Posts Tagged ‘listening’


Catching Up With Social Media In America’s Sailing Capital

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

by Mike Robinson*

Flickr Image: PJM

Flickr Image: PJM

I recently attended a seminar presented by Phill McGowan, public information officer for the City of Annapolis. His discussion was entitled, “Successful Communication in the Digital Age” and was featured as part of the PRSA Central Chesapeake Chapter’s Luncheon Speaker Series. (Annapolis is Maryland’s capital and is known as “America’s Sailing Capital” because the U.S. Naval Academy, the National Sailing Hall of Fame, and the strong reputation of the local sailing community.)

Social media tools are a large part of McGowan’s PR strategy – used specifically to listen to conversations online and then respond and engage. In the past, he worked in the media (The Baltimore Sun) and for a private public relations firm (Virilion). He attended a graduate program at American University, which was specifically focused on digital media, and has gone on to leverage and utilize his past journalism experience, his hands-on social media expertise, and a formal education in digital media to engage and connect with the public as a government communicator.

Here are some books he recommended regarding social media:

  • Web 2.0 – A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
  • Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug
  • In-Bound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah

One great take-away from the event was his story about a blogger who had interviewed him and then published information that McGowan thought misrepresented the conversation. The way he dealt with the situation was to enter a comment below the story directly addressing the issues he thought were important. This was a great example of how you can monitor a discussion and then take immediate action to help address any shortcomings in that conversation – or even dispute any specific issues.

The experience was a lot of fun and informative and I look forward to my next PRSA seminar in “America’s Sailing Capital!” How are you using social media to listen, respond, and engage with your audiences? If you attended this event, what were some of the other points that you found helpful? How are you applying them to your social media activities? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas. 

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*Bio: Over the last 15 years, Mike Robinson has gained a lot of experience in business, sales, and marketing.  For the past eight years, he’s worked with BurrellesLuce out of its D.C. office,  advising businesses, organizations, and government agencies of all sizes on effective solutions for measuring press outreach, reputation management, and message analysis. He is passionate about news analysis, politics, and policy. And looks forward to sharing his thoughts and insights on the PR industry and media monitoring and measurement. LinkedIn: mikerobinson1 Twitter: @mike__robinson Facebook: BurrellesLuce

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Posted in Industry Events, Public Relations, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Learning How-To Be Successful and Social By Listening

Monday, December 7th, 2009
Flickr Image: Beverly & Pack

Flickr Image: Beverly & Pack

Last week I attended the PR News How-To Conference and PR People Awards, which were both sponsored by BurrellesLuce. And on Friday, Sally Falkow, social media strategist at Expansion+ and PR News Trainer of the Year, gave a presentation for PRSA-NCC.

Most of the speakers at these three events, although sometimes reviewing traditional PR tactics, often seemed to switch their focus to new social media tools.  

In this post, I’m focusing on one basic tactic that seemed to be common to all: the universal recommendation of listening first (and often) to find-out where your audience and advocates are talking. Simply stated, “You need to know where the community is congregating if you want to engage them.” Although it will seem daunting at first, a 360 overview using several tools, will help you know where to focus for continued monitoring evaluation.

Sam Ford, Peppercom, said listening is important for—

  • Product research
  • Customer service
  • Solidifying/adapting messages
  • Crisis preparation
  • Outreach
  • New business opportunities
  • Target audiences

Falkow, at a separate event, seemed to expand upon this point by saying that, “Listening helps you with your plan by generating ideas and showing you what the community is interested in discussing.”

Wendy Harmon, American Red Cross, gave a great tip: Learn to tie in your PR campaigns to what the community is talking about. By monitoring the discussions, you can make your campaigns relevant.

Both Falkow and Anne Carelli, Coca-Cola, emphasized you should “fish where the fish are.” This means you should use listening to find communities, and then start conversing in them. You don’t need to go out and create a new community if one already exists. There are several examples of companies trying to create a new community, only to fail, because it is competing with an existing one.

Colin Moffett, Weber Shandwick, and Falkow both talked about using your listening tools to understand influencers. You need to do your homework and understand what a blogger is writing about before you engage them in a conversation. Bloggers are often pickier about how and when you communicate with them then are traditional reporters.

Lastly, as listening moves into monitoring, you should use it for media content analysis. Your analysis needs to be based on your campaign goals. Most of the speakers felt “favorability” or “sentiment” should be consistently illustrated in most measurement plans. Falkow and BurrellesLuce’s Johna Burke both emphasized doing human review of the sentiment, because a computer can not understand nuances or sarcasm.

The take away for these recent industry events: listening needs be a part of your strategy from beginning to end of your campaign.

What are your “how-to” tips? Do you have any listening tips?

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Posted in Industry Events, Media Outreach, Media Relations, Public Relations, Social Media | 3 Comments »

How Much Has Changed?

Monday, November 9th, 2009

“So much has changed, and we are at a turning point,” said Arianna Huffington, keynoting the opening session for the Public Relations Society of America’s (PRSA) International Conference. (I’m one of several BurrellesLuce representatives attending the conference this week.) She went on to say that, “Old media can be consumed on the couch and new media is like a galloping horse.” Another way to put it is that new media is ADD and old media is OCD.

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Flickr Image: kevindooley

Not surprisingly, Huffington touted citizen journalism, which she believes can help make journalism better. In fact, The Huffington Post had a citizen journalism project during the election, which broke some big stories. Currently, they are asking citizen journalists to tell the stories about the economic crisis.

Some other takeaways from her keynote:

We need to look for the drama. Huffington gave the example of a story she recently wrote with the headline, “Biden Should Resign.” Had she headlined it, “The U.S. Should Pull-out of Afghanistan,” which is what the story was really about, very few people would have read it. The drama gave the story legs, and allowed her to tout it on talk shows. She also suggested using drama in communications to do good and gain support for worthy causes.

She wrapped her presentation encouraging everyone to listen. When we are not talking, we can hear what others have to say and gain knowledge from others.

What are you doing to encourage listening in your organization?

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Posted in Industry Events, News Coverage, Public Relations, Social Media | 2 Comments »

Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Friday, September 18th, 2009
http://www.flickr.com/photos/oberazzi/318947873/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oberazzi

Valerie Simon

 “You know, it’s amazing what you can learn when you listen” my mom said. I put down my Blackberry and looked up. “You just need to ask the right questions.”

“For example, the other day I was at the hairdresser. I asked the owner how the recession was impacting his business. I ask that question a lot. He told me that although yes, some clients were scheduling less frequent appointments, his business was actually growing. The reason? Many of the women who used to get their hair done in New York City, are now coming to his (New Providence, New Jersey) salon, since he is a lot more affordable than those places in New York. And they are good…”

My mom continued to tell me about her fantastic hairdresser, but I had stopped listening (and, yes, I see the irony). But I was stuck on that first line…”It’s amazing what you can learn when you listen… You just need to ask the right questions.”

BurrellesLuce clients understand the value of listening. They recognize the importance of understanding what is being said about them in the media. But with an ever expanding media landscape, it can be a challenge to get your arms around all the chatter and identify what coverage is important to you. As my mom said, in order to hear what’s important, you need to know the questions to ask. In the news monitoring business, we call it “setting up a profile” or “crafting the right search terms.”

 We invest time, effort, and expertise, working with clients to make sure that they are able to “hear” all of the news coverage that’s meaningful to them. It’s a challenge: if your question is too broad, you’ll waste time and possibly even miss what’s really important. Of course, if you neglect to ask the right questions, you’ll miss important information as well. Asking the right questions that will generate meaningful responses is an art.

Have you thought lately about what news you are monitoring? Are you “asking the right questions” about your brand, your competitors, and the industry? What are your biggest challenges in learning about the media that matters? 

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Posted in Media Monitoring, Public Relations | 3 Comments »

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