter the Social Media realm, privacy is surrendered. Anything you put on the Internet is accessible to anyone who wants to see it. If it is something salacious or embarrassing that pretty much guarantees it will go viral. We humans seem to revel in spreading that around. We really like it when it happens to someone who we feel thinks they are smarter than us.

There is the third lesson to come out of this. This is one is about crisis communications. In today’s Internet-based world, you have about an hour or so to respond to a crisis. You cannot wait more than that to formulate a response to whatever happens. In fact, if you decide to do something stupid like tweet pictures of your body parts to college student females, you had better have your story all set to go before you tweet.

Seriously, companies today have about an hour today to put out the fire. That’s why I always urge clients to have a crisis communications plan in place. They need to be monitoring Social Media 24 hours a day, seven days a week to catch those small fires. Wait any longer than that and it’s too late.

If Weiner had come out right away and said, “yes, it’s me. It was a stupid thing to do and I am sorry I did it” the story would have flared and died. Instead, he waited way too long to respond.

As my father used to say: “there is no sense in being stupid unless you show people how stupid you are.” We Coles are sarcastic people. What the Internet has done is expand the opportunities to demonstrate that stupidity.

Why did it fail? Because despite the sometimes dozens of leads generated for those local dealerships, the salespeople didn’t buy into it. What they wanted was instant gratification, Strong explained. They didn’t want to cultivate those potential sales, none of which were guaranteed to buy a vehicle. What they wanted was someone to walk into the dealership who wanted to buy a car immediately, he said.

Many of those listening to the presentation faulted the salespeople. How could they not want to accept a bunch of leads handed to them on that proverbial platter? Boy, those men and women were lazy, many said.

Well, I disagree – they weren’t lazy. I think it was just that no one sat down and walked them through how social media works. Not just how this sales program worked, which I believe was demonstrated, but how social media in its entirety works.

Look I know social media is taking over marketing. Still, it is only about five or six years old. To a lot of people it is new and somewhat scary. It is such a shift in the way things have been done that it still hard for many of the rank and file to grasp.

A lot of that has to do with the Great Recession. Companies from coast-to-coast cut employees. No one wanted to stand out for fear they would be the next one out the door. So they hunkered down in their cubicles, did what they were told, and did nothing to attract attention. The Japanese have a saying that goes “the nail that stands out is hammered down.” No one wanted to be that nail.

This was not an atmosphere that lent itself to creativity and risk taking.

Chrysler’s management loved and endorsed this program, Strong said. Unlike many CEOs and CMOs, Chrysler’s management actually got it. I think being the smallest U.S. auto manufacturer gave management the impetus to try something new.

Well, as Shakespeare said, “there’s the rub.” Given what’s been going on for the past three years in corporate America, do you think most people actually trust management? It appears to be no one bothered to get buy in from the people who would be the beneficiaries from the program.

Getting buy in does not mean just mean explaining this new marketing program. It means starting at zero and showing employees the benefits of social media. It cannot be assumed that they know what’s going on just because you tell them it is going to work.

Let me give you an analogy from own family’s history. My grandmother grew up on a dairy farm in upstate New York in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. For most of the time when she was a girl, her father used a team of horses to power the farm. The horses were used for everything from pulling the plow to taking the family into town.

As the farm grew more prosperous and larger, the horses could no longer handle plowing the growing acreage. So the men on the farm debated what to do. This was a tough decision. We take these things for granted nowadays, but in 1920 a growing, sparking, loud tractor was a scary concept. Apparently only after the three men had decided unanimously – with buy-in from the women – that a tractor was needed was a purchase made. The key here was everyone agreed about the need and understand the benefits.

This is what companies need to do. Even if the CEO and CMO agree on the need to a new way of marketing, it is doesn’t mean the employees will understand the need. The days of top down management are gone. That Chrysler program demonstrated that to me. Employees have to be shown and convinced that something new will work. Otherwise the entire effort is a waste of time, money and effort.

First, it is wrong, and frankly almost impossible, to block employees from using social media use during work hours. As a social media agency, the people who work at JJC Communications are supposed to be using social media. It is one of the things we do for clients, so we be better be doing it.

Yes, you can block access to any site on your company’s system. But if your employees have their own smart phones; they have access during the day. Or they can just go home at night and say what they want. As technology advances, it is getting easier and easier for them to do it anonymously. Better to have them do it where you can monitor what they do.

Actually, a lot of good can come from allowing your employees access to the Internet. Your employees are your brand ambassadors. They have much more credibility with the general public than your advertising ever will. When I see an employee using their company’s products, I assume they take pride in what they do. That’s a powerful selling point.

There is fear among a lot of senior executives about letting their people access Facebook, or Tweet, do something else during work hours. There are concerns it will turn into a timewaster, an employee will reveal some company secret, or get the company in legal trouble.

Let me deal with those three:

• Show me an employee who doesn’t waste at least some time doing something other than work. In my time, I have run fantasy baseball pools; participated in chair races; figured out my NCAA pool entries and done a dozen other things that would not be considered productive labor. Wouldn’t you rather your employee posting something good about your company instead of playing Angry Birds?
• Every company who allows Internet access has to have – let me repeat that – has to have a manual for Internet use. The U.S. Air Force’s policy is that if a 19-year-old is old enough to die for their country, he or she is old enough to blog or use Facebook. However, each member of the Air Force is issued a manual that covers the do’s and don’ts of Internet use. Break any of those rules and an Airman will have serious explaining to do to their commanding officer.
• As for legal trouble, it is true the Internet is the Wild West of the law. How do you deal with a situation where your employee rips a company in Singapore? That employee might have violated the law in Singapore, but not in the United States. Where do the various doctrines of U.S. law enter the picture? My feeling that Internet is going end up being governed by something akin to Admiralty law, which determines the rule for the oceans. At any rate, here I always urge clients to error on the sign of caution. Make sure that Internet use manual includes a section on U.S. law.

One more thing about the manual. As part of any employee orientation, spend some time going over your Internet policy. Make sure every employee signs something acknowledging they know and understand the policy.

We at the agency do not allow completely open access. Accessing any pornographic, racist, or extremist sites is going to get an employee into a whole heap of trouble. People are told that when they get hired. We monitor those kinds of things. Of course, there is no criticizing clients publically. That would obviously be counterproductive. There is no revealing anything we are working on until we are ready to make it public.

In addition, there is no discussing any other employee either internally or externally. We also expect employees not libel or slander anyone. The AP Stylebook has an excellent section on libel and slander.

We have other rules, but they are designed to make things clearer, not more difficult.

The bottom line is that the Internet is something that never sleeps, never stops and is always accessible. It better to learn how to swim then forbid your employees to jump into the water. Remember, forbidden fruit, and forbidden access, just makes people want something more.

One of the things came up on the search was the young man’s Twitter feed. My friend told me to describe this feed as scatological would be understating things. This feed made my friend immediately decide this student was not nearly mature enough to handle a work environment. She decided anyone that would tweet in great deal about relationships clearly needed to grow up before attempting a leap into the real world.

You might read about the Buckingham Palace guard who posted some very inappropriate things about his royal bosses on Facebook. The United Kingdom’s Press Association reported that Scots Guardsman Cameron Reilly, 18, who usually stands guard outside the royal palace, called Prince William’s bride-to-be a “posh b****” and other nasty names on Facebook.

ABC news reported that Reilly reportedly wrote, “hur and william drove past me on friday n all a got was a sh*tty wave while she looked the opposite way from me, stupid stuck up cow am a not good enough for them! posh b**** am totally with u on this 1 who reely gives a f*** about hur”.

Reilly also posted anti-Semitic and racist comments on his Facebook page, the Press Association reported. The Ministry of Defense is reportedly investigating the claims and has removed Reilly from his wedding day duties. I don’t know what happens in the British Army when one screws up like that, but I am guessing young Mr. Reilly will soon be guarding the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. The Scots say that’s where the Lord tests his storms before unleashing them on the rest of the Earth. Not always a pleasant place to be.

At any rate, these are two examples of what I hammer constantly to clients and groups when I speak. The key thing to remember is that nothing is ever private on the net. Number two, trust no one among your followers.

Once you have more than say 100 followers on Twitter, Facebook or any other site your are not going to know all of them personally. They might like you, they might not. Post something that is critical or offensive and one of those “friends” might decide to share it with the world.

Forrester Research estimates that one post on a social media site reaches approximately 150 people. If 10 of those people repeat the post, there is a potential of reaching 1,500 people. And if they repeat it and so on, your seemingly private comment has gone viral. It could also be an embarrassing picture or video. Those tend to spread even faster.

As I always clients, don’t do anything stupid because it will hang around forever. Remember the words of Ben Franklin” three can keep a secret – if two are dead.”

The old model emphasized individuality, the star system. Company’s now know that to enhance creativity it is important to create a culture that fosters it. Companies that create an atmosphere of support, innovate and creativity will be the ones that lead their industries. It will also lead to happier employees, something I would think every company wants.

When people in companies and teams feel engaged, the benefits are significant. Towers Watson (formerly Towers Perrin), the global professional services firm, interviewed 90,000 employees in 18 countries, and found companies with high employee engagement had a 19 percent increase in operating income and almost a 28 percent growth in earnings per share. Conversely, companies with low levels of engagement saw operating income drop more than 32 percent and earnings per share decline over 11 percent.

The old idea was that as you went up the hierarchy, somehow you got smarter. Leadership was viewed as the ability to tell people what to do, not to listen employees. In every innovative company today, that idea has gone away. Now the mantra is “all of us are smarter than one of us.”

Companies such as Zappos Shoes, Starbucks Dunkin’ Donuts, Apple, Southwest Airlines and many others have found success comes from dialog, not lectures.

While it should be obvious why internal communication is so important, I often find company leaders don’t get it. Here’s why – a Harvard Business School study found that the less information a company provides its employees, the more likely they are to start and spread rumors. It’s simple, nature abhors a vacuum. If that vacuum is not filled with real information, someone is going to fill it with male bovine excrement.

Now, I am sure all of your companies work to put out the correct information. But there are obstacles: ensuring employees just don’t just delete the email, then ensuring that they open it, and that they read the entire message. If that all happens, you still have to hope employees take the time to think and understand the messages so they are able to respond appropriately.  That’s why there has to be a face-to-face component of communications either with individuals or in a group.

However, face-to-face meeting are not as always effective as companies would like to think. When I was a reporter I covered crime in Detroit and its suburbs. I learned something  then from police officers that still applies – there is nothing so unreliable as an eyewitness. People hear and interpret the same message in different ways.

Plus, logistics can get in the way of face-to-face meetings. I work with a multinational company that has offices in the U.S., China, India and England. How can a company like that hold face-to-face meetings with its employees?

Social media can solve those problems change. Instead of sending out that mass email or posting on the company Intranet in hopes people will take the time to read it, social media provides tools help employees actively participate in creating and sharing information. It is a much better way to get people to listen and understand what you are saying.

Of course, I know social media scares a lot of senior executives. They worry it will affect productivity. They are concerned about allowing employees to create content. The IT department often has a dozen reasons why employees should not be allowed to use social media.

Another fear I often hear is that my employees are going to use the new tools to complain about the company. Yeah, they are going to do that. That’s a good thing. Who you would rather have an employee complain to – someone in the company who can fix the problem – or their friends?

As I said before, all of us are smarter than one of us. From an employee’s complaint could come a solution to a long-standing problem. What this all means is that you can be internal ambassadors and facilitators for your company. Social media gives you the ability to do that. You can hear about and solve problems before they blow up.

It’s high time that a C-level individual engaged in social media, and – once and for all –created a high-level overview and synopsis, crystallizing all of the strategic benefits and critical value streams, and distilling them into a language that speaks to executives everywhere in our native tongue – bottom line stakeholder value. So here you go. I’ve done the work for you. What follows is an “Executive Summary” of my findings.

Social Media Value #1:  Unfiltered Feedback

As you already know, some of the scarcest (rarest) yet most valuable information a CEO can obtain is honest, unfiltered feedback. Think about it. You interact all day with managers, employees, and handlers working to keep the boss happy and therefore keep their job. Sure, being surrounded by “Yes men” can be more comfortable, but it can also insulate you from the stark realities of your business. If done correctly, social media enables CEO’s to hear raw, candid feedback from real people – people who aren’t afraid of being fired because they CAN’T be fired. The truth is, leaders with their ego in check are already fully aware that they work for the customer – the customer is his boss – so if the customer doesn’t like dropped calls on their iPhone or the sauce on their Domino’s pizza, it’s their job to make it better.

Now, every customer is not always right (or wrong), but if 850 out of 1000 user comments say tthe new Sketcher’s Sport shoe caused them to sprain their ankle, then something needs to be fixed – and fast! CoolCleveland’s Founder Thomas Mulready is a perfect example of a CEO with this customer orientation. After emailing out his weekly eMagazine for 7 years, he decided that it needed to be updated, and set about introducing a new format with much fanfare. In doing so, he also did something revolutionary – he asked all 90,000 of his readers for feedback on what they thought of the new style – and boy did they reply with scores of comments submitted over the span of a few days. But then he did something else revolutionary – he actually listened, modifying and improving the new site to reflect reader tastes and preferences. Yes, it takes humility (“Who are these people to give me feedback?  I invented this product! Don’t they know they can just click the links?) but the end result is an engaged audience who now feel genuinely empowered to provide even more feedback, emboldened by the knowledge that their comments actually impact (and can improve) the end product.

Social Media Value #2:  Authenticity

Hand-in-hand with the unfiltered feedback above is the ability to leverage social media to authentically communicate with your employees, partners, customers (and non-customers), investors, and media, directly engaging all of your brand ambassadors efficiently and economically. Rather than layers of staff, spokespeople, and sterile press releases, social media now offers an elegant and effective medium for disseminating information either “straight from the heart” or “straight from the horses’ mouth” depending on your preferred idiom. Dan Gilbert’s recent LeBron James “rant” would qualify as both, capturing the owners’ anger, frustration, and competitive resolve just moments after James’ announced his departure. As you’ve probably noticed, nobody can tell the company story and embody the company brand like the CEO (think Steve Jobs) and by offering the ability to immediately and directly engage stakeholders – whether on a typical day, during a product launch, and/or especially during a time of crisis – social media provides an invaluable medium for maximizing brand value and minimizing potential brand degradation. Social media helps firms “keep it real” but couches it in a positive brand-reinforcing context.

Social Media Value #3: Six Sigma (Low Cost)

In case you were wondering, executives LOVE things like Six Sigma because:

1. It reminds us of our Greek fraternity days in college.

2. The other soccer dad’s don’t understand Value Stream Mapping.

3. Six Sigma and lean processes are all about speed and cost sacvings, two of our favorite topics.

By its very architecture, social media is positioned to leverage firms’ Six Sigma orientation by expediting interactions, exchanges, customer service, feedback loops, product launches, marketing, and advertising, and enabling it at a fraction of the cost of traditional media, to a much more targeted audience, and in a far more nuanced and contextual value exchange. Social media options allow your message distribution format to evolve from shotgun to sniper, from billboard to message board, and from broadcast to narrowcast.  Plus, it takes your marketing posture from a one-way, blanketing, bullhorn approach to a more intimate, just-in-time interaction; offering the opportunity for a more detailed, valuable and more profitable conversation and connection with your audience (and you don’t need a Black Belt to do it).

Social Media Value #4:  Balancing Transparency AND Privacy

The only thing worse than not using social media tools is using them in the wrong way. Your firm could very easily invest time and money on social media, and then end up spending even more time and money doing damage control because you did it wrong the first time – talk about a lose-lose situation. With social media, there’s a “right way” and a “wrong way” to do things – so if you’re going to do it, do it right. Remember, anywhere-anytime-anyone social media channels must be handled as the “nuclear options” that they are, with the capability to destroy your brand value in a single Twitter, email, or YouTube video that goes viral.

With great power comes great responsibility, and a healthy respect for the global reach and impact of social media must emanate directly from the CEO, who knows better than anyone that the same programs allowing firms to connect and influence the marketplace can also be turned against you to alienate them. And just as social media can provide the market with a transparent window into the soul of your company, it can also showcase you at your worst, doing more harm than good.  Let’s face it, your firm is already dabbling in social media as it is – so you might as well manage your risk and liability by codifying corporate expectations, establishing specific ground rules, and educating your stakeholders regarding proper use of these seemingly innocent yet powerful tools.

Social Media Value #5: Supporting Statistics

Executives rely on market research to support and substantiate any designated course of action, and devour facts, stats, and data-points like shrimp at a wedding reception. Summarized below are a few statistics buttressing the explosion of this social media trend, and detailing how Corporate America is leveraging it to realize significant revenue and market share growth going forward.

• In the last 7 years, Internet usage has increased 70 percent a year. Spending for digital advertising this year will be more than $25 billion and surpass print advertising spending (forever)

• Lenovo has experienced a 20 percent reduction in activity to their call center since they launched their community website for customers
• Blendtec quintupled sales with its “Will it Blend” series on YouTube
• Only 18 percent of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• Naked Pizza set a one-day sales record using social media: 68 percent of their sales and 85 percent of their new customers came via Twitter.
• Software company Genius.com reports 24 percent of social media leads convert to sales opportunities,
• Dell has already made over $7 million in sales via Twitter.
• Thirty-seven percent of Generation Y heard about the Ford Fiesta via social media before its launch in the US and currently 25 percent of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on digital/social media.
• Seventy-one percent of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40 percent.
• A recent Wetpaint/Altimeter Group study found companies that widely engage in social media surpass their peers in both revenue and profit.

(Sources for Statistics: meyersreport.com, lenovosocial.com, George Wright, Blendtec, Mashable.com, econsultancy.com, businessweek.com )

Getting Your Board On Board

Lest we forget, even the Boss has a Boss – they’re called the Board of Directors – and these are the people that recruit and hire CEO’s for the purpose of serving as a charismatic and visionary leader of their organization. And so I urge you, don’t disappoint them when it comes to leveraging social media within your organization. The “Bang for the Buck” value proposition is too compelling to ignore, and the fact is – your competitors are already entering this arena and establishing new service baseline norms and minimum threshold expectations – so standing still amounts to losing ground and therefore is not an option. What you need is a plan.

Do I still hate social media?  No, but I’m only going to embrace it on the “executive terms” that have served me so well to this point in my career and they are, “If you’re going to do something, go all in and do it right.”  From now on, all social media, social marketing, and social networking will be discussed in the context – not of a campaign (which starts and ends) – but as part of an ongoing, strategic, and systematic dialog with our stakeholders and marketplace.

Executives have the focus and vision to road map strategies playing out three, five, and 10 years into the future. But, we’re also “plodders” and are comfortable with short, measured, consistent steps – day in and day out – as long as we know that they are aligned with reaching a desired goal. When we discuss your social media strategy, the focus will be on consistency and sustainability over the long haul. Remember, executives don’t have the ego needs, risk profiles, or the time to be on the bleeding edge, or even the cutting edge. We just want it to work.

I can confidently predict that every month for the next 100 years there will be a new “Must Have” application, portal or community that one of your employees will discover, and then try to convince you that your company will implode if you don’t immediately join, link, or Retweet. In five years, all but three of these ideas will probably be forgotten.  During our meeting, we will discuss how to frame out an enterprise-wide social media strategy, predicated on the foundation of proven tools and that have stood the test of time and offer “Best-In-Class” results, so that you will be empowered to handle these conversations proactively in the context of a larger road map, rather than reacting to these weekly ambushes in a dismissive defensive way. Remember, our goal for social media is not a lark, but a lifestyle and work-shopping a strategy which builds on stable, scalable tools, yet also affords the flexibility to address unprecedented “Black Swan” technology developments, provides you with a welcome buffer from being whipsawed by a weekly website.  Between the two of us, we’ll finally take that reliable “80/20 Rule” and apply it to social media, and then spend time focusing on the 80 percent of stakeholder value that can be extracted with 20% of the effort (while knowingly and purposefully ignoring the remaining 20 percent of value which takes up 80 percent of the effort).

The Bottom Line

In the Forward of Geoffrey Moore’s bestseller “Crossing the Chasm” Regis McKenna writes:

“Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships. Customers don’t like to be ‘owned’ if that implies lack of choice or freedom. But they do like to be ‘owned’ if what that means is a vendor taking ongoing responsibility for the success of their joint ventures.  Ownership in this sense means an abiding commitment and a strong sense of mutuality in the development of the marketplace. When customers encounter this kind of ownership, they tend to become fanatically loyal to their supplier, which in turns builds a stable economic base for profitability and growth.”

While there will always be a “me” in media – social media, social marketing, and social networking tools were designed to work best as a conduit for enabling information exchange, establishing a dialog, and creating a two-way conversation with your audience. At the end of the day, social media is simply about creating and maintaining relationships – and even and executive can do that.

I have been a writer since I was five-years-old. My first piece was entitled “The Eagle That Had Acrophobia.” It was the first writing assignment I was ever given. It came from my kindergarten teacher toward the end of the year. I think the assignment was given to us to test how much we knew about writing and reading. I am not sure the content mattered that much. At any rate, I got a gold star for using all of the words correctly.

That was my first lesson in writing. Always make sure every word is used and spelled properly. Now, I still have not attained that proper state of writing, although I get closer everyday. I am getting closer because I care deeply about excellent writing and I work hard at it.

Which brings me to the point of this screed – how much just plain lazy and incorrect writing I see everyday. Now, I am not talking about typos. To me that’s an honest mistake. The key to read reread so they can be detected and corrected.

No, what I am talking about is the incorrect use of words, run-on sentences, sloppy logic, and just plain bad writing.

Look, social media demands good writing. I am not saying you have to be a Mark Twain or an Ernest Hemingway. I am saying all of the writing posted has to make sense.

Tell me if you can think of a social media application where the use of language is not important. For instance, every study I have read says blogging is the most effective social media application. Well, a blog has to be written, doesn’t it? Twitter demands clear, concise writing if a  thought is going to be stated clearly in 140 characters. For a YouTube video to make sense, the person speaking has to do it such a way that viewers can understand.

Yet, everyday I hear people talking about “building a new building.” Who builds an old building? Or look at the “new baby.” Ever seen an old baby – in the literal sense? Or one of my favorites – “this door alarmed.” How can one tell if a door is upset?

The other night I was watching the local news in Milwaukee. The newscaster talked about the “tragic death of a five-year-old girl.” Have you ever known the death of a five-year-old not to be tragic? Or “the fire totally engulfed the house.” Look of the definition of the world engulfed – “totally” is not needed.

I did a web search and found sterling examples of bad writing, such as:

• PET OF THE WEEK: Nannouk is a 10-week-old Spitz mix female and will grow to be medium sized. She does well inside. Sterilization is mandatory for anyone wanting to take her.
• Operationally, teaching effectiveness is measured by assessing the levels of agreement between the perceptions of instructors and students on the rated ability of specific instructional behavior attributes which were employed during course instruction. Due to the fact that instructors come from diverse backgrounds and occupy different positions within a given university, both individual and organizational based factors may contribute to the variance in levels of agreement between perceptions.
• The man was eating a fish that still had its head on and was drinking red wine in great gulps. The fish’s eyes looked alive.

My thanks to the University of Minnesota-Duluth for the examples. There are a lot more on the university’s website.

I am not going to get into people who don’t know the difference between then and than. Or writers that don’t know when to use who and that. I could go on forever.

Yes, those examples are all funny, but they are also sad. Allegedly educated people who spoke English as their first language wrote those three examples. What the hell is wrong with them?

I just had to rant about this. I know I am fighting a losing battle, but it doesn’t mean I plan to stop.



All of that effort would have gone nowhere if the people charged with integrating social media didn’t take the company’s culture into account, Tim Blair, IBM’s vice-president for Marketing and Communications said. Blair spoke at the PR + Social Media Summit held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Marquette and a number of Wisconsin companies sponsored the summit.

I wanted to hear Blair speak because IBM has a reputation in the social media world of being one of the most open companies when it comes to social media.

What makes this particularly interesting is that IBM is almost a century old. This is a not a Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, or Zappos. Those companies are all fairly new. Their corporate cultures are still forming, so it would seem to me to be easier to incorporate social media.

IBM, on the other hand, used to be known for its rigid corporate culture. When my late brother worked there in the late 1960s, the standard uniform was a white shirt, subdued tie, and gray suit. You did not deviate from that.

For a company such as IBM to change its culture to allow its employees to act as individuals is a stretch. It impressed me that such an institution is willing adopt a new way of doing things. It reminds of how the U.S. is also willing to stretch its culture to allow its members to use social media. The company accomplished because people such as Blair understood what would it take to make the change.

“Social media needs to be derivative of business model and corporate culture,” Blair explained. “Culture always wins. You have to figure out to stretch the culture. Not changing the culture, but stretching it. Social media needs to be a derivative of the business and corporate culture.”

The first step in moving into social media is knowing where a company wants social media to take them. There has be a definition of the destination, Blair said.

“You need to know where are going or you will fail,” Blair said.

Stretching means working to ensure social media becomes a part of it. It is almost impossible to change a corporate culture, Blair said. If you try to do that, you will fail. What needs to be done is to demonstrate how social media will fit into what the company is already doing.

“Social media does fundamentally change how you manage communications,” Blair said. “When I arrived at IBM, communication was very linear. But social media has helped flatten that out.”

IBM now uses social media for internal and external communications, Blair said. It has three primary uses within the company: to flatten communication channels, to help employees learn and to influence the conversation going on among all of IBM’s stakeholders.

As example of internal use, Blair cited the company’s management training program. IBM used to fly all of its managers into its Armonk, N.Y. headquarters for training. It now trains them via the Internet. The training is as effective ever and it saved IBM money, he said.

A key to using social media is empowering employees, Blair said. IBM does not lock its employees out of the Internet. That would be counterproductive, he said.

“At the end of the day, we want to empower everybody, Blair said. “Our brand is experienced by the expertise our employees in the field have with customers. We have to trust those employees.”

Every IBM employee is seeped in the company’s values. That’s important because it ensures those employees will hew to those values when they use social media, Blair said.

In fact, the company’s social media policies – first created in 2005 – were created by the employees. There are now 17,000 blogs written by IBM employees, he said.

There was a learning curve for senior executives, Blair said. They had to shown why it was important to deal with bloggers whom they had never heard of before. It took them awhile to understand the influence bloggers could have, That doesn’t mean the company ignores traditional media, he added. Engaging with the traditional outlets is still important, he said.

As I said, it was impressive. I think a lot of companies can learn from the computer giant did.

So while you can consider this a rant, it is also a warning and a how-to. A rant about why organization and the people who run them don’t try to head off crises; don’t realize what will happen if there isn’t a crisis plan; and a how-to – perhaps avoid the problem.

There are three kinds of crises:

• Immediate crises: Most dreaded type. Happens quickly and unexpectedly. Little time for research and planning. Includes such things as earthquakes, fires, plane crashes, product tampering, workplace shootings, and death of a key officer
• Emerging crises: Allows more time for research and planning. May erupt after festering for long period. Includes such things as sexual harassment, substance abuse, overcharging on contracts. Key is to convince senior management to deal with the problem before it explodes.
• Sustained crises: Problems that smolder for long periods of time, despite best efforts to put out the fire. Rumors go viral, getting reported in the media, tweeted about, posted on Facebook, written about by bloggers and other social media sites. Examples include P & G being in league with Satan, that fluoridated water is dangerous or that some childhood vaccines lead to autism.

Obviously, there isn’t anyway to anticipate the sudden crisis. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a general plan – a framework – in place to deal with it and whatever happens. How many companies have you seen scramble in the first hours after a crisis happens? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Planning for a specific crisis is not possible. Planning on to handle crises is and should be done.

That’s why I am always amazed when I see a company like Toyota get in trouble. Here is one of the smartest marketers on the face of the planet. Yet, they create a crisis because they don’t listen to their customers’ complaints. Clearly they didn’t have a crisis communication plan in place. That’s just dumb. The list of companies that have done the same thing would fill two blogs.

What all those companies lacked was a scout, someone whose job it was to keep his or ear to the ground (and Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). If you keep any eye on what’s going on out there, you can avoid a lot of problems. The idea is to identify the grass fire and put it out before it becomes a forest fire.

Sometimes crises happen despite an organization’s best efforts. That’s when the plan comes in. Knowing what to do is half the battle.

Remember, as Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “The plan is nothing; planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of ‘emergency’ is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.”

As a note: reporters cannot accept anything of value. It is against most publication’s ethics code. So don’t send anything. Anything I received went to charity if possible. If it was food, it went to a food bank. If it was perishable food or beer (hey, I work in Milwaukee) I shared with the entire newsroom. I always said – maybe I have my price, but other than Bill Gates, I doubt anyone could pay it. A box of cookies wasn’t going to influence me.

When I left journalism just over seven years, I went to work for any agency run by a former reporter. It was a great place to learn. Like everyone else, I did the traditional things one does in P.R. and marketing. The only difference for me was that my pitches and writing were better. I had a good track record there and at my next job.

The appearance of social media four years ago changed everything. It was also when I learned that traditional public relations and social media go very well together. I had a client that couldn’t get employees to open emails. After doing some research, we decided to a series of podcasts. The podcasts were very successful. It wasn’t even called social media then, the usual title was Web 2.0

The employees found out about the podcasts through the traditional channels. There was an announcement in the company’s newsletter; each department head received a written announcement to read to their employees. We also got some press coverage because at the time what we did was unique.

Without going into a lot of tedious detail, I soon learned when I went out my own that social media is becoming the dominant form of marketing. I have done everything I can to learn about it and how to use it. Still, the growing dominance of social media doesn’t mean that there is still not a place for traditional methods.

Do not discount the power of a story on the front page of a local newspaper or on the local television station. While it’s a shrinking group, many people still get their information from traditional media. That includes elected officials. It is silly to ignore those people. They are probably also on line, but what’s wrong with reaching them through multiple channels?

Yes, I advise sending out a social media press release. See last Monday’s blog for the reasons. But it is still a press release. Just in a super-charged form.

Twitter is a great place to release news. Many, many journalist now follow Twitter. Rather than call 50 reporters, you can send out one tweet and get journalists to call you. They might be working for a traditional outlet, but you reached out using social media. See, you married the two methods.

As for employees, I always advise a combination of social media and traditional methods. In any kind of many workplaces, manufacturing, retails, and others, employees are not going to have constant access to the Internet. They probably have it at home, but they are not at home at times when you want to get the word out. If it’s really important, you should have a face-to-face meeting. If it is not that important, but if you want employees to know something, there is nothing wrong with posting a notice where they can see it.

None of this changes my opinion that CEOs should be blogging, companies should have Facebook Fan pages, should be posting videos on YouTube, creating groups on LinkedIn and tweeting company news. That should be the primary focus.

But just as I use a hammer on home improvement projects that first belonged to my grandfather, traditional tools still have a place in marketing and public relations.

The insurance company knew that communicating with the people who sold their products was probably the most important kind of communication they did. People who make or sell a company’s products are the most important ambassadors. If they receive little or no information, or the information is delivered in a way in which they aren’t going to pay attention, there’s a problem. The insurance hit that problem head on.

Companies spend lots of time carefully crafting messages designed to make employees feel part of the effort. And then those companies fall flat on their faces. Why? They forget the second half of the communications equation, one that is as equally important as the message.

What don’t they do? They don’t use a delivery system that ensures their employees will pay attention to the message.

Think how much information you receive on a normal day. It comes at you from everywhere – television, radio, newspapers, emails, websites, social networks and talk around the water cooler. It comes from family, friends, employers, advertisers and a lot of other places. How much of it really stands out? How much do you retain? There is so much noise today that is very hard to stand out.

This insurance company used two primary ways to communicate with its agents and employees: a printed newsletter and email. Company executives thought those were more than adequate. The feedback from agents on the two methods was good – when they heard from the agents. The assumption was that since not much was being heard, things must be okay.

That bubble burst when the company sent out an email detailing changes in the way agents were compensated. Of the 3,000 messages sent, approximately 10 percent were opened. The company was shocked that a message on such an important topic received so little attention. The email got lost in the noise.

So the insurance company’s management came to the agency. They didn’t know what to do. To be honest I didn’t either. So I called a couple of friends who are insurance agents – neither of them handled this company’s products – and asked what the problem was with the company’s methods.

They both told me what I suspected about too many emails. So, I asked what would be a format that would work – how could someone an agent’s attention? One of them had just bought an IPod. He was talking about how cool it was. He then told me how he was downloading things from ITunes called podcasts. I went to ITunes and listened to a few. The light bulb went on.

We did a series of podcasts for the company on a variety of topics. The download rare exceeded 95 percent. We did a survey to ascertain how many people were actually listening. It was around 75 percent. The insurance company said it was the highest rate of communication they ever had.

What about that 25 percent who didn’t download or listen? We reached them through the printed newsletter. That’s an equally valid method.

The takeaway from this is simple: when you want to reach your employees, really reach them, you need to find a method that works. You need to use multiple methods. No one method is perfect.

Let me cover the methods I suggest to clients:

* Face-to-face communication. This is still one of the most effective, and surprisingly, underused methods. People like to hear news and information from another human being. There is also a lot more credibility when it is coming from trusted manager. With today’s technology, the speaker and the listeners can be 10,000 miles apart. It is still face-to-face. One thing about that – if your company has multiple offices, make sure employees can “talk back” and ask questions. It is not that hard, there are many websites that provide the software for that. I think it is underused because many managers don’t want to face tough questions.
* As I just showed, a podcast or a video podcast, called a Vlog. The advantage of that is people can download and listen at their leisure. But again, have some way people can ask questions. It is pretty simple to put a Q & A forum on a website.
* A printed newsletter. Many employees still like to receive something they can hold in their hands.
* A blog written by senior management. If possible, the CEO should write it. There are CEOs that already do that, most notably Jonathan Schwartz,  president and CEO, Sun Microsystems; Craig Newmarkk, CEO, Craig’s List, and Mark Cuban, chairman, HDNet and owner Dallas Mavericks owner. Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh is particularly famous for his blog. They have all said is good way to talk to their people.
* A company Wiki. Employees can post information about experiences or problems they’ve had and how they dealt with them. That saves a lot of time and trouble.

There is one more method I am going to blog out next week – social media. It is starting to trump every other form of communication. But you are going to have to wait on that one.

I post this every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’s a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

Within approximately five minutes of that memo going out, reporters were calling the company to inquire about the layoffs. That memo had not been made public by any of Rockwell’s official channels – it’s senior management, its public relations staff or anyone else with the authority to do so.

Therein lies the key rule of employee communications: never, ever tell your employees anything you don’t want to be made public. Employee communications should be treated exactly the same as external communications. There is no longer any difference, if there ever was.

Employees are your ambassadors. It is important that they trust the company, its management and the direction the company is going. An employee who feels he or she is being kept in the loop will usually feel the company cares about them. That in turn will ensure they will say good things about your company. That is a very effective third party endorsement.

Put another way, employee communications serve management best when it shows empathy for, and understanding of, employees.

Rockwell understands that. The memo announcing the layoffs was written as if it was going to be made public – because senior management knew it would be. The memo was composed in a way that relayed Rockwell’s key messages. Writing the memo with the key messages ensured the company had no need to issue an additional press release. It also ensured every employee received and disseminated the same message.

Rockwell showed its moxie in another way. It was honest with its employees about the state of the company. That’s smart internal communications. The days that a company could only tell its employees happy news are long gone. There are just too many outlets from which employees will hear about the state of their company. Employees expect candor and honesty from their bosses. Not giving them that risks creating a disgruntled workforce. A disgruntled workforce can severely wound a company. It can make the difference between recovery and failure.

When I worked as a reporter in Detroit, I was always struck by the difference between General Motors and Ford workers. While both companies had their labor issues, I never heard a Ford employee knock the company to an outsider. It seemed to be a family atmosphere. Inside the family, they might be trying to punch other’s lights out. But, they always presented a united front to the outside world. General Motors employees, on the other hand, seemed to have contests to see who could say worse things about their employer.

I think that came down to the attitude each company’s management had toward its employees. Ford was, and is still very much, a creature of the Ford family. They treat their employees like part of the family. GM does not.

As the American auto industry struggles for survival, it seems that Ford has turned the corner and will again prosper. As an outside observer, I fell that is because Ford employees trust their managers. They know what they are hearing is the truth.

Which brings up the next point, making sure the right people receive and believe the messages. Just because it comes from management doesn’t mean employees are going to believe it. It has to be endorsed in the cubicles and on the shop floor.

I speak from personal experience.

Before I became a reporter, I had a number of jobs. I worked for a utility, first in what was called underground (think manholes) and then as a lineman climbing towers. I have also worked in a toy factory, a soda bottling plant, a grocery store and as a bike mechanic.

In every case, I had a foreman. But, on every crew, there was also a worker who had a least as much influence as the foreman. This worker was usually a veteran employee. He or she had worked the job for years, knew the ins and outs, know what one could get away with and what had to be done. This was the person I and everyone else went to with questions. Usually, this person has outlasted several supervisors.

The smart supervisors always made sure they enlisted this person as an ally. If they didn’t, jobs did not go as well as they could have. Just because a supervisor wants something done in a certain way doesn’t mean it is going to happen. The people who are going to carry out the task have to buy into the mission. Put another way, in the Army, officers give orders, sergeants make decisions.

So, it behooves anyone seeking to communicate with a company’s employees to identify those people and bring them into the circle. This is a great way to kill rumors. If the shop floor leaders know what’s going on, they can quash all of the untruths that spread when change is afoot. This used to be called the grapevine. If they trust you, they can also give you an accurate picture of what’s going happening on the shop floor. You will avoid many problems if you know how your employees feel about company issues.

In fact, I recommend drawing a communications chart that includes those people. You leave them out at the company’s peril. Because they can be the roadblock you never see.

Which brings me to my next point, just as you should have a business plan, marketing plan, a communications plan and a crisis communications plan, you should also have an employee communications plan. The format is essentially the same as the other plans: it should have a mission statement; how employee communications will help the company achieve its overall goals; its own goals; strategy and tactics;  a budget; and an evaluation function.

The evaluation should include input from employees – in fact, that’s the most important part. It can be done informally by talking to employees, committees of employees and management can be created or surveys can be done. I usually recommend a combination of the three.

Think of your employees as internal customers. Keep them happy and your company has a much better chance of prospering. Cut them out of the loop, don’t communicate honestly with them and you are laying the foundation of a disaster.

Next week I will talk about the best channels and ways to communicate with employees.

I post this every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’s a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

When I told him no, that account executive made the biggest mistake any public relations person can make – he threatened me and yelled at me. He told me he was going to call The Milwaukee Sentinel’s editor – who he claimed was a close friend – and tell him what a bad journalist I was. Secondly, he screamed at me, telling me I didn’t know what a great story he was giving me.

Not only did this person strike out on that pitch, he took himself out of the game completely. I went to my editor and told him what had occurred. He immediately took this public relations person off the list of people to whom we listened. Yes, there was list. It was informal, but it existed. Second, the overall editor said he had never heard of the guy.

It is pretty obvious what this public relations guy did wrong – everything. I am starting off with this example because a lot of people make some of the same mistakes in dealing with outlets.. I am constantly surprised by how many people have no clue how to pitch a story.

There are several steps you should take before you make the pitch, when you make the pitch, and after you make the pitch. Doing this will not guarantee your story will be published or aired. Nothing can. But it can increase the odds.

Some things to remember before we get into the details. The news media in general is more overworked than ever. They don’t have the time for you to waste their time. And they have less air time and space than ever. They are going to be very selective about what gets published or broadcast.

OK, let’s go over the dos and don’ts of pitching. First, the dos:

* Determine if really it is really a story. The old cliché is true: “dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is.” In other word, a story has to be something new, out of the ordinary, or unusual.

* If you think you have a story, do your research on who you should pitch. Reporters hate it when you don’t know what they cover. I had three primary beats in my career – police, business, and courts. I specialized in a number of things on my business beat. I used to get calls about food, sports and a number of other areas I didn’t cover. Sometimes I would pass the tip on the right reporter, but not always.

* For two reasons, I usually counsel against calling an editor to pitch a story: often times the editor will just refer you to the reporter; and it can make the reporter angry. Reporters often hate it when their editor overrides something they are doing to assign them something else. You want a happy reporter talking to you, not one who feels like they have been forced to do the story.

* Pitching broadcast is different than bloggers or print journalists. Call the news director or assignment editor with your story. Remember, for television you have to have to visuals – something that can be broadcast.

Now comes the most important part: making the actual pitch. If you take nothing else from this blog, remember this – when you call anyone in the media, the first four words you say after you say hello and identify yourself are: Are you on deadline? If the person says yes, thank them, ask when is a good time to call back and hang up. Never keep talking. Deadline is very stressful time when the person is trying to complete an assignment. They don’t have time to talk. Of course, if your building is on fire or you just won the Nobel Prize, that’s different. Use common sense.

In addition:

* This is an “elevator speech” situation. You have a limited amount of time to make your case. Use it wisely.When you do talk, get to the point. Before you pitch, repeat the mantra I use: “be brilliant, be brief, be out of there.”

* A note on email pitching. Find out the outlet’s policy on email before sending one. Because of a fear of viruses or hacking some organizations have a blanket policy of deleting any email that comes from an unknown source. I recommend calling the person first and telling them the email is on the way.

* Once the interview is scheduled, do your homework. Make sure you have the answer to every question you think might be asked. Have background materials ready to give the journalist or blogger. The goal is to make it as easy for the interviewer as possible.

What not to do:

* It is OK to pitch a story to different outlets at the same time. However, once an outlet says yes, stop pitching. Every editor or blogger wants the exclusive story. Unless this is a major media event, only give it one outlet initially. What’s a major event – something that involves a subject that affects thousands of people.

* It is not OK to pitch a story to different reporters at the same outlet. If you’ve pitched to the correct reporter, and that person says no, that’s it. You don’t think writers talk to each other?

* You will not be able to see the story, read the blog or view the broadcast before it is made public. So, don’t ask. Most people in the media feel you will try to influence a piece to take out anything you don’t like if you see it before it runs.

* Don’t do elaborate media kits. I have a friend who covers the brewing industry. He likes beer, so he is always happy when he receives free beer as part of a pitch. But, giving him beer doesn’t mean he will do a story. What writers and broadcasters want is information in a form they can use. They also are usually barred by ethics codes from accepting anything of major value – say over $10.

After the initial interview is completed, don’t assume it’s over. The interviewer will usually have more questions once they review their notes. Make sure you are available to answer those questions. Don’t be surprised if only about one-quarter to one-third of what you said ends up in the story. Only what the reporter determines is important will be used. As I said before, space is limited.

Those are the basics of pitching. Remember, every situation and writer is different. So be careful, and think before you pitch.

I post this blog every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’ a cliche, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I am also available for speaking on media relations and marketing. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or
jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

Intrigued, I listened as we made the 40 story ride down. I soon discerned that the pair were associates at local law firms. They were off to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy documents for the Milwaukee-based retailer P.A. Bergner & Co. The filing was being made late Friday with the idea that the company would make the announcement on Monday. It would give the executives time to talk to analysts, suppliers, employees and others to mitigate damage to the company’s stock and standing. Like any smart company, they were trying to control the story.

It was a great idea – but it had a flaw. Two very loud-mouthed attorneys talking when they had no idea who else was listening. True, I was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. My rule as a reporter was to blend with my surroundings. I had been doing an interview at a law firm, so I dressed like an attorney. Still, they had no way of knowing who I was. If they assumed I was a disinterested bystander, they made a very bad calculation.

As soon as the elevator arrived at the ground floor, I not-so-calmly waited for the pair to walk out. This being before cell phones, I sprinted to a bank of pay phones, called my editor, filled him in, and then called Judge Eisenberg’s chambers. He told me to come over and he would give copies of all of the filings. They were public record.

The next morning the banner headline in The Milwaukee Sentinel was the bankruptcy story. At the time, it was the largest retail bankruptcy in the United States. It made national news. P.A. Bergner and its law firm lost control of the story because two attorneys couldn’t’t stay quiet. Instead of spending Monday talking to stakeholders, the company spent Monday scrambling to deal with the story. The company had to play catch-up for the rest of the week.

I think the rule here is obvious, but I will state it anyway: never talk about anything that has to be kept private when you’re in public. Just don’t do it. Don’t think because you are in a crowded, noisy restaurant, or a cab that someone won’t hear what you say. The only place to discuss any sensitive matter is in a closed room in your office. A discussion in any other venue is asking for trouble.

Now I can hear some of you saying what I did was unethical – that I should not have been listening to a private conversation. Not my problem. My job as a reporter was to report the news. This was news. Besides, when you have a conversation in a public place in front of a stranger, you cede all rights to privacy. That goes for a family matter also. Just don’t do it.

For that matter, does anything really think if P.A. Bergner competitor had been on that elevator they would have stayed quiet? Of course not.

Mark Twain explained it best: “Journalism is the one solitary respectable profession which honors theft (when committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal,) & admires the thief….However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly–when committed in other quarters.”

Incidentally, when you are having a closed-door meeting, make sure you know who’s outside the door. Yes, people listen at doors. I used to when I covered government meetings. Often, the body would go into closed session to discuss some matter they viewed as sensitive. Wisconsin law requires that any vote on such a matter be taken in public. So, I would wait around for the group to come out and vote.

While I was waiting, I would make a point to pull my chair up close to the door to listen and take notes. I got some good information doing that. The president of the Milwaukee School Board once complained to the editor of The Milwaukee Sentinel about me doing that. I got a raise as a result. That should tell you where an editor’s loyalties lie.

As I keep saying, reporters have a job to do. Whether they blog, broadcast the news, write for an on-line publication, or for a traditional printed newspaper, their job is to report the news. It is not to worry about your sensibilities. So don’t expect they will.

Instead, don’t hand them a story by talking in public. It seems so simple, but I see examples all of the time of being violating that rule. Why, I will never understand.

A corollary of that is leaving sensitive documents on your desk. As a reporter, I got really good at reading upside down. I once interviewed the Milwaukee’s Director of City of Development. Lying on his desk – facing him – was a memo about some property the city was going to purchase. I read it, called the seller, and had a nice little story.

The bottom line in all of this is be cautious what you say and where you say it. Better to be cautious and keep a secret. It is just the best course.
My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help companies with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link.
I am available for speaking on media relations, or counseling your company on that or on your other public relations needs. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

So, what do you do? I am a former reporter who used to make those calls. It usually resulted in great quotes. I will tell you how to avoid being tripped up.

For the person being interviewed, the surprise interview is usually the toughest, most dangerous kind. It is also an opportunity. Handled correctly, the surprise interview can establish credibility, demonstrate mastery of the subject, and show coolness under fire. Those are key aspects of brand building.

As I say in every blog, the interviewer is neither your friend nor your enemy. They have a job to do, that’s all.

A note about television.

Television loves the ambush interview. They love to catch somebody completely unexpectedly with that “deer in the headlights” look. I have issues with that kind of interview. I think it borders on unethical. When a reporter calls, you have some time to think about your answers. Most people don’t do well when a camera is shoved in their face. Television is as much about getting dramatic video as getting your side.

Still, do the interview. Saying nothing or no comment looks worse than just about anything you will do. Do the interview, but the way I suggest.

Handling the Unexpected Interview

Okay, so what do you do?

First, take a deep breath and calm down. Then it is important that you take control of the interview right away. How is this done? Ask the interviewer what’s the story’s subject. Try not to let that person start asking questions until you know where the interview is going. As I have said: a good interview is akin to paddling down a river. You don’t want to be paddling blindfolded.

A good interviewer will give you an idea of what they want. But it’s a poker game – they are not going to show all their cards. It is your job to figure out what they want. This will give you ways to move the interview in the correct direction, i.e. – the one that puts you in the best light possible under the circumstances.

First Steps

So you have an idea of what’s wanted. There are two things you can do and one that should always be done.

You should always have someone else in the room. Put the caller on hold and summon your most senior public relations person. Have someone take notes.

You are under no obligation to tell the interviewer others are listening.  It is helpful to have others there for two reasons: they can provide information you might need; and they can be witnesses to the interview. If there is a mistake in the article, they can back you up when you contact the interviewer.

Make sure you ask if the interview is for a piece running the next day or if it isn’t yet on the schedule. Editors are often waiting to see what you say before making a decision on airing or publication.

Your optional choices are:

You can begin the interview immediately. Do this if you feel comfortable with the subject.
The second option is to tell the interviewer that you need to do some quick research and you will call back as soon as possible. Call back within the hour. Do not wait. I cannot speak to bloggers’ writing schedules, but television stations and newspapers do most of their serious work for the evening broadcast and tomorrow’s paper in the morning. You need to get back well before their deadline. The last thing you want is for someone to intone: “Joseph Crater did not return our calls for comment.”
Recorded Interviews

If the interview is being recorded – such as the ambush television interview – speak in short sentences. It makes it more difficult for your answer to be edited in a way that changes the meaning of what you’re saying. Again, think before you answer. This is hard, but look into the camera and speak clearly and concisely. People form impressions by how you look and act as much by what you say.

Doing the Interview

Unless you do this every day, you are most likely not going to do as well in this interview as in one you in which had to prepare. So, it is important to take your time and think about each answer. Be very careful. Interviewers are often waiting for that mistake so they can use that to lead their story.

While it is never okay to say “no comment”, go-off-the-record, or lie, it is fine to say, “I don’t know.” That’s assuming you really don’t. As I said, don’t lie. But if you really don’t have the information, say so. Suggest someone who does whom the interviewer can call.

If you have documentation to back your position up, offer to provide it. Documents are always helpful.

Also, use ju-jitsu in the interview. The core principle of ju-jitsu is turning your opponent’s strength and momentum against them. Don’t be afraid to ask questions back. Don’t say, “why do want to know that?” That sounds defensive. But ask about the story, who else they’ve talked to, when it might appear, and what the gist is.

As you answer the questions, you can move the interview in a different direction. It has to be done subtly. Each answer should move the topic about an inch – to use a bad analogy. Eventually, you will be guiding the interview’s direction.

One caution – this is difficult. Good interviewers will often realize what you are doing. This is where media training is very important.

Conclusion

When the interview is over and you have hung up, go over what you said. If you forgot to say something you feel is important, call the interviewer. It’s acceptable to do that. Just do it fast and only do it once. More than that and you sound desperate.

After that, all you can so is wait for the article. If you’ve done what I suggested, it should be okay.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help companies with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link.

I am available for speaking on media relations, or counseling your company on that or on your other public relations needs. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

I think it took us about 30 minutes to impart our wisdom. When we were done, we turned to my daughter, who was about to start her senior year in college. We asked for her input.

She leaned forward, put her elbows on the table and said: “Don’t do anything stupid. And you will know when you do.” Then she sat back.

I realized she had summed up better in 11 words than my wife and I had in 30 minutes.

The same advice holds for when you are interviewed: “Don’t do anything stupid. And you will know when you do.”

An interview is successful when the person being interviewed comes off is as a credible spokesman for their position or company. It means getting your point into print or onto the airwaves or the Internet. That’s what I am trying to help you do.

Okay, so you’ve received a phone call from a journalist, broadcaster or blogger. They want to schedule an interview. So, what to do you?

First, don’t panic. Even if the reporter is calling about layoffs or the IRS is investigating your company, don’t panic. I will cover more of how to deal with that in blog on crisis communications. But, don’t panic. People do the wrong thing out of sense of panic. No matter whether the interview subject is good or bad, stay calm.

Do not turn down the interview. If you cannot do it, find someone who is able. You are either missing a chance for good publicity, or you are going to look bad.  No one wants to see his or her competitor get the publicity that could have been his or hers. No one wants to see the phrase: “(fill in the name) refused to comment.” People assume you had something to hide. There’s goes your credibility.

I will repeat what I say in every blog on media relations: a reporter is neither your friend nor your enemy. They just have a job to do. They have no antipathy for you. As a reporter I said that I will give you the rope, but what you do with it is entirely your business. I hope this series of blogs keep you from hanging yourself.

As a beginning, there are two kinds of interviews – the scheduled one and he unscheduled one. There are permeations of each, but those are the two overriding categories.

This blog will cover a scheduled interview. I will cover the surprise interview in next week’s piece.

So, a reporter or blogger calls and asks to interview you about a subject that person feels you know something about. Make sure you get as much information as possible from that person about what they want to talk about. Do as much as you can to pin them down. They will not give you every detail, but you should come away with an outline. But be careful; don’t let them start interviewing you. If they start, be polite, but say you are too busy or need some time to gather information.

Getting that outline is important, because you want to be able to prepare. You want to be able to answer every question you think you might be asked. In addition, prepare background material you can give to the reporter. Include all information you think might be relevant. Reporters usually appreciate that. The packet can include sales figures, charts, pictures, graphs, whatever you think might help.

I strongly advise that anyone dealing with the media go through media training. (Shameless plug – I do media training as part of my agency.) It is important to be able to handle an interview. A good interviewer will throw some curve balls. You need to be ready to handle them. Also, anyone who appears on television or in an Internet video needs to look and sound natural.

If at all possible, do the interview on yours or neutral ground. Usually reporters won’t ask you to come to a newsroom. But it does happen. You will do much better in surroundings where you are comfortable. I am not saying you will relax, but things will generally go better.

Second, do not be alone in the room with the blogger or reporter. I know this not always possible, but having someone else there can come in handy if there is a misquote or mistake in the story. Someone from your public relations staff is the ideal choice. They should know the local media and the subject of the interview.

A note about public relations people – listen to them. They are your experts. An experienced public person knows how to work with the media. They can tell when the reporter is hostile and they will know what to do. They can also keep the interviewee on point.

A second note, this one about lawyers. I am always wary of allowing attorneys to take part in interviews. Why? Well, lawyers tend to wear blinders. All they see is possible liability. It’s their job, I understand. But, many lawyers tend to be to overprotective. They don’t think long term, how saying something might help the brand and increase the customer base. All they see is “oh my lord, we could get sued.”

Okay, so you are in the interview. You know already you shouldn’t say lie, or say no comment, or go off the record.  What should you do? Here is a short list:

* Answer all questions using short, declarative sentences. This will lower the chance, especially in a broadcast interview, of being misquoted. It is harder for a video editor to change what you say if the sentence is short.
*  Relax. An interviewer will pick up on nervousness. It makes them suspicious, especially if you react to a particular question. That’s where the interview will go.
*  Only answer the question asked – don’t go off on tangents. You might say something you will regret. You can use anecdotes to make your point, though.
* A good interview is a like taking a canoe down a lazy river. It flows from point to point. You can control the flow of the interview by how you answer.

So, the interviewer finishes up and turns the microphone off or puts the notebook away. Do not assume you are done. Anything you say is fair game. I used to get a lot of great stuff when the interview subject thought we were “just talking.” You are never “just talking” to an interviewer. Assume anything you say might be used. Always be on your guard.

Finally, you will not be allowed to see the finished piece before it’s published or aired. Outlets have strict rules against that. The feeling is that you will try to influence the story to make yourself look better. A good writer will check quotes with you, but that’s all.

Okay, that’s it. In a later blog, I will talk about how to handle errors in the piece in another blog.