Posts Tagged ‘PR’
The 5 stages of Twitter from a PR perspective
July 16th, 2008
I began experimenting with Twitter at the start of the year, and in that short space of time have observed a dramatic change in usage patterns of the micro-blogging tool.
From a communications perspective, this can be broken down into different stages of adoption, which I feel offers valuable lessons in how user behaviour is evolving as a whole across social networks. Only today, within my own network of followers/followees, I felt we might be on the cusp of a new adopter stage, and so I thought it might be a useful exercise to analyse this in my own words, to see what lessons can be learnt.
- Discovery - at the start of the year (and admittedly the year beforehand), Twitter was very much in early adopter stage. The tech-savvy were the first to try it and decide whether or not it was a useful communications tool. This stage was characterised by a sense of ‘elite’ ownership i.e. those using it felt inspired by the fact that they were living at the cutting-edge of social media.
- Experimentation - Twitter asks the question : ‘What are you doing?’. Following early-adopter phase, users experiment with how they can respond to this question in an interesting way, increasingly pushing the boundaries of usage. Functionality moves from basic status updates to more engaging conversation.
- Self-promotion - as Twitter networks grow, users realise the profile-raising potential of the communications tool. Until very recently, there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people using Twitter for PR/self-promotion purposes. A growing trend has been to use the tool as a platform for seeding blog posts, product launches etc.
- Collaboration -we’ve been heading towards this for the past month or so, but today I saw Twitter come alive as a truly collaborative tool. Social media encourages openness and honesty, and within networks Twitter can be a great place to ask advice and receive timely, expert feedback. It’s a great virtual tool for the sharing of ideas, and bouncing around of creativity.
- Criticising - it’s bound to happen. Just as Twitter reaches its usage peak, people will start to want more than the tool is technically capable of delivering. Users will start asking “what’s next?”.
Which leaves us with ‘Migration’. I think Twitter has a bit more life left in it yet though!
What’s wrong with digital agency comment?
July 1st, 2008
“Client side comment only please…no agency comment needed at this stage…desperate for brand-side comment – can you help?”
In recent weeks we’ve spotted a growing trend in such requests from digital trade journalists, either directly or through feature tracking services that we subscribe to. It seems journalists are increasingly less interested in digital agency comment, and more and more focused on brand-side opinion only.
As an ex-journalist for New Media Age, I can appreciate the need for big brand comment, but what I don’t understand is why those at the coalface, the specialists in digital marketing, creative and design, are being sidelined?
I thought a story always had two sides?
Reading between the lines, the problem is being compounded by an absence of readily available client-side comment on digital matters. From my experience this is either down to a brand not prioritising a digital trade comment opportunity, or acknowledging that the subject matter might be out of their depth.
At Liberate Media we’re always willing to do a journalist a favour and help out with these sorts of requests, but it’s getting increasingly frustrating to have to battle to offer the agency side of the story. If you want to talk to a brand about their digital investment, why not also speak to the agency in charge of their digital strategy?
I’d be really interested to hear what features writers/editors think about this. Is it a growing trend, or merely coincidence?
Pulic Relations in Virtual Worlds
May 27th, 2008
As part of the social media mix, how do PR agencies engage in virtual worlds?
Text100’s optimistic, if slightly aged, view is that virtual worlds are an essential part of the social network – and will grow in importance over the next few years.
A more sanguine views from brand communications agency Cow suggests there are opportunities but also current issues that make engagement in virtual worlds like Second Life problematic for agencies.
We’ve seen a few PR companies working in SL including: Text 100, Leo Burnett, crayon, Edelman, GSD&M, Lewis PR and Press Dispensary. Measuring the effectiveness of their engagement is a fuzzy process.
Recently, senior Second Life residents voted to ban PR from their environment (over-zealous marketers) but are still discussing exactly how to do that!
However, management consulting firm McKinsey & Company reports that virtual worlds are on the cusp of a major expansion - particularly as a way to reach younger customers - and that companies were “ignoring them at their peril.”
I wonder if there will be a second coming for worlds like Second Life – and with that, opportunities for PR agencies to engage. My experience of them has been largely negative – and recent upgrades in Second Life have not changed that view. But Second Life’s in-world economy is growing at 15 percent annually with user hours, concurrency, and economic transactions all showed robust growth.
Against that there’s been a recent slowing in Second Life new account sign-ups. In March only 408,000 new accounts were created, the smallest gain in absolute numbers since September 2007, and the smallest monthly percent gain since Second Life’s debut in April 2001. Second Life shed 1,656 paid accounts in March, the fourth month in a row more people got out of the land trade than entered it. Total premium accounts stand at 89,875, below last summer’s 94,607 peak.
Estimates of active users also vary from 500,000 to 11.7 million (total accounts: 13million).
Right now, there may be up to 20 virtual world companies developing in stealth mode. They may see the light in the Autumn at the Virtual Worlds shows in San Francisco and London. Multiverse has just released a platform upgrade that gives developers the choice to build worlds in 3D or 2D Flash.
And Apple’s iPhone games initiative opens up the potential for 2D/3D mobile social spaces.
At the younger end of the market, Habbo Hotel remains the benchmark. There are currently Habbo communities in 32 countries on six continents. To date, more than 94 million Habbo characters have been created globally and 9.5 million unique users worldwide visit Habbo each month (source: Google Analytics). The average Habbo user spends nearly 40 minutes on the site per visit.
In-game advertising company Double Fusion signed up recently to manage interactive brand campaigns with retail, fashion and sports companies in US. Over 200 advertisers have used Habbo globally - in-game billboards, contests, interstitials and instant-console messaging, customized brand rooms, sponsored quests.
Right now, I think that my advice to brands would be to watch and wait for Web 3.0, where hopefully the current technical and cultural dislocations in virtual worlds will have been resolved. Meanwhile, we could be thinking through exactly how to advise and engage when the time is right.
May 21st, 2008
At Liberate Media we’ve been tackling one of the biggest issues facing the PR industry today, the skills crisis.
We thought it might be helpful to overview our thoughts on the subject in a podcast, which we’ve used to identify a few of the problems and share some insight into how we’re dealing with the matter.
Let us know your thoughts on the subject.
To Listen or to down load the podcast click here
Digital vs print coverage - which would you prefer?
May 1st, 2008
Rainier PR has launched its Tech PR 2008 report today and it makes for interesting reading, see Stephen Waddington’s post for a brief overview.
The report surveyed 300 senior in-house PR and marketing personnel in the UK’s technology sector, which is pretty much spot-on in terms of our focus.
The most interesting stat for me was this: ‘New media channels are set to overtake traditional print and broadcast as the priority targets for PR professionals.’
Now admittedly the margin was not particularly huge, ‘49 per cent of respondents still cited traditional print media as their main target for PR’…but this is interesting: ‘For 32 per cent it was their last choice.’
This subject is particularly irritating for me, as i know from personal experience that far too often hardcopy coverage is still valued above coverage online. The unfathomable part is that this preference for print coverage seems to be for no reason other than being able to tell the boss, your friends, your mum, your clients, whoever that ‘i’m in the FT/Times/Guardian etc today’.
Ignoring the positive aspects of having your coverage online, such as driving links back to your site, reaching a wider audience and the longevity of the coverage, is quite simply beyond me.
It’s great to see that the balance is being redressed and digital coverage is taking its rightful place.
Top work Rainier! I’ll be referring to this report the next time the topic comes up.