5.19.2008

Digital Download 5/19/08

SOCIAL MEDIA CHANGING AND SHAPING PR AND ITS PRACTICES




A recent article written by Donald K. Wright, Ph.D., APR, Fellow PRSA, Professor of Public Relations, College of Communication, Boston University and Michelle D. Hinson, M.A.,Director of Development, Institute for Public Relations, University of Florida reports on a three-year-long international survey of public relations practitioners examining the impact blogs and other social media are having on public relations practice. Findings show these new media are dramatically changing public relations. Results indicate blogs and social media have enhanced what happens in public relations and that social media and traditional mainstream media complement each other. The study also finds the emergence of blogs and social media have changed the way their organizations communicate, especially to external audiences. It also reports blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous by encouraging organizations to respond more quickly to criticism.


WHEN YOU THINK OF A BRAND, WHAT COMES TO MIND FIRST?


Brandtags.net is an interesting online tool that is a collective experiment in brand perception. All tags are generated by anonymous people and do not reflect the opinions of the site owner. The basic idea of this site is that a brand exists entirely in people's heads. Therefore, whatever it is they say a brand is, it is what it is. I found the comparison tags between The New York Times and Wall Street Journal very interesting (liberal vs conservative) as well as how many people say “Catherine” (aka Catherine Zeta Jones) for T-Mobile. Speaking of brand perception, what do you think about the hype around the new Starbucks logo?


WE WANT TO BE PORTAL, BUT NOT TOO PORTAL


Businessweek released an article today on where internet portals such as Google and Yahoo collide with social networks like Facebook and Myspace. Apparently just days after Google’s Friend Connect trial run began on May 12 (a new tool that would let Web sites add a host of new social networking features), Facebook "suspended" their access saying it violated privacy terms in its user agreement. Though Facebook says it has "reached out to Google several times about this issue" to work out a solution, the decision shadows the growing tensions and blurring lines between social networks and traditional web portals, both of which are angling to capitalize on the presumed advertising riches that will come from social media. For MySpace and Facebook, "all of this openness is a big gamble," says Debbie Williamson, an industry analyst at eMarketer. "It's a big gamble on who is going to control this user info and the bulk of the ad revenues”. Yet it's a wager both companies appear willing to make with their impressive revenue growth beginning to slow. If a site ceases to be a popular destination for users, it can still maintain a hold on them by bringing their valuable contact information and personal preferences to other sites—in the social network's branded package.


MOTIVEQUEST HELPS MINI SALES WITH WEB BUZZ



The Online Promoter Score, developed by researchers at Northwestern University is a new metric offered by MotiveQuest. The tool can correlated the relationship between marketing and online brand advocacy to sales by measuring the net frequency of people recommending a brand online. A 16-month test of the metric helped BMW discover the connection between online buzz and retail traffic and helped Mini revamp its media-relations philosophy. Since MotiveQuest launched in 2003, it has been gaining ground in the online brand-monitoring space populated by rivals such as Nielsen Buzzmetrics and Cymfony. MotiveQuest works with a list of marketers that includes Citibank and Nike in addition to BMW Mini. Mini and MotiveQuest collected data from nearly 30 million online conversations about the Mini brand and its competitors on blogs, social networks; and sites such as Yahoo Autos and MSN Autos from January 2006 until April 2007. Trudy Hardy, manager of Mini marketing, said the results prompted Mini to take a different approach to online partners and prominent bloggers. "We treat bloggers like press [now]," she said. "We'll invite them to test-drive cars first and have asked one to be the official podcaster of our events." While Ms. Hardy said the metric doesn't "tie back directly" to sales, it correlates web traffic and online conversations to actual retail traffic.


GOOGLE OPENS UP THE DOORS TO ITS CONTENT NETWORK



Today, the Google Blog announced the search giant will now be accepting third-party advertising tags on its content network in North America. This will empower advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and track display ads, including rich media ads, across the Google content network through AdWords, giving them more options, flexibility and control over their campaigns. This will now enable advertisers and agencies the ability to serve ads and measure performance through these certified third parties: advertiser ad servers such as DoubleClick (DFA) and Mediaplex; rich media agencies like DoubleClick, Interpolls, PointRoll and Unicast; as well as research firms such as Dynamic Logic, IAG Research, InsightExpress and Factor TG. Advertisers and agencies will now be able to manage their Google content network campaigns with the same systems they use for other online campaigns, which is helpful for determining the effectiveness of their online advertising mix. For publishers on the network, this program offers a way to expand their advertiser base and enable advertisers to better understand the value of their inventory, with the goal of increasing their overall revenue.