The NFL operated a 2,800 square foot Social Media Command Center for two weeks during Super Bowl XLVI festivities. Fifty staffers monitored hundreds of keywords to help improve fans’ onsite experiences — reaching nearly 50,000 people directly on social networks and creating 1.8 million online impressions daily.

And last month, the Collegiate Marketing Group launched a social media command center to help provide a “fun, safe and informative” spring break for the half-million students who visit Panama City Beach, Fla., each year.

Large-scale endeavors like these work well when people and budgets are in place. However, you don’t need to have a big operation to achieve similar awareness and engagement benefits.

Develop your own digital Doppler

Set up digital tools like these once, and the information will find you:

• Free Google tools — Create Google Alerts with keywords including brands, products, executives and competitors. Google Trends provides top-10 regional topic searches with baseline metrics. Google Reader organizes relevant RSS feeds you want to track, and Google Analytics provides revealing website stats.
• Social dashboards — PR practitioners widely use TweetDeck and HootSuite for managing  Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. Create keyword and hashtag searches as well as lists of media, analysts, competitors and customers to watch.
• Other aggregators — Customer relationship management (CRM) systems integrate a contact’s social streams, along with email and phone histories. Some CRM systems search a journalist’s name and associated keywords each time you view their record, so their recent articles, social mentions and interests appear. NutshellMail emails daily summaries of your social mentions, and more sophisticated, fee-based systems like Sprout Social are available too.

Monitor trends

Set up your social command center to look for the following:

• Trends and unique interests — News trends emerge as you monitor industry influencers and competitors. Watch specific journalists and learn what trends and topics pique their interest, and monitor the types of stories that result. If you don’t find any connections to your messages, then develop relevant, complementary topics.
• Communication triggers — Refer to media databases to learn journalists’ contact preferences and the social channels they use, but study their behaviors to learn what they want. Does a journalist use social media to simply broadcast their articles, or do they have conversations? What topics do they respond to?
• Common connections — Track the experts journalists regularly reference for their stories. Are the results positive, negative or untapped opportunities for you? A journalist may contact the same Forrester industry analyst when writing about mobile technology.  Learning about an analyst’s general outlook can help communicators position clients for stories or repair misunderstandings. Full-scale analyst relations programs can develop from such examination.

Assigning someone to consistently manage monitoring is your most essential step. Consider assigning responsibility to a social media manager or to each practitioner per their coverage areas.

This post also appears as the April “Digital Dialogue” column in the PR Tactics Journal published by the Public Relations Society of America.

Consumers gather 60 percent of information needed to make purchase decisions before contacting vendors and read about ten pieces of content before buying, according to data from Come Recommended, LLC, a digital PR consultancy. Brand journalism and the related practice of content marketing are strategies communicators are using to profit from this behavior. Each is expanding due to focus on creating news and educational material audiences really benefit from, rather than purely promotional advertisements. Companies across diverse industries are wielding the compounding influence of brand journalism and content strategies for tangible returns.

Catalytic Products International, a manufacturer of air pollution control equipment, implemented a content strategy in 2011 with its agency, Arment Dietrich, Inc., to generate product quotes from new prospects. Newsletters, web copy and whitepapers addressing prospects’ interests including EPA regulations, natural gas industry rule changes and advice for designing preventative maintenance plans garnered 66 quote requests for an additional $2.2 million in revenue.

“In an economy where businesses are concerned about spending large sums of money, the consistent visibility, thought leadership and accessibility of resources we’ve helped create form a special bond between our client and their prospects,” explains Arment Dietrich, Inc. account executive Molli Megasko.

Newsroom mentality

A key distinction between content marketing and brand journalism is the latter takes newsroom approaches to developing information. An online newsroom is the foundation of these efforts. Newsrooms are populated regularly with compelling stories, blogs and visuals that go beyond a brand’s own concerns and product news to cover broad perspectives about an industry including other players within it. Companies immersed in brand journalism often staff their newsrooms with full-time editorial personnel and augment them with curated posts from other thought leaders.

The Louisiana Seafood Board worked with News Strategies LLC following BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill to launch an online newsroom covering people and businesses impacted by the crisis through articles, photos and videos. Its stories were also picked up by mainstream media and the Board cites newsroom efforts as a catalyst for securing $30 million in relief assistance from BP.

Organic Valley, America’s largest cooperative of organic farmers and a popular national food brand, blends brand and industry news on its site plus provides a “Who’s Your Farmer?” web app so visitors and journalists can enter zip codes to ‘meet’ farmers in specific regions via brief or extended summaries about their farms.

General Motors uses Google+ as a social newsroom to share tailored information with individuals or groups of journalists, bloggers and customers via the site’s Circles feature.

While brand journalism requires effort and budget to sustain, it puts information for sales, donations, memberships and elections in a more logical sequence people can act upon as needed. Keep these ideas in mind when managing your content:

Customer experience pays off – Organizations reap rewards by putting themselves second, sharing valuable information while patiently waiting for moments their offerings can assist people.

Leverage lifecycles – If prospects read ten pieces of literature before purchasing, design yours to address questions they have along the way. For brand journalism, gauge trends you can cover multiple times versus news requiring one timely post.

Thought leading over lead capturing – Lead capture forms can brand your material as advertising. Just include your contact information; when your messages are good people will happily come find you.

A version of this post appears as the March Digital Dialogue column in the PR Tactics Journal, published by the Public Relations Society of America.

Pop music star Sting held a news conference at a New York Apple store on Nov. 15 to announce his Sting 25 “appumentary,” an iPad app with historical interviews, music videos and concert footage promoting a career-spanning CD box set of the same name.

Similarly, Clear Channel Broadcasting, Inc.’s iHeartRadio app repurposes audio and commercial messages from 750 U.S. radio stations, extending its traditional content to a more interactive format.

The app era is in full swing, from mainstream to niche. Online searches show an abundance of apps spanning business, entertainment, news, productivity and lifestyle categories. Apps are even getting age-based ratings this year, like those used to rate video game content.

Half of all U.S. adult mobile phone owners have apps on their phones, according to a study by Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. The study reveals that 74 percent of adult app users download news-oriented apps, including those updating weather, sports and investments, followed by 67 percent who download apps to communicate with family and friends.

Another Pew study (in collaboration with The Economist Group) regarding tablet news consumption says that 11 percent of Americans have purchased tablets in the less than two years the iPad has existed. Fifty-three percent of them read news on tablets daily, with 33 percent read from sources that they did not previously consider and 41 percent read articles that they tagged for later.

Fanfare for the common man

Much of this app-tivity, so to speak, lends itself to public relations.  You don’t have to be a music mogul or global brand to use apps as a communications medium. Development cost estimates range from a few thousand dollars for simple apps to tens of thousands for elaborate apps. Communicators typically have strong relationships with creatives and design experts, so tap your networks for possible cost advantages.

Communication strategist David Meerman Scott developed his own iPhone and iPad apps with Newstex, a real-time content technology company, which include his blog posts, Twitter updates, videos and links to his Amazon bookstore profile. A perfect content marketing activity for someone who makes a living teaching such tactics.

Apps can support many messages and purposes. Hunter Public Relations of New York created its “Faceboo” app, allowing users to simulate Halloween-themed press releases while generating agency awareness.

The Roberts Group, a health care communications agency in Waukesha, Wisc., helps client Saint Francis Medical Center of Missouri populate its Saint Francis Medical Partners app. Created by Dr. Edward Bender, the app helps patients locate offices and learn about their physicians’ specialties, medical school affiliations and residencies.

“Technology is helping people take better control of their health care,” says Katie Stensberg, emerging media specialist for The Roberts Group. “Apps that successfully create awareness and communicate with an audience benefit from a focus on basic human needs.”

This post also appears as the January “Digital Dialogue” column of the PR Tactics Journal published by the Public Relations Society of America.

The President completed a social networking trifecta in July, hosting a Twitter town hall meeting that generated 119,000 #AskObama tweets containing 40,000 unique questions, according to TwitSprout.

The President’s digital communications strategy may focus on balancing activity across several channels, but in the private sector, Facebook, Google and others are waging the battle for social media supremacy.

Migrating, defecting and reflecting
Facebook, Twitter and other networks on the otherwise openly social Web covet a “walled garden” model. Generating the most traffic can likely wield the most influence and yield the most revenue. It’s a successful approach for Facebook with more than 700 million users, most of whom will never feel restricted in a community of such size.

Competition for users is fierce as social media mania settles into normalcy and users can only manage so many profiles. New networks continue to emerge and compete for attention and lucrative market share, defined by impending IPOs and the aforementioned monetization.

Google’s previous attempts to enter the social space with Google Buzz and Google Wave were short lived, but initial hype for its more robust Google+ with Facebook-influenced features like “circles” (groups) and “stream” (newsfeed) has prompted defensive tactics from competitors.

Facebook blocked an exporting tool that allowed users to export contact information to Gmail as well as Google+ related advertisements on its network while Google suspended real-time search that had included Facebook fan page updates and tweets. Facebook also integrated with Skype in what came off as an over-hyped response to the previous week’s Google+ launch mirroring a video chat capability that Google already offered.

Tumblr, the short-form blogging platform, has drawn competitive comparisons with Twitter. In June, former CNN anchor Rick Sanchez declared Tumblr “the next great tool for reports and news organizations.” Likewise, Edelman communications guru Steve Rubel adopted Tumblr after previously using the competing Posterous service. Rubel and Sanchez both admire the blog and social media hybrid that  Tumblr provides, expanding content sharing and curation capabilities beyond Twitter’s 140-character limit.

Of course, these are not the first instances of social media migration. MySpace users defected in droves when Facebook became the social heir apparent.

What do such movements mean for digital communications professionals? Most are not worrisome. Technologies evolve. Communicators must focus on positioning clients where their audience is already, which often means managing presence on several communities.

Keeping abreast of each network’s maneuvers is helpful for counseling clients appropriately, and clear thinking can guide you the rest of the way.

Navigating your way
Committing to social media means managing a network of networks. It’s a heavy workload for big brands and niche players alike. In this column, we’ve evaluated strategies and tools that can help.

• Popularity trumps allegiance. Critical mass is not difficult to identify even when it shifts. Standing out is the real challenge, so focus on message and differentiation matter regardless of location.
• Social networks are evolving and new ones emerge constantly. Evaluating your options is healthy, but when one social network is working for you resist the urge to change it.
• Technology and complacency don’t mix. Embrace change.

This post also appears as the August “Digital Dialogue” column in the PR Tactics Journal published by the Public Relations Society of America.

LinkedIn Corp. closed its first day of public trading on May 19 at $94.25 per share, tallying a net worth of nearly $9 billion.

This development triggered optimism for other social media companies anticipating Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), including Facebook — with a projected $100 billion valuation, according to CNBC — and eventually Twitter. Regional deal-of-the-day site Groupon filed with the SEC for what could lead to an IPO valued at $20 billion.

These activities, however, are also drawing skepticism for similarities to the Internet boom and bust of 1995-2000, when tech companies launched pricey IPOs on lofty visions and little, if any, profits.

IPOs and acquisitions represent the next era of social media awareness. Communicators should welcome this new boost in enthusiasm. We’ve implemented the tools for years — and while concern over another tech bubble is a drama all its own, there are also positives for PR practitioners to leverage during investment and consolidation activities.

Consider the following:

Big-ticket IPOs and acquisitions validate digital communication strategies. If your organization is engaged in networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as a way to connect with audiences and develop customers, then you can tout these activities as signals of strong demand and longevity for social media tools. This is a good time to justify the use of your chosen platforms with internal stakeholders and propose additional investments within your organizations.

Likewise, if leadership is still skeptical of social media, then you can now speak in terms executives appreciate: IPO and acquisition activity is proof that social technologies should be taken seriously.

Publicly traded and acquired social channels have more funding and more stakeholders. LinkedIn now has additional cash to further develop functionality. Imagine what is possible for cash-infused companies and the increased frequency at which they can introduce new features.

As social sites go public or companies acquire them (such as Microsoft buying Skype for $8.5 billion in May), currently free features may become subscription-based as companies look for return on their investments by monetizing some services. Such changes could alter or limit the composition of certain digital communications campaigns.

Mainstay social channels are building on their ideal-use cases. As technology markets mature and consolidate, remaining players position themselves based on core competencies. Brands and the communicators supporting them can better prioritize which tools to use and how much effort they should place on each. Twitter, for example, is impressive at 75 million users, though it’s dwarfed by Facebook’s 600 million users. Twitter is ideal for peer discussions, generating buzz and business-to-business or nonprofit campaigns. And Facebook is better positioned to create communities that consistently influence sales.

Recent behavior demonstrates that each platform is building on these roles. Twitter acquired TweetDeck for $40 million to help users manage high volumes of real-time conversations, while Facebook has introduced services that could supplant competing standalone tools: Facebook Places (location-based sharing; foursquare), Facebook Deals(opt-in sales deals; Groupon) and Facebook Email accounts (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail etc).

PR professionals can follow suit. It’s a great time to use this latest technology buzz as a catalyst to reinvest in and advance your digital communications programs. Even Wall Street says so.

This post also appears as the “Digital Dialogue” column in the July issue of PR Tactics, published by the Public Relations Society of America.

Image betadaily.com

Aflac fired “spokesduck” Gilbert Gottfried over his comments about the Japanese tsunami. GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons documented an elephant hunt that angered PETA.  An Applebee’s restaurant in Michigan accidentally served alcohol to a toddler.

These headlines illustrate how crisis topics vary. However, there is a common mindset that PR practitioners can apply to help manage and minimize the online footprint of such incidents.

“People often go off the cuff in a crisis and that’s their No. 1 flaw,” says Jocelyn Broder, vice president at Robin Tracy Public Relations in Atlanta, describing how a client who was upset about a negative blog post opted against her counsel and contacted the blogger personally.

That exchange resulted in another post by the same blogger casting more negative light on the spokesperson’s  “claims” and five other bloggers picked up the story.

“The original post, while unflattering, was accurate and directed at maybe a couple hundred readers,” explains Broder.  “In relatively contained situations like these it is good to have a statement prepared in case you are contacted, but proactively offering it may cause more damage than would’ve likely occurred.”

Dorothy Crenshaw, CEO of Crenshaw Communications in New York, says the first rule in the crisis response playbook is being timely and authentic — often to issue an apology — but the realities of the accelerated news cycle can require deft interpretation and application of this rule.

“Parsons’ GoDaddy hunting video was posted for some time before going viral and since he didn’t believe he was doing anything wrong, the company needed a different response,” adds Crenshaw. “Knowing he’s a hunter and ex-Marine who makes no bones about his lifestyle suggests GoDaddy’s team is prepared to some degree for negative news.”

Parsons’ explanations about helping poor African villagers control the elephant population and preserve crops, however, came across as defensive to many viewers, including Crenshaw.  She thought that he did an admirable job of making himself available for response but could have communicated a more sincere desire to help the region reduce poverty.

Preparing your response

The digital communications landscape requires more frequent vulnerability assessment so that practitioners can better help companies and clients manage potential and real crises scenarios. Successful communicators apply the following:

• Study the past — Companies generally find themselves in situations that they (or someone like them) have been in before. Studying how peers handled past mistakes aids crisis readiness.
• Anticipate the future — Crenshaw suggests vulnerability assessments that generate responses for your top five most likely crisis scenarios. Broder advises identifying team members who are automatically contacted no matter where or when a crisis occurs.  The sooner they are engaged, the sooner they can determine how to respond.
• Mend while you trend — Broder also recommends measuring the actual reach of a crisis by evaluating everywhere it occurs online.  This helps determine who else may become aware of it, which messages should be prepared — if any — and what message frequency is best for quelling rather than exacerbating the news.

Apply a rational rather than an emotional examination to whether news requires a response.  It is also wise to identify one spokesperson whose position is commensurate with the situation to respond when necessary.

“If you don’t have a thoughtful and strategic response within the first four hours, then you generally lose round one,” says Crenshaw.  “And sometimes, it’s only a one-round battle.

This post also appears in PR Tactics Journal, a publication of the Public Relations Society of America.

Published by Jossey-Bass

I’m fortunate on occasion to receive books for review. Such is the case with When the Headline Is You: An Insider’s Guide to Handling the Media, authored by media and crisis communications trainer Jeff Ansell, with Jeffrey Leeson. My thanks to both for sharing a copy.

Ansell’s 16 years of journalism and 22 years of media consulting experience pay off for readers. His book addresses balancing the art and science of media relations, instructing readers how to apply responsive and proactive approaches to a diverse set of crisis communications scenarios.

I began reading When the Headline Is You with the expectation of learning how to better identify, examine and manage the myriad of negative media exchanges that organizations and business professionals can encounter. And the book delivered. What I did not expect at go, but now makes perfect sense, was such depth of writing and speech tutorials dispensed within the crisis management lessons. These skills, of course, go hand in hand; essential for effectively managing crisis situations, and for any measure of communications success. My point, or additional discovery, is that the writing and speaking skills Ansell covers can help strengthen your communications for situations beyond crisis. I plan to keep this book handy to assist with persuasion and accuracy.

Ansell handles crisis examples in an enlightening manner throughout the book using both real-world and hypothetical scenarios. My one criticism of the book is that I would have enjoyed a few more references to “classic” online examples (classic from a social media traffic perspective) that brands like Domino’s Pizza, Kenneth Cole, Gap or Motrin have experienced in recent years. Learning what Jeff would have prescribed in these situations would be interesting, although perhaps is too much of a “me t00″ format since he has years’ worth of consulting examples to offer. The Internet sensations, after all, are just a Google search away.

When the Headline Is You gets right to work noting how anyone can ask questions, but the real skill is in answering them. Ansell cautions that truth and perspective are the casualties of reporting, especially given the sensationalism and trivial distractions common in our present news culture. Conflict, of nearly any sort it seems, is how reporters earn a living he says.

You’ll be able to use this book both as cover-to-cover instruction as well as for situational reference. For the former, Ansell offers three key tools – his Value Compass, Problem Solution Formula, and Compelling Message Creator – used to illustrate how a pharmaceutical client navigates the highs and lows of crisis management, building upon this example client’s story from chapter to chapter as each tool is applied.

Along the way Ansell covers critical support topics including: what questions to ask reporters so responses are mutually beneficial, coupling stakeholders’ concerns with your commitments to action, skills like constructing standalone sentences to ensure your messages can withstand the most ruthless media edits, how PR professionals can get lawyers on their side, and assessing your messages against an honesty continuum.

The material is dense across barely two-hundred pages. It’s a page turner (yes, I marked up the hardcover) not only for its compelling advice but also for the drama evoked by its examples; the stories will have you anxious to see what happens next. And if that’s not enough, there’s even a fun Stones reference on page five.

So my thanks again to Jeff for sharing a review copy. I hope to meet and discuss more of it with you someday — ideally under the most pleasant circumstances!

You can find out more about Jeff Ansell and his book at www.whentheheadlineisyou.com and hear him discuss the book here on a Jossey-Bass podcast.

Online news consumption surpassed newspapers for the first time last year according to Pew Research Center’s 2011 State of the News Media report. Forty-six percent of respondents access news online at least three times weekly, compared to 40 percent from newspapers. Pew also finds that 47 percent of Americans access local news via mobile devices.

These stats may not be revelations to informed communicators, but they illustrate how the volume of online information is rapidly expanding — and Pew’s data only measures editorial content. Even Google algorithms are challenged to provide relevant results from such an enormous pool of possibilities.

Enter the content curator

Content curation consists of identifying and organizing information that others have produced about a specific topic to share with your own audience.

It is a skilled and growing effort among individuals and prolific content creators alike. Pew estimates 18 of The Huffington Post’s 70 to 80 editors (pre-AOL acquisition) produce content, while the rest aggregate and curate.

This can include using social bookmarking tools such as Delicious and Digg, tweeting, linking to blogs and guest posts, among other social sharing examples.

The most serious curation, however, is consistent and focused rather than random. Information curators are trusted editors to those who follow them, and this results in communication potential for PR practitioners.

Author and consultant Don Tapscott says that curation and context are among the most important elements of content strategies. He points to the rise of curated resources overtaking traditional models to illustrate its inherent organization, publishing and engagement qualities. Examples include Flickr photo sharing eclipsing Kodak Gallery, Wikipedia rendering Britannica Online irrelevant and The Huffington Post competing with The New  York Times.

A targeting tactic

PR professionals, their companies and their clients can gain notoriety and create an engaged audience by becoming the person, organization or Web destination that shares the best information about a particular category.

“If you’re going to be a content marketer, then you need to specialize or risk not being relevant to anyone,” explains Michelle Golden of Golden Practices Inc., a communications advisory to professional service firms.

Golden’s client, Paul Neiffer, now with LarsonAllen, publishes the Farm CPA Today blog for the agriculture industry. The blog is successful for its blending of original items and curated links about related topics of interest to farmers, rather than merely sharing accounting tips.

Golden has benefited from overseeing a longtime list of accounting bloggers. She was approached to submit a book proposal based on her demonstrated passion for the space, resulting in “Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms.”

Successful content curation includes defining what and whose content you will select and developing your topic with the support of your community of followers. These people ultimately help to organize, discuss and promote your material.

Producing original material for your information stream helps too. If the maintenance is not practical, then stay mindful of your industry’s trends during PR messaging and brand journalism efforts to improve the likelihood of surfacing on aggregated sites like LinkedIn Today and Alltop, or someone inviting you to contribute in communities such as the American Express OPEN Forum.

“Whether you create or curate content, you need to be an avid reader,” Golden says. “Continuous education keeps you current. You can’t fake an interest. You must be authentic to win.”

This post is also featured as the May “Digital Dialogue” column in PR Tactics Journal, published by the Public Relations Society of America.

What happens when you merge the frequency of newspapers, the engagement of magazines and the immediacy of the Web?

The answer is TheDaily.com, according to News Corp. The Daily debuted in February as the first national news publication with original content created each day exclusively for the iPad. All Things Digital — a Wall Street Journal website also owned by News Corp. — reported that The Daily is also prepping delivery for Android.

The audience
During The Daily’s launch this past Feb. 2, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said that the emerging tablet era is allowing publishers and journalists to completely reimagine their craft. He added that 50 million Americans may own tablets by 2012.

Consumers are doing their part. The iPad 2 went on sale in the United States on March 11. According to The Los Angeles Times, analysts covering Apple said they believed that the company sold anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million iPad 2s during the opening weekend. More than 70 percent of the consumers were buying their first iPads.

“The Daily is innovating for the culture we now live in,” says Adrienne Bailey, account executive for Young & Laramore PR in Indianapolis. Her sentiment echoes what many have anticipated for digital journalism as social media and Web subscriptions have proliferated.

The format
The Daily is a digital publication model that evolves how stories can be told, consumed and pitched. It features 360-degree photography, HD video, interactive graphics, audio voice-overs and article sharing via Facebook, Twitter and email. Twitter integration lets readers and the subjects of articles themselves immediately comment on and help expand stories. Subscriptions are $39.99 a year — roughly 11 cents per day.

The opportunities
The Daily’s always-on newsroom represents new potential for PR practitioners.

“The Daily will test our creativity in finding ways to get clients coverage,” says Jason Mollica, PR manager for Carr Marketing Communications Inc. in Amherst, N.Y. “A pitch can have many angles given the publication’s multimedia format and help The Daily deliver the enhanced experience it seeks to provide readers.”

All-digital publications will allow PR professionals to more liberally offer the video, text, audio, photography and graphics needed to sustain production schedules.

Meanwhile, the ability of PR professionals to create in-demand content needs to change more than their approach to offering it to digital publications like The Daily.

“Although the medium is changing, my job as a communicator remains the same,” Bailey adds. “If you understand public relations,  journalism and relationship building, then the medium doesn’t matter.  That said, I must admit, The Daily is a welcome addition to the media landscape. I’m looking forward to working with them.”

This post also appears as the April “Digital Dialogue” column in the April edition of PR Tactics Journal, published by the Public Relations Society of America.