I bet you’ve heard plenty about the importance of conversation in social media.

We’ve all heard companies must engage their customers online. We’ve probably said it ourselves.

But is conversation the most important thing in social media?

What’s The Value of Conversation?

Few will question the value of conversation. It extends customer service and makes PR more personal. But does conversation improve the bottom line?

Case studies suggest social companies do better than their non-social competitors.

If we’ve proven conversational companies are more profitable, is it because conversation made them more visible?

There are more reliable ways to reach the masses.

You could advertise on Facebook for $0.25 per thousand views, and you wouldn’t be subject to that notoriously unreliable viral phenomenon.

Did companies who got social first simply get media (and its associated benefits) because they were first?

Can late-adopters get the same benefits?

Will we always have to do something novel to get noticed?

Do social prospects buy more because we talked to them?

Or was it because they already liked our brand more anyway, and that’s why they talked to us?

Have you really tracked how many of your new customers heard about you because you got their attention first from a social media platform?

What Are We Talking About, Anyway?

Business card cartoonist Hugh McLeod wrote a post about social objects years ago. Let me paraphrase: People need something to talk about. Let’s give them something to talk about.

In day-to-day life, we talk about art, TV shows, movies, fashion accessories, and sports games – all creations or performances. Businesses use blog posts, whitepapers, and infographics to create conversation or get a lead form filled out.

That’s content marketing. It’s not the same as conversation. Conversations without any content are less likely to go anywhere. Your executive suite cares where conversations go- they want them to go toward the bottom line.

Conversation Isn’t Enough

Talk is cheap. Conversation is ephemeral, substanceless, too easy, not as valuable. Quantity conversation doesn’t make up for lack of quality content. And yes, content is harder to do than conversation.

You have to create value with content. This is why books are valued. This is why people love infographics- they look valuable and usually they are valuable. It’s not easy to do, because it’s hard to create value out of nothing.

Quality content creates better conversations. If your search and social popularity aren’t great, you may not have enough content, or your content may not be good enough for people to care about.

If They Aren’t Talking To You, You’re Invisible

I hope you paid attention to Facebook marketing in 2010 and 2011, because even being generous to Twitter in estimating its active user base, Facebook reaches at least four times as many people. You probably heard about EdgeRank, the algorithm Facebook uses to filter what posts people see in their newsfeed.

Do you know only three percent of fans ever return to your business’s facebook page after liking it?

Are you aware your Facebook page fans, if they aren’t liking and commenting on your posts, will stop seeing your posts?

Did you know the average Facebook page reaches just 17 percent of its fans?

The average page’s posts are not being seen by 83 percent of their fans.

Mediocre engagement leads to horrible visibility.

We must get more likes and comments on our Facebook posts if we want more of our fans to see them. We already wanted more retweets and clicks so we could demonstrate an impression number of visits to websites from social media.

Now we need to go figure out what content is most engaging and viral, figure out why that content works, and then reproduce that success. We need to use tools such as Infinigraph to discover what content is working best for us and our competitors.

Then we need to monitor which content creates the most leads and sales for the company, because controversy doesn’t necessarily create sales. Oh shoot- this social media thing has to be connected to direct marketing and sales? Is it PR or is it marketing? I’m not sure there’s a line anymore. Everyone needs to learn new skills.

Start Caring About Which Content Is Most Engaging and Viral

Google’s “Search Plus Your World” makes all search results more social. You’re more likely to see search results for things your friends have shared or created. One of the biggest effects this will have in the next couple years is to move more of the search experts away from link building and more toward content creation.

These guys live on analytics. They get off on turning a 250 percent ROI campaign into a 700 percent ROI campaign. They’ll bring their nerdy analytics focus to the task and make sure the content they share gets lots of tweets, likes, plus-ones, shares, and comments. In other words, if you don’t get quantitative about your content, these geeks are going to beat the pants off you.

Brian Carter is the author of the bestselling books The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook and Facebook Marketing: Leveraging Facebook’s Features For Your Marketing Campaigns (3rd edition).

I’ve been in and around the real-time news business my entire career, both on the news creation side (working for Knight-Ridder and other publishers) and the PR side of the house.

The transformation I see in the news business right now opens the best opportunity ever for smart marketers to bypass all the spin B.S. and reach journalists when they are looking for what you have to offer.

Speaking of spin, because I write for a bunch of publications I get several hundred pitches a week.

Most suck.

Why?

Because people want to tell me about their stuff when it is convenient for them. The fact that so few people understand how to reach reporters when they need the information is why I love Newsjacking.

The real-time web

As journalists scramble to cover breaking news, the basic facts—who/what/when/where—are often fairly easy to find, either on a corporate website or in competitors’ copy. That’s what goes in the first paragraph of any news story.

The challenge for reporters is to get the “why” and scope out the details. If you are clever enough to react to breaking news very quickly, providing credible content in a blog post, tweet, or media alert that features the keyword of the moment, you may be rewarded with a bonanza of media attention.

If there is one organization we all count on for a quick reaction, it’s the fire department. So it is encouraging to find that the London Fire Brigade (LFB) is able to newsjack at lightning speed.

Sir Richard Branson was hosting actress Kate Winslet and 20 other guests at his private Necker Island retreat in the British Virgin Islands on August 22, 2011, when lightning struck the wooden building and set it ablaze. Winslet helped rescue Branson’s 90-year-old mother from the inferno.

News of the rescue, along with photos of the dramatic fire, quickly became the lead story in media worldwide. But the story was thin, few outlets had an original angle on it, and no one had reporters in the British Virgin Islands. For editors in the ferociously competitive UK media, situations like this are hideously stressful. So imagine their collective relief when the local fire brigade showed up to the rescue.

Within hours of the initial reports on the fire and Winslet’s role in the rescue, the LFB offered Winslet the chance to train with firefighters at its training center. The offer was made in a story written by the LFB and posted on its website.

Newsjacking.

This clever newsjack got the LFB huge attention, as the offer to Winslet was featured by news outlets worldwide.

What the LFB did—quickly posting the Winslet offer on their site and alerting reporters—took no more than a few hours and probably cost nothing. But the resulting media exposure was worth millions. It was a gambit that succeeded because the timing and the message were perfect.

Anyone familiar with how corporate PR spending effectiveness is measured by frequency of mentions in the media will grasp the implications. With one blog post, I’d guess LFB likely snagged more media mentions than their entire PR budget managed to achieve in the entire preceding year. And apart from the somebody’s salary, it didn’t cost a dime.

You can newsjack, too.

But you’ve got to follow the new rules of speed. The traditional PR model—sticking closely to a preset script and campaign timeline doesn’t work when a story breaks.

Newsjacking is powerful, but only when executed in real time. It is about taking advantage of opportunities that pop up for a fleeting moment, then disappear. In that instant, if you are clever enough to add a new dimension to the story in real time, the news media will write about you. Newsjacking favors quick, observant, and skilled communicators. Newsjacking may be relatively new, but it is here to stay because it works and it can generate huge returns on investment.

David Meerman Scott’s newest book “Newsjacking” was released in November 2011 as an ebook only on Kindle, iPad, Nook, Sony, and many other readers. His classic “The New Rules of Marketing & PR” opened people’s eyes to the new realities of marketing and public relations on the Web and has sold more than a quarter of a million copies in more than 25 languages from Bulgarian to Vietnamese. Scott’s popular blog and hundreds of speaking engagements around the world give him a singular perspective on how businesses are implementing new strategies to reach buyers. His other international bestsellers include “Real-Time Marketing & PR,” “World Wide Rave” and “Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead” and they are available on his website.

Today’s guest post is written by Danny Brown.

There’s an old saying that too many cooks spoil the broth.

This is equally true for businesses, particularly smaller ones.

While it’s essential to grow to continue early success, it’s also important to keep realistic with your aims.

Whether it’s launching new products, starting a PR/marketing/advertising campaign, or adding sections to your website, taking on too much will leave you thinly spread.

And, ultimately, less effective.

Instead, concentrate on one or two growth areas, and make them as strong as they can possibly be. This will allow you solid ground for increasing activity at a later date.

Product Launches

Look at two of the biggest and most successful companies around today – Apple and Microsoft.

When they launch a new product, it’s usually no more than two different products. The iPhone, the iPod, Windows Vista, Xbox – although there may be different versions of the same product for different markets, essentially it still equates to one product line.

This is one of the main reasons why these two companies lead the market in their fields. They keep the new products launched to a minimum for a simple reason – don’t confuse the market. This ensures that people aren’t wondering which version is better – instead, all they need to decide is which colour to buy.

Keep your own product launches restricted to a minimum and build their brand loyalty first. Then expand.

Less Is More

One of the more common mistakes I’ve found in the past is from clients looking to have a huge PR or marketing campaign when, in reality, all that’s needed is a smaller, more targeted one. This isn’t necessarily the client’s fault – more the programming that we tend to receive that bigger is better.

However, unless you have a huge budget to employ multiple agencies or resources, or one that can provide you with dozens of bodies for your account, having a large campaign is invariably just pouring money down the drain.

Additionally, it can lead to a confused message – is Product A better than Product B? Why should I use Product C over A and B?

Instead of confusing your target audience with multiple campaigns, concentrate your efforts on your limited product launch instead.

Reach the audience – consumer and media – that you’re after, knock them for six with an excellent product and promotion, and you’ll find your results will be far stronger than if you throw everything you have at a wall and hope some of it sticks.

It Ain’t What You Do…

Sure, you don’t want to stand still in business. But you don’t want to run too fast or spend money unnecessarily either. If someone tells you that you need to spend so much on something, ask why.

If the answer is because bigger is better, say “Thanks, but no thanks – I’d rather concentrate on quality over quantity.”

After all, quality still counts. Doesn’t it?

Danny Brown is director of retention and social media at Jugnoo, Inc., and an award-winning marketer and blogger. His blog is recognized as one of the leading marketing blogs in the world. Danny is also the author of The Parables of Business.

Today’s post is written by Linda Olatunde.

Most nonprofits stick to some of the tried and true fundraising events to support their organization, raise money, build supporters, and gain wider recognition throughout the community. These events are the annual 5K run and the banquet dinner.

As PR professionals and marketers, we take our clients’ requests to get the word out and promote these standard fundraising events in all of the traditional ways.

We get them the local media coverage and we increase awareness for their organization with new audiences and past supporters.

For the most part, we honor the request of our nonprofit clients by effectively getting their message and event to the masses and surpassing last year’s outreach numbers.

We have done our jobs successfully, more money has been raised, see you next year!

Not quite.

The strategy behind putting together a 5K is effective. It requires a small time commitment from participants,with a potential high monetary yield. These are all great things, yet it no longer stands out. Almost every organization is doing a 5K run.

It is time for some new ideas!

If you currently work with a nonprofit and have already begun the task of getting the word out to targeted audiences regarding next year’s 5K, I ask you to take a step back and perhaps offer some suggestions to your client by first asking them these questions:

1. Why should a company encourage their employees to participate in your organization’s 5K run?
2. What are you doing differently to keep your volunteers engaged with this event each year?

I am sure they will defend, ever so eloquently, their reasoning for keeping the 5K run alive, but the real reason is, because it’s tradition.

Please don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with tradition. However, from a donor perspective, and as an individual who has a passion for youth issues, women’s health, animal rights, and feeding the continent of Africa, I can only choose a few organizations to financially support each year.

The question your clients’ organization will have to answer is, “How can we entice this advocate to support our cause this year?”

This is where you come in for your client, PR person, marketing master.

Suggest new and fresh and fundraising events that work in accordance with the organization’s personality.

Three Ways to Avoid the 5K Fundraising Event

1. Host a Zumbathon Party. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Organization beat all nonprofits to the punch by officially partnering with the national Zumba Fitness organization – Party in Pink. But that’s nationally. Locally, any nonprofit can hold a Zumba party with proceeds benefiting an organization’s cause. Partnering with a local gym provides volunteer instructors, as well as participating gym members, which all goes back to the nonprofit cause.
2. Amateur Talent Show. This is a great way to let your client get their employees, board members, junior board members, and volunteers involved in something fun, interactive, and requires about the same amount of planning time as organizing a 5K does.
3. Bowling Party. Let your client know team-oriented activities build camaraderie while raising money and awareness for their organization. It is a great way to get local businesses as well as corporations involved.

Do you have suggestions for your nonprofit client? How would you suggest they stray off the beaten path and raise funds?

Linda Olatunde is the principal of Yellow Duck PR. You can find her blog here and like them on Facebook. Originally from New York City, she has lived and worked in Boston, Washington, DC, Atlanta, and almost London. She is planting roots in Chicago and loves what she does.

Today’s guest post is written by Jeanine Black.

Gini Dietrich recently wrote about the pros and cons of working for a large or a boutique agency. It made me think about the same arguments for agency vs. corporate sides.

There is green grass on both sides; deciding which side you like best is key.

I have worked at a small marketing/PR firm, as a freelance writer and consultant, and now as the only in-house marketing professional for a CPA firm with 70 employees.

I have not worked for a large agency or organization with huge in-house departments, and don’t represent their perspective here.

I do, however, strive to find some commonalities that I believe would pertain to all organizations, big or small.

Since taking the job at the CPA firm four and a half years ago – a great opportunity for me, personally – I have often wondered if I made the right choice professionally.  Has it made me “soft?” Has my creativity suffered? Will I ever be able to re-enter the agency world if I decided to try?

To say I haven’t pondered the pros and cons of each, at least daily, would be a lie. But I decided to focus on the positive aspects and allow you to draw your own conclusions.

What I love about working at an agency:

1. Variety of clients and projects. Moving from pediatric healthcare to retail/grocery to industrial tubing in one day keeps you sharp.
2. Fast paced. It’s hectic, insane, and it increases your blood pressure; but when it goes right, it’s exhilarating.
3. Opportunity to learn different disciplines. We wear a lot of hats in smaller agencies: Media relations, crisis communications, community relations, promotions, marketing communications, and more.
4. Work with like-minded people. In essence, you are surrounded by people who think like you and understand you.
5. Everyone understands what you do for a living. Even with four and a half years at my firm, I still have to explain to some friends and family what I do. But, at work, I’m surrounded by people who know exactly what I do.
6. Opportunity for advancement. I know many PR/marketers who have made it to CMOs, partners, principals, and VPs of Marketing at their organizations, but the opportunity to grow with an organization and become a partner/owner, I believe, is greater on the agency side.

What I love about working on the corporate side:

1. Non-billable. There are no quotas or added pressure and competitiveness.
2. Schedule is essentially 8-5. That doesn’t mean we don’t work more than 40 hours; there just isn’t an expectation to do so.
3. It’s nice to be the client. For those who went from the agency to client-side, I actually think we make AWESOME clients, because we understand what the agencies are experiencing and what they are capable of doing.
4. No day is ever the same. This is the one thing that really shocked me coming over. I thought I would be bored and unchallenged. If you look for new opportunities to be creative, you can make anything interesting and exciting – yes, even accounting!
5. No one understands what you do. Okay, no one is an exaggeration, but many don’t. It’s frustrating, but this can actually be a positive because they depend on you and your skills that much more.

Essentially, both sides have their pros and cons.  For me, it was a personal, as well as a professional choice. I don’t regret it one bit. But I often wonder what it’d be like to go back, and if I’d be able to.

What is your experience with this?

Jeanine Black is the marketing coordinator for Akron-based CPA firm Bober Markey Fedorovich with over 12 years of marketing and PR experience.  Prior to joining BMF, Jeanine worked as a freelance public relations consultant and writer. She also held positions with Fine Point PR and Wirtz Integrated Marketing, both in Akron.

Today’s guest is written by Jayme Soulati.

Public relations practitioners strive to develop authentic relationships; we want genuine and sincere romance with our tiered audiences, and we get there with engagement.

The word “authentic” itself begs for definition. It was used in a variety of ways by a variety of practitioners when I launched an effort awhile back to define public relations on my blog. Social media allows for creating real communities with give and take, with nurturing and education, and with growth by engagement. Combined, these contribute to authenticism (I often coin words).

Enter automation.

My growing fear is social media automation is quickly winning over authenticity. If you follow me online, this statement comes as no surprise. I have been lamenting scheduled tweets, the success of Triberr, and the disappearance of Twitter banter (nowadays that’s just about anything without a link!).

1. Automating Tweets: I freely admit I schedule tweets on occasion; in fact, I was encouraged to do more of it to push attention to the blog. You can’t get traffic if you tweet a new post once. So, I did, and lo – more traffic. I also use Triberr religiously. I automate post distribution in the three tribes I’m in. In fact, I’m kind of jazzed; I recently launched Globe Spotting – a tribe with seven bloggers from seven countries.
2. Optimizing Writing: I’m struggling with the whole optimization thing; it compromises authenticity! (While optimization is not automation, there are enough automated tools to enhance optimization, so they’re, like, kissing cousins.) A recent blog post over at Live Your Love by Brankica Underwood had me stewing. (She’s an expert about writing with keywords and measuring web analytics.) Bran shared how she wrote a keyword rich post and watched the traffic roll in. Then, she increased her traffic by writing a how-to post because keywords and search terms told her the market was seeking that information.
3. Quantifying Influence: How about Klout? I predicted recently that employers and clients would begin reviewing Klout scores and select candidates with the higher scores. I just read a blog post where that prediction rang true. People on Twitter who schedule unique content, RT consistently, and write about keywords can automatically boost Klout scores – even when the keywords for which peeps are being considered influential mean nothing, such as “cougar,” “heavy metal,” or “sheep.”

All my fears for the future are likely a yearning for the past. As I’ve been pondering this preponderance of push marketing, others have stated, “nothing stays the same…to grow we need to automate.”…OK, but at what expense?

Jayme Soulati is president of Soulati Media, Inc. where she executes a blend of public relations, social media, and marketing. At her blog, Soulati-TUDE! (Ad Age Power 2000 – just kidding, my blog is not even listed, heh) she gets a ton of inspiration from Spin Sucks and feeds on the plethora of topics generated by this community. In her own words: She’s grateful for the opportunity to guest here and is eager to contribute to the conversation.

The past decade has seen some great public relations campaigns, particularly in the for-profit realm.

Doritos knocked it out of the park when it “crashed” the Super Bowl, Tourism Queensland put its island on the map when it created The Best Job in the World, and Old Spice reignited its stodgy brand by convincing women that buying their grandfather’s deodorant will give their husbands six-pack abs. (Testimonial from my wife: “Old Spice is full of crap.”)

To me, however, the Domino’s turnaround is the most brilliant PR campaign in recent memory.

In the midst of a recession, in a hyper-competitive and mature industry, Domino’s completely realigned the perception of its product and its brand while generating measurable financial results for its stakeholders. And it did so through an innovative marketing campaign that seamlessly integrated traditional advertising, social media, and public relations.

Eleven Reasons Domino’s Turnaround Campaign Worked

1. Strategic planning. The company was thorough and patient. They took 18 months and spent tens of millions of dollars developing its new product. They waited  until the product was ready before Crispin Porter & Bogusky began creating the campaign.
2. Benchmark for readiness. Their CEO, Patrick Doyle, stated their mission was to “create a better tasting pizza than anyone in the category. Period.” Benchmark: It was time to go live when they beat their competition in taste tests.
3. Focused, simple messaging. Our old product was bad, Domino’s is a transparent organization that listens to its customers, and our new product is awesome. That simple… and that effective.
4. Calculated risk. Doyle admits he was hesitant about the negative messaging. They did thorough testing before coming up with the right balance of positive and negative in the Turnaround Campaign.
5. Commitment to its message and strategy. The company burned its bridges, boats, and boxes when it launched the Pizza Turnaround. The company so thoroughly trashed its old product that forward was its only possibility. Falling back to “Domino’s Classic” was not an option.
6. Integrated marketing and PR. All of the campaigns mentioned above blended what I would call the three legs of the modern marketing stool: Traditional advertising, public relations, and online/social. The Turnaround Campaign did not approach public relations in isolation and made sure all campaign components supported its core messages.
7. Remembered internal PR. They respected the fact that it would need buy-in from a large and diverse network of franchisees and employees to succeed, and it focused on internal PR as well.
8. Attacked the competition’s strengths. While rebranding its product and company, they went straight after the long-touted competitive advantage of Papa John’s: Better ingredients and taste.
9. On the ground tactics. They knew that getting the product into consumers’ mouths was the key to success, so it used good, old-fashioned discounting to incentivize customers to try the new product.
10. Momentum and follow-up. They followed the Pizza Turnaround with the Pizza Holdouts, the Show Us Your Pizza, and the Behind the Pizza campaigns, all campaigns that reinforced the company’s original messages of product quality and corporate transparency.
11. Originality and the X Factor. Let’s face it, much of the publicity they generated stemmed from being first national consumer brand to base a campaign around “we stunk; now we don’t.” It was original, edgy, and probably can’t be done again with the same effect.

Spin Sucks, But The New Domino’s Pizza Doesn’t

In the end, it is fitting to tell the story of the Domino’s turnaround on Spin Sucks, because the most important element of the campaign’s success was simple: It told the truth about the old product, and the new.

Domino’s took a long time developing its new pizza because it knew it would be risking the future of the company on its quality. No matter how authentic Domino’s story, no matter how creative its marketing campaign, it would have all fallen flat had the new product not lived up to the hype.

The Domino’s turnaround is one of the great marketing and PR stories of our time. It was unique, widespread, and told a story that resonated with consumers. Most importantly, it achieved measurable business results for the company.

While some parts of the campaign can never be replicated, other parts provide valuable lessons on the proper way PR can function as a vital component of a comprehensive marketing campaign.

Adam Toporek is the owner of IntenseFence Management Solutions and blogs about small business and franchising. He is from the South and understands that he is grossly underqualified to discuss pizza with a bunch of folks from Chicago.

So yesterday, when Shelly Kramer tagged me on Facebook to read this article and then when Troy Claus sent it to me via email, I knew the title was going to make my blood boil, but I hadn’t read it yet.

And boy did my blood boil!

PR Agencies Are Ruining Facebook.

I love sweeping generalizations like this.

Look, I know the PR industry has a terrible perception, one we’re working daily to change. But to say

PR agencies are good at distributing messages, but they aren’t known for really producing anything

is a bunch of baloney.

The article is written by an advertising agency guy. That’s pretty apparent in his message. He begins his argument by stating that PR professionals were the first in the social media space and that fact alone has made it a very boring place.

The problem is that in social media, as in life, a conversation isn’t engaging unless there is something interesting to talk about. No one wants to listen to an endless, aimless stream of dialog about a brand or a company, which is what you get from a strategy that focuses on news, offers and the occasional contest. That’s where PR-led social strategies wind up because those are pretty much the only arrows in PR’s quiver.

I’m the first to admit there are plenty of PR professionals who are consulting companies or working inside businesses to use the social platforms solely as news filters…one more place to distribute your news releases. And I also talk a lot about the type OO (output only) person you avoid at cocktail receptions and networking events.

No one wants to hear someone talk about only themselves. No one.

The best way to add and engage fans, as the article’s author states, is to grow your existing customer base.

But it isn’t left just to the advertising guys, or the creative, to do this. And it’s not just about social. It’s about the tools that fit best into the overall strategy.

There are plenty of companies, and agencies, that are doing it wrong. We hear about them day in and day out. It’s getting exhausting.

We all agree the social tools are just that: Social.

So let’s talk about the companies that are being social. That are engaging. That are growing their fan bases and, through that, are driving sales (not just more followers or fans).

Have an example you can share or are you fond of a case study? Leave it in the comments!

As a side note: His article states, “Even the most articulate strategies, built by the best  social media gurus, tend to focus on developing a presence on Facebook or Twitter, rather than developing a brand’s purpose.” And then I noticed in his tweet stream that he’s going to be in Chicago next week and has asked David Armano to drinks. Better be careful. Armano is one of those “best social media gurus,” who works at one of the largest agencies in the world.

I’m not a PR person. That’s not my background or my training. I don’t have to be a PR person to know that the debate over PR and its definition is the same debate that other disciplines have had, with much the same resolution.

I read the New York Times article that spawned the debate, after seeing posts from my pals Jayme Soulati and Jenn Whinnem. I’ve read many of the subsequent posts, including Gini Dietrich’s very honest assessment of her firm’s own missteps and Heidi Cohen’s collection of 31 definitions of PR.

I understand the emotions of those in the industry, who may feel unfairly attacked or misunderstood. Yet, if those under attack looked around, they’d find other people in other industries suffering the same types of misunderstandings.

PR Is More Than A Title

Take a title from my industry: “Web Designer.” Ask ten people from ten companies to define Web Designer, and you’ll get ten different answers. They’ll all have something to do with creating websites, but that’s about where the similarity ends. It’s not just Web Designers, either. Try searching for a definition of Information Architect, Program Manager, or Product Manager. You’ll find different definitions across the industry, and even within the same company.

This difference in definition becomes a problem when a client seeks to hire a “Web Designer” just as it was a problem for the NY Times author when he went to hire a PR agency. Both the client and the business have ideas of what a Web Designer is, does, and what he/she will deliver. They may have quite different ideas, though.

Jon Buscall has recently blogged, twice, about how web designers are a problem. He’s warned people to watch out for designers running the show, and ruining it. It’s not that web designers are bad, though, it’s that his clients either hired a bad web designer or hired the wrong type of web designer.

The Solution?

Don’t hire a title; hire someone to deliver a specific service. Discuss the specific services that will be provided from the start, so everyone is in agreement.

When we hire web designers ourselves (or project managers, front-end developers, program managers, etc.) we clearly define what we expect from the role, including what the designer delivers. When a client comes to us asking us to design or build their website, one of the first conversations we have is about our process and what we deliver. We explain, for example, that we don’t do branding work or marketing campaigns or advertising campaigns. Our proposals spell out our deliverables, our assumptions, the project constraints, and how we will communicate during the project and make adjustments.

Clients should expect the same from PR firms.

Hiring PR Is Entering Into A Partnership

It takes at least two to communicate–and at least two to miscommunicate. I’ve only read one side of the story of the Southfork Kitchen business relationship failure. It paints the PR agency in a pretty bad light. I’m willing to bet there were some missteps on the side of the client, as well.

In a client-business relationship, the business bears the greater responsibility for setting expectations, communicating clearly about what is possible, and defining what will be delivered. It bears the greater responsibility for asking the right questions, clarifying, setting limits, and keeping the discussion going.

It doesn’t bear the only responsibility, though.

We have a tendency to think, “I hired them, so it’s up to them to deliver and make me, the client, happy.”  But PR, social media consulting, website development–one thing all of these services have in common is that they require a lot of input from the client. You don’t just hire a website company, throw your requirements over the wall, and say “tell us when you’re done.” You can do that, sure. You’ll get a website whose quality is commensurate with what you’ve put into it, very low.

When you hire a PR firm (or a website developer or a social media consultant), you are hiring them for their expertise. That doesn’t mean they don’t need your expertise–the expertise about your business, your customers, your available resources, etc. Plus the ongoing feedback and exchange of ideas and information.

Hiring for these kinds of services means that you are entering into a partnership. Partnerships typically have a honeymoon period, and then their ups and downs. In a partnership, you get to know one another, including one another’s strengths and weaknesses. The little-spoken truth is that businesses, like people, are better in some areas than in others. In a partnership, you compensate and complement one another, to get the job done.

In a good partnership, overall the relationship is rewarding and you are happy with what you get out of it.  In a business partnership, the client pays money for the business’ expertise and services–but it also provides other necessary information, communication, and resources to complete the job.

In the end, the partnership is successful if the clients’ goals are met and if both sides find that the amount spent in dollars, time, and effort was reasonable and within expectations. In the case of the New York Times author, the partnerships weren’t successful. He blames only one party, though. From that, we can draw our own conclusions about the nature of the partnership.

Neicole Crepeau is a partner in Coherent Interactive, which specializes in web, mobile, and social media design and implementation for small and midsized businesses. Using social interaction design techniques, Neicole builds websites that encourage greater social interaction, sharing, and word-of-mouth. She also works with businesses to develop social media strategies to meet the specific goals of the business, with a focus on developing social offers to increase engagement. Neicole blogs at Coherent Social Media.

One of the biggest obstacles I’ve seen to social media success is that many people assume the same strategies and tactics that work well offline can be applied to this space. Most recently, this struck me with regard to influencer outreach.

I was discussing this with my colleague, Jennifer Kane, after she attended the Influencer Throwdown Panel with David Binkowski, Kevin Dugan and Krista Neher (moderated by Saul Colt) at SXSW Interactive. One thing that really got her thinking was this interesting concept that the panel posed:

The biggest mistake PR professionals make when working with influencers is to take a media relations approach, rather than a community relations approach.

As digital PR strategists, this sparked a fire in our brains.

Where are PR pros likely to make this mistake? What’s not translating?

Influencer outreach starts with defining the influencers, and, I’ve written that there are some traditional techniques that can be used for this approach. (Full disclaimer – there’s a lot more that goes into this, and that’s not what this post is about.)

But, the problem is in the execution. Once you’ve got an idea of who the influencers are that you’d like to reach, the natural media relations approach is to then use social media to “pitch” them – tweeting press releases or posting them to a blog; sending pitches via DM; finding an expert via Quora or LinkedIn. This is where the traditional media relations approach needs to end, and the social community relations approach must start.

The social space is a robust channel of two-way conversation. And, as panelist Kevin Dugan said, “When an influencer comments or does something, the conversation changes.”

The Community Relations Approach…

Define goal, content and context. It’s simply not enough to build a list of influencers. These are your “conversation changers.” What do you want to have happen? What are you going to say to them to inspire them to join the conversation? (Better yet, what do they want or need to hear from you?)

Test the action and outcome. Panelist David Binkowski had a great suggestion: If you are running an influencer campaign, set up the category and then run a test of that pool. How do you know if you’ve got the best set of influencers? We all know that there is no exact science to identifying influence. Just because the suite of tools you used to build your list told you these are your influencers, there’s no guarantee that all of them are the right fit for your pool. By running a test, you can clearly identify who is eager to participate in your community. From there, you can refine the list as necessary.

Manage the community. You built it. And, they came. They’ve shown you that they are listening and will be active participants in your community. It’s your responsibility to continue to listen, share and provide relevant content, whether it is in the form of information, product updates, exclusive deals or access – the possibilities are endless.

Online influencers are “influential” because they love to be social and active in this space. Pushing traditional methods on them is awkward and might only serve to alienate them from your brand. Invite them into your social community and give them a place to be your best brand advocate.

So, smart SpinSucks readers, I’d love to hear from you! How have you used a community approach influencer relations? What has (or hasn’t) worked for you?

[You can read David Binkowski's recap of the Influencer Throwdown panel on his blog.]

Kary Delaria is a digital PR strategist and social media research analyst for Kane Consulting, a social media firm that specializes in cross-channel integration. She can be reached via email or on Twitter.