So you shared, now what? You might find a friend gave a tip or is also in the store. But, perhaps, you expect or want more. I recently found a couple organizations taking advantage of online sharing by working to engage their customers. 

If you are a home owner, you know the nightmare that involves going to a hardware store. Even if you know what you need, you can’t always be sure you’ll find it. Nor can you always find someone to help you. I recently went to my local Home Depot (Home Depot is a BurrellesLuce client) with my brother, who was willing to be my handyman for the day. We had not one, but four people ask if they could help us. We were both really impressed, so I checked-in on Foursquare, and posted to Twitter about the experience.  A Twitter friend commented on how Home Depot has recently been working to upgrade its service.  Ryan at Home Depot replied to both of us and commented on how they (Home Depot) were glad to hear we noticed the service. Wow! They noticed.

I had a similar experience when I was in downtown Minneapolis recently, and I stopped into the Macy’s store to see what was new. I learned the Macy’s Flower Show was going on in the auditorium, so I commented on Twitter I was hoping to come back and check-out the show. Macy’s replied and asked me to send them a picture if I made it to the show. I did, and they asked to confirm my location. When I did, they asked me to stop by their executive offices for something special, which turned-out to be a $10 gift card, which I promptly used.

A recent Mashable post outlines how all organizations can learn 9 Digital Marketing Lessons from Top Social Brands. My favorite is #3- Listen and Respond – which is exactly what Home Depot and Macy’s did. I was impressed that both organizations were monitoring social media and saw my tweets on a weekend and encouraged me to engage in more conversation and then asked me to take additional action. They were simple gestures, but they made me feel special, so I shared the stories with several friends. How easy was that for a lesson in customer service and word of mouth?

I believe we can all do a better job of using social media tools to connect with clients, prospects, or even friends. How is your organization using Twitter to engage clients? Do you have any tips or examples  for the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas readers?

Valerie Simon

Tomorrow, David Ring, EVP, business development, Universal Music Group; Gerard M. Stegmaier, attorney, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; and Howard Hogan, partner, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, will be holding a discussion at South by SouthWest. The question on everyone’s mind: Is the coexistence of data customization and privacy possible?

Custom data, created thanks to the availability of personal information online, creates opportunity for marketers and has the potential to offer users a better experience. Gathering data about users and even their online behaviors – as noted in this post from my BurrellesLuce colleague, Crystal deGoede,– results in increased knowledge about our customers and the potential to serve them better. But re-targeting also has the potential to be “creepy.” Increasing consumer privacy concerns are pushing legislators and the FTC to introduce new legislation that will offer web users more control of their personal data and empower the FTC to enforce voluntary privacy standards developed with Internet companies.

The fear of invasion of privacy is not new. Back in 2009, a White House Memoranda noted:

Potential benefits of web measurement and customization technologies are clear. With the help of such technologies, agencies will be able to allow users to customize their settings, avoid filling out duplicative information, and navigate websites more quickly and in a way that serves their interests and needs. These technologies will also allow agencies to see what is useful to the public and respond accordingly. Services to customers and users can be significantly improved as a result.

At the same time, OMB is acutely aware of, and sensitive to, the unique privacy questions raised by government uses of such technologies. Any such uses must not compromise or invade personal privacy. It is important to provide clear, firm, and unambiguous protection against any uses that would compromise or invade personal privacy.” (White House Memoranda: Guidance for Online Use of Web Measurement and Customization Technologies, June 2010.)

While the government certainly must have a unique sensitivity to privacy concerns, data customization practices in the corporate world are also subject to scrutiny.  

It is clear that transparency, and easy to understand disclosures regarding how personal data is being used online and in social media are essential. In fact, Facebook continues to sit in the spotlight because of privacy concerns and user-control issues. While Facebook’s privacy policy seems to be a step in the right direction, “until Facebook tells its 600 million members what it tells its major advertisers and marketing partners – on how to configure its system to generate data and other desired ad responses – it is failing to protect user privacy,” said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “We intend to push the FTC and Congress to force Facebook to come clean about its data privacy practices.”

With clear and simple language, I believe that a transparent and mutually beneficial relationship between marketers and users can exist. As a consumer, relevant messages and targeted advertising can be helpful and are certainly more welcome than advertisements for products and services that have no relevance to me and may even be offensive. My frequent postings about my children and the Jets, no doubt resulted in the advertisements for children’s Jets gear that populate my Facebook page, but as you can see from the accompanying picture, it was certainly of interest to me!

But what about other data that is being collected by deceptive methods? “Researchers at Carnegie-Mellon published a study concluding that many websites thwart users’ privacy settings by providing erroneous information to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer,” explains this Media Post article. Amazon.com is the latest company “allegedly circumventing the privacy settings of Internet Explorer users.”

What do you think? Is the coexistence of data customization and privacy possible? If the FTC is able to pass legislation to protect users privacy, how might this impact your public relations and marketing efforts?

In this new era, it’s no longer enough to capture eyeballs or count page views. Instead, communications professionals must up their storytelling game to produce consumer-centered content and provide nearly instantaneous access to the information that consumers and other stakeholders desire.

The Rise of Mobile Apps
A recent Pew study on the rise of app culture in the U.S. finds that 82 percent of adults use cell phones and that 23 percent of adults have only a cell phone and no land line. This figure is likely to rise as the public becomes more tech-savvy and mobile-oriented.

When it comes to mobile activities, individuals often use their mobile devices for more than standard calling and text messaging. The same Pew study reveals that 59 percent of adults are now mobile Internet users. In other words, they access the Internet wirelessly via a laptop or cell phone. In fact, mobile-search users are 60 percent more likely (than consumers who don’t search with a specific business in mind) to search for local businesses on their mobile device. The reason, notes this Media Post article, is “because they are already outside the home looking for a nearby business to fill a need.”

There appears to be significant potential for marketing and PR practitioners to reach and influence this growing segment of the population, especially mobile app users who make purchases online. According to the Pew study, 75 percent of mobile app users use an app to buy a product online, compared with 66 percent of all Internet users. It is thought, as quoted in this GigaOm article, that “in-app purchases now represent about 30 percent of all iPhone App Store revenue.”

Read more of this newsletter in the BurrellesLuce Resource Center.

In an age when anyone can be a “journalist” and anything a sound bite or testimonial, inappropriate online communications is fast becoming a liability for companies and brands. Those most vulnerable to this threat are organizations that have failed to establish clear guidelines for employees’ use of social media. And, in fact, a sizable majority of businesses still do not have a social communications policy.

A survey conducted by Digital Brands Expression (DBE), a consulting firm that specializes in search marketing, revealed that 78 percent of respondents said that their business actively uses social media. Yet only 41 percent of those businesses reported that social communications are addressed by some form of corporate policy.

And of the 41 percent that have a plan in place, few have formal guidelines specifically addressing employee conduct online, specifically in social media. Referring to the DBE survey, this Media Post article noted, “Only 29 percent reported distributing policies and/or communications protocols to employees via social channels.” Instead, most of the organizations “appear to be shooting from the hip, with no cohesive game plan or measurement systems in place.” Read more of this newsletter in the BurrellesLuce Resource Center.

Image Source: WMPowerUser.com

I have an old phone.

I know it’s old because I’ve kept it longer than the service agreement I signed when I bought it. I know it’s old because it still has the logo of a now defunct cellular company on it. I also know it’s old because of my inability to download apps of any kind.

However, despite my phones technical limitations, it appears that I may not be the only one hasn’t been filling their phone with the all the latest available applications.

According to Mark Welsh’s recent story on Mediapost.com, Pew: Only Two-Thirds Of Cell Users With Apps Use Them, only four in ten mobile phone users have apps on their phone. And just two-thirds, of that 40 percent, actually use them.

(Not sure which apps to choose for the Droid? Check out this post from my BurrellesLuce colleague Johna Burke.)

Welsh notes that the download and use of applications is “still not among the most popular mobile data activities, with only 29 percent of mobile subscribers having downloaded an app…” In fact, “People are more likely to use their phones to take a picture, text-message, browse the Web, email, record a video, play music and send instant messages than they are to access an app.”

Does this mean that downloading the latest apps for my mobile device isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be? I have to admit; it’d be nice to have sporting event updates or get restaurant reviews before leaving the house and then be able to accurately calculate a good tip.

However, like many of those surveyed, I use my phone as, well, a phone. The reliability of the service is paramount. Anything beyond that is just gravy.

Of course, there are always benefits to owning an older phone. For one, unlike so many people, I can break my cell phone contract without a penalty. Also, I never get frustrated with my phone because I really expect nothing from it other than the most basic of services.

Confidentially, though, I’m really just waiting for my birthday present iPad anyway.

How about you? Have you been quick to download apps? If so, do you still use them? If you haven’t added any or no longer use them, why?

Image Courtesy of DC Comics

It would be hard to imagine the fictional newspaper men (and women) of the past like Perry White of the “Daily Planet” (Superman) hollering for their first quarter numbers of “unique visitors per month” or boasting about their ranking for “most-linked-to-news-outlets” or even deliberating about putting their content behind a “pay-wall.” Today these are just some of the relatively new terms being used to describe the various metrics and business models newspapers are exploring during this transitional period in which the entire industry finds itself. 

For the last several years the forecasts for news organizations have been filled with doom and gloom. However the news about the news industry has been much rosier as of late. For starters, newspaper website’s traffic continues to grow. As highlighted in this Media Post article, online newspaper operations from the top 25 media outlets reached 83.7 million unique visitors in April, up 10 percent from March, 12 percent from February and 15 percent from January of this year, according to comscore figures released by the Newspaper National Network. And according to Nielsen, 74.4 million unique visitors per month in the first quarter of 2010 were a record – up from 72 million from the first quarter of 2009. These increases were actually higher than competitors like CNN and The Huffington post who came in at 43.4 million (flat) and 22.2 million (a 3 percent drop) respectively.

(For a list of the top 100 daily newspapers, 25 consumer magazines, 25 blogs, and the 20 social networks in the U.S., check out the updated 2010 Top Media List from BurrellesLuce.)

It is obvious from these figures that, as Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt was recently quoted as saying, “Newspapers don’t have a demand problem they have a business model problem.”

As various business models continue to be tested, measured and debated within the industry, a silver bullet has yet to emerge. So far, it appears that several viable solutions are taking shape and depending on who you ask you’ll get a justification for each of them. According to this article on CNN.com, “Last year Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of The Wall Street Journal’s parent company News Corp., said ‘The current free access business model favored by most content providers was flawed and contributed to a fall in newspapers’ revenues.’” The WSJ is currently behind a pay-wall and “he also claimed the Wall Street Journal had proved that charging for content could be made to work pointing out that 360,000 people had downloaded an iPhone WSJ application in three weeks and that users would soon be made to pay “handsomely” for accessing WSJ content.”

Alternatively, The New Times plans to use a metered system (EZ Pass approach) starting January 2011, where a certain number of articles would be free before demanding payment (similar to what Financial Times is currently using). This may solve their monetization challenge, but it will no doubt affect their “most-linked-to-news-outlets” rank, a measure used to track the amount of people who actually clicked-through to the original news organizations website via a blog or third party source. This could significantly impact results, with 99 percent of the stories bloggers include as links coming from traditional mainstream media sources. Interestingly enough, 80 percent of the stories linked to in online and social media come from only four news outlets: The New York Times (20 percent), BBC news (23 percent), CNN.com (21 percent), and the Washington Post (16 percent). The Wall Street Journal has twice the print circulation as the New York Times, but  is not on this short list. 

Some pay-wall advocates would argue that the majority of these visitors are merely “drive by users” who come in once through an aggregator and don’t really engage with the product. The counter argument claims more traffic directed to a newspaper’s online site would ultimately translate into higher advertising dollars.

If the numbers prove the demand for news content is there, let’s hope for the news industry’s sake the revenue will follow. In my opinion credible news journalism still trumps all. As long as it’s being distributed through the device of choice, engaged by the readers, and monetized in a way that generates revenue without isolating readers – it doesn’t matter whether it’s done through pay-walls, online advertising, or possibly something we haven’t thought of yet. (After all necessity is the mother of all inventions.) A tall order for the news industry for sure, but the future suddenly looks a whole lot brighter. There’s no doubt the identity of the news industry will change, but a reinvented news organization is still better than none at all.

Amid privacy concerns, Facebook is turning off its controversial Beacon service, which tells one’s friends about your purchases. You may recall the brouhaha that ensued when Beacon was launched. (A synopsis: By default, data about the online purchasing habits of Facebook users were automatically shared with other members of their network, and it was near impossible to opt-out if you didn’t catch a single fleeting pop-up window. Responding to consumer protest, Facebook made Beacon an opt-in program within weeks of launch. But in the end, many pundits supported the inevitably of this direction – a way for social networks to make money and marketers to capitalize on an automated form of word-of-mouth marketing.)

Now, due to privacy lawsuits, the entire program has been dismantled, and Facebook will pay $ 9.5 million in settlement charges, some of which will fund a new privacy foundation. (Read  “Facebook To Wind Down Beacon to Resolve Privacy Lawsuit” on MediaPost.)

T-Mobile joins Facebook in learning the hard way that it doesn’t pay to force customers to do what they don’t want to do, even if it’s the “right thing.” With consumer adoption of paperless invoices stalling, T-Mobile decided to charge for the privilege of receiving a hard-copy bill beginning in August. The new policy applied to new and existing clients.  At first, the program seemed to be a smashing success. After months of sluggish conversion rates spurred by voluntary “go green” marketing programs, requests for electronic invoicing exploded. (See The New York Times article, “What if People Don’t Take the Bait to Go Paperless?”)  But after a class-action lawsuit spearheaded by disgruntled clients asserted that the mandatory charge was a “material modification” to T-Mobile’s contract, T-Mobile rescinded the program.

I can understand T-Mobile’s interest in curbing paper invoicing. The paper, ink, and fossil fuels used in producing and sending paper invoices degrade the environment. Saving on the cost of mailings, especially in these tough economic times, allow businesses to hold the line on pricing, reduce the need for layoffs, and fund new products and services. But today’s consumer will use every tool at their disposal to avoid being strong-armed. These days, you need to talk to your customers, and get most of them on board, before you change policies.  

The T-Mobile situation caught my eye because we have a situation analogous to theirs: After BurrellesLuce’s “go green with paperless billing” marketing campaign had penetrated as far as it could, Client Services (CS) began to reach out to each of our clients (much in the same way both our CS and Sales teams  had done a couple of years ago when we launched a “turnkey copyright compliance” program so PR and communications could legally share their online news clips.) Anyway, as a result, in just a few months, the percentage of clients receiving electronic bills has jumped from less than 20 percent to almost 90 percent. Most of the change was the result of dialogue.

What do you think? Could the T-Mobile and Facebook initiatives have succeeded had they been implemented differently?  As a public relations professional, how would you advise Facebook and T-Mobile to proceed? And as a consumer and a citizen, what do you think of the role of lawsuits in changing the behaviors of these companies?

Q: Could you please define hashtag (on Twitter)?

A: A hashtag is a way to add additional context, grouping and indexing to you tweets. By using #ashortindex (not a real hashtag), you can make it easier for others to find your tweets about that subject. To follow a particular hashtag, checkout hashtag.org, which provides real-time indexing. For some great PR advice, check out #pradvice.

Q: How do you personally separate business contacts from social contacts on Facebook (i.e. two separate profiles or just one)? When is a tweet considered too much information? Can you separate your personal life from your professional?

A: Let’s look at these questions as one. As I said during the webinar, I do know people who have more than one Facebook profile and more than one Twitter username. But, I do not feel this promotes transparency. As hard as you may try to keep your profiles separate, people are bound to still find both of them. We all know information on the Internet, does not disappear. It’s OK to mix in the personal and the business. I don’t mind that my all my followers on Twitter and friends on Facebook know I like to share PR information, but I am also a huge fan of college hockey and the TV show “Lost.” I suggest checking-out the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) code of ethics guide.

Q: I work for a nonprofit with zero funds for consumer awareness and a PR staff of two (that includes myself). How can we work social media into our plan without it draining all our time?

A: It is easy to let your involvement in social media drain your time away. The first thing to do is to include your social media monitoring into your overall monitoring. Use tools to make it easy to scan what is being said about your organization, and review it quickly each day. Pick the tool(s), which will help you engage your audience, and don’t try to do it all. Remember, social media is just another communications tool, and responding on a platform like Twitter is fast and easy (only 140 characters). Our latest white paper, discusses ways to effectively manage your social networks and micro-blogging sites.

Q: Is this media being utilized by older groups (i.e 40-60 year old crowd or is it mostly for those under 30?

A: I discussed this question during the webinar, and although I know people over 40 are utilizing social media, Media Post ran an article, Women Over 55 Fastest-Growing Group on Facebook, which helped to validate my answer.  Check-out the latest Don’t Get Caught blog, as well.

Keep the questions coming, and I will try to address them in a future blog post or webinar.