News evolves. We’ve gone from print to radio, TV and wait for it… the internet. The humble press release has had to evolve too. As an in-depth piece in Econsultancy points out about the emergence of TV:

Companies sprang up to service this need and PR people had to learn a new skill – video news.

So why is the Internet and the social media news release any different? It’s not a case of killing the press release. It’s just presenting your news in the format that gets the best results.

After all, from the position of a hard-pressed journalist, the easier a story is to construct, the greater the chance that it will make it to publication. As I’ve said earlier, the blog format works well as the canvas on which you can paint your story.

The entrance or portal into your news stories is equally important. On a quick scan of all the usual suspects in the tech field, I’d agree with Econsultancy that Cisco have done a neat job with their news room:

Journalists are spoilt with links to both the blog post AND press release on major stories. Both formats have heavy doses of videos and photos. The homepage has links to all the major networks: Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al. RSS feeds abound. As do embed scripts so you can pick up the content yourself. You can even personalize the experience so you only see the news most relevant to you (ideal for any company with a wide portfolio).

One thing strikes me about this Cisco example: what they have come up with looks suspiciously like a reputable publication’s online outlet. For instance, here is the current homepage of the BBC (a traditional UK TV/Radio outlet):

Similarities include the heavy treatment of a featured news story, powerful use of images, prominent display of video content.

So is this just an evolution in the humble press release?

One key difference with online news is that people are consuming news from beyond the traditional news outlets. So beyond attracting the press industry (I include bloggers/analysts here) with a rich newsroom, companies have a greater chance of going that step further and getting their message out directly to their target audience, bypassing journalists completely.

Still not convinced there is value in creating social media-rich online newsrooms?

Google recently acquired MetaWeb.

Interest was piqued in the tech industry press.

For instance Giga Om’s Liz Gannes tried to explain why the big G picked up this relatively unknown semantic web service:

The Register also picked up the news, gleaning information from a YouTube video on MetaWeb’s site, amongst other sources:

Where do they source their news? Both cite Google’s official blog:

Not too surprising given there’s no press release process in the Google world. Both GigaOm and The Register seem comfortable linking to the blog: both sites have arguably blurred the line between blog and news outlet, and I’d contend a blog has a certain that goes beyond a flat press release (which I’ve written about previously).

To Google’s credit, the blog post is:

• More in-depth than a standard press release
• Written informally
• Detailed in its description of the benefits of the merger to Google and MetaWeb and customer base (webmasters/web users)
• Attributed to a Director of Product Management
• Open ended, with links to a video explaining what MetaWeb does (in ‘Plain English’ style)

There’s been a lot of talk about the SMR (social media release) but I’d say this approach although somewhat similar goes a step further too. SMR examples I’ve seen are essentially a press release with multimedia elements (eg. audio/video/images) listed on the sidebar. Blogs on the other hand offer a more fluid approach. Have some video? Embed it into the fabric of the post. Images likewise. Less clunky than having a specific multimedia section (although there’s no reason to keep this in addition).

So, next time you have something to say, why not get a product expert to crack open the blog editor and say something of real value – for journalists, analysts, your client base and the wider public. Think beyond the puffy press release, footnoted with a solitary link to the company website: frame a clearly explained story, and if you can, use audio and video to add color and create a compelling experience.

You may just find your message stretching further than you imagine.

Fellow IBMer Kevin Czap recently took the position of the community manager for the developerWorks Cloud Computing Central group. DeveloperWorks is IBM’s central external resource for developers and IT professionals and Kevin defined his role as follows:

The Community Managers act as an advocate for the Community. They are the eyes and ears of their respective communities, kind of like a intermediary between developerWorks and the group, listening and acting upon requirements, suggestions, feedback and ultimately making the group one that thrives, flourishes and is valued by the Community. Some examples include lining up Subject Matter Experts to blog,contribute, and connecting group members to the appropriate IBM contact when needed. Basically we’re here to help the community in any way we can.

Why do you need a community manager? As Kevin points out, he has a clear objective to make the group one “that thrives, flourishes and is valued by the Community“.

As the 2010 World Cup draws to a close, I can’t help but think of the coach/manager gesticulating wildly to get the most out of his team. I see the community manager role as somewhat similar even though the linkages between members of online communities aren’t necessarily as strong as between players on the same team (especially given that members work for many companies, some of which can even have competitive relationships). Having said this, having someone on the sidelines who can bring energy and verve to the group, marshall team members when needed and deal with any questions or conflict that arises, is a useful function.

I’ve been involved in a number of social media or community initiatives over the last few years, and by far the most successful are those which have a clearly defined community manager. To those of you that work in this space, this may be a no brainer. This role appears to be more commonly overlooked when these communities are set up by marketing departments (given that I work in marketing, I can’t help but point a finger at myself too here).

The problem comes when you sit down to plan the initiative. Quite often this starts with thinking of a platform or application. ‘We need blogs and forums’. ‘We need a Facebook page’. ‘We need RSS capabilities’. Sure, at some point you will need to consider these aspects, but as analysts like Charlene Li have been pointing out for some time, step back and think of the people involved before you get near the technology. And the people for your prospective community need a value prop, guidance and occasionally gentle persuasion if your community is to become a success. Just because you build it, this does not mean they will necessarily come.

So spend the time and think of who will manage the community. I’d suggest this not being a field marketing or demand program manager who may be 1) overworked and 2) have competing interests to overall community development (ie. swamp the community with their company’s promotional content). So, what should this person ideally be doing? Some examples of the role a community manager can play:

• Establishing an editorial calendar to make sure a blog is constantly fed with relevant content
• Finding an expert who can answer comm0n questions posed by newbies
• Tactfully weeding out trolls and threads that could diminish the overall value of the community
• Devising appropriate rewards for the most valuable members of the community (My Media Labs takes this a step further and talks about setting up a leadership team consisting of super users)
• Posing questions to help shape discussion
• Monitoring the community to understand where most activity occurs

This is just for starters. You should make sure you have someone who has the requisite skill set to carry out these tasks. They should be knowledgeable but not overbearing. Tactful but forceful when necessary. A good planner yet flexible. Get the feeling that this person may be as rare as a sunflower in Antartica? You’re probably right. However some parts of the organization may already be inculcating these kind of characteristics in their employees. Check out the support or customer service department. Investigate the technical sales team. Mine the depths of your R &D department. These departments give you a better chance of locating community managers. I’d suggest that the traits are more important than the experience. There is much that can be learnt on the job.

Finding the right person is invaluable for the success of your community. A recent debacle on Nestle’s Facebook fan page illustrates how bad things can get if there’s dissonance between you and your community. Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson discussed this subject at some length on their FIR podcast and Shel has this excellent follow-up on questions you should ask before setting up a Facebook fan page.

So, if you are about to setup a new community, or are wondering how you can breathe new life into an existing forum, make sure you have a community manager in place. Just as the fortunes of many a world cup squad has hinged on the influence of the manager, so can a community manager make or break an online community.

I first came across Rob Cottingham late one Friday afternoon a couple of months ago whilst looking for something off-topic to kick-start the weekend and was fascinated to find an artist talking in detail about his art (in this case, creating a lightbox from his Mac to trace up a cartoon).

Exploring further, I realized Rob’s witty penmanship is widely traveled, having appeared in such illustrious places as the Huffington Post and ReadWriteWeb, among others. More than just dissecting the relationship between our online and offline lives, Rob revels in placing social media tools and the social phenomena that surround them in unfamiliar situations. Like blogging on the battlefield. Hidden in these absurdist vignettes are nuggets of truth about ourselves and the way we now live:

(click on the image if you can’t read the punchline)

So, I decided to reach out to Rob across the Twitterverse and wonder of wonders, the affable artist agreed to answer my questions:

CagedEther: Why cartoons? When did you start drawing cartoons and where has your work appeared?

Rob: I’ve actually been cartooning since middle school, but after university it dwindled. For a while when I was working on Parliament Hill, I included cartoons in the material I produced in my communications work. But after that, there just didn’t seem to be a venue for it.

Then I started blogging, and after that launched our company, Social Signal. And a little into our second year of operation, I started to draw again – sometimes as a way of taking notes during meetings, but often drawing cartoons about them.

Finally, it dawned on me that I could start posting these. Alex, my wife and Social Signal co-founder, encouraged me to start cartoon-blogging on our company web site. And that’s how Noise to Signal began.

Since then, the cartoons have been blogged on every continent except Antarctica. And they’ve appeared on sites like ReadWriteWeb (where I do a weekly cartoon), the Huffington Post, Treehugger, PC World, CBC.ca, the Consumer Reports web site and SeattlePI.com.

CagedEther: Where do you get your inspiration from?

Rob: Well, I spend so much of my day immersed in the social media world that it’s no surprise that’s my biggest source of ideas. Sometimes it’s the latest announcement or news, other times a trend I notice, and sometimes someone tweets something that starts the wheels turning. Alex will often suggest something, too, and you’ll see her credited for more than a few cartoons.

There’s also my background in communications and our own experience running a business. And some of the most resonant cartoons, for me anyway, come from parenting. A lot of the cartoons involve overlaying two of those worlds: parenting meets social media, for instance.

Then again, sometimes something just sticks in my head – wordplay especially. I’m watching The Sound of Music, hear “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” and think, “Okay… how would you solve that problem permanently?” And the result is a kind-of-gruesome cartoon.

One last thing, at the risk of being a little self-help-y: I’ll get inspiration from things I notice about my own behavior, especially online, that strike me as funny – things I’d probably like to change. You know, the way we sometimes waste time, or obsess over minor slights or meaningless metrics, or get swamped with email.

CagedEther: Is there anything you wouldn’t cover/parody?

Rob: Well, there’s the potential conflict involved in commenting on areas where my company has a client. So I try to steer clear of those or disclose my interests – mainly because I want to be fair to my readers as well as the client. So far, that hasn’t come up very often.

But I don’t touch racist, sexist or homophobic jokes. I don’t go in for shock humor, and I try not to belittle people – especially people who are suffering or especially vulnerable.

CagedEther: Any favorite subjects you constantly revisit?

Rob: I’m constantly surprised at how many of my cartoons have time-honored human traditions and the latest tech or business trends bumping up against each other. A mobster is getting whacked, and his killer tells him it’s just an iron-clad NDA. Maybe two people are making out on the sofa; how would augmented reality work with that?

And for someone who’s never really done the bar/pickup scene, I go to that well a whole lot in my cartoons.

CagedEther: Is being a cartoonist your main source of income? Do you have a day job?

Rob: Social Signal still accounts for the great majority of my professional life. Cartooning is starting to make a real contribution, though – reprints in books like Sociable!, for instance; I’m also selling cartoon prints, and I have a Zazzle store with mugs, cards and T-shirts.

And I’ve also launched a new service, cartoon-blogging for conferences and events – which really excites me, partly because it’s fun, partly because it’s unique and partly because I think it could make a big difference for conference organizers and participants alike. I love the thought of pioneering a whole new way of engaging with audiences.

CagedEther: You often send up bizarre uses of artifacts of the online world (eg. a Twitter handle) in the offline world. Do you personally have any issues keeping up with all the new and emerging technologies?

Rob: Me and the other six billion people on the planet! The truth is, you can’t do it. (My wife and Social Signal partner, Alexandra Samuel, had a great blog post about that on the Harvard Business Review site.) And once you stop trying to keep up with the digital Joneses, you’re a lot further ahead – because you’re free to focus your attention on the technologies that really make a difference to you, and to what you’re trying to accomplish in the world.

That said, I try to at least understand the big trends. And I’d be irresponsible if I didn’t keep tabs on the flavor of the month (if only to to be able to knowledgeably warn a client off). For instance, YouTube – I’m predicting it’s going to be huge.

CagedEther: What’s the most important channel for you to get your work out? Your blog? Facebook? Twitter?

Rob: The glib answer is “yes”.

The real answer is that each channel does its own job. My blog is a hub, tying it all together and providing a repository for everything I create. Facebook lets me create a community of users, and I get some really valuable feedback from people there. Twitter, though, is huge: I get a lot of response there, I have some great conversations, and I can tell very quickly which cartoons are striking a nerve.

The big surprise for me this year has been YouTube. I’ve branched out there, posting high-speed videos of my cartooning (there’s a virtue of working digitally – I can easily do screencasts as I draw), and a few seasonal cartoon collections for New Year’s and Valentine’s Day. The response is terrific.

CagedEther: Any tips for anyone out there wanting to use social media to promote their work?

Rob: The key is to see social media as something more than an advertising or broadcast tool, which is where I see a lot of people stumble. It’s a place where you build relationships and have conversations. And to the extent that your work can actually fuel those conversations – the way a cartoon can work well with a blog post, for example – you can have a big impact.

And be generous with your appreciation. You know, the word “fan” has taken on some unfortunate lord-and-serf overtones, but really, a fan is someone who follows what you’re doing because they really like your work. And in the social era, they’re absolutely critical. Let them know how much their encouragement and enthusiasm means to you.

One last thing – the work and the relationships come first. The “promotion” is secondary. Keep that in mind, and it’s hard to go too far wrong.

ENDS

I added most of the links into this interview: Rob was far too modest to do so himself. I also amended to American English (‘humour’ to ‘humor’) – an odd task for an Englishman, but all in the interests of blog consistency. As Rob mentioned, to find out more, visit Robcottingham.ca which links all his many presences across the web.

Paul Gillin penned an excellent article on the rise of social media in the B2B space for the latest edition of B-to-B Online. As the veteran tech journalist points out, marketers are now showing a higher comfort level with using social media, as evidenced by the ‘Twitter and Facebook emblems sprouting up on business Web sites like dandelions in a summer field’! As Paul explains, both Twitter and LinkedIn work well for getting in front of a professional demographic whereas Facebook has huge mass appeal but often the communication is less work, more play.

Are some platforms more equal than others?

Paul points out how organizations like Forrester and IBM have built considerable fan bases on Facebook, however I’d argue whether these in many instances are as much about securing a brand URL and doing the minimum to make the page look ‘fresh’, as opposed to being part of a more concerted marketing effort. I would say the same thing applies to a lesser extent on LinkedIn – we don’t see too many case studies showing specific marketing benefit from running campaigns here (eg. around group management). This is where Twitter differs. Whilst you can easily just hook  a Twitter profile up to the RSS feed from your blog(s), there is a lot more interest from B2B marketers around developing a Twitter strategy with more meat on it. Why? I believe these are key reasons:

• The 140 character limit makes it among the easiest of social media channels to maintain
• As a result, proliferation of profiles across the organization can be well-maintained
• The ease of setup means it fits well with the social media dictum: experiment and fail fast
• Conversations tend to be business-focused
• The platform works well for both community-building through message promotion
• Easy integration with web and other properties through RSS/API

So whilst it’s obligatory to at least camp down in each major social media territory, this doesn’t necessarily equate to a high level of involvement. I’ve had discussions around the water cooler as to whether it even makes sense for us (in the B2B tech space) to be on Facebook.  I think we should be, but don’t have the answers around appropriate interaction on this platform).

Organizational challenge

One aspect that Paul doesn’t cover in much detail is a problem which tends to be magnified in larger organizations: how do you deliver a coherent message across all the various departments? For instance, let’s glance back to the wonderful Twitter. Marketing can use the platform to dish out special offers and converse with prospects. Support can take product-related questions. R&D can discuss newly-introduced features. PR feeds information to the major influencers. HR can advertise jobs. What happens when these interactions overlap? For instance, if that prospect trialling a product has a support question… or a major influencer starts talking to the R&D department, rather than PR. In a small organization, these cross-department interactions can be solved quickly by just peering over a cube and talking to your neighbor. As organizations get bigger, these roles tend to operate in virtual silos and it could be that a relevant organization is on the other side of the globe.

As more and more corporate communication moves into the social space, these problems will grow. I’d expect new roles to emerge (or existing ones to evolve) to deal with this. Currently, the social media manager role sits largely in the marketing function and is at least loosely tied to the number of leads generated from the web. The fact that a support question on Twitter goes unanswered for days is not of prime concern. Until, that is, it is picked up by an external blogger and becomes a PR/marketing issue.

Moreover, we’re yet to see the kind of workflow tools we need to ensure that all queries or issues are followed up on.  Some blogging clients like CoTweet have introduced some of this functionality, but we’ve some way to go to allow these tools to be integrated fully into the organization.

HR paranoia

As Paul rightly points out, there is much head-scratching in the legal and HR departments around these tools which effectively allow employees to have  a much stronger influence on the brand. Whilst most organizations cannot logistically monitor the firehose of social media content generated by their staff, there is an emerging market for technologies which at least help isolate problem spots. For instance, Social Sentry from Teneros claims to lessen corporate risk around compliance, legal exposure, brand damage and HR issues, amongst other things.

Wanna be starting something

In terms of the lifecycle of social media in the B2B space, we’re seeing evolution out of the hype/evangelism stage to the point where we need strategies that integrate social media into our business processes. Personally, I think social media has the power to warp these processes into a form completely different to what we have today (much like the effect web marketing has had on direct marketing).

However, the only way to get to this stage is to build and iterate. Test different platforms and tools. Look at what you can and can’t measure. See what level of organizational involvement you can secure. The clarion call remains the same: get out there and get involved!

There’s a startling assumption buried as a throwaway comment on this post from TechCrunch on Google Buzz’s recent arrival. Apparently, links shared on social networks have been growing to the extent that the mighty Goog is concerned that this phenomenon could start taking eyeballs away from all those juicy paid search ads that keep the lights on at the Googleplex. Is there any validity to this claim? It appears so, if these data points are to be believed:

The Big Money: According to Compete.com, Google lags behind Facebook in driving traffic to major portals like Yahoo, AOL and MSN.

Silicon Alley Insider: This report last year claimed 19% of Google traffic came from Facebook (and that number is growing).

Compete.com: As you can see below, Facebook is rapidly gaining ground on Google. Golden question is what proportion of this audience are clicking on links taking them out of the blue-walled garden and into the wider web?

Anecdotally, I’ve heard on the web manager grapevine that a larger proportion of traffic appears to be coming from social media – eating into the portion of the pie previously reserved for traditional search engines. Another indication of this is the number and attendance of social search sessions at major SEO events like SES.

What does this mean? Whoever owns the largest share of our life streams (the current killer app of social media) enjoys the strongest visibility and all the financial frills that follow. Also, given that we show strong signs of adopting a crowd mentality when being ’social’ online, the chances of the market fragmenting look slim. We will all congeal our content around a handful of platforms (if that) at the top of this lucrative pile.

And then there’s all those paychecks tied to Google’s golden egg – here I’m thinking more of the huge search marketing industry that has risen up over the last 10 years. Skill sets will shift away from the technical aspects of SEO (goodbye masters of canonical URLs and 301 redirects) to more touchy-feely PR (hello reputation managers and online community builders). Key concepts in SEO are still relevant, like creating modular topic-based content, but there will be some shifts. Rather than looking for links from authoritative sites, we’ll need to understand more about who are the authoritative figures in a network.

Where will Google be in all of this? It looks like the search giant is hedging its bets with the launch of Gmail Buzz: a lifestreaming service that sits atop the versatile Gmail email client. The future is looking distinctly social.

Those far-reaching tentacles of Shel and Neville over at the FIR Podcast picked up an informative new document from the Social Media Group titled ‘Social Media RFP Template’.  As more and more agencies from across the marketing spectrum (and in particular SEO and PR) now offer social media services, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff?

Apart from dealing with the obvious stuff you’d cover with any agency engagement, such as agency background and their past experience in this area, the RFP also covers the following areas:

• Integration of social media across marketing/communications functions
• Social media channels employed
• Reputation management and social media monitoring
• Establishing social media profiles
• Influencer outreach
• Crisis management
• Social media training
• Compliance with legal requirements
• Metrics and measurement

I’d say this list is equally valid if you are in the situation of having to prepare a job description for a social media manager or associated role.

Download the report

SMG also run the hugely popular Social Media Today blog aggregator. If you write in this space, you should definitely hook up your blog!

In their latest report on the State of the Twitterverse, the Hubspot team note that most posts occur on a Thursday and Friday, with the most common time for posting being between the hours of 10-11pm. This would suggest that a significant amount of Twitter activity is generated outside of the workplace.

So, how do businesses make the most of this medium for their purposes?

This Thursday, Hubspot will be running a webinar addressing this subject. Registration details:

Title: How Businesses are using Twitter
Time: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 1:00 PM ET
Register now

Unfortunately I have a prior commitment so won’t be able to attend but hopefully will be able to catch up with what happens on Twitter.