Social Media

The discussion about the connection between PR and social media is always interesting to me. At AHA, we believe that social media provides an opportunity to share information, learn, educate and connect – and that has always been a part of what we do as public relations professionals. However, we also work with some great marketing and advertising agencies and there are areas and opportunities in their world for social media as well. We often partner with them on campaigns and we’ve never had an issue understanding where each component or initiative lives or how it fits together in the bigger picture.

I think that it’s important to remember that social media provides an opportunity to connect and engage. It also offers people the ability for interactivity, giving them the chance to put their voice forward to an organization, brand or initiative. Sometimes an organization’s social media initiative is through a contest or a marketing campaign; other times it is through what we would consider a more PR-related approach. Some examples are short video segments that showcase the people behind the scenes of a company; Q&As with industry experts, the CEO or other senior executive; thought leadership pieces such as white papers and Twitter conferences or “meetups” (tweetups).

With our clients, we work with them to develop the objectives of the initiative or campaign. We then define the strategy and build the plan. It is there that we begin to identify how we will share information, create engagement and interest, and make sure that the relevant stakeholder group has the opportunity to participate in a way that makes sense to them. And during this process, we bring everyone involved to the table and focus on creating a team effort, rather than a territorial battle. However, we have had projects where there were some challenges in this area and this is where it is important to already have clearly defined objectives, strategy and the roles and responsibilities that you can look back on.

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Here at our PR agency, we’re big fans of Jeff Bullas. He’s a smart and funny guy. More often than not, one of us will come into the office talking about a social media tool, technique or strategy; and, like magic, we get the link to Jeff’s blog and he is talking about the same thing. It’s like he’s a mind reader – an incredibly smart, strategic mind reader. And he is funny, irreverent and not just a little cheeky. We LOVE him.



And so – it was no surprise to see that another one of our favourite sites Ragan.com has a piece by Jeff that has some pretty impressive stats and facts about Google+. I have to admit, at AHA we’ve been checking it out. We took a great webinar on it by Chris Brogan and we’ve been reading everything we can about it. It looks interesting – but right now, it is a bit of a ghost town.



For the most part, AHA clients aren’t early adopters of new technology or social media tools. Our clients could be called mid-adopters and some are mid-to-later adopters. Many of our clients want to know where their stakeholders are before adopting a social media tool or technology and that makes sense for them. And it’s our role to guide, assist and support them. We are a communications agency that understands social media – not a social media marketing firm. It is important for us to be on top of Google+ and I am finding it very interesting. It certainly provides a range of options that Facebook doesn’t offer. However, we’re still watching it. We’ll keep you posted.



And if you don’t follow Jeff Bullas, you really should. He’ll up your social media game.

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We didn’t have a blog post yesterday as we were preparing for a webinar about Google+, delivered by Chris Brogan (an AHA favourite). From all accounts, Chris spent a huge amount of time (reportedly upwards of 250 hours) going through Google+ and he shared his insights, tips and hints. We’re excited to bring these to life on our end and continue learning from thought leaders to help our clients with their Google+ objectives.



There are quite a few articles out right now about the battle between Google+ and Facebook. I have listed a few below for you to review. One of the best insights comes from Brogan – in this article on Forbes.com.



His quote: “First off, if you’re immediately thinking, ‘The LAST thing I need is to figure out yet another social network,’ you’re totally right. This is the last thing you need. However, if you were fortunate enough to be a CMO back in 2007, and you said that about the transition from MySpace to Facebook, then you know what happened to people who didn’t surf the new wave instead of riding the one that petered out.”



Ragan.com has an infographic comparison of Facebook and Google +.



Searchengineland.com has an interesting piece: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.



Reditonline.com asks Is Google+, Is It For Business Or Just Consumers?



What do you think of Google + so far?

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I grew up at Maclean’s, Canada’s national news magazine. It was my first real job out of university and I was a part of the Maclean’s “family” for decades. Until I started AHA in 2003 (with co-founder Paul Holman), I was listed on the masthead as a Contributing Editor. At Maclean’s I was surrounded by some of the best journalists in the country (and I would argue, in the world). They were smart, knowledgeable and dedicated. Quite a few of them took the time to help me, mentor me, show me the ways of journalism and taught me how to tell a good story based on facts. They also drove into me what makes a story and how to pitch it so you got approval to do the piece. That is a skill set I use every day as a communicator.



We have a process at AHA that is similar to what a story idea would go through in a newsroom. We put the idea and the pitch through its paces and spend time on making sure that not only is the core idea able to stand up, that the pitch itself is crafted in a way that speaks to the community or audience that we are targeting. And, I have to say – sometimes the pitch might not generate coverage, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. There is only so much room for stories in newspapers, magazines, morning shows and the news. Sometimes, it isn’t the story, it’s the space and that’s where, as communicators, we are fortunate to work in a time that allows us to share the story through websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media networking sites.



I recently came across an interesting post on Ragan.com that talks about how to pitch media. It’s worth a read.



There is a skill and a craft to pitching media and to generating coverage for an organization. It takes time, effort, research and planning – and it takes an ability to take the facts and information and tell them in a compelling way. So much has changed in the last decade – technology has given us so much opportunity to share information and our stories with a larger community. What hasn’t changed is that if you want someone to pay attention, at the heart of it all, you need a story that matters to them and you need tell it well.



On a side note, I have to admit that watching the reports about the News of the World newspaper being shut down because of the phone hacking scandal, I wish that I could recreate the Friday nights at Maclean’s when we would all go for a beer after work and talk about news. I would love to know what they think of this and if they were ever tempted to bend their integrity for a story.

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