Talk It Up!

Book Review: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations

Brian Solis and Deirdre Breakenridge teamed up earlier this year to create this book, Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR. Even for those of us not "officially" in the PR field, the book is a good resource on the nature of conversations and expectations that take place online today.

Part I, The Tue Value of New PR, is an expanded, updated version of the theses in the Cluetrain Manifesto, laying out the differences between what our clients and audiences expect now versus just a few years ago. The fuzzy lines between journalism and blogging are explored, and the idea that no matter what tools you use to communicate, the most important aspect of PR is the "relations" part--it is (and always has been) about establishing and nurturing relationships with your friends, fans, enemies and consumers:

"It's survival not only of the fittest, but also of the most capable and sincere."

Brian and Deirdre argue for the aspects of good Web 2.0 we've all come to tout: transparency, engagement, flexibility, openness, communication with not to and speaking in a real human voice instead of in corporate messages. And they support those arguments with blog posts from the best formative voices in social media: Chris Anderson, Erick Shonfeld, Charlene Li, Chris Heuer, Jay Rosen, Robert Scoble, Todd Defren and others.

Part II covers more theory on this art of reaching out within the social media space, starting with language and attitude and covering how to reach out to bloggers and create a social media press release. (Corporate blogging is in this section, too). Their advice on creating a profile for a social networking/media tool:

"Your profile is an expression of the real you or your 'real' brand--the voice of the person or company who reveals a very human side through conversations."

For approaching social media in general:

"There is no one tool, one release, or one story that willmotivate your customers to take action. it all starts with becoming the person (and different people) you're trying to reach and then reverse-engineering the process. Listen. Read. Learn."

With respect to blogger relations, Brian and Deirdre argue against shooting only for A-list bloggers and advise targeting instead the more relevant influencers, the "magic middle":

"Although there is an A-list for every market, and the A-list helps with the credibility of a brand, it does very little for geeration new customers or enhancing brand loyalty. The true influencers are the peers of your customers... This group is often referred to as the magic middle, a group of passionat epeople dedicated to writign about topics and issues relevant to them personally."

They define the "magic middle" as blogs with 20 to 1,000 inbound active links and argue that these are the bloggers that inspire real people to try new products.

If you write press releases, read chapter 8. Your recipients will thank you.

Part III dives into the how of participating in social media, beginning with the exortation that "technology does not override the social sciences." That's right; you still have to be real, sincere and human. Participation in tools like Facebook and Twitter are in this section, BTW.

Part IV looks into the future of PR 2.0, including the new title Community Manager (yes, that's me!), the customer service possibilities with social media and metrics.

And finally, Part V (I'll admit I haven't got to it yet) speculates on the future of PR.

Overall, this book is a useful resource, whether you're in PR or just looking at starting a corporate blog or Twitter account. It's been incredibly valuable to me as I've been making the arguments to clients for starting a corporate blog or taking the time to participate in social media at all--rich in sources and case studies, it gives me great ammunition to make the case for social media in the business world.

Customer service on Twitter: Zoom H2 and SweetwaterSound

Will Twitter solve all your customer service issues? No. But it can help.

Let's face it; a lot of customers will never call in and tell you they're disappointed in their product. Unless they're absolutely furious and want their money back, most customers are too busy to worry about being a bit disappointed. They're more likely to tell their friends the product wasn't that great.

And that's the point: as Cluetrain Manifesto pointed out back in 2000, conversations about your product are going on with or without you: markets are conversations. And tools like Twitter and Facebook are just that--tools that consumers use to share their ideas, opinions and complaints about products.

It's what I did. When Sweetwater called a few weeks ago to ask how I liked the Zoom H2 I'd purchased six months before, I let them know honestly that I wasn't all that happy with it. The Zoom tends to pick up a lot of background noise, and when I plug in my Giant Squid dual lapel mics, the Zoom wasn't getting any feed from them. And finally, when I plug the Zoom into my MacBook via USB, every few minutes, the signal would record deafening distortion, both in my headset and on the recording.

The representative was great--he transferred me to a tech person to solve the second issue (the mics need a trickle of power, so under Menu, choose "Plug-In" and set "Plug-In Power" to on) and gave me a link to download a patch for the latest Mac OS to try to fix the third issue. (From what I can gather, the Zoom H2 just picks up an extraordinary amount of background noise, so that issue remains unadressed).

However, the patch didn't work, so I emailed Todd, the tech support representative, to let him know, along with a test recording showing the distortion. Apparently, the Zoom folks didn't respond to him, and a few weeks passed. The next time I tried to use the Zoom and it didn't work well, I Twittered the experience.

Zoom (@zoomfx) jumped right in:

 
And Sweetwater (@sweetwatersound) did, too, leading to another phone call and Zoom and Sweetwater working together to deal with the issue:

In the end, I got a call from Sweetwater. It seems the distortion issue baffled both them and Zoom, so Zoom agreed to send me a new unit, and I'll send the old one back. This led to this Tweet from me:

And the positive conversation continued on Twitter as well, with others sounding in:

Could this service have happened without Twitter? Possibly. But it didn't. When email and phone calls fail, I, along with many other users, turn to Twitter to express my views on a product. Using new social media tools like Twitter won't replace your existing customer service. And if your customer service is bad to begin with, using Twitter most likely won't improve it (or at least, not much).

However, engaging customers and users in the social media space can help with the ones who might otherwise slip through the cracks. Zoom and Sweetwater followed up via Twitter when traditional modes of communication failed. They joined the conversation where it was taking place: on Twitter. And because of that, an issue that otherwise would have gone unresolved got adressed in a positive way. And a product that would have gone unrecommended now has a bit more positive press.

If you don't have time to be on Twitter constantly, here's a tip: set up Twitter searches for your company and product names so that you can be alerted to mentions of your products as they occur.

Other advice you'd give to companies considering using Twitter for customer service?

In Chicago, Domino's @DPZRamon gets it

[Thanks, Amy, for verifying the facts of the original delivery!]

The Domino's Pizza kerfuffle that blazed its way across the blogosphere and Twittersphere last week had hordes of social media folks asking why Domino's didn't respond sooner--or at least select a less clunky Twitter ID when they did. And the rapid awareness of "Boogergate" will undoubtedly be a case study for months to come.

But here in Chicago, one Domino's operator gets its. Ramon, who uses the Twitter ID @dpzramon and operates Domino's Pizza joints in Chicago at 3103 N. Clark, 2455 W. Fullerton, 2231 N. Lincoln, 4039 W. 26th, 1234 S. Canal, and 143 W. Division, jumped into the Domino's kerfuffle in Chicago by replying to local Tweets and directing Twitter inquiries to Patrick Doyle's YouTube video (once it was created). And he's not new to social media: his Twitter profile sports links to his blog as well as to his YouTube, Viddler, Facebook and Flickr accounts, all with content dating back months, not days.

But that's not all. When Amy Korin (@interactiveamy) called one of his Domino's stores and waited nearly two hours [correction: over an hour] for her pizza [addendum: that was not the pizza she'd ordered], she Twittered about it. And Ramon didn't just respond; he responded via Twitter. And he did her one better: he contacted Junior, the manager of the Lincoln Park Domino's that delayed Amy's pizza. Together, they posted a video to make a personal apology for the delay:

Domino's national, take a lesson from Ramon. Note that he apologizes for taking an hour to respond to her Tweet; that's the immediacy expected within today's social media sphere. Response  is measured in hours, not days. Also note that Ramon looked at the camera and spoke from his heart without a script. He spoke directly and personally to the customer, taking the first steps to forge a relationship.

And what a step it was! At last night's Social Media Club gathering, Amy reported that that Viddler video had been embedded nearly 12,000 times. Keep in mind that refers to embeds, not views--12,000 bloggers embedded the video in their own post, just like this one. And to do her one better, Ramon provided Domino's pizza for last night's entire Social Media Club gathering--that was over 350 people!

This is where the power of social media lies: in immediate, personal response bent on building a relationship with others.