Posts Tagged ‘Shel Holtz’

Just over a week ago I was mentally preparing myself for not only my first plane ride ever, but for my first PR conference and my first conference by myself.  I am going to PRVille on June 18th in Jacksonville, FL.  Then last Monday I see @jessicaknows post that she is getting excited for Blogpotomac, so I Google ‘Blog Potomac’ to see what it is that I am missing.  I find it is a social media conference and it is in Virginia, there is a conference in my backyard, I did not think there was anything going on around here, so I click on the register button, and alas, they are sold out.

The next day I start seeing people offering up their tickets stating they cannot make it. I tried about three people and by the time I got to them the ticket was gone, I started feeling like I should have placed ‘blogpotomac’ in my ‘TweetBeep‘ so I did not miss another ticket, fortunately Maggie (@maggielmcg) sent me a DM me telling me I was in luck, and as corny as it may sound I cannot tell you how excited I was.

Then the excitement wore off, and the anxiety set in, I am a bit of introvert. Have you ever took one of those personality tests that your employer gives you, well I came out as a INTP, these are the analytical folks that live inside their own minds – that is me, yeah I know – public relations, what was I thinking, aren’t you suppose to be an extrovert in that field.  However, most of the facets of this industry I thoroughly enjoy and I enjoy change and growth so it is great to be in an industry that challenges who I am as a person, I will always have to push myself.

Needless to say I pulled it together, knowing this was an opportunity to get my feet wet before PRVille and stepped outside of my comfort zone. Guess what………

I was fine, I am alive, I networked with a few awesome tweeps, and I met Jessica Smith in person, learned a lot of great information and honestly built my confidence as things were said that I have always thought I knew but always questioned myself on just the same, that is another INTP trait by the way.

So the highlights of each speaker for me were:

The wording may be part in their wording and part in mine, if I am pretty certain, I heard exactly what they said then it is in quotes.

Shel Holtz – @shel – Spoke on Cultural Barriers to implementations of Social Media in Organizations

Cultural Barriers

1. Legal – the law is whatever your general council says it is. The lawyers have assumed importance beyond what they contribute to the organization.  A lot of people have been in agreement with everything that the lawyer says, and it is not always the best advice for an organization.  So to change the culture you are going to need to make sure you can demonstrate that the results that were generated by your council are better than the lawyers but that the risks are still minimized.
2. Loss of control - the culture of the organization wants to be in control of everything that is said; we do not have that control anyway, we never did have that control it was just hidden. Their operating under a fantasy that they have control just by issuing a press release, etc.
3. Responsibility: Wrong – Ownership and responsibility for the organization should go to the ones that are really good with face book and twitter.  This does not mean that you are really good at developing a communication model that identifies the right communities that you need to be engaged in to communicate the business goals of the organization.  If you don’t start with the business goals first then you could be engaging with the wrong people, start with business goals first.
4. Regulation is another issue, specifically to the Pharmaceutical and Financial industry, they do not want to violate any regulations. Very few blogs dealing with Investor Relations. If you are representing these companies and careful with what you say in all other dealings what makes them think that you are not going to use the same approach when having these conversations over the net. Communicators need to stress internally that the rules that apply everywhere else apply online as well.
5. Resources: Lack of resources to utilize these new tools, if we don’t set the base point and show how much time it takes to produce the communication then we are not going to be able to show them how much better it is using these new tools to engage socially. When Southwest launched their blog, just moderating the comments warranted two more employees, but the pay off just from seeing the tickets that were bought that came over from the blog to registration was all they needed
6. One Voice – right or wrong? there is something wrong with making sure all the employees know what the organizations story is from the Director’s point of view. Culture says we only speak through the voice of the Director. There is a failure to recognize that people are having conversations with or without you and we need to overcome those barriers.

Notes:

• We get so fascinated by all the tools that we forget that we need to first know the organizations goals and to set a strategy, need a metrical objectives to take back to the organization.
• Every employee is a frontline PR person and needs to be empowered as such.

Shireen Mitchelle – @digitalsista – Political Blogging

Talked about Social Media and how that played a role in the last election.  She went to both conventions, her goal was to cover both parties and to give a balanced approach and view on the running of the two women in particular at the time Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin

The most impressive thing was twitter, the debates the protest, most of everyone in the room at Blog Potomac followed the debates. She talked about the differences of each convention, when she was at the RNC – police where jumping out on people and you would not know they where they were coming from, they used the  hashtag as a way to let people know where the police where jumping out at.   The RNC did not embrace twitter and blogs where as the DNC embraced social media, she was allowed to bring her camera, her laptop, etc.  Social Media allowed everyone to see the real story, as the national news never projected the screen at the RNC, and what people on TV were seeing was something different than the people in the convention were seeing, it was not fair and balanced, so pictures were taken and put out on twitter.

Some of the Hashtags she uses are: (I did not catch all of them)

• Conservatives: #tcot
• Liberal: #rebelleft
• Libertarians: #tlot
• Progressives: #topprog or #p2

Now by women talking about issues that were important to them, you are now seeing more woman organizations getting on twitter than ever before.  By using the hashtags when you talk about these issues you can communicate across the different groups.

Scott Monty – @scottmonty – Social Media in Crisis

• Crisis in an opportunity to take a negative and turn it into a positive.
• Responding and being transparent and letting them know what is going on and inviting them into the process.
• Leveraging that community for the ones that want you to succeed, ask them for help, your community will have a far greater reach through the networks they know then you will on your own.
• Have a place where you can quickly post updates or comments, etc. (This is why I agree with those that say every company should have a blog)
• The notion that people are talking about your brand is key, everyone has a horror story with a vehicle. People have always talked about these, now these conversations are talking place online. People are going to go to other sites to find out about vehicles, want to give people the value to hear what Ford has to say but to also hear what other people have to say on their site.
• You don’t have to respond to every tweet or comment, let the community defend your brand and correct things that are wrong. You can only read so many blogs, comments, etc.
• The tools are irrelevant, they will always change, we are talking abut creating a culture of open communication and letting people talk about the company.
• If you can engage people that have spoken negatively about your company and if you can get them on your side then they will be your best brand advocates.
• People care about themselves, they care abut being part of a success, they care about being part of something bigger.
• Respond in context within the medium that was the starting point of the crisis and move on to other mediums from there.
• “Never going to win a battle in crisis communication by negating what the other person is saying”

Scott presented a mini version of Ford’s Code of Ethics for their communications,  loved these!

• I will tell the truth
• I will write deliberately and with accuracy
• I will try to be inclusive of all ideas and points of view
• I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly
• I will not delete posts
• I will not delete comments unless they are spam or profane
• I will disclose conflicts of interest.
• I will stay on topic

Liz Strauss – @lizstrauss - The Business Aspect of Blogging

Relationships: we have been doing this for years, before we had to get on a plane to maintain these relationships, now we have new social media tools to do this, should be able to do it a whole lot faster now but we have been doing it for years.

“The two things every company needs are: More products to buy, and more opportunities to buy them.”

“If you want to do social media well, don’t lead with the tools, lead with relationships, if you want to lead with relationships, start by knowing who you are, because knowing who you are is even more important than knowing what you do, cause knowing what you do is a subset of who you are, and when you know what you do, you know it really well…”

You will no longer be selling you will be talking about what you do, like you talk about it with your friends.

Aaron Brazell – @technosailor & Amber Naslund -  @ambercadabra Personal Branding

(Aaron also expands on his thoughts at Technosailor.com)

Amber: It is the idea that personal brands have become a shortcut for building a real relationship that is not cared for.  You are listing these bullet points about yourself and then others are just suppose to buy it.  Your personal brand is not your own, it is not what you say it is, it is what the community says it is.

Aaron – the fundamental flaw is the concept of a personal brand, a personal brand is more about ego.  A brand should be bigger than an individual person. Where do you position yourself, are you positioning yourself for yourself, or are you positing yourself for your company. Never allow your personal brand to eclipse the greater initiative, the greater goal of your company.

Amber: you cannot separate a personal brand with your professional personality, it’s about knowing who you are and representing it across everything you do. Your company is paying you to do your job, your reputations are tied together because it is for both of your benefit, it’s not about you, its about the company, can it enhance that, if you can-  that means that you are being a good employee.

Aaron - It is okay to have a personal brand, but does not like the word personal brand because there is a cockiness about it that says it’s all about me vs. all about us. Your brand is controlled by your customers.

Amber – You can’t control what is put out there about you. Doesn’t matter what information you put out abut yourself, it matters what others say. We have a personal responsibility to know what is being said about us, should be doing vanity searches on Google to see what is being said about you.

Shashi Bellamkonda – @shashib – Network Solutions

A social media practitioner should be independent, free thinking, and always active.

Most people in management are resistant, but through effective communication change is still possible.

Customer Service is the most important; if you are good to your customers then they will spread the word about you.

Do not use tools just for the sake of using them, they should be a tool to communicate and engage with others.

Mahdi Gharavi did a excellent recap Here