Shel Holtz has a very interesting piece on whether writing is a core skill for a professional communicator. He did a round up, asking several strategic communications professionals for their take and their responses are thoughtful and relevant. It’s an interesting topic and this piece is definitely worth reading.

AHA TAKE

There are some communicators who focus more on the actual craft of writing in their day-to-day work than others, but I can’t imagine that a professional communicator doesn’t need solid writing skills to do their job. Communication is at the very foundation of what we do (we are called communicators, after all) and words are the building blocks for communication. No matter how we communicate – through speeches, newsletters, meetings, video, webinars or any other form – at some point, there is writing involved. To be able to write clearly means that you can think clearly and that’s where it all begins – developing a strategy, defining the message and identifying the tools.

I think that there are different levels of writing well. There are some people that are gifted storytellers; these people can bring the information being shared to life. Their words engage. Others write in a more “corporate” manner, providing just the facts in an informative and straightforward way. Different things apply to different projects or initiatives. However, I strongly believe that if a person doesn’t have, at the very least, the basic skills – including spelling, punctuation and grammar – they will have a real challenge as a communicator.

Della and I have developed an interactive workshop for organizations that addresses the challenge that communicators face: How do you integrate social media into your communications plan? This workshop is unique because it takes participants through the planning process and, at the end, they walk away with a first draft of a communications plan that supports their organization’s overall objectives. It’s a working session that educates, informs and creates an end result that will be used. It provides the opportunity to put social media where it belongs, as a part of the overall communications strategy – as a tool.

Della’s approach last night was focused on strategy and, even though Della and I spend lots of time discussing this area, I found the session very valuable.  From my experience speaking with clients and other communications professionals, there is a misperception around social media and its role.

We are often asked to develop a social media strategy for clients. In my opinion, you can’t develop a social media strategy. You need to develop a communications strategy that includes a social media component. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, video, podcast, blogs – whatever you use, it’s a tool. Just like a newsletter, town hall meeting, event or news release. All tools or tactics need to support your overall strategy.

The online world has given us more options and more opportunity. The pace, response time and language may have changed, but at the core of everything we do as communicators is strategy.

At the AHA office, we understand the demands and the challenges of staying current. Our days now start earlier and end later. I know that I spend a fair amount of time checking out information and educating myself on the changes and evolution of the technology so that I can continue to develop relevant strategies and plans for clients. I happen to be interested in this area, so spending a few hours on a Friday evening or Saturday morning doing research doesn’t feel like too much of a hardship for me. But, even with our focus on getting up to speed on what is relevant, what’s new, what is being taken down—we can’t know it all.

This is where we take a step back, breathe in, breathe out and carry on. The fact is, you don’t need to know all of the details of every new technology, networking site or opportunity out there. In fact, sometimes when you are developing a strategy and writing a plan, it is better not to know every detail. It is easy to be influenced by the latest tools and technology and to develop your strategy to suit their use. That’s a trap you don’t want to fall into.

In our approach with clients, we work to define their objectives. Then we need to know the audience or community for the initiative—who do they want to reach? Next, we need to understand what this group wants to hear from the organization. Social media is not just about what you want to tell them, but what kind of conversation they want to have. Then we work to identify what the channels of communication are appropriate for the audience or community. Are they on Facebook, would a blog work, are they on Twitter, is an in-person event supported by social media a better idea…? This is all necessary to understand before we can define a strategy or develop a plan. The next step is to identify the tools and technology that will support the strategy. Once we get to this point, we are focused on a limited number of social media networks or tools that will work best.

I know it feels overwhelming, trying to keep up with everything. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t stay current, but don’t get to the point where you can’t see the forest for the trees. Or should I say the strategy for the tools.

Take a good look at your website or have a professional provide an audit on your site. There may be opportunities that you are missing because your site is stagnant, stale or just plain outdated.

I think one of the challenges that we face in using social media is that we are looking for this magic thing to come along and replace all the stuff from the past that didn’t work. Currently, social media is being hailed as the best tool ever for sales people, for marketing people and for PR—as well as for consumers, non-profits, businesses and other organizations. The fact is, it can’t be everything to everyone.

I have to admit I am biased because I am a public relations professional. I believe that social media—including social networking sites like Facebook—can be of great value to PR. It depends on what your objectives are in using social media.

Good public relations is about providing information, raising awareness and engaging people (individuals and groups). Social media provides an opportunity to do just that, if it’s done right.

I think it is important to measure the value of any PR or communications campaign. There is no point in spending the time, resources and budget on an initiative that doesn’t produce results. We look at Facebook as an opportunity to create a connection with people that may be interested in learning more about how an organization does business, what their values are, who the people behind the scenes are and to provide some engaging and, hopefully, useful information. It’s a way to build a relationship.

Twitter, on the other hand, can be a great opportunity for customer service. We’ve seen companies like Dell and Comcast use Twitter to rebuild their reputation. Many organizations use Twitter to see what is being said about their product or service by consumers and to respond to problems quickly and in a public forum.

I know that Foursquare and other geographic/location technologies are being hailed as the hot new thing. We’ve been looking into this here at AHA and there are some exciting opportunities for these tools. What always concerns me when the new “next best thing” comes along is that so many organizations want to jump on-board because…well, it’s the hot new thing and not because it is necessarily of use in meeting their objectives.

I can tell you, there is still a great deal to be achieved using blogs, Facebook and Twitter. We always guide clients to do one thing at a time and to do it well. Build on your successes. And the way to create a success is to decide what your objectives are, identify who you want to speak with, what you want to talk about, what they want to talk about (it’s not always the same thing and that’s important to realize), where your “community” wants to have this conversation, and then decide what tools you want to use to reach out and start the dialogue.

There is a good article on Socialtimes.com that addresses measurement in social media. It’s more from a marketing viewpoint, but it applies to the use of social media in PR or communications efforts.

One of the points in this article talks about bounce rates. It asks: Are people coming to your website from social media sites or networks, but leaving quickly? This is a good question and one that is worth talking about.

Participating in social media is a great thing for some organizations. However, if your website is out-of-date, stagnant and doesn’t engage the community you want to connect with—social media might not be of much support to your efforts. There are many organizations that jump on the social media bandwagon before they make sure that the foundation of their online outreach—their website—works.

A good website is an important tool for both marketing and public relations. It is, most likely, the first contact that a potential client or customer will have with your organization. It is important to have a website that provides interesting and engaging information to the people who visit.

If your website hasn’t been updated in the past year or two for design and style, if you don’t update content on a regular basis, and if your web stats are telling you that people arrive at your site and immediately leave, it may be time to have an audit done on your site. This will tell you what the best practices in your industry/field are, will showcase the dos and don’ts, and will give you an idea of what the people that matter to your organization think about how you are communicating with them through your site.

Take social media one step at a time. The first step should be to have a great website that is of interest to your stakeholders.

There are quite a few myths out there. We hear quite a bit about them at the AHA office. Many of the standard ones are listed in Joel’s piece.

We’re always interested in how organizations perceive the use of social media and what the misinformation or misunderstandings might be.

One of the myths that is sometimes overlooked is that social media is “different” than PR. This doesn’t mean that PR “owns” social media or that, depending on the scope of the campaign, that it isn’t smart to bring in a social media expert to build an online community or to drive community engagement. The communications team, specialist, consultant or agency should be a strong contributor to the planning and execution of any campaign that reaches out and touches the public. Social media is a form of marketing that blends with public relations. Even back in the day, smart organizations made sure that their communications team was engaged with the advertising team.

Getting all elements of your marketing and communications outreach at the table during planning is crucial. Social media planned and implemented in isolation won’t work in the long run and it can create challenges if PR, social media and other marketing areas are segmented from each other. Success takes a team effort.

When you think about the number of people that this video has reached, it is quite impressive. It had national coverage in both the U.S. and Canada (and I would imagine around the world). If the objective of this video is to change behaviour, I think it works. I will think twice about having another drink of pop, that’s for certain.

Shock value works in this case. The video is getting a great many views and it gets the message across loud and clear.

Another good example of a video that communicated its message clearly is Waking Up Canadian. This video, put out by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, uses humour to get its point across.

Video is becoming an important part of both marketing and PR and there is a great deal of crossover in this area. What kind of video could you produce to tell the story of your organization? What would its objective be?

In the world of a communicator or marketer, there is a great deal of focus on social media. It’s important for those of us who work in this area to keep in mind that not everyone has embraced social media the way that we have. We have had many senior executives talk to us about their fears about using social media and their concerns are valid. We’re facing a culture shift and change isn’t easy – even change for the better.

One of the most effective ways we have of educating, informing and engaging our clients in the use of social media (when it is strategic for their organization) is to provide case studies of both successes and failures. Showing what can be achieved and what that takes is important. I believe that showing the challenges and failures is also important. No matter how well planned your social media campaign is, you need some room to experiment, to try things, to ask for feedback and to adjust in response to the feedback from the community you are hoping to connect with.

Some of the big examples of social media campaigns that have failed may be because of a misguided strategy or not understanding the audience. It’s easy to look back over a campaign and critique it when it is done. You don’t have the luxury of that knowledge in the planning. However, the campaigns that didn’t live up to expectations are a huge learning opportunity for the organization and for those of us who follow social media. Understanding what went wrong is key. If a campaign was launched and the community that the organization was targeted flat out rejects it, there is something important to be learned there. Most major campaigns are thoughtfully and strategically planned out, so if they don’t connect, understanding why is at the heart of what to do next.

With social media (and all PR campaigns), our role is to connect with people. These are individuals with their own unique perceptions and viewpoints. Prior to social media, there probably was the same type of reaction to certain campaigns, but we didn’t get to hear directly from the people – now we do. And going back to the topic of this post, that scares many CEOs. Our role is to help the senior team reframe that fear and to evolve it into viewing any social media feedback as valuable information that can be used to improve the product or service, to create a better approach to reaching your target market and to more fully understand how your specific community wants to be communicated with.

It’s not a quick process when you are assisting a CEO or senior executive in understanding and accepting this new approach to customer/client feedback. It takes time, effort and transparency. Showing the successes is important. So is showing the failures and how they can be used to move an organization forward.

Twitter is still the hot social media tool, despite not being “for everyone.” At AHA, we participated in a social media teleseminar yesterday with Peter Shankman and Chris Brogan (you can check out the tweets at #broman). It was very interesting and engaging and, as always with Peter and/or Chris, we learned something. 

After the call we discussed the value of different social media tools and when we got around to Twitter, it was very interesting. We have clients that wouldn’t benefit from being active on Twitter, but we think it’s important for them to be aware of it and to monitor it to make sure they know what is being said about their organization.

We have read several interesting articles and blog posts recently on stats and information about the use of Twitter. Rohit Bhargava has a good blog post that highlights a recent report by social media analytics provider Sysomos. It gives a good overview of how people use Twitter. Emarkter.com also has an interesting article up that talks about how advertisers and consumers view Twitter. According to the article, research data gleaned that only 8% of those surveyed say it is an effective promotional tool. While I do think that right now the value of Twitter is a little overstated, I am not sure that this survey showcases how effective using Twitter can be for certain campaigns.

On the call yesterday with Chris (@chrisbrogan) and Peter (@skydiver), they put forward some valuable ideas about the use of social media in general and Twitter specifically. One of the key points that hit home here at AHA was that social media has changed an organization’s approach from where do I advertise to where do I listen? That’s a big change in how the world works and one that I think will only continue to grow and evolve. Organizations in all industries need to begin participating.