Following the Social Media Conversation for PR - Bryan Person and Doug Haslam

In the presentation for this session, Doug Haslam used a screencapture of this blog post as an example of how a pr person can leave a comment to pitch a story on their client's behalf.   (He also mentioned that I had not blogged it.)  Hmm ... this is an interesting way to pitch a story -- use of a screencapture from a blogger who is sitting in the audience and pitch them in front of the group.)

Here's the information he sent me last week:

I'm forwarding an excerpt from a survey form one of my clients, Prospero Technologies (www.prospero.com), a provider of social media platforms for major brands (I mentioned them in a comment on your blog recently). There is not a focus on non-profits, but I thought you might find some bits of relevance to your audience.

Some bits from the survey:

• 88% of respondents plan to increase social media spending next year (no big surprise perhaps, but a commanding number)
• 59 percent of respondents reported that social media performance in 2007 met or exceeded their marketing objectives
• 35 percent reported positive ROI and 41 percent said that ROI was “unknown.”
• Comparing current tools in use or consideration to expectations for 2008, the following show an expected increase in interest in: Podcasts, Video blogs, Mobile video/image/text submission, Citizen Journalism, Micro-Blogging, and Virtual Worlds.

The emphasis of the session was on how to find conversations online and respond to them.    I like how Bryan and Doug framed using several social media tools (google alerts, tags, and rss) to find conversations.  They also gave some great examples of the art of commenting (although I was a little embarrassed to see my blog on the screen and forgot to jot down notes - but the gist of what they were saying reminded me of Cool Cat Teacher Blog's "How To Comment Like a King and Queen."   

The room was filled with PR types - mostly doing pr on the corporate side - so the issues of whether or not the agency can speak on the corp's behalf on a blog.    Also, the whole issue of "blogging policies" -- particularly an employee's personal blog.  One person who was a former HR rep suggested that the best blogging policies were those written by the employees.  A person next me started to laugh and asked him why.  He said "We just let our employees blog." 

 

Comments

[Jessica Mallard]

Beth,

Your survey findings were pretty interesting and indicated to me that the use of social media in the non profit sector will indeed continue to increase.

Our client, Operation Kids, is a good example of your findings. They are utilizing widget technology, social networking and blogs to engage their supporters and make an impact.

Here is the widget. I would love for you to take a look at it and tell me what you think:

http://opkids.mediaforge.com/nook/

The information you post and discuss is very applicable to my client, and we look forward to adding you to our blog roll. We have yet to launch the blog, but feel free to check it out:

http://operationkids.wordpress.com/

Thanks for your time,

Jessica