April 8, 2008
Message to business communicators: build a bridge and get over it
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. You can even subscribe by email! Thanks for visiting!
I am stunned!
Over at MyRagan there is a 20-something who writes that even she feels ‘overwhelmed’ sometimes by social media and struggles to keep up, which is why she attends conferences, seminars and workshops on the subject.
After her post–and yes, I agree with Sue Johnston that the headline of the article was exceedingly cheap and misleading; shame on you Mark et al–there is a plethora of fellow business communicators whining about how they can’t cope.
Give me a break!!!
The whole point is not whether you feel swamped or not, the whole point is that you can no longer afford to be uninvolved.
Drew Mendelson points to ongoing research by Universal McCann [pdf] that comes up with interesting stats and comments, some of which I repeat here:
- Social media is a global phenomenon happening in all markets regardless of wider economic, social and cultural development.
- If you are online you are using social media
- Asian markets are leading in terms of participation, creating more content than any other region
- All social media platforms have grown significantly
- Video Clips are the quickest growing platform, up from 31% penetration in Wave 1 to 83% in Wave 3
- 57% have joined a Social Network, making it the number one platform for creating and sharing content
- 55% of users have uploaded photos
- 22% of users have uploaded videos
- Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media
- 73% have read a blog
- The blogosphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide
- China has the largest blogging community in the world with 42m bloggers, more than the US and Western Europe combined
As a business communicator you no longer have the luxury of burying your head in the sand and pretending that this will all go away. It won’t. And it will just get bigger and bigger and go faster and faster and if you don’t leap onboard now you will never catch up.
KPI your bottom, Mr BeanCounter
As I explained to a client in Brisbane yesterday, Social Media doesn’t replace any of the more traditional channels of communication, instead it adds significantly to your burden. You need to throw resource at it and you need to forget about any dumb-arsed KPIs and ROIs. It is a set of ‘relationship’ tools, not easily shoe-horned into neatly fitting your CFO’s ‘Cost-Benefit Analysis’ metrics.
Every businessperson worth their salt knows that taking clients out to lunch, or to golf, or the cricket, or whatever, is beneficial in the long term for the relationship betwixt company and client. No one stands with a clipboard and a calculator outside the CEO’s office when they return from a golfing day and grills them about the ROI of their golf.
As Alex Manchester once said to me, “how much is a good relationship with your customer worth to you?” THAT is your bloomin’ ROI, Mr BeanCounter.
Social Media Burnout
Yes, there is such a thing as Social Media burnout. My good friend Iwan Winoto at IBM pointed me to an interesting article from the New York Times. It seems that they are not alone in worrying about ‘blogger burnout’.
Yes, the demands of this never-off Internet are incredible. I feel under pressure to blog something intelligent every day (Mrs BetterComms would argue that I rarely have one intelligent thought a week) less I lose my audience and subscriber numbers. I know that employees of companies equally feel under pressure to perform, to meet ever-tougher KPIs.
Yes, there is a new ‘must see’ Social Media tool released every week (sometimes several a week).
Yes, it can be an incredible drain on your time evaluating them, let alone joining them.
But who says you have to do it all yourself? Doh!
Be uninvolved; be unemployed and unemployable
I’ve had very legitimate concerns expressed to me about the whole Social Media thing; not in terms of whether it will stay, but where does one find the time to get up to speed on it?
The answer is simple: how do you learn ANYTHING within a corporation? Answer: you go to a seminar, attend a workshop, invite a guest speaker in to your meeting, bring in a consultant to help you strategise and roll-out your strategy…
Is it expensive? Yes. Well, at least I am, but then again I’m also one of the very few experts in Australia who understands this stuff and is available to help you grow. Laurel Papworth is another. Trevor Cook is another. So is Gary Hayes. So too is Stephen Collins.
We don’t come cheap. After all, do you expect ‘bargain basement’ pricing from, say, PwC or McKinsey and at the same time expect the top level of intelligence and insight that they are able to bring to your company’s benefit? In business life you very much get what you pay for. But you already know that.
What you probably don’t wish to acknowledge to yourself is that if you don’t keep your own skills current you will be unemployable within five years.
Yes, unemployable. Second-rate. The business communication world is moving at such a pace that if you don’t have a few Social Media campaigns and successes under your belt you will be passed over for promotion/head-hunting/a new job by someone else who does.
Survival of the fittest.
Remember all that HR bumpf about ‘life long learning’? They were telling the truth.
Says Anna:
Just last Sept I attended some teaching workshops for working with students at the university level and social media issues were brought up several times. I was shocked when I was informed that I would most likely find it difficult to relate to new students as a recent graduate myself because the typical generation gap has now shrunk to about 4 years. The availability of cellphones, laptops, wireless internet, ipods, msn, facebook and basically social media in general is a major factor behind just how differently these students interact. Although I’m hardly older then these students, I am somehow now old.
Just don’t be one of the whingers (that’s Aussie-speak for ‘whiners’) over at the MyRagan site who are whimpering about it all. Either be part of the problem or be part of the solution; either skill up or get out of the way. Tough love.
Think that’s a bit harsh? As we say here in Australia,
“build a bridge and get over it.”
Stumble it!
Filed under: PR, Second Life & 3D virtual worlds, blogging, customer service, ethics, housekeeping, internal communications, marketing, micro-blogging, miscellaneous, nonverbal communication, podcasting, tools, videoblog
14 Responses to “Message to business communicators: build a bridge and get over it”
Leave a Reply
Please note:
1. If this is your first time commenting using the email address you have given, your comment will be held in 'moderation' and won't appear until one of us here at BetterComms Towers approves it. This stops spammers from flooding our posts with garbage. It may take up to 48 hours for your comment to appear -- sorry!
2. This blog runs the WP-Cache plugin, which reduces the amount of processing our host's server has to perform on this blog. The result for you is that our site crashes less. The downside is that sometimes it might take a minute or two for your comment to appear. Please don't resubmit your comment if it doesn't appear straight away. Please be patient and try refreshing your browser after a minute or two... Thanks, Lee
April 8th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
well, what do you know: I was reading your blog and THEN saw my name mentioned
Actually there are ROIs on social networks. 13 or so revenue streams and then some soft figures - technical support drops to 1/5 with peer to peer Q&A forums. People return 5x more often and stay 9x as long to your website if you have a social component. Brand awareness is increased 5x if they belong to your community. I forget the other figures - something to do with gaining staff and ummm…. something else. A great post with some pertinent arguments. Not sure that yelling at people makes ‘em listen - I usually just cry to make people stop - but the links and points are very relevant. And I bet you feel better now. Heh
April 8th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
To be honest I see where the original blogger is coming from. I think we can all get a bit burnt out, regardless of what the topic is, perhaps more so with web-based stuff.
But you’re right in that, “that’s life”. It’s only going to get busier, we just have to work on making things work for us. The level to which you can integrate sites, feeds etc. these days in phenomenal. It’s an opportunity for so much.
I also love the comment in that thread that says, “I’m so tired of social media. I actually just blogged about it the other day.”
April 8th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Has it been one of those frustrating days, Lee?
I’m with Laurel in thinking a rant doesn’t work (although I totally sympathise with the feeling you need to).
Dennis McDonald didn’t believe me when I said to him on Twitter this morning that we were two years behing the US in “getting” social media in Australian business. You’ve just reconfirmed my view.
You have my sympathies and agreement. But I still struggle to get people to listen to me a lot of the time.
Head, meet own backside…
April 8th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Thanks, all!
Yes, I know that shouting often doesn’t achieve anything. But then again, since apathy is SUCH a large part of the Aussie psyche, along with “She’ll be right, mate!”, that getting up on a soapbox every now and then helps one rid oneself of toxic build up
Steve, the only reason I didn’t include you and JJ in the list of luminaries available for hire is that I seem to recall you work for someone (I know JJ does). If that’s not the case please let me know pronto and I’ll adjust my text accordingly.
That comment was a classic, hey Alex?!
April 8th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
BTW, do you have that url, Ms Silkworm?
April 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
old old old stats - my post is from 2006 and i think the original reports are from 2002 (check McKinsey archives etc)
April 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
o.O silkWORM? grrrr
SilkCHARM
April 8th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Ah, no, I very definitely work for me. And whoever wants to engage me to do stuff for them - see my site at http://www.acidlabs.org/.
April 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Interesting post Lee. I might like to share an alternate view on the whole ROI issue. When markets are declining and budgets get tighter, the CFO will ask for justifications whether we like it or not. The fact that we are often dealing with intangibles (i.e., difficult to measure) does little to change the budget process. We have to give reasons that have meaning to our audience, and that holds true for PR applied to external constituencies as well as budget requests for 2.0 made to the CFO at budget time. If we can’t provide measurement and show value, then our budget will likely get cut. Fairness simply isn’t the issue. The CEO’s ROI on a game of golf is not the issue either (changing the subject away from our lack of numbers rarely works when power differences exist).
There are some fairly simple ways of showing that our work has an impact. The recent Fournaise marketing report shows that PR can in fact have a very positive impact on the P&L. If we want to be prepared for budget season (that is, if we want companies to invest time and money into social media), then we need to pick up on these little techniques, integrate them into our routine procedures, and start generating the data that matters to our audience.
I completely agree with you that “this is too much” is a pretty poor response. That said, responses based on general data describing macro-market conditions are equally ineffective because they do not give a tailored argument as to how a particular executive can improve the P&L of her or his business by investing in social media. We have to speak the language of our target audience and many times the 2.0 conversation simply fails to meet that standard. I can’t blame any executive for not listening because we have not made our case effectively. That does not mean the executive is right for not listening. It simply means I don’t blame them because we have not met the basic price of admission for getting serious attention from the decision makers or serious budget from the CFO.
If you can make a solid business argument that your 2.0 investment will better the specific company your decision maker is responsible for, then you are on the right path to getting something done.
ROI matters to the people who make the investment decisions, so it should matter to us as well.
April 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Correction make, Trib. Cheers!
Sorry, Laurel [tee hee] I thought you were at a MySpace booze up?? How come you are commenting on this post? Don’t tell us you were multi-tasking again!?!?!
April 8th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
I wholeheartedly agree, Michael, but I’m not pitching my message at CFOs… I’m pitching at corporate communicators who should already know how to address these ROI issues inside the particular culture of their company.
If they want me to come in and help them refine their message I am VERY willing to help (as, no doubt, are my learned colleagues and your good self) but I’m certainly not about to ‘give away the shop’ for free on my own blog
After all, we ALL have loved ones to feed, even if it IS just ourselves!
April 8th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Hi Lee, your post made me polish off an article I wrote for the UK CIPR Journal several centuries ago, the main point of which I think still holds true today. For multimedia (circa 1995) replace social media (circa 2007) with surprisingly few provisos.
“Public relations practitioners have little choice but to rise to the multimedia challenge if we are to compete in an increasingly dynamic communication industry, to flourish rather than survive. Ultimate success is better founded on adapting our current strengths to the ever-widening communicopia - through a highly developed understanding of clients’ business, an appreciation of corporate and brand positioning, and the ability to reach specific audiences, rather than jumping on the techno-junkie bandwagon.”
Have a look at: http://internetbrandingstrategy.blogspot.com/2008/04/challenge-of-communicopia.html and let me know what you think (once you’ve had time to calm down, obviously!)
I was once told that the people who know what to do always work for the people who know why. Too many people seem to focus on the former, without paying enough attention to the latter. I think once we get to that stage in the debate it will be more interesting!
Take care, Ronna
April 11th, 2008 at 9:18 am
[...] as I mentioned recently, the ‘burn out’ effect can be real if you don’t manage yourself; let the tools [...]
May 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
[...] post: Message to business communicators: build a bridge and get over it Technorati tags: gerry mccusker, trevor cook, laurel papworth, stephen collins, rudd, melcrum, [...]