Zeno Group Blog

The Social 7 is a weekly video podcast hosted by Zeno Group’s Digital Lifestyle Team (Nick Mendoza, Alex Miller, and Andrea Nowack) that recaps the week’s top seven stories in social media and marketing.  You can view past episodes at http://www.thesocial7.com or follow us on Twitter (@thesocial7).

Welcome to the fourth episode of The Social 7, a conversation on the Top 7 Stories in social media and marketing. We have a great line up for you today, including the brand new viral video of the week, detailed in the show notes below. Quick note – due to the holidays we will not issue an episode next week, however, we’ll be back the following week (Jan. 5) with a brand new episode. Happy holidays, and see you in 2009!

More details on all the stories, plus Tweet of the Week, Social Shutterbug, and Viral Video of the Week, after the jump…

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It’s hardly news that traditional media is on the way out. Media observers have been predicting the eventual demise of tangible media for years, with newspapers being the first to go. Technology evangelists have taken to tracking the “downfall” of traditional media as a hobby – one can find numerous blog posts each week documenting new signs of the “mainstream media’s” irrelevance; there is even a Twitter feed (@themediaisdying) that tracks nothing but media layoffs and outlet closures.

What is news though, are the recent signs that those in the industry have finally come to terms with reality and now understand that the age of mass-printed dailies is coming to an end. There have been several developments in the past week – some big, some small – that have convinced me that many inside the newspaper media have finally accepted the inevitable:

1. Online news outlets are now eligible to win Pulitzer Prizes: While, as Seth Godin points out, you or I certainly aren’t going to win one anytime soon for our personal blog posts, professional online outlets now can.
2. The LA Times consolidates its local blogs: Last week, the LA Times decided to consolidate its multiple blogs about LA into its “LA Now” blog and dramatically increase the posting frequency: While not a story of major significance to most people, this is likely a direct response to the LA Times realizing the popularity of local LA blogs like LAist and trying to stay competitive. The LA Times is being forced to change their strategy and approach because of these new media outlets (as my colleague Andrea Nowack wrote about yesterday).
3. The Tribune Company filing for bankruptcy: This is the one story of the three that has some major direct consequence, but the symbolism is also dramatic: one of the largest media operations, which owns two of the nation’s most popular newspapers (The LA Times and Chicago Tribune), is no longer economically feasible and is filing for bankruptcy.

As I said above, the importance of these stories lies not in their direct consequences (most of the outlets that win Pulitzer Prizes will still have offline operations, the local blog scene in LA will not be revolutionized by the LA Times switch, and the Chicago Tribune will continue to be published), but rather what they represent: that members of the traditional media are finally accepting, en masse, that the age of influence for newspapers is coming to an end. This is not to say that all newspapers will simply disappear in the next year. Some papers, especially those targeted towards niche markets (such as the Wall Street Journal) will continue their publication much longer; however, ultimately, these recent developments are recognition that newspapers are on their way out. I predict that over the next few years we will see a sharp increase in the number of small and midsize papers (and some major ones) that move their operations solely online as the print industry finally adapts to the changing world.

Anyone who has spent any time reading blogs, news sites and forums knows how often the conversations on these sites degrade into name-calling, insults, accusations, and generally uncivil discourse. The cause of this incivility is widely written and pondered about; I personally believe that the combination of anonymity and the platform provided by the Internet causes people to ignore the decency “filters” they use in everyday life. Real-life social settings carry the threat of repercussion or scorn by your peers if one says something distasteful – not so on the Internet.

I spoke to Jonathan Martin of Politico.com about this at the Politico 2008 Election Conference last Saturday and he mentioned that the Politico editorial staff was confronting this exact issue. As the political fervor increased during the 2008 election, the quality of the comments on Politico’s blogs dropped sharply; readers started attacking the candidates, impugning the writers, and insulting each other’s intelligence. The editors were left wondering; what balance should they strike between allowing the community members to speak their minds and preserving the civility of the conversations.

Politico is not the only publisher facing this issue. Sites have taken various steps to combat the problem: some have banned posting of comments, some require registration and identity confirmation (on the hope that writers will be more civil if it can be tied back to them), and some, like Politico, have no restrictions and let people write what they will. The decision to restrict commenting is especially difficult for journalistic sites, since they exist to disseminate information and foster discussion – not to stifle it.

However, this problem also presents an issue for any company that provides an online forum for its customers. Are you a technology company with an online support forum, a social networking site, or a blog? How do you decide what should be allowed and what “crosses the line”. What do you do when someone writes something negative about your company, in a negative tone (as opposed to a legitimate negative review/experience)? Do you remove it and risk being attacked for censoring criticism, or do you leave it up and allow the quality of the forum to degrade.

There are no simple answers to any of these questions, and the best way to protect yourself and your company from an awkward situation or public relations crisis is to formulate a comprehensive policy before the issues arise. Create a registration process and lay out exactly what you expect from forum members; continually monitor the forums and moderate comments or posts that violate the decency rules; and finally, apply the rules fairly and firmly across the entire community – this consistency will help reinforce the standards across the community and protect you from being accused of censoring posts later on.

As for Politico; they have decided, after much internal debate, to leave the comments unmoderated.

By now, most people in the online world are aware of the recent “fiasco” surround Motrin’s new online ad about mothers who carry their babies on a continual basis. Last Friday, Motrin posted an ad on their Web site featuring the voice of a young mother talking about the pain caused by carrying her baby in a pouch or sling. It was quickly noticed by mommy bloggers who immediately started tweeting and blogging about it, spreading the word throughout the community. The first Tweet on the subject was posted on Saturday evening, and within a few hours angry moms made hundreds of posts on the topic – all conveniently aggregated by the #MotrinMoms hashtag. The mothers were angered for several reasons including:

• The implication that baby-carrying is a fashion and that the mother’s who do it are doing so to look “like an official mom.”
• The trivialization of baby-carrying: The ad repeatedly refers to the “supposed” benefit of carrying your baby as opposed the documented and widely accepted belief.
• That mothers who carry their babies look “crazy.”

Plenty of other bloggers have written about this topic, including Peter Shankman and Lisa Belkin, and their posts have covered much of what Motrin did wrong here. Personally, my biggest problem with the ad is how poorly written it is; in addition to being offensive to many mothers, the language is poorly chosen and does not make much sense, nor does it reach a real point. However, I think there is one aspect that hasn’t been fully addressed: the lack of integration of marketing, PR, and communications professionals into the social networks they are targeting.

As I watched the Motrin controversy unfold most of the day Sunday, one thing became apparent to me: Motrin representatives were nowhere to be found. Not only did the Motrin response not come until the end of the day on Monday, but the ad wasn’t even pulled off the site until Monday afternoon. To me, this says that nobody from the Motrin PR/marketing team (or their agency) was actively engaging the Twitter community – if they had been they would have seen the controversy unfolding much earlier, and been able to respond faster. As the use of social networks in PR campaigns has grown more accepted, the number of campaigns has dramatically increased, as have the number of campaigns being run by people who are not a part of, and do not understand, the networks they are targeting. Too many companies simply log on to Twitter, create an account, post a couple Tweets, and think that they are done.

A truly effective social media campaign requires that the people running it are actually a part of the community they are working with. The entire Digital Lifestyle Team here at Zeno manage their own blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Digg accounts – and use them everyday. This allows us to stay connected and to better understand the communities we work with – this also allows us to identify and confront issues before they grow into something biger. In the last three months alone, I can count at least five instances where we found blogs or tweets where the author had complained about an issue with a client’s product – we immediately contacted our client’s customer service team and directed them to the author and were able to resolve the situation before most of the community were aware of the problem.

Hopefully, as social media becomes more engrained in our profession, we will see more people truly integrate themselves with the communities, instead of doing the bare minimum. Unfortunately, it may take several more high profile incidents like MotrinMoms for companies (and agencies) to realize the benefit of using people who truly understand and are part of these networks.

For a great idea on how to introduce your office to some of the social media tools we use everyday, check out Andrea Nowack’s post on her “Social Media Scavenger Hunt”

I just finished with assiting with the 9th annual National Adoption Day, along with several of my Zeno colleagues.  National Adoption Day is a nationwide event, originally started here in Los Angeles by the Alliance for Children’s Rights. Judges, lawyers, families, and the community come in once a year to finalize hundreds of adoptions in every city and bring attention to the 129,000 children who are in foster care and available for adoption. This year we had several celebrities, including Lucy Liu, Nia Vardalos (who recently adopted a daughter), and Sue Naegle; help the families finalize their adoptions.

I had a wonderful time at the event. It was truly amazing to watch all of the parents and children, some of whom had been together for years as foster parents and children, officially become families. Most touching were the foster parents who had previously adopted a child and were back this year to adopt one of that child’s siblings. Several things struck me about the day.First was the outporing of support from the community. Before any of the adopting families showed up, dozens of volunteers, ranging from girl scouts to corporate lawyers, arrived to decorate, provide food, give out gifts, and assist with the adoptions.

Second was the level of emotion. While I was expecting people to be happy about the day, the sheer sense of joy and euphoria in many of the families was astounding. Several of my co-workers who had participated in the event before had told me about it, but you cannot fully appreciate it until you see it for yourself. I chose the picture at the top of the page because it is the single shot that best captures the feeling of the day. You can truly see the joy on this mother’s face as she signs the adoption papers and officially becomes the mother of the little boy sitting next to her.

Third was the dedication of everyone who was working there. Despite several hiccups in the day (such as many of the families being delayed due to the fires raging through LA County), everyone was calm and patient. Everyone there knew the importance of the day and was committed to making sure that it happened. Schedules were juggled, plans were changed, and in the end, all of the children were united with their new families.

I’d like to say congratulations to all the other Zeno LA staff who were with me today (in particular, Kari Ramsey who did an amazing job coordinating the Zeno presence). I encourage everyone to reach out into their communities and find organizations that they can assist. The sense of joy and accomplishment gained from this work is truly unmatched by anything else we do.

One of the greatest challenges facing groups – from companies, to non-profits, to governments, to school clubs – is how to effectively inform and mobilize their members, particularly when they are large. Over the last two years, we have seen the emergence of Twitter as a resource for doing so – and with it, growing adoption by a variety of organizations.

During the recent election, we saw perhaps the most effective use of Twitter, to date, by the Obama campaign. By consistently putting out updates and calling his supporters to action, Barack Obama managed to become the single most followed person on Twitter, with more than 125,000 followers (almost twice the next largest crowd). Obama’s twitter profile is just one piece of his social media outreach, which includes pages on YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Ustream, and other social networking sites. This presence served him two crucial purposes – to build his following and provide engagement for them. Whenever there was a new rally to be watched online, reminders about important deadlines, or thank you’s to be given, the Obama web team pushed out a twitter update – instantly notifying all of his followers who could then immediately react.

While Twitter is extremely useful for building and mobilizing support, it also is useful for the simple dissemination of information. In Los Angeles County, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) uses its Twitter profile to let riders know about service interruptions. By signing up with Twitter, riders can be instantly notified whenever the MTA announces a new service disruption – receiving text messages on their cell phones with the updates.

The Los Angeles Fire Department uses Twitter to post announcements about any major alerts and disseminate emergency information. Their use of Twitter also shows off another attractive feature– integration with RSS. Since Twitter uses RSS for its distribution, it can also read existing RSS feeds, which can be used to generate new posts. In the LAFD’s case, they simply linked an account to an existing RSS system, giving Los Angelinos another way to follow them and get updates.

This brings up a crucial question: Why Twitter? There are plenty of ways to disseminate information (for instance, my college campus subscribed to an emergency text messaging service where they could send alerts out to everyone who had signed up for it), so what is the particular appeal of Twitter? I see the answer as being three fold: It has a built in user base, it’s simple to work with and, most importantly, its free! Combined with the universal architecture (it uses RSS Feeds) and customizability (you can brand your page however you like) it provides the simplest, most efficient, and most cost effective solution for almost any organization.

If you haven’t already seen or tried twitter, hop on over to http://www.twitter.com and check it out – I’m sure you can find someone interesting you’d like to follow.

o   Search through Twitter’s archives

o   A recap of some of the best Twitter tools

o   Follow me (@alexlmiller), or other members (@NickMendoza, @AndreaNowack) of the Zeno Group Digital Lifestyle Team, on Twitter