Google+ debuted in June and amassed its first 25 million users faster than any other social network, according to PC Magazine. This finally established Google’s social media presence, after its previous Wave and Buzz experiments received little fanfare. Google+ functions similarly to Facebook, including requiring users to register their real names.

Google experienced crisis-level backlash in July when the company enforced this policy deleting thousands of pseudonym accounts and those of some celebrities, tech gurus and people with uncommon names.

As a result, Google updated its policy and offered concessions such as notifying users with naming violations before deleting their accounts and creating an “other names” field.  While Google+ continues to grow, this name-transparency episode illustrates trust issues with digital citizens, social platforms and, by extension, brands.

Augie Ray, executive director of community and collaboration for United Services Automobile Association, an association dedicated to military personnel’s financial well-being, agrees that there are instances when anonymity can protect people online, though he generally prefers transparency.

“More business can be transacted when people are open,” he explains. “Trying to identify ‘@princess5827’ on Twitter is difficult, whereas if members post concerns on our Facebook wall, we can easily contact and assist them.”

Ray, a former Forrester social media analyst, thinks that Google is wise to follow Facebook’s lead regarding name transparency because it encourages authenticity.

Yet, we live in an era of asynchronous transparency where consumers leverage social networks to demand brand honesty but offer less details about themselves in return. Consider consumer “distress” messages on Twitter:  Some are legitimate pleas for help, while others are shortcut attempts for support or freebies.

This transparency imbalance did not always favor consumers. Brands more or less controlled their messages since advertising’s inception until the social-networking revolution.

Ray argues that this divide between brands and consumers impedes social networking’s vision for transparency. For instance, brands could post service-issue specifics that are customarily kept private when consumers post aggressive complaints online.

Like it or not

Questionable online activities manifest in ways beyond anonymity and deception. Some real-life behaviors create confusion when exhibited online. Facebook Likes are one example. People often Like brands to get deals, not as an endorsement.

When Netflix announced subscription increases in July, thousands of angry customers posted negative comments on the company’s Facebook page, and many Liked the page in order to do so.  Some visitors may assume that those Likes are from adoring fans. The value of a Like depends on context and interpretation, which skew impact.

Communicators must be clear about their intentions online. Ray says FTC guidelines can aid Facebook transparency. The guidelines require that companies promoting customer endorsements disclose the material exchanges, or perks, offered.

“Transparency leads to authenticity then listening, which should lead to honest communication,” he says.  “This is what social media is all about.”

This post also appears as the September “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.

I had the privilege of delivering the keynote presentation for about 100 Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA) chapter presidents this past weekend, to help kickoff their annual Leadership Rally in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I’ve put the slide deck on SlideShare and embedded it below.

The presentation encourages audiences to adapt the concept of Buyer Personas (a topic evangelized by David Meerman Scott and Adele Revella among others) and apply it towards identifying admirable leadership traits that we can emulate or adapt, and incorporate into our own Leadership Personas.

In addition to an engaging session (and a great lunch) I was able to meet many student attendees individually and hear what’s on their minds as they prepare to lead PRSSA activities on their campuses and soon enter the workforce.

Pitching the media and merging traditional PR tactics with evolving 2.0 concepts and social media tools were topics discussed, as well as some thoughts on reverse mentoring instances that young PR professionals may encounter with veterans as they enter the workforce, given their natural understanding and hands-on use of social media.

It also seems that I mentioned the social networking efforts of Michigan State University more than once in my presentation. This wasn’t intentional, yet on my Google searches for examples their good work popped up regularly. There are, in fact, many great examples of social media use by PRSSA chapters across the country. Also, I had a chance to meet Stephanie Dockery, PRSSA president of my alma mater, Illinois State University. Go Redbirds!

Some additional thoughts:

• My thanks to all the PRSSA members who shared responses via Twitter before and after the presentation, and thanks also to Immediate Past President Brandi Boatner for inviting me, and current PRSSA National President Rebecca Timms for live tweeting much of my presentation (and everyone who joined in).
• Those responses can be found via #prssalr and #prssa hashtags.
• I’m hoping to include some of these and other students’ observations in a future PRSA Tactics article or blog post about Thought Leadership on the Social Web.
• Also, when we were discussing media pitching, Alexander Monney of San Jose State University pointed us to this post by Robert Scoble with some additional helpful advice. Thanks Alexander.

[slideshare id=1597837&doc=prssaleadershiprallyryanzukaprfinal-090617102629-phpapp01]

“Ping In The New Year!,” the first article for my new social media column has published in the January print and online editions of PRSA Tactics. First off, many thanks to John Elsasser, Amy Jacques, Randi Mason, and the team at the Public Relations Society of America for this opportunity to contribute. I’m looking forward to writing about many aspects of social media for consideration and application by PR practitioners.

***Name the column: While discussing names for the social media column with John, he came up with the idea of asking readers to submit their ideas. Great, as this encourages people to participate and ideally return from time to time to engage in conversations via comments about the articles. If you have an idea we can consider, please submit it to John at @JohnElsasser on Twitter or e-mail john dot elsasser at prsa dot org.

The PRSA Tactics staff and I will select a winner. And John informs me that a $25 Amazon gift certificate and the prestige of knowing you named the column goes to the person who’s idea we select.

This month’s article takes a look at the mountain of management time social media activites can require, once you dive into them. Tools including Ping.fm, and ideas for keeping on top of everything are covered. Brandon Zeuner (bzkicks on Twitter) also lends insight this month, gleaned from his many consulting ventures. Thanks again Brandon!

The “Socializing Industry Analyst Relations” article I wrote for PRSA Tactics published online today. It also appears in the December print edition which mails to PRSA members and Tactics subscribers.

The piece reviews suggestions for applying social media specifically within the analyst relations (AR) discipline. These can also be broadly considered by all professional communicators.

My thanks to Carter Lusher of SageCircle and Scott Nelson of Gartner for making time to interview and be quoted. Each had good insight to share. More so than space allowed – which is often the case when I have opportunities for interesting conversations like these. I’m hanging on to my notes and their numbers for a potential sequel down the road!

Thanks also go out to John Elsasser, Randi Mason, and the PRSA Tactics/Strategist staff at the Public Relations Society of America for having me contribute to our profession’s body of knowledge. Ok, that may sound a bit formal, but I like how it rings. And in normal speak, I’m having fun writing.

I encourage visitors to check out the article at: http://www.prsa.org/supportfiles/news/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=842347715

See you next week.

Today my article “Birds On A Wire: PR In The Twitterverse” was published in Tactics, a Public Relations Society of America publication. The article is online and also appears in the October print edition mailed to PRSA members and subscribers.

My thanks to John Elsasser, Tactics Editor In Chief, for the opportunity to write this piece, and the following friends and social media experts who appear in the article: Paul Greenberg, Scott Nelson, Brent Leary, Laura Fitton and Aly Saxe.

My sidebar article “Social media skills – They got’em, and You can get’em!” also references some social media and communications experts that many people follow on Twitter including Chris Brogan, Charlene Li, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and Brandon Zeuner – my personal pick-to-click regarding someone you should be following on Twitter.

Also, special thanks to Chris Brogan for introducing me to Laura Fitton. As he suggested, Laura contributed a great amount of insight – more than I could include in the piece.

Finally, thanks to a couple of my local Arizona faves, Aly Saxe and Brandon Zeuner. Aly provided some examples of practical PR applications for Twitter in the article, and Brandon has been a social media influencer ever since I started using Twitter and learning immensely from it.

Link to the article and sidebar: http://www.prsa.org/supportfiles/news/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=842347614

I enjoyed following the presidential debate last Friday night… on Twitter. Although the TV was on, it was Twitter that held my attention with a kind of town hall-ish feel.

Thousands of people with at least some interest in McCain or Obama were tweeting their opinions in bursts of 140 characters or less, which generally follows Twitter’s “what are you doing?” premise. The pace of tweets appearing on Twitter’s Election 2008 ‘channel’ was such that you could barely read messages on screen before they scrolled by to make room for others.

This got me thinking about the utility of Twitter in mass appeal scenarios. On Friday, for me, it was mostly a way of polling people’s immediate thoughts. That’s very helpful. But think of the extended impact a more formal use of Twitter with, dare I say, some light moderation could provide.

What if Tom Brokaw chose a couple intelligent questions from Twitter to ask candidates during the second presidential debate in Nashville on October 7th? It is scheduled to follow a town hall format. I’m sure the rules are strict, and they have already been agreed upon by both parties. Perhaps he could get a pulse from twitterers about what they would like answered prior to the debate, if he has that latitude and interest.

A good example of doing just that is CNN’s Rick Sanchez who has recently used Twitter to monitor and ask for viewers’ opinions before doing his broadcasts. Social media expert Brent Leary recently detailed and analyzed this in one of his posts. It’s a good read if you have another minute.

There were some light-hearted moments during Friday’s Twitter debate viewing too. Someone sent a message to @jimlehrer essentially saying “Jim, stop letting McCain run over his allotted response time!” I took this to be intended as comical, although this person could have just as easily meant it. Regardless, monitoring and respecting the ‘vibe’ as a groundswell of tweets occur is a good practice. You can obtain priceless feedback about the topic at hand. (Note: searching on Twitter, it appears the name @jimlehrer is registered but with no updates. Lehrer, or one of his associates, does appear to post updates via @NewsHour.)

I also noticed the “national drinking game” being promoted on many Twitter threads. The rules stated that every time McCain said “my friends” or Obama said “change” you were supposed to take a drink. I didn’t notice either candidate using their buzzwords much though. Perhaps their campaigns did some monitoring of their own and advised each to tone it down, and avoid the embarrassment of elevating the joke.

Whether for amusement or advancing targeted objectives, it is clear that Twitter and other social tools similar to it are gaining critical mass and can help a candidate or organization better convey its message with a sense of immediacy.

To this final point, each campaign is doing a fair job of formally embracing social media. Mashable recently posted a thorough list of each candidate’s various sites and community pages. Take a look and weigh in.