PR 101

I am trying something new, but I need your help to do it. If have a question about social media, public relations, marketing or anything in between, post it as a question. I will answer one question each week. Please give it a try.

So I get an email the other day from a Linkedin connection. He wants me to invest in the next generation Groupon. It’s not going to happen. Why? Well because frankly it wasn’t a particularly creative idea. Creativity is what drives business success.

This is what I said in reply to the request:

“You don’t get rich by doing something somebody has already done. The Groupon space is getting pretty crowded, especially now that Facebook and Google are both jumping in.

“You get wealthy by coming up something entirely new, ala Facebook, Linkedin, or something like that. Each company founder identified an unmet need and filled it. That idea goes back to the founding of the Republic. Look at Edison, Bell, Ford, the Wright Bros., Watson, Jobs, Gates and others. They got there first and built empires.

“Come with up with a completely unique concept. I will be interested then.”

Being unique and creative are two keys to business success. It doesn’t matter if your company has one or 100 competitors. If your product and the way you market it are something new and exciting you will beat your competition like a drum. Actually the product doesn’t have to be that creative. If it a fills a need better than its competitors, you are going to be ahead of those competitors. Add in marketing in a way that attracts and engages your potential customers and you have driven the ball over the fence.

My agency works with established companies of all sizes. . Our clients, no matter the size or age of their company, are entrepreneurial. Their founders saw a need for something, came up with the product to fill that need, and took it to market. They didn’t copy anybody else. Because management has stuck with that, the companies are growing and dominating their competition.

Not wanting to just do what everyone else was doing in Milwaukee was why I decided to found my own agency. A lot of agencies still don’t understand what social media is or how to use it properly. A lot of them have seemingly rejected it. As importantly they also don’t know how to meld social media with traditional marketing and public relations. To ignore any of those three marketing channels seems to me to be the height of folly. It pretty much ensures creativity will be stifled. That’s the key to our success.

Entrepreneur and author Josh Linker drove that point home at Biztimes Milwaukee’s BizTech Conference-Expo last week. He spoke about companies have two choices: be creative or die.

In 1999 Linker founded an Internet copy called ePrize. He saw that while on-line advertising was taking off there was no online promotion company. ePrize is the company that developed all those games, contests and sweepstakes on-line companies offer. It has swamped its competition.

Linker points out in his book “Disciplined Dreaming” that: “Great companies are built on ideas. They discover new and compelling ways to solve problems for customers. They play to win rather than not-to-lost. In fact, we’ve reached a time when playing it safe has become the riskiest move of all. General Motors played it safe all the way to bankruptcy. Maxwell House played it safe as the more daring and creative Starbucks supplanted it as the leader of the coffee industry.”

Risk and creativity are two of the reasons I like social media and marketing in general. There are no guarantees, but the chances of success are much than just sitting on the bench. Think about it.

One of the Cole family Sunday morning rituals is to peruse our local newspaper over breakfast. Like every other Sunday paper around the nation, it’s stuffed full of ads and inserts from what seems like every company that does business in the Milwaukee. Something I have noticed in the last couple of years is that on the front page of all the circulars is a Facebook logo. Some of the ads also contain a Twitter logo. Once in a very great while there’s a YouTube logo.

So it would seem at first glance that these companies are starting to embrace new ways of marketing. As most of you know, I firmly believe in melding traditional marketing and public relations with social media. That trilogy of marketing methods is the most effective.

However, I always dig a little deeper. I track these companies’ efforts. What I often find is that instead waltzing with social media, these companies are doing the “Zombie Dance.” All of you remember the Zombie Dance from the first dance you attended. The boy holds his rigid arms straight out and places them on the girl’s shoulders. Because of the distance created by the boy’s arms, the girl is forced to do the same. The pair then moves in a circle, barely lifting their feet off the ground and not bending their knees. It looks like the undead dancing.

That’s what a lot of social media attempts done by large companies especially remind me of – a stiff-armed dance that is about as a rhythmic as a drunk trying to play drums. These companies just don’t get it.

Now I know many CMOs would argue social media is not as important as search for attracting clients and customers. Current research would seem to back this contention up. For instance Google Inc.’s dominant search engine supplies about 30 percent of traffic to the top news sites, according to a study done by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. I would argue that same currently holds true for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business sites.

I know when I am looking for something in particular, I usually turn to Google. It is still one of the best ways to conduct research. However, the Pew study also found that “Facebook and other sharing tools, such as Addthis.com, are empowering people to rely on their online social circles to point out interesting content.” Although I do search for news, more and more I find myself reading stories friends have suggested or Linkedin. The same true when I shop. I will now often respond to tweets or Facebook friend pages when I am looking for a particular item.

This is where a lot of companies fall down, I feel. They are not integrating their social media efforts with their regular marketing efforts. Just having a Facebook page is not going to cut it. There has to be integration of all the marketing efforts. In this many companies are falling down.

Facebook is not the be all or end all. Blog, videos, and many other tools have to put to work. Yet which some notable exceptions – Dunkin Donuts and Southwest Airlines come to mind – most companies are doing all they could do. And I think I know why.

At major companies, people look at social media and consider it just too much work. Too many marketing departments are too used to using traditional advertising and public relations. It’s inertia. They want to move out of the ruts they are in. And then they wonder why they lose business to their smaller, more nimble competitors.

A friend who owns a marketing agency in Milwaukee told me of a recent application for an internship she received. The college student appeared to have the necessary qualifications – that is until my friend Googled this would-be intern.

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.”