I spend a fair amount of time in the Linkedin “Answers” section, learning from fellow PR industry professionals, and also contributing expertise to the community pot, so to speak. Unlike many of the active participants, I don’t answer every question that I see; I prefer to share knowledge only on subjects that I know very well. A few weeks ago, I came across a great question, and wanted to share it with my readers. It went like this:

“When I read about planning your social media strategy, it is recommended that you “listen” before getting involved. What does listening consist of? Reading, watching sites? Looking for thoughts, ideas and strategies.”

So I decided to respond. But first I had to stop and think…

What does it mean to “listen” in Social Media?
Do we need to listen? How do we do it? And more specifically, what does it mean for the PR professional to “listen”?

Having trouble hearing? Try LISTENING.

It Starts With Lurking

“Lurking” means to read and observe, but not actively contribute in an Internet setting. Many lurkers purposefully do this to avoid poor netiquette, or other mistakes, and would be far more likely to bookmark a useful link than to post a comment or email the author. Many studies have found that more than 90% of Internet users do not actively participate in most of the locales they visit, including blogs and social media sites.

Calculated lurking for a while can be a useful strategy for the PR professional. Learning some about the culture of a social network before leaping is smart, and can keep you from making mistakes. One of the most embarrassing mistakes you can make is jumping right in with no real strategy.

So many people hear of social networking and how ‘cool it is,’ jumping right in… totally ignorant of the etiquette, the way things are done, what people like/dislike when using the medium, etc. So, after several years of networks popping up, with millions of people making unnecessary social networking mistakes, experts now insist that newbies “listen” instead of jumping in.

There's so many sites out there. They're NOT all the same.

Research. Strategy. Execution. In that order.

This mean reading up, doing your homework before you jump right in. This phase is absolutely essential to any person or business looking to see any kind of return from social media, PR professionals included. This means learning about a site, learning about the main demographics that use it (e.g., younger people and businesses are generally drawn to Facebook, career-minded professionals to Linkedin), what kind of information tends to get posted, and what kind of information doesn’t. It’s also wise to consider the site culture and popular lingo (e.g., Twitter’s “tweets” and “@ mentions,” versus Facebook’s “wall posts”).

Yes, eagerness can be a wonderful thing, but not if have no idea of the site’s culture, or even its main purpose. Trust me, every site has a purpose, you just have to do enough research, and pay enough attention to what goes on there long enough to figure it out. There is a lot of “feeling things out” when learning a social medium, but you should definitely do your homework first and observe for a while before you start start posting.

Listening and Reputation Management

Reputation management is just as important for PR professionals as it is marketers, because it allows you to perform active reputation management.

Don’t just Google yourself once; if you’re really serious about listening, subscribe to Google Alerts and regularly check up on what’s being said about you or your company. You’ll be pinged every time the terms you set are mentioned, and thus will be the first to know what good or bad comes up for your brand. If you tweet, I suggest using a service like Hootsuite. The service allows you to have more control than the generic Twitter interface, and supplies you with metrics that will be crucial in your ongoing social media strategy.

The only way you will know this valuable information is if you are proactive and find out. As you can see, you must listen” to do this.

Listen well, and you’ll see not only what’s being said about your personal brand or business online, but you can then use that information to brainstorm ways to  fix it, if what’s being said is less than optimal. And if what’s being said is good, wouldn’t that be great to know as well?

Don’t make a fool of yourself. Listen before you leap.

Don't be like this guy.

- Robert A. Burns, II

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Share your thoughts and join the discussion.

“How to become a social media expert” is one of the most asked questions by communications professionals today; just Google it, you’ll see. I’ve come across it in Linkedin’s “Answers” section quite a few times myself, and so I figured I’d take the time to write up a real answer…

It’s a Question Worth Considering

We’re a full decade into the 21st century, and the social media craze is changing the world as public relations professionals know it, day by day. Once-traditional full-service agencies and independent consulting firms are now beginning to dive in headfirst, fully embracing technology to develop strategic campaigns of a strangely new breed, based upon social dynamics and user interaction.

Maybe ten years ago most account executives would have snickered at the mention of a “tweet,” for example, but not in 2010. Now, this somewhat silly word represents an integral piece of some very real marketing strategies that can get results. Twitter, Digg, Youtube, Facebook… there is potential out there.

Social Media + Done RIGHT = Limitless potential

As of two weeks ago, Facebook‘s very own “Like” button is on more than 350,000 sites across the web, up 200,000 from only two months before. Public relations executives and clients alike are beginning to realize that the ROI potential from a good social media PR and marketing campaign is virtually limitless.

And with that realization, an entire generation of young, “new-breed” PR professionals is emerging. Their aim: to become as well-versed in social media as possible, to offer agencies and clients what they need to succeed using this new technology. And they’re smart to develop their skills here; their careers possibly will eventually depend on it. And so, the question inevitably comes about…

“How do I become a Social Media Expert?”

First things first: let’s get rid of that term, unless you’ve got an MBA in “new media,” or the like.

Right off the bat, I must confess upfront: I’m not really a fan of using the term “expert,” especially in reference to anything having to do with social media. Perhaps I’ve run into more than my fair share of so-called “SM experts” on Twitter…

You know the type: those consultants that seem to supply an endless barrage of direct messages, eagerly encouraging you (read: spamming you) to purchase their “services”, which all too often consist of not much more than a basic Facebook page set-up.

Be wary of those overly-zealous social media "consultants."

Hear me out, fellow PR professionals: very few SM users are really experts.

According to Pete Cashmore, CEO and Founder of tech icon Mashable.com, as of January 2010, there are 15,000+ “social media experts” parading around ‘Twitterville’. Now sure, some of them really know their stuff. But 15,000? Come on. The social media industry is very young, and evolving too fast for any of us to have guru-like knowledge.

Need an example? Myspace, one of the first social networks to reign supreme for a few years, but then fall into relative obscurity (at least in the eyes of most “serious” and “professional” social media marketers, with the exception being musicians.) Sure, you might think you know everything about Myspace, and the site’s interface has been outdated for some time now… but could you really call yourself an Myspace “expert,” when they just recently drastically overhauled the site? There are new things to learn there now. Food for thought.

Social media changes on a minute-by-minute, hourly basis. What you might know today could be totally irrelevant tomorrow;  Facebook’s constant changes have proven that much. You need to be up on the latest info, for your client’s sake.

In other words…

Terms like “guru” and “expert” are very strong words, and are most likely not suggestive of your true abilities. If you’re going to call yourself a “Social Media Expert,” at least have an advanced degree or professional certification in it.

And if you’re a “Social Media Consultant”, and Facebook and Twitter is all you know, think again as well: you’re most likely lying to your clients and to yourself. That might’ve worked three years ago, but it’s 2010 now, and there are hundreds of social media websites out there. It’s great to know about the big ones, but you need to be at least ‘on speaking terms’ with a good number of them before you take anyone’s money.

Think about it: how else are you going to explain to your clients why one site is better for their needs than another similar one? You gotta know your stuff, for your client’s sake, and yours.

To be a real public relations professional, you must realize that serving your client’s needs and upholding your professional reputation trumps making a quick buck. Always.

Word to the wise? Give up the “expert” personal branding puffery, and worry about what’s really important: helping your client succeed. Remember, you owe it to yourself. Your reputation as a PR professional depends on it, and that should be worth more than a few dollars under an arguable title.

- Robert A. Burns, II

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Join the discussion and share your thoughts below.

“New Media.”

You hear the term every day. It seems like every time you turn on the news, there's a new 'platform' that has the nation in awe, with it's immense popularity, intuitive design and groundbreaking features. Sound familiar?

How about if I mention Facebook? Youtube? Apple's iPhone? Foursquare? These names all have three things in common: 1) they're all forms of new media, 2) they've all been become icons in popular culture, and 3) because of this, have a place in the future of public relations and mass communications.

But maybe you haven't yet quite jumped on the 'new media' bandwagon, so to speak. Perhaps you're thinking it's too hard to use, overrated, or simply unnecessary. Perhaps you're overwhelmed with all of the apps out there, and don't know where to start.

Whatever the case may be, I’m here to tell you that now would be an excellent time to 'jump on the new media bandwagon,’ so to speak, especially if you work in public relations, or any of the other fields of mass communications, including journalism and broadcast media. I'll be your guide.

Technology is drastically changing the scope of communications every day, and new media is leading the charge. Since the Internet’s birth to the general public in the early 1990’s, there has been a steady flurry of groundbreaking advancements that continue to change how we think and act. Every day, new applications and platforms are developed and released, and PR specialists must constantly adjust their methods of communication, to stay fresh and relevant in this changing society.

As a PR professional, it is your responsibility to craft strategic and effective communication plans, cultivate strong relationships, and generally, consider your audience in all aspects of your work. If you ignore new media, however, you ignore huge chunks of your audience. If you’re not staying on top of communications media, quite simply, you’re not doing your job.

Losing relevance in a changing society is one of the worst situations that PR professionals can find themselves in. It’s therefore imperative that you use methods of communication that are familiar to your audience. In a lot of ways, PR professionals are bound to crafting messages in the medium that their audience adopts. Even if you don’t embrace new media, it’s your responsibility to learn them. Fifteen years ago, that might have been through print, perhaps newspaper or magazine. Today, however, an increasingly ‘paperless’ society has given rise to the Internet, and with it, innovations such as “Web 2.0” and other new media phenomena.

Today, as a PR professional, you should be prepared to write engaging content and interact with your publics on various new media, including: blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, 'smartphone' applications like Foursquare, and more. If you work in consultancy, you must be prepared to educate your clients on the culture and standards of etiquette, and implement effective marketing strategies through any given medium.

The rising popularity of mobile technology is just one example of new media's importance for communications professionals.

Here’s an example: Most people know that popular social networking service Facebook has more than 400 million users, after only half a decade of existence, which is extremely impressive growth, by itself. But if your jaw hasn’t already dropped, consider this: this past April, SocialBeat.com reported that 100 million of the site’s users access it from their iPhones, via “Facebook Connect” (which, by the way, had only around been around for 15 months at the date of publication). In addition, 50% of all users log in “daily,” according to Facebook’s corporate factsheet. So when you think about, this means that a full quarter of users went mobile with the site by just over a year later, and still use it daily. If that’s not embracing change, then I don’t know what is. And that’s just one example; Social networking, mobile technology, and location-based technology continue to change the field of communications everyday.

New media is essential in today's communications fields.

The point: PR professionals, if you’re not already tapping into the potential to reach your audience, you’re behind the 8-ball. With hundreds of millions of people worldwide using social networks and other new media, there is no excuse not to have at least basic familiarity with such platforms. Not to worry, however; there’s still hope. This blog aims to keep you up-to-date on current trends affecting the field of communications technology, and identify methods that you, the professional communicator, can use to stay relevant to your audience.

While I am a PR specialist, I don’t profess to be an expert. I believe it’s difficult for “experts” to exist in such a rapidly changing technological climate, and so I share away from that term, with exceptions made pretty much only for the actual new media developers. And while I do have a lot of experience with using new media in the field of communications, I have a lot more learning to do as well. So along the way, I invite your feedback. If you disagree with something I have said, share your point of view in the comments section. Respectful debates can be a great learning experience for all involved, especially on the topic of new media.

- Robert A. Burns, II

What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Have an idea you'd like for me to write about? Share your thoughts below.