Strategic Tools for Strategic Content

Content is useless if it doesn’t tell a story.  A story is not very helpful if it doesn’t relate the right information about a company’s brand.  Yet, time and again, we see content-centered communications programs in the market that appear completely disconnected from brand or strategy. 

Here are three ways you can use communications as a catalyst to define real business strategies and messages into your programs:

1.  Strategic SWOT:  We’ve all done SWOT.  How do you turn it from a list to a strategic tool?  The answer is quite simple: align strengths with opportunities to identify offensive strategies.  Then align weaknesses and threats to identify defensive strategies.

2.  Develop an elevator statement: These statements have been a cornerstone of communications for years, However, in a 140-word world, they are more critical than ever.  Fortunately, there is a great new website that steps you through the process of building your elevator pitch quickly and powerfully.  Try it at Buzzuka.

3. Be clear about what you mean by strategy.  Michael Porter, the father of modern strategic thinking, said it best:  Strategy is what you choose not to do!  Clients and communications programs can get easily bloated by trying to do everything instead of trying to do the strategic thing.  Take a look at one of our earlier blogs to understand the relationship among strategy, objectives and how to use them the right way.http://www.3pointcommunications.com/Beyond%20the%20Arc/blog.php?id=3331023617869510929

Five Factors Driving The End of "Passive Media"

There was a time not that long ago when most Americans got their news and information from a combination of the nightly network news, the morning or evening newspaper and the local weekly newspaper.  We passively awaited delivery in print or broadcast and shared what we learned orally with family and friends. There are still places in America where that routine is the norm.  But even in the most distant outposts of the country, the days of passively awaiting information is waning as technology moves from top-down distribution of information to an open, many-to-many networked media environment.   

I would suggest that any of our readers who who are interested, involved in or impacted by this change take a look at a study by the American University's Center for Social Media in Washington, D.C.  The authors set out to explore the impact of this change on public media and published an excellent white paper titled, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics.  In part, the research offers an assessment of the impact of new media on traditional media. While many of us have written about these changes, the AU research pulls them together in an interesting framework that makes sense out of a number of technologies that seem headed on a collision course.

The AU paper identifies five elements creating this massive change in the way we interact and access media. These "five C's:" Choice, Conversation, Curation, Creation and Collaboration are having a massive impact on our use of video, databases, social networks, location media, distribution, platforms and metrics.  

In the words of the researchers, here are the specific items they identified:

1. Choice: Rather than passively waiting for content to be delivered as in the broadcast days, users are actively seeking out and comparing media on important issues, through search engines, recommendations, video on demand, interactive program guides, news feeds, and niche sites. This is placing pressure on many makers to convert their content so that it’s not only accessible across an array of platforms and devices, but properly formatted and tagged so that it is more likely to be discovered.
2. Conversation: Comment and discussion boards have become common across a range of sites and platforms, with varying levels of civility in evidence. Users are leveraging conversation tools to share interests and mobilize around issues. 7 Distributed conversations across online services, such as Twitter and FriendFeed, are managed via shared tags. Tools for ranking and banning comments give site hosts and audiences some leverage for controlling the tenor of exchanges. New tools for video-based conversation are now available on sites such as Seesmic. News is collaboratively created, gaining importance by becoming part of electronic conversation.
3. Curation: Users are aggregating, sharing, ranking, tagging, reposting, juxtaposing, and critiquing content on a variety of platforms—from personal blogs to open video-sharing sites to social network profile pages. Reviews and media critique are popular genres for online contributors, displacing or augmenting genres, such as consumer reports and travel writing, and feeding a widespread culture of critical assessment.
4. Creation: Users are creating a range of multimedia content (audio, video, text, photos, animation, etc.) from scratch and remixing existing content for purposes of satire, commentary, or self-expression—breaking through the stalemate of mass media talking points. Professional media makers are now tapping user-generated content as raw material for their own productions, and outlets are navigating various fair use issues as they wrestle with promoting and protecting their brands.
5. Collaboration: Users are adopting a variety of new roles along the chain of media creation and distribution—from providing targeted funds for production or investigation, to posting widgets that showcase content on their own sites, to organizing online and offline events related to media projects, to mobilizing around related issues through online tools, such as petitions and letters to policymakers. "Crowdsourced" journalism projects now invite audience participation as investigators, tipsters, and editors—so far, a trial-and-error process.

The research then makes an interesting connection that illustrates how our changing media habits are affecting the tools we use and the ways we use them.  Again, in the words of the researchers, these trends involve:

• Ubiquitous video (choice, creation, collaboration) Professional and amateur video alike are migrating online to sites such as Hulu and YouTube; nonprofessional online video is becoming part of broadcast news and newspaper reporting; live streaming and podcasting are routine aspects of public events.
• Powerful databases (curation, creation) Deep wells of data and imagery are increasingly valuable for reporting, information visualization, trend-spotting, and comparative analysis. Databases also now serve as powerful back-ends for managing and serving up digital content, making it available across a range of browsers and devices.
• Social networks as public forums (conversation, collaboration) Durable social-networking platforms, such as Facebook, and on-the-fly social networks, such as the open-source Ning, allow multifaceted media relationships with one person, a few, or many people.
• Locative media (choice, creation) GPS-enabled mobile devices are allowing users to access and upload geographically relevant content, and a new set of "hyperlocal" media projects are feeding this trend. Conversely, maps are becoming a common interface for news, video, and data.
• Distributed distribution (choice, curation) News feeds, search engines, and widgets are allowing content to escape the traditional boundaries of the channel or site. Users are coming to expect access to anywhere, anytime searchable media.
• Hackable platforms (creation, collaboration, curation) Open source tools and applications are becoming increasingly customizable. Media makers can tailor their platforms, sharing tips across a broad community of developers, and users can pick and choose how they will interact with content.
• Accessible metrics (creation, curation) Ranking and metrics sites, such as Google Analytics, Alexa, and Technorati, make it easier for media makers to compile and compare their audiences—and for outsiders to more easily judge and note success.
• Cloud content (choice, creation) Applications, media, and personal content are migrating away from computers and mobile devices and onto hosted servers—into "the cloud" of online content. On the one hand this offers simplicity, easy sharing, and protected backups; on the other, it threatens control and privacy.
• Pervasive gaming (choice, collaboration) Gaming—playing computer, Web, portable, or console games, often connecting with other players via the Internet—has become as ubiquitous as watching TV for young people.

When we look at these in isolation, the media universe may first appear as a random set of trends propelled toward some kind of chaotic convergence with an unknown and unpredictable outcome.  But when seen in relation to each other, there appears to be not only an order but at least a set of potential outcomes that we will look at in a future post.  

Joining the Lists Parade: 5 Reasons Why A Company Should Hire a PR Agency

"4 Reasons Why PR Agencies are Failing in Social Media"

"4 Reasons Why PR Agencies are Taking Over Social Media"

"Five Ways Pay-for-Performance PR is Misunderstood"

 "Five Ways to Keep Current in Public Relations News & Trends"

..and last but not least...

"15 Ways PR Agencies Can Help Companies With Social Media"

By now, I hope you get the point that the average information junkie -- if there is such a creature -- is fascinated and perhaps addicted to lists.  We see such lists on nearly all social media sites, on sites dedicated to communications and media professionals, and especially on Twitter as links to blogs promoting the "Top 5 Things..."

David Letterman has been doing his "TOP 10" bit since 1985 and every night it's what his audience eagerly waits for.

It's probably because I'm a communications professional and an information junkie (in therapy), and by definition like many of you, I live on line, that I'm seeing a spike lately in the number of posts of the "lists genre" about public relations agencies.

Why a company needs one. ... Or doesn't need one. ... Why a  PR agency should handle a company's social media or should it be done in-house. ... Why you need a social media agency and a PR agency and why they should never meet. ...

I'm sure you have seen many of the same headlines.

The good news for the public relations industry is that it's at the center of these debates.  PR is prominently featured on list after list because PR (or PR 2.0) firms are winning their share of business vs. social media specialists agencies and advertising agencies who may also have a PR practice.  

The public relations industry is racing fast to stay ahead of the changes, brought on largely due to the development and broad acceptance of social media channels, that have transformed the profession.  As such, the PR industry earns its stripes and relevance everyday by putting enormous pressure on other types of agencies -- and subsequently, finds its way to the top of these lists.

So if you can't fight them, you might as well join them.  Thus, here's my contribution to the list mania that is sweeping across the communications world:

5 Reasons Why A Company Needs a  PR Agency

1. PR agency people who work on communications and social media programs are deeply passionate and knowledgeable about these environments. Because they typically work on multiple accounts, they are exposed to a broad range of campaigns and have greater knowledge about the field which they will deploy on a client's behalf.
2. When a company hires an agency, it's hiring a team -- not an individual.  This means the client enjoys the benefit of the vast network of influencer relationships that the account team, vs. what an individual, can bring to the client table.  Agency professionals build relationships with journalists and bloggers with two key purposes in mind: to assist the influencer in doing their job and to leverage these relationships on behalf of their clients.
3. A good agency doesn't let its staffers drink the client's Kool-Aid.  We will tell you if your stories are stale and will uncover new ones in your organization.  We will tell you if your new product is an also-ran and will help find ways to position it in a positive light without overstating the benefits.  A good agency staffer will tell a client when they're wrong, and how to make it right.  
4. Good agencies become true extensions of a company's internal team.  Once the agency team establishes strong, trusting relationship with the client, products and audiences -- aka, the brand -- they will deliver the same levels of authenticity and passion as do in-house team members and will do so without the distraction of in-house corporate politics.
5. A good PR agency person is a content creator at heart.  Agency people create client stories like it was their own to tell, and messages that cut through the B.S.  Also, agency staffers create blogs, podcasts, videos, photos, presentations and eBooks and last but not least, news releases.

So there you have my five reasons why a company needs a PR agency.  Please share your own reasons here on Beyond the Arc.  I know you're itching to make a contribution.