Retargeting – when online targeted advertising is delivered to consumers based on previous Internet actions that did not result in a past conversion – has become more importunate (persistent) as we continue to increasingly use the Internet to shop, order food, book travel, monitor the news or for pretty much anything you want to do without leaving the house.  

It is also becoming more widely used within the advertising arena. With so many similar brands in the market it is hard to differentiation yourself from the other guy, and this form of remarketing can help to successfully convert those lost opportunities.

This past week Michael Learmonth, digital lead at Advertising Age expressed his creepy experience with Zappos, and “The Pants That Stalked [Him] on the Web.”

Oddly enough, after reading Learmonth’s post I was having dinner with my friend Nancy who was “weirded out” by a similiar experience. Ever since she  booked a room at Loews Hotel ads for the hotel began appearing on every website that she visited. She is a sales trader so PPC (pay-per-click), Twitter, retargeting, and cookies are not really in her vocabulary.  So I thought it would be interesting to research if retargeting is as effective as marketing and advertising professionals believe and how it actually works.

According to Criteo, a company that specializes in scalable personalized retargeting, more than 90 percent of website visitors leave before converting (i.e., making a purchase, downloading a white paper, etc.) Other research has shown that it can take at least seven follow-up emails or phone calls with prospects to actual convert them to a sale. If we are only tracking those visitors that convert on our physical websites, we are simply losing out on a possible sale down the road.  Websites these days are optimized for search and have the technology to place cookies on each visitor’s computers to measure the site’s true audience size, but that is only capturing IP addresses most of the time. Then they have us, until we remove all our cookies and empty our cache. 

So how do these retargeting customized ads work?  When a prospect/client browses your website they become tagged with a snippet of code, which tracks which products they have shown interest in. When they leave the website and begin visiting other pages that’s when the retargeting begins. Banner ads customized to their search on your site start appearing on sites all over the web, from news, social networks, blogs, etc.

Companies that are using retargeting firms, such as Fetchback, in their marketing strategy have seen a 592 percent increase in ROI and conversions up by 94 percent.  There are many other benefits to this form of behavioral marketing. It helps streamline all of your campaigns and the frequency of the ads helps keep your brand on the top of prospects minds. (Most services have an integrated feature that allows you to place a limit on the frequency at which the ads appear, so you don’t bomb your potential clients and “creep” them out because everywhere they go they see you.)

Plus, your ads are not static on a particular site related to your industry, which usually does not yield a lot of traffic because that market is already saturated and are either already your clients or know who you are.  With retargeting your ads you are only reengaging with new prospects that have already shown interest in your brand; you can focus on what their needs are and manage your ROI.

In short, retargeting helps build your brand and online presence, while increasing the chances of reengaging your audience. It is not going to convert all on its own and has to be used with traditional marketing tactics to be effective. So don’t eliminate your current strategies. It is also important to measure the effectiveness of your retargeting campaigns, ensuring it is worth the investment and that your conversion rates are higher.

This article from Inc. Magazine highlights a retargeting success story involving Scottevest and its partnership with firm AdRoll.

There is one downside to the growing popularity for converting leads more efficiently via retargeting and that is the possibility that people may have the choice to opt-out (a do not call list for the Internet) of all behavioral targeting ads.  What does that do for brands that are following the rules and not hunting down prospects on the web?  We lose the opportunity to generate qualified leads for our sales team and revenue for the company.  If you do use retargeting make sure you limit your reach frequency because when people begin to feel harassed and stalked by brands they will opt-out; I would. 

Is your organization taking on the strategy of retargeting advertising?  If so, how successful have you been with campaigns and reengaging lost prospects?  Do you think we should have the right to opt-out of all behavioral targeting ad campaigns or just the irritating ones?  Please share your thoughts and ideas with me and the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas readers. 

Flickr Image: lapolab

When I am making decisions or working with decision makers I am often reminded of the PRSA Counselors Academy conference back in May.  During the breakout session, “The Emotional Context of Rational Thought,” led by Carol Schiro Greenwald, I learned about how the brain works and how emotions influence the way we hear and process information.  This in turn influences our decisions, as well as those our clients make.

Greenwald was informative, filling us in on facts about the brain: 

1. it weighs 3lbs.
2. is 7-10 million years old
3. it does not fully develop until we are approx. 20 years old. 

These facts were interesting, but what Greenwald went on to say got me thinking.  She explained that we can only do one thing at a time!  Despite our best efforts, we cannot multi-task – I guess this why she would not let us tweet during her session. 

She explained that the mind is linear and has not evolved…yet.  Perhaps future generations will evolve in to doing more than one thing at a time since they will be raised in a multi-tasking society with all the new technology.  (So for now, stop trying to do other things and stick to one thing at a time – like concentrating on reading this blog.) 

Greenwald said we can only retain 7-10 pieces of information at a time and we forget 95 percent of what we know.  She also explained 80 percent of brain thoughts are unconscious!  Therefore, for good decision making it is important to “underload in the society of information overload.”  How can we do this? 

• Begin with a big idea and add the details later.
• Tell a story. We learn through visuals, pictures – so make it real.
• Don’t overload the consumer.  Over thinking shuts out emotional context; it cuts out all the knowledge.  Whatever you think is the proper length, shorten it Greenwald says. 
• Provide all the need to know information rather than the nice to know. Again shorter is better.
• We see what our brain tells us to see. Keep it lively.
• Memory is a creative product of our encounters. Make sure you make an impression.

What emotional connections do you see influencing seemingly rational choices or decisions with your clients?  In the workplace? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas. 

***

*Bio: Colleen Flood has been a sales consultant with BurrellesLuce for over 12 years and is eager to become a more integrated part of the social-public relations community. She primarily handles agency relations in the New York and New Jersey metro-area. She is not only passionate about work, but also about family, friends, and the Jersey Shore. Twitter: @cgflood LinkedIn: Colleen Flood Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Transcript -

JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference in Beautiful Aspen, Colorado.  I’m here with Angela.

Angela, will you please introduce yourself?

ANGELA BERARDINO:  Hi, I’m Angela Berardino.  I’m the senior director for travel and emerging media at Turner Public Relations.

BURKE:  And what are some of the trends that you’re seeing specifically as they relate to travel and tourism in the industry right now?

BERARDINO:  I think one of the larger trends is the continuing evolution of geolocation technology, so the idea that content someone creates can have a GPS tag on it and can be sorted based on where it was created.  We’re seeing that with services like Goala and Foursquare, that, you know, let users check in to a social network. But also in how photography and video and even just website content, it can actually be filtered based on where the user’s at, especially if they’re using their phone. So I think how travel industry creates content and how it’s sorted is going to continue to evolve.  It’s no longer just about the words that are used, it’s–can also be about the physical location that it was taken in.

BURKE:  Great.  And, Angela, where can people find you in the web and in social media?

BERARDINO:  Sure.  I tweet under @CoTravelGirl.  And I also blog at digitaljuju.com.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

BERARDINO:  Yes. 

Transcript -

JOHNA BURKE:  Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and I’m here at the PRSA Travel and Tourism Conference and I’m joined by Sree.

Sree, will you please introduce yourself?

SREE SREENIVASAN:  Hi, folks, I’m Sree Sreenivasan. I’m a dean of student affairs at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. And I teach in the digital media program there.

BURKE:  And I’ve heard Sree speak a couple of times, and I always take away great value from the presentation. You know, I think it’s interesting that you were an early adopter of Google, but for things like Google Buzz and Google Wave, you haven’t quite seen the value of those things yet.  So I think you have a really healthy perspective of how you look at things, and can you share some of those tips with the audience now about how they should try to find things and work them into what works for them as opposed to just adopting everything that’s out there?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. This is, I like to say, very–or in a very early time in social media. This is where the Internet was in 1996, where radio was in 1912, where TV was in 1950, which means there’s a lot of new stuff coming all the time and you have to decide, though, whether to jump on things or not.

My own rule is, I’ll only work with something once it fits into my work flow and my life flow.  Work flow, life flow.  If it doesn’t do both, it’s not for me.  That doesn’t mean it’s not for other people.

So for example, Google Buzz and Google Wave are great examples of things that people love and thousands, millions of people maybe around the world use it. In fact, we all one day woke up and were on Google Buzz without knowing it because it’s something every Gmail user was on Google Buzz.  But what I’ve—I say is find when–only when it’s time for that technology for you should you use it.  So an example is Facebook.  I work at a university and Facebook was available very early.  I probably joined two years after everybody else did and couldn’t quite figure out how I can use it in my work till even after that.  Same thing with Twitter. Once you find something, then you are ready for it, then you use it.  Don’t panic, don’t worry that everybody’s using something that’s not important. Use the things that work for you.

The other thought about all of this is that it’s going to keep changing, and what we need to build is an ear that is listening to these new ideas and then looking for where we can–we can come aboard. Right now geolocation’s very big. I think it’s going to get bigger. Social media, I think, is much bigger than we imagined, and especially PR people need to be paying attention.

BURKE:  Great, Sree.  And where can people find you online and in social media?

SREENIVASAN:  Sure. My main web address is sree.net.  So if you Google “Sree” I come up first.  But Sree Stinks come ups–comes up afterwards, which doesn’t matter because the main thing is that I come up first.  But you can also find me on Twitter @sreenet, S-R-E-E-N-E-T, and on Facebook I have a page where I’m posting tech tips, job ideas, which is sree–sreetips.  So it’s www.facebook.com/sreetips.

BURKE:  Great.  Thank you so much.

SREENIVASAN:  Thanks. 

For those of you who attended last year’s PRSA International conference and heard Arianna Huffington open the keynote address with, “The press release is dead…” or those who read Tom Forenski’s rant a few years ago, “Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!,” may be surprised to learn the press release, like traditional media, is NOT dead.  Falkow told us the news has changed, but journalists still want information.  The way that journalists work is evolving so we need to provide this information in different ways.

Lieb quoted some statistics on how journalists work today:

• 91 percent of journalists search Google to do their job (“expert” is a common search term)
• 89 percent use blogs
• 64 percent are using social networks

In addition, Lieb went on to say that over 75 percent of reporters view blogs as helpful in providing story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue. And, almost half of reporters say they are “lurkers” on social networking sites.

So, what do journalists really want and need from PR?  

• They want the news in easy-to-identify, digestible sections.
• They are looking for images, quotes, video, backgrounders, fact sheets.
• Tag the information so it’s easily found. 
• Give them the full embed code for multimedia.
• Put your news in a feed.
• Make it available on social sites.
• Aggregate your news/social content in one place.

She says, “Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information. By using news tags, a newspaper or news site could pull together larger numbers of news stories and the PR industry would be helping news publishers to gather the facts and present them in a near-publishable format.”

Bottom line: if you aren’t telling your story, then someone’s telling it for you. If the media can’t find the information they need from you, they will find it elsewhere – and you may not like what they find!  

The media in general is expected to provide more than just a print story, or just a video clip – it’s also on the web. What is your organization doing to feed the media’s hunger for content? 

Want more tips and best practices for working with the media and giving journalists what they want and need? Visit the BurrellesLuce Resource Center which provides FREE white papers, tip sheets, and more. And be sure to sign-up for this month’s newsletter, “When Press Releases Go Bad” or view an archive of last month’s newsletter, “Staying Ahead of the Media Relations Curve.”

In ancient China, soldiers would warn against impending attacks by sending smoke signals from tower to tower up to 300 miles away within just a few hours; In 1775, Paul Revere used his vocal chords and a horse on his “midnight ride” to warn of the British invasion and in the 1800’s Samuel Morse used a type of character encoding system to send 20 words per minute via radio.

Today, in just a few typed lines and a few clicks, stories are being spread around the world through social networking sites circling the globe in a matter of seconds. And the vivid details from personal accounts through citizen journalism and the proliferation of camera phones are adding more truth and authenticity to these stories. In some cases the immediacy and extra scrutiny can lead to positive things (e.g., shedding light on last summer’s Iranian protests). In others, it can be

devastating for the main character or brand – causing irreparable harm to their reputations. The BP oil spill in the Gulf, the English goalies blunder against the U.S. team in the opening round of this year’s  World Cup, or any Lindsey Lohan story these days are just a few stories that go against the old PR adage, “Any publicity is good publicity as long as you spell my name right.”   

Celebrities have been putting up with this type of scrutiny, to some degree, for years with paparazzi constantly photographing unsuspecting beach goers wearing unflattering bathing suits or in compromising positions. But when it happens to our politicians, business leaders, corporations, athletes or just everyday people, how does one cope with the instant barrage of viral videos, bloggers, or tweeters, and the repercussions that follow? At least bad weather would force the ancient smoke signalers to take a break every now and then. Barring a colossal Internet crash, today’s perpetual flow of information continues to tarnish reputations worldwide (and many times rightfully so).

 Today crisis communications is becoming increasingly difficult with public relations and marketing people scrambling to keep up with today’s technology.  One lesson that Southwest Airlines taught the PR community back in February is to always keep a close eye on what the media, especially social media, is saying about your company. When movie director Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Flight on Feb 18, 2010, essentially for being too fat, he tweeted about the episode and the next day the story was all over the Internet. However, Southwest wasted no time and offered an apology to Smith via Twitter and posted an explanation of their policy on its own blog before the story started to trend.

Maybe there should be an island for all the victims of negative social media fall out, where they can live in solitude and where there are no computers, web access, or mobile devices until their names are mercifully pushed down the search engine results list.  Even then, it probably wouldn’t take long before helicopters were swirling overhead taking video and instantly downloading the footage online.  A more practical approach would be to prevent the crisis from spreading further by paying close attention to what is being said in all forms of media and to who’s saying it.

The “who are you with attitude?” is old school now. So how are you preparing your clients and executives for “the every one is a reporter mentality?” Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

In the field of public relations, as within any other industry, “stars” emerge. Those who offer value and receive exposure gain attention. And while in the field of PR it is usually our clients who take center stage, Christine’s presentation highlighted tastemakers such as fashion PR maven Kelly Cutrone and social media experts such as Brian Solis who have become influencers in their own right. She encouraged those seeking to become influencers to share; write a book, offer quotes for a book, blog and tweet. Christine also cautioned that while sharing and participating in social media is essential, equally important is the need to offer value. Consider everything you put out there especially in writing, and what value it offers to others.

Following the session, Christine shared a few thoughts with me for young PR practitioners who seek to become influencers.

So here is my question to BurrellesLuce readers: What are your thoughts on PR experts as influencers? Is it the role of the PR practitioner to stay behind the brand, or do those PR influencers who are able to emerge as veritable tastemakers offer an added value to both clients and their community?

Recently, I received an email from a client on a Sunday morning. It came in around 10 A.M. and was marked as “urgent.” This was not a new client, nor one that I would consider to be “high-maintenance.” Upon closer examination, it became clear that the issue was one that could not be solved until Monday morning. In short, it was a typical client inquiry on an atypical day. I debated how best to respond…

I only caught this client’s email because I have a Blackberry that I routinely check. Several years ago this would not have even been possible, but now I am unable to resist the urge to check it dozens of times a day. This affords me the option to respond and deal with issues both on my company’s time as well as my own.

While there may be some added stress caused by my involvement in customer relations on my own time, I’ve found that I like the “head’s up” it affords me. I’ve also found that clients appreciate the timely response. After all, clients are using the same technology I am and often for the same purpose.

In his blog post “Starting Over With Customer Service”, Seth Godin writes,

“The internet has taught us to demand everything immediately (and perfectly).” He goes on to say, “We expect instant results and undivided attention.”

So, not only are client’s using the same technology we are, but they expect us to be available whenever they are. Good, bad or indifferent, that’s how it is.

How then did I handle my client’s inquiry? By responding to their email shortly after receiving it, of course. I advised my client that BurrellesLuce was aware of the issue, that we will do our best to have it rectified ASAP, and to please let us know if there is anything else we can do.

How are you handling the demands of 24/7 customer service? Do you, your company, or team have an official plan in place? Or do your individual representatives act accordingly on their own time? As a customer do you expect your account managers to be on call every minute of every day?

Image: Collider.com

On a recent trip to Colombia (South America), after a long day of sightseeing, I thought I’d switch on the TV with the hope of maybe catching an American baseball game … Instead, I found an episode of MTV Network’s “Jersey Shore.” As if it wasn’t surprising enough that this show recently became a television phenomenon in the states, I found out it was also number one on pay television in Colombia amongst 18-24 year olds, as well as in Mexico.

American television companies are penetrating international markets at a rapid pace and are leveraging multiple platforms, turning their creations into global brands or “multi platform franchises.” “Transmedia storytelling,” where multiple platforms are used to create varying entry points to the story while sticking to the main narrative, is a huge contributing factor in expanding these franchises. Additional revenue, created by linking video and computer games, mobile devices, and websites to the show, in turn helps entertainment companies offset high production costs. “Once people fall in love with a brand they want to interact with it in all sorts of ways,” says Tony Cohen, the head of Fremantle Media.

Transmedia storytelling is nothing new to entertainment – movie studios have used it for years making Spider-Man and Harry Potter as recognizable worldwide as Coke or McDonald’s. Avatar, Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster hit of 2009, grossed $747 million in the states and a whopping $2.7 billion worldwide, surpassing Titanic’s overseas box office record.

McDonald’s created Internet- based games and a sweepstakes around Avatar that included a private screening of the film among other prizes. “They’re realizing that the demographic they’re targeting isn’t using traditional media as much as they used to,” said Jeff Farmer, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in Boston.

As the Vice President of media and entertainment at BurrellesLuce I follow the television and movie industries very closely. A little break while traveling abroad would be nice, however, “Hollywood” seems to be everywhere these days.

What do you think? Is Hollywood and U.S. television over saturating the digital space? Are you using “transmedia” to engage and connect with your audience? What industry beyond entertainment do you think has crossed over with an effective use of transmedia public relations, marketing or advertising?

Flickr Image: Darren Foreman

In my last BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas post, I shared some rather entertaining excerpts from journalists and bloggers regarding how they feel about “PR spam.” This post will discuss, “what exactly is PR spam?”

I mentioned before Drew Kerr’s definition of PR spam – “impersonal e-mail blasts that contain completely irrelevant information” – which sums it up nicely. But how do you spot PR spam?  Neville Hobson of The Hobson & Holtz Report wrote these detailed descriptors of PR spam:

1. The product or service being pitched by email is so obviously not one that I would have much interest in, a fact that would be very easily apparent if the pitcher had taken even a cursory glance at this blog or listened to my podcast.

2. The email includes an unsolicited Word document attachment. And it’s worth noting that not everyone uses Word. I do but the pitcher doesn’t know that.

3. The pitcher writes a pseudo-friendly greeting but it only looks like a bad database mail merge. My favorite: “Hi, Neville ,” (notice the space between my name and the final comma). A close second is the simple “Hi ,” with that same space (yes, I’ve had lots of emails like that).

4. The email contains nothing but the text of a press release. That sin is compounded when the email subject line says (you guessed it) ‘press release’ or ‘latest announcement from XYZ Company.’ The nail’s in the coffin when the email also includes the press release as a Word attachment with lots of font and other document formatting.

Hobson wrote this nearly two years ago.  So why are we still talking about this topic today?  Sadly, it’s because PR spam is even more of an issue now than then.  The more technology advances, the easier it is to spam – even unintentionally. 

Some point the finger at “lazy PR flacks,” and yes, every profession has some, but doesn’t apply to most that I know. Some point the finger at the companies that provide media lists, media directories, and media database services.  In my humble opinion, that’s just shooting the messenger.

So, here’s what I think it’s really about.  It’s about client expectation and targeting.

• Clients and CEOs like to see big names on the media list – even when it’s not appropriate. It’s the PR practitioner’s job to provide good counsel. Set a realistic and common level of expectations. 
• Once that’s established, research the writers on your list.  Not just what beat they cover, but what they are writing about. What are they passionate about?  How does your story tie-in to these things; in other words, why should the journalist or blogger care?
• And be sure to check (or double check), journalist, blogger, and community guidelines before pitching. When in doubt, go without.

If you take the time to do this, then surely you won’t be accused of being a PR spammer! What would you add to the list? How do you know when you’ve been the subject of PR spam? What are you doing to make sure your activities are staying off of the “PR naughty list?”

McCormick began with the “Three E’s Bringing Change.”

• Economy – budgets are down and value propositions are up, making it more difficult to succeed in the marketplace.
• Environment – trust is down, number of messages is down, and audiences now expect to provide input.
• Effects Strengthened Through PR/Partnerships – public relations understands how to build and sustain beneficial relationships; transference of credibility moves the messages faster and feedback is more immediate and helps facilitate needed change.

McCormick cited a number of statistics and studies to prove his point that current changes are good for PR. For example, according to CareerCast.com, PR tops other communication disciplines, such as advertising and journalism, in the listing of top 200 jobs. The annual Veronis Suhler Stevenson study predicts a consolidated aggregated growth rate for public relations as nearly 10 percent for the years 2008-2012.  Even in a downturned economy, spending on PR in the U.S. grew by more than 4 percent in 2008 and nearly 3 percent in 2009 – to $3.7 billion.  And, finally, the rise of the Internet and social media has given PR a big boost.

Why else does McCormick think the future of PR is bright? Things like: advances in technology, changing role of traditional media, reduced trust in business, 24/7 immediate/global news cycle, segmentation of messages and authentication of sources, the ongoing turf war on owning social media, and the fact that organizations will no longer own messages/messaging and that actions will define reputation are all benefits influencing the landscape of public relations.

Finally, he made the following suggestions for preparing for the future:

1. Focus on strategy, not tactics
2. Include all the tools available
3. Integrate and innovate
4. Embrace the new normal
5. Deliver more listening points than talking points
6. Maintain your individual brand ethics

What do you think? Are you beginning to see an upturn in business? How are the current media and economic environments affecting the way you do public relations? Share your thoughts with me and the readers of Fresh Ideas.

Instead of being a “shared experience,” TV is quickly becoming “an experience we share.”  That observation, made on a recent episode of NPR’s always-enjoyable Culturetopia podcast, really rings true for me.

I’m a first-generation television kid and am old enough to remember when the television dial was really a dial with 13 numbers. There were just three networks plus an educational channel and an independent channel or two that mostly showed old movies. Miss “The Twilight Zone,” “Ed Sullivan,” “Laugh-In” or, later, “Saturday Night Live” and you risked being left out of the lunchtime conversation. 

That was pretty much the way of the world until the first video recorders began appearing in homes and offices in the 1980s. Almost overnight it became possible to borrow a missed episode of “Cheers” from a coworker who hadn’t forgotten to set his VCR (as long as he didn’t have a Beta machine).  

This opened up a whole new world for communications professionals. Suddenly it became possible to record, copy, and share cassettes of the annual meeting or positive media coverage with employees, customers, and other stakeholders. 

Fast forward a decade or two and digital technology made it possible to post videos on company websites and e-mail links – or even short clips – to your key publics. Even more importantly, you could forward clips of cats playing the piano or bears catching fish to your friends.

Technology has continued to advance at warp speed. You can now see most of your favorite shows online or buy them for a couple of bucks on iTunes. More than 65,000 videos are posted on YouTube every day. And someone somewhere almost certainly watched the Super Bowl on his cell phone.

With more than 100 million viewers, the Super Bowl is one of television’s few remaining shared experiences, something almost everyone watches at the same time. Maybe Michael Phelps swimming at the Summer Olympics or the finale of “American Idol” also qualify. I’d like to hear your nominations. 

So what does all this mean for professional communicators? 

In some ways it makes our jobs harder. We have more channels to monitor and more competition for people’s attention than ever before. We have to do a better job of training, prepping, and equipping our spokespeople, because screw-ups can live on and on in cyberspace. And we’ve got to be more prepared than ever to respond quickly, effectively, and creatively to disasters, rumors, and PR challenges that didn’t even occur to us a few years ago.  Bad news can go viral faster than you can bathe in a KFC sink.

On the opportunities side of the ledger, we also have more tools at our disposal than ever before. We can respond to negative press overnight or, ideally, even quicker. We can set up dedicated YouTube channels, as Best Buy, Mercedes Benz, Apple and hundreds of other companies have done.  And we can get the word out – from executive speeches to news clips – faster and to a broader audience than ever before, with a few mouse clicks.

Six decades after television took over America’s living rooms, its power to communicate, persuade, and entertain continues to grow.  What are you doing to tap into the power of television in the social media age?

Flickr Image: Intersection Consulting

Part of my responsibilities in the marketing department at BurrellesLuce is always trying to find new ways to increase our presence on social media sites along with engaging our clients and target audience. 

So naturally during the 2009 PRSA International Conference (#prsa09), I wanted to learn more about getting our clients and prospects involved and talking about us on social media networks and even offline. I wasn’t interested in just not another “how-to” session.  Like many public relations and marketing professionals, we are already out in the social media space. And like many in the industry, we just need to know how to make it more engaging and inspiring to our audience and deliver on those results. So I attended, “People Are the Killer App: How to Grow Word-of-Mouth Movements With Your Brand Fans” presented by Geno Church, word-of-mouth inspiration officer, Brains on Fire.

To start was a discussion of campaigns versus movements and how they differ. When a company talks about its brand or product, that is a campaign; when others talk about a company’s brand or product that is considered a movement. Here are a few comparisons from Geno’s presentation:

• Campaigns have a beginning and an end. Movements go on as long as kindred spirits are involved.
• Campaigns are dry and emotionally detached. Movements are organic and rooted in passion.
• Campaigns rely on traditional mediums. Movements rely on word-of-mouth, where the people are the medium.

 To help illustrate his points, Geno shared with us a very compelling case study on Fiskars brand scissors, and how they launched a movement with the help of Friskarteers (a group of four brand ambassadors). With the aid of these brand ambassadors Fiskars  increased their online conversation by 600 percent and “recruited” 5400+ engaged and active members.

Do you think businesses should now become P2P (People 2 People) and rely on customers to generate movement for their brand rather than running a print ad in The New York Times? Or is it necessary to stay B2B/B2C and continue to employ the traditional tools of the trade?  Do you think connecting with your customers on a personal level is more valuable that keeping things all business?

*Bio: After graduating from East Carolina University with a Marketing degree in 2005, Crystal DeGoede moved to New Jersey. In her four years as a member of the BurrellesLuce marketing team and through her interaction with peers and clients she has learned what is important or what it takes to develop a career when you are just starting out. She is passionate about continuing to learn about the industry in which we serve and about her career path. By engaging readers on Fresh Ideas Crystal hopes to further develop her social media skills and inspire other “millennials” who are just out of college and/or working in the field of marketing and public relations. Twitter: @cldegoede LinkedIn: Crystal DeGoede Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Flickr Image: LipJin

by Jeffrey Barrett*
There is a distinction in the text analytics community between “searching” and “discovering.” Search is typically defined as “finding all documents or occurrences of a piece of text you know you want to find from a given set of texts.” Discovery is where “pieces of text are identified or grouped based on statistical occurrences within the given set of texts.”

Often search is considered “precise” when in reality the algorithms behind the tool you are using can vary by type. (Learn more about precision and recall here). The world of discovery tools is almost always considered by the users as something close to artificial intelligence when, for many, they are simply more diverse statistical tools than those used by search.

Most, particularly those in the field of text analytics, will agree that search is the starting path to a manual application of discovery. This is where you “feel” there may be a new aspect to what you’re searching to uncover. So you search for that topic and you use your judgment to see if there is an overlap; you apply a human statistical measure to your observations via search.

For others, search is simply a tool for grouping and organizing with no discovery applied. As we look into the future of our portal product offering, here at BurrellesLuce, we are looking into the transition from search to discovery.

So what discovery techniques do you use in conjunction with search?

*Bio: Currently I am the chief architect of BurrellesLuce 2.0, the portal used by thousands of PR professionals to monitor, share, organize, and measure online and print news. I started as a web developer for Merck & Company and I am an accomplished technologist with a focus on large scale system architecture and implementation. With over ten years of experience designing and deploying technical solutions for a wide range of companies, I most recently managed web projects for NBC Universal, where I delivered social networking applications and supported high traffic applications. Prior to that, I served as director of technology for Silver Carrot, a marketing firm, creating and delivering the technology that powered high-performance online campaigns. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about economics and anything that has to do with modeling social interaction and social media. LinkedIn: Jeffrey Barrett; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Sunday’s Emmy Awards brought some of TV’s biggest challenges front and center. It was filled with subtle and not-so-subtle quips and jokes about the direction TV is heading. Emcee Neil Patrick Harris summed up some of the challenges. He sang, urging viewers not to channel surf or DVR the show: “Don’t jump online cause this fine mug of mine needs a huge high def screen,” sang the star of How I Met Your Mother. (Read more about the Emmy’s here.)

As much as we hate to acknowledge that entertainment isn’t just about glitzy red carpet award shows or lavish movie premieres, when the cameras are off it’s like any other business. And in a year where we would rather rely on entertainment to distract us from the onslaught of gloomy economic news, business-related stories from content providers have been dominating the headlines. We’ve all heard about how the Internet has wreaked havoc on the newspaper and record industries. Well, the game has also changed dramatically for the television industry, as executives try to figure out how to monetize their content online while the growing popularity of TiVo and DVR technology eats into advertising revenue.

At last week’s Goldman Sachs Communicopia conference, TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers said “Commercial avoidance is the issue that the media industry wants to avoid.” NBC Executive Jeff Zucker countered with, “We can’t put our heads in the sand and pretend that people aren’t using DVRs – and that people aren’t consuming content online… We don’t want to become the newspaper business. We don’t want to become the Record Music Business.”

A lesson can certainly be learned from the newspaper industry. The drop in advertising revenues caused huge budget cuts, depleting the funds necessary to continue proper investigative reporting. As an example, the Balco/Barry Bonds steroids story took two years and cost the San Francisco Chronicle millions of dollars to investigate. These types of stories may become a lost art. (HBO’ Real Sports Report: Woe is the Newspaper).

Similarly, as noted in the LA Times, TV’s scripted comedy and drama shows are becoming scarcer due to royalty fees and higher production costs and are being replaced by talk shows and reality programs which are much cheaper to produce.  

So are we in for a steady diet of low quality, cheaper content that lacks creativity, authenticity, and most of all substance?

There is a bright side for television: Product integration may start to play a bigger role in combating the DVR’s effect on TV. NBC’s Jeff Zucker promised to make the Jay Leno Show “as TiVo proof as possible by incorporating lots of product integration.” Also, content providers are looking to reversing the flow of their content.” In a business still looking for a workable business formula – a new “windowing strategy” –taking material online and eventually sending it to television and DVD – has shown signs of offering a bright outlook.”  Warner Brothers’ WB.com and Sony’s Crackle.com are already exploring windowing opportunities.

Newspapers aren’t going down without a fight either. Last week Variety announced their plans to put some of its website content behind a “pay wall” that will require a paid annual subscription.

 As much as I enjoy a juicy Big Mac, I certainly wouldn’t want it for dinner every night.

Where there is a passion to survive and a determination to maintain the effectiveness of one’s work – even within a single person at an organization – there is hope of renewal. For me this theme comes to light during a short presentation given by Jacek Utko, a Polish newspaper designer, on how changing the design of a series of Eastern European newspapers helped to potentially breathe new life into the industry – as demonstrated by a 100 percent circulation increase in some areas. Be patient, for some of the key points were at the end.

As I have started to explore more TED talks, I have found many examples of similar “saviors in desperation.” With the overall economic gloom and extreme anxiety felt by many, there may be tremendous benefit in learning from others who have successfully emerged from the pits of despair.

While it is wise to learn from such failures, I think when surrounded by epic financial, personal, and corporate debacles, there needs to be a focus on those individuals who have, for a long time, succeeded because they’ve embraced the potential opportunity for innovation when so many others have only been overwhelmed by change…

I encourage those of you struggling to find or to be a savior in desperation to check out the talks on TED.com; there is a new free one added every day. And when you find one you’re interested in, be sure to share it with the other readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

*Bio: Currently I am the chief architect of BurrellesLuce 2.0, the portal used by thousands of PR professionals to monitor, share, organize, and measure online and print news. I started as a web developer for Merck & Company and I am an accomplished technologist with a focus on large scale system architecture and implementation. With over ten years of experience designing and deploying technical solutions for a wide range of companies, I most recently managed web projects for NBC Universal, where I delivered social networking applications and supported high traffic applications. Prior to that, I served as director of technology for Silver Carrot, a marketing firm, creating and delivering the technology that powered high-performance online campaigns. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about economics and anything that has to do with modeling social interaction and social media. LinkedIn: Jeffrey Barrett; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

The Internet turned 40 years old, last week, on September 2^nd.  As an armchair futurist, here’s what I see lying ahead for us in the years to come.

When the Internet turns 60 in 2029:

1. The landline telephone goes the way of the dodo. All phone calls are routed via the Internet. Everybody gets one phone number, for life, for all purposes. It replaces your social security number as the main means of identification.

2. Mobile phones truly become mobile computers. You make your all your business and personal calls, both voice and video, from this one device. You consume most of your media from it as well. The device links to all your files and applications. When you are in a fixed location, such as office, home, or hotel room, you dock your phone – much like you do today with a laptop –  permitting use of a larger screen, headset, and handset. (Keyboards are mostly irrelevant as speech to text technology types documents as fast as you can speak.)

3. Almost everybody consumes their news via video. Television and the web merge, eliminating the line between broadcast and web video.  

4. Cable companies become exactly that, just a delivery channel for the Internet. The same holds true for cellular phone providers as they shift to providing wireless Internet access.

5. All quality entertainment and sports media is purchased directly from the producers of that media. Media cartels form along the lines of ABC-Disney-ESPN, as one example, to serve a single consumer across a spectrum of programming and content (news-entertainment-sports). News and journalism exists within these entities but it is soft. Media relations still continues to thrive in this realm, providing reporters and editors with story ideas and content.

6. Hard journalism exists, but its audience is small and devoted. Funding for this is very much along the lines of how PBS currently operates, including the use of taxpayer dollars and augmented by advertising. Topics are limited to government and social issues as the media cartels cover everything else. (See previous bullet.)

7. Citizen journalism exists a la Wikipedia, but has narrow audiences, restricted by geography or topic. Public relations has a role here too, with companies being participants in these types of online communities.

8. All media programming and content is on-demand. You can pay for how many commercials you don’t or do want to see, trading money and/or highly detailed information about yourself for programming and commercials. The ads you do see are targeted specifically to you.

9. There’s plenty of free media available as well, a lot of it provided by consumer goods companies who have something to sell. The soap opera of the 1950s are truly reborn a century later. Companies with common audiences link together to form free media cartels, similar to those created by entertainment and sports media.

10. Last, signage, and vibrant ever-changing electronic signage at that, takes over the physical landscape as an inescapable way to deliver mass advertising and branding.

Does this all sound a little too far fetched?  If you find yourself saying that, do some research and see what day-to-day life was like in 1969, and all the advances in personal technology that have occurred since then. Still doubtful?  Then go back another 40 years to 1929, or another 40 to 1889.  One thing is for sure, the only constant is change.

How do you see media, the Internet, and technology changing in 2049? Share your thoughts with the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

Although I have not heard him speak in a good ten years or so, listening to the rehash of his lecture resulted in a rainy Sunday exploring different people’s efforts with visualizing information – from fonts to social graphs.

I found the above display of Twitter statistics rather interesting. It puts a real focus on two sets of five people: those following (listening) and those talking on Twitter. One could take this picture as an illustration of a simple fact; the majority of Twitter is worth ignoring as a consumer (follower).

However, I thought to myself, “What would Tufte say about this graphic?” and I think he would be dismayed. The graphic fails to tackle time and the change in its surroundings. What makes Twitter interesting is not how it looks when “static,” but instead how it appears in “motion” when different influencers come into play. Immediately my thoughts go to this fantastic representation of Napoleon’s March to Moscow. It shows, with such depth, the story of Napoleon’s army during the War of 1812.

Indeed, there is a wealth of data at hand, a plethora of free tools with which to understand it visually, and more of both on the way. I so look forward to the near future when my colleagues at BurrellesLuce and I get to move beyond the foundational work of our systems and go after the challenges of creating great graphical representations of our data and the world that surrounds it.

*Bio: Currently I am the chief architect of BurrellesLuce 2.0, the portal used by thousands of PR professionals to monitor, share, organize, and measure online and print news. I started as a web developer for Merck & Company and I am an accomplished technologist with a focus on large scale system architecture and implementation. With over ten years of experience designing and deploying technical solutions for a wide range of companies, I most recently managed web projects for NBC Universal, where I delivered social networking applications and supported high traffic applications. Prior to that, I served as director of technology for Silver Carrot, a marketing firm, creating and delivering the technology that powered high-performance online campaigns. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about economics and anything that has to do with modeling social interaction and social media. LinkedIn: Jeffrey Barrett; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

While there are details behind the introductory text that are important to present, I believe you need that one-liner to really capture the essence of what you are trying to convey. Then the reader can decide when to dive into the details.

In the past, I would open up FreeMind (a java based application designed to map ideas when brainstorming). I’d start by dumping out my thoughts, then edit them to form a concise sentence pertaining to a distinct responsibility or feature. Now, a sentence is no longer good enough – my goal is to communicate in 140 character Twitter-like snippets, following Rands (author of the blog In Repose), whose sage advice seems to apply to these subjects.

The act of refining a statement to 140 characters demands clear thinking and precise communication – and it aids our drive for quality. We are determined to carry that process all the way through to our clients. As we gain experience with 140 character communication, whenever we deliver a new feature, it will come with a Twitter-compliant introduction for our clients — communication professionals – to use. I believe if PR practitioners can learn to communicate effectively in 140 characters, so can other parts of a business. This experiment is a step in that direction for me.

*Bio: Currently I am the chief architect of BurrellesLuce 2.0, the portal used by thousands of PR professionals to monitor, share, organize, and measure online and print news. I started as a web developer for Merck & Company and I am an accomplished technologist with a focus on large scale system architecture and implementation. With over ten years of experience designing and deploying technical solutions for a wide range of companies, I most recently managed web projects for NBC Universal, where I delivered social networking applications and supported high traffic applications. Prior to that, I served as director of technology for Silver Carrot, a marketing firm, creating and delivering the technology that powered high-performance online campaigns. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about economics and anything that has to do with modeling social interaction and social media. LinkedIn: Jeffrey Barrett; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

by Jeffrey Barrett*

URL shortening services have existed since back when URLs had to be under 80 columns to fit in an email unbroken. They have become a mainstay, in no small part, because of the Twitter explosion. These services simply shrink a long URL like http://www.burrellesluce.com/freshideas/?p=230 which consists of 46 characters, to a small one like http://tiny.cc/8Hfyo, only about 20 characters. Go ahead, give both links a try; with either one you wind up at this article.

Everyone loves a short URL when composing in a 140 character bounded space. It leaves much more room for your thoughts, but there is danger in their proliferation. These mini-addresses are wreaking havoc for the destinations of these originates. When you click on a link to a website, such as http://www.burrellesluce.com/freshideas, logs show where you were when you made that click. But when you click on http://tiny.cc/p4YIm, a truncated version of that same link, it shows up under the name of that service. This is useless for understanding which actions drove you to the site in the first place and tracking the effectiveness of a given marketing campaign. If this was done for an ad driven content site it could impact the revenue of ad sales.

New services, like Tr.im, provide a partial solution to the lost metrics. Unfortunately, if Tr.im – a free service with no business model – folds its tent, you will lose the metrics it does provide. Furthermore, it’s likely your existing systems do not integrate with the shorter services. The end result: the need to manually massage your metrics.

There is a call for technology that will make it possible for people to easily run their own URL shorteners. Still in its early stage, RevCanonical is one possible solution. The application “checks to see if the link owner has published a shortened version of the given page using HTML link element.” Although it has some short comings (Chris Shiflett highlights a few), it is worth keeping an eye on. Your company and clients could benefit from getting behind the sort of technology that is needed to regain the knowledge of where their visitors came from!

If you really want to be prepared, though, it might be time to buy the shortest domain you can that either sounds like your “main” domain or has the key letters of your domain. Then you will be able to provide the convenience of a shorter URL without sacrificing your tracking and metrics.

*Bio: Currently I am the chief architect of BurrellesLuce 2.0, the portal used by thousands of PR professionals to monitor, share, organize, and measure online and print news. I started as a web developer for Merck & Company and I am an accomplished technologist with a focus on large scale system architecture and implementation. With over ten years of experience designing and deploying technical solutions for a wide range of companies, I most recently managed web projects for NBC Universal, where I delivered social networking applications and supported high traffic applications. Prior to that, I served as director of technology for Silver Carrot, a marketing firm, creating and delivering the technology that powered high-performance online campaigns. In my spare time, I enjoy reading about economics and anything that has to do with modeling social interaction and social media. LinkedIn: Jeffrey Barrett; Twitter: @BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce