A Digitized Volunteer Army…@twelpforce

In Twitter’s beginnings, there was a frenzy of people and companies learning how and why to use it. For myself, I chose to not get involved and stick to Facebook. Only a few years later, I have come to see the exemplary means of communication and connection that Twitter offers to individuals, and the PR machine that it can be for companies.

Brian Solis, author of the book, Engage, discusses the business idea of “unmarketing”. While a rather larger term/idea, one key aspect of unmarketing, is communicating with the public without trying to ask them to purchase what your company is selling. Initially this may seem like wasted time and effort from a revenue driven standpoint, but that is not at all the case. People are more and more aware of marketing and advertising, and the public is becoming more and more resentful of traditional sales tactics. Many people can and do skip ads on TV, and install ad blocking software on their computers. So how do companies bring in people to do business with them without these ads? This is where unmarketing comes into play. If a person trusts a company to care about more than just his/her money, even if it’s just a little more, than it is likely that that person will do business with whom is trusted.

Best Buy understood the idea behind unmarketing. In 2008, Best Buy recognized that people and employees were talking about Twitter. By 2009, the Twelpforce was created and implemented. Twelpforce is a group of a few thousand Best Buy employees who have volunteered to be a part in a huge team dedicated to answering the public’s questions on twitter. Everything tech related is a go! The twelpforce is instructed to help honestly and sincerely as the number one and only priority; direct sales and marketing is not a priority.

This is the TV Ad for the Twelpforce Campaign:

Twelpforce was a risky investment for Best Buy. It required the attention of a large number of employees, and there was certainly the risk that, like all things internet related, the company could be embarrassed in a number of ways. Despite all that, Twelpforce successfully reaches out to 44,202 followers, and has answered tens of thousands of questions, all without shoving anything Best Buy related down consumers’ throats.

This campaign has worked to create customer trust and loyalties that could never be gained through traditional advertising. Instead of the companies screaming and crying for the public’s attention, the public knows us enough to come to us; that is the goal.

Well Merry Christmas!

For myself, the text message has become an essential element of my day. And across the entire world, people everywhere are texting like they may have their thumbs chopped off soon! 

Take last year for example; in the year 2011, approximately 7 TRILLION (7,000,000,000) texts were sent worldwide!

The text has become so popular because it allows the sender to communicate with others without actually having to speak with them. We can say whatever we like, to whomever we like, wherever they are with almost no commitment to continue talking to them. It is really convenient for all of our fast paced lives.

Well where did that magical phone function come from?

The very first text message was a very simple message actually sent by a computer to a phone. It simply read, “Merry Christmas” and was sent to Richard Jarvis at the company Christmas party in England. The crazy thing about this story is that it took place twenty years ago! That message was sent December 3rd, 1992! 

We have Mr. Niel Papworth to thank for our so loved messages. He is the man who sent that message from his computer, to Mr. Jarvis’ phone. 

One noteworthy fact is that even though Mr. Papworth clearly sent the first text message, he is not the holder of the title, “Father of SMS”. Actually another man, Matti Makkonen is! He is a Finnish engineer who played a critical role in the development of SMS. 

Both of these men deserve a humongous amount of credit for their individual contributions to our modern way of life. After all, what else would we do if we were not sending those 7 trillion texts a year?  

Call each other?

No Way! 

How About Google + ?

For anyone who is newly jumping into the social media world, that jump can be an extraordinary and overwhelming experience. The sheer volume of social media that has inundated our internet can be intimidating, and leave a timid beginner with questions and doubt.

Of course there are the big guys: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, and WordPress, but what about all of those others?

Well one site that I know my circle has yet to get on board with is Google +. I know that a few of my friends wanted to use it, got started and stopped. And now I never hear about it, is Google + for professionals only? Well, I recently read an article on Digiday which explains that Google + has over 150 MILLION users, and there are groups thriving with 1 million + followers via that social network. I decided it was time to learn a little more about this site.

Google+ started as an invite-only social networking site that was designed to compete with Facebook. Since I had no other Google accounts, I was not invited, however my brother was. We were able to explore some of the cool features that Google+ has to offer. Very shortly after the site was started HUGE demand led to getting rid of the invite-only process, and any person over age 18 could get a shiny, new Google+ account. There were some caveats to signing up though. One could not simply have an account with any email address. Any new user needed to sign up with an email account that had an existing Google Profile, while simple to get, not everyone has or wants one.

Once you’re in, Google+ has a lot to offer. The features seem endless and awesome. One of the most attractive things about Google+ is the “Circle” feature that lends itself to more privacy. A user can compartmentalize all friends into different circles, and interact with them independently. This allows one to be far more decisive as to who sees what when it gets posted. Another great feature that Google+ has over some of the competition is its privacy setting interface. Customizing your privacy, and the way your info is used has been made surprisingly easy and available to the Google+ user.

Since there are so many features, it can get a little complicated to learn it all at first. But like anything else, once a user is used to it, being able to contact all your friends about the Big BBQ and not the distant family by simply selecting the circle you want to communicate to, is a very appreciated feature.

What do you think? Is Google+ worth investing time in?

For more information check out these great pieces:

http://www.digiday.com/platforms/dont-sleep-on-google-plus/

http://searchengineland.com/google-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly-83630

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-google-plus-2011-6#sparks-helps-you-find-interesting-content-based-on-interest-2

Thanks Everyone,

Paul

How to Be You and Please Everyone at the Same Time

I love hiking. I love the woods, and tents and rivers and fires. Not everyone does. Some people would rather never go hiking or camping ever, and that is okay. Our differences are what make us all so interesting. We are a world of consumers; all with different personalities and only a finite number of similarities. 

We are all so different that it is, at times, hard to believe that there are a few ideas or messages that can bring enough people together to get mass attention. And that is exactly the business all of us PR people are in. We are the people with the ideas. We send out that golden message. 

-How can we make sure that OUR message appeals to many people when there are so many demographics to appeal to? 

I was reading a great piece at The Future Buzz (everyone should check it out) and that article contained yet another “golden nugget” of PR expertise: “If your content gets a positive response, go with it.” 

That is absolutely true, and I feel that being ready to run with anything that gets a bit of traction is important, also I feel there is a second concept that will need to go with that idea. If we run with whatever gets attention, how can we maintain our roots, and the image that we intended for ourselves?

Well I found the answer to that question in chapter 12 of the book Engage by Brian Solis. When discussing the establishment of “Online Brand Persona” Mr. Solis states that many companies have a “ready, fire!” approach that is not thought through (Solis, pg 98). He explains that you need to identify your company, your image, and your message and stick to it!

In order to maintain your image, and still have the flexibility to run with whatever gets attention you need to do two things. 

1) Don’t put out anything that would deviate from your message with further exploration. You never know what may become popular.

2) Decide ahead of time what your message/image is, and the parameters in which you can move around when reaching out on the internet. 

Accepting that what you have to say is important will take you far in the PR world. We need to make sure that, as we set ourselves in the online community, we are not afraid to show our personality. We also need to be sure that we emphasize our core values and not deviate from them, this will create the public relationships we are looking for. 

“EARN THEIR ATTENTION”

Is the public still open to a company’s message? Television ads and PSA’s are losing their power rapidly, and adblock software is doing its part to slow the barrage of messages being sent to consumers. So from a PR standpoint, how do we communicate with our public when they want to seek their information and not the other way around? Can we be proactive and try to reach out, or do we make the most attractive base in hopes that the public will find us?

Brian Solis, author of the book “Engage” seems to have the answer to those questions that can be summed up in the quote, “Earn their attention” (Solis, pg35).

Solis introduces an idea called “Crowd-Sourcing” in which the public edits what information and trends are out there, and what will make it to the top of the public-eye. There is a variety of sites and forums that a PR practitioner can pay attention to to either observe this idea at work, or even to utilize in a way that will greatly increase the online presence of a company.

Websites like Reddit and Vimeo are just a fraction of what is out there at a companies disposal. The secret lies in the power of the almighty “like” button, or “share”, or “digg” , or a number of similar click-options provided by these websites. Ultimately what these buttons do is instantly share whatever was just viewed by that individual person. This boosts that topic’s popularity, and sometimes that person will send the link to his/her friends. This type of exposure is as valuable as a word of mouth recommendation for two reasons: our message is passed (for free) to another person who is probably going to like it and share it again, and because it helps our message gain momentum and hopefully make it to the front end of that website.

Utilizing this tactic allows a company to promote a message with the public being involved. If that message is popular enough to make it to a popular part of a website, the rest of the public on that site feels more inclined to spend their time viewing it.

This idea of creating a quality message in a stylish way that will be passed through online communities is going to be key for success in today’s information-selective world.

EARN THEIR ATTENTION

Social Media: Does it really connect us?

The world we live in is more connected than it has ever been. A person can literally reach anyone, anywhere in the entire world, so long as that person has an internet connection or phone service. The level at which we can readily communicate with each other is unprecedented.

This level of social media-involvement is wonderful right? This inter-connectedness brings people together in a way that was never before possible, thus being a great help to us all right? Well, some experts would say otherwise. In a recent article posted by Mashable, MIT professor Sherry Turkle related her grave concerns for what social media has done, and will do to our society. She expressed her concerns about the complete invasion of social media into our lives. We have all texted during class, used our phones while we drove, checked our Facebooks at a dinner, or even brought the iPad into the bathroom with us.

What Miss Turkle fears is that we are losing our ability to connect in an authentic way to those that we come into contact with, and there certainly is evidence of that. However, there is a strong argument that can be made for the other side. It is possible, and observable, for social media to bring together in a real way that will make history.

Two key examples that prove this point are the “Egyptian Facebook Revolution” and a campaign called “Kony 2012”

Both of the occurrences show the way that people can be brought together by social media in a huge way. Take Kony 2012 for example. This entire campaign was led by a young man who visited Africa, saw the horrors the children there experienced at the hands of one cruel man (Joseph Kony) ,and decided that he was going to try put a stop to it all. This one young man got some of his friends, and utilized Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, their own website, and a other social media tactics to bring in hundreds of thousands of people to support the cause.

There were no profits made, and many people traveled from across the globe to get involved. That is huge.

So which is it? Does social media damage or fix us? Well in order to get the correct answer to that question, i think we need to look further into what Professor Turkle had to say. She suggests that people utilize social media/networking in a more “self-aware” way, and set up mental rules as to when it will not be accessed. (i.e. the bathroom, at dinner, etc.) She says that this will lead to a more healthy use of what connects us all.

Links for information:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/egypt-facebook-revolution-wael-ghonim_n_822078.html

http://mashable.com/2012/03/01/social-media-less-connected/

http://www.kony2012.com/

http://www.nndb.com/people/398/000022332/

http://socialnicole.com/kony-2012-social-media/