On Writing How We Speak

There is a great divide between the way we write and the way we speak.

Take a look back at how you’ve been taught the written word.  How often were you told not to use abbreviations in essays? To follow APA or MLA style to the tee in your ‘works cited?’ Formality is essential to the legitimization of any art or science, but hundreds of years of rules and professional associations have created a rift in the way we communicate on paper versus spoken word.

All institutions weather and crumble, though. If you’re a first or second year university student, you’re just now finding out that the pyramid essay structure (intro, thesis, body paragraph one, two and three, conclusion) that was enforced in high-school English courses is obsolete. If you’re a new grad entering post-grad studies or the workforce, you’ll soon find that the rigidity with which you wrote essays in university doesn’t apply anymore. And if you’re just entering the social media space, you’ll find that the most interesting and exciting posts are the ones written by people who write very much like they speak.

I’m not promoting misspelling or writing in slang; I’m dispelling the archaic rules that say we have to write without voice (or WITH voice, as long as it’s the one of a 19th century, white, academic male).

So go ahead– start a sentence with and, abbreviate to your heart’s content and even throw in the occasional (albeit, censored) curse word. F@!$ yeah!

Reach Personal Branding

Those who know me know I’m a branding buff — “brand”-ing IS my first name!

I’m also a huge fan of William Arruda’s Reach Personal Branding. Take a look at Reach’s newsletter. If you’re fascinated by the power of brand and you’re interested in building yours, I highly suggest subscribing to this ePub.

Note: How cool is the Vocation Vacations service?!

Petro Joins the Social Media Space

I was partaking in my every-other-day ritual of filling my truck’s gas tank this morning when I noticed a sticker on the pump encouraging customers to visit Petro Canada’s blog, pumptalk.ca.

Now I’ve always been one to voice my dissatisfaction with the world’s oil conglomerates, and I’ve got to come right out and applaud Petro for braving their angry customer base in this space. One of the most common fears of large organizations entering the SM space is the volatility of the comments they may receive. Nowhere are people more pissed than with the fluctuating and seemingly illogical price of gas. I paid a visit to the site this morning and, despite having posts filled with petroleum propoganda, the comments seem pretty genuine.

I encourgage you to check it out and let your sense change cents at the gas pump.

Building Buzz

Buzz.

An onomatopoeia (yes, it’s a real world, look it up) so powerful that entire disciplines are dedicated to pursuing, generating, harnessing and maintaining it. In communications, marketing, branding and stakeholder engagement, it is a defining factor of success, and, following the social media explosion, is the reason and purpose behind the term “going viral.”

I recently read an interesting article by Angelo Fernando in this month’s edition of IABC’s CW. In it, Angelo discusses the importance of buzz to Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing, in particular.

“Buzz has evolved from a hyped up tactic to an activity that delivers measurable results,” says Angelo.

Think about some of the most recognizable and successful brands in the world. Every single one of them has employed WOM tactics, purposefully or not. Mac, for example, through their unparalleled quality and fresh approach, has generated an incredibly loyal following. They are not known for their competitive price point, but people associate their products with good quality because Mac owners are often very passionate about the product.

And what about negative WOM? Angelo notes that “while people do spread buzz about bad experiences, conversations about brands are largely positive, at a ratio of 8 to 1.”

With the band of big brands entering the social media space, proactive organizations can be especially effective at combating negative WOM. Blogs and forums are often where the conversation starts, and there have been instances of company spokespersons– those that dilligently monitor the space– quelling the fire before it spreads. A great example of proactive WOM management in the SM space is Tropicana whom, upon announcing a product packaging change, received so much push-back from their followers that they quickly made the decision to move the packaging change to another line (Note: Understand that for a multi-million dollar organization to make a change that big on the complaints of their Twitter followers is progressive, to say the least). The result? I heard that story from a contact, and you can bet he heard it from one of his. The effect of that quick judgement in a relatively new space is impressive enough to generate some serious WOM cred.

Is there something that a big brand is doing that you like/dislike? Play with the power of buzz and Word of Mouth and watch the news catch like wild fire.

On Corporate Podcasting

It’s said that the corporate executive spends 95% of their day in conversation– on the phone, in meetings, over email, etc. Engaging this group can be challenging,  and finding new and innovative ways to get your message across could mean the difference between executive buy-in or organizational indifference. Hence the birth of the podcast, a digital conversation that can be downloaded or streamed right from computer, uploaded to an iPod and listened to in the car, over lunch, on the treadmill, you name it. Executive-types love the podcast because it’s a succinct way to get the message without having to sift through pages. With the show notes included, listeners can fast-forward to points of interest and skip the BS.

It has been part of my corporate (and personal) initiative to introduce social media to big business. For those organizations that are governed by archaic principles (think government, for example), the podcast provides a great foot in the door. And this, along with corporate blogging, is where I’ve chosen to start.

Recording your podcast is simple and free. With Audacity, a free podcast recorder/editor, you can chef up a podcast in less than an hour. The most tedious part is always the editing, so build this into your preparation time.

Try it. Start with your organizations pain points and find the crowd-drawing names that will capture the attention of your audience. Then click, cut and post.

Is Your Twitter Stream Polluted?

Is anyone else dissatisfied with Twitter lately?

Reading a post by Brian Solis the other day, I realized that I’m not the only one who’s seen quality drop exponentially in the past few months, following the one million + new users who’ve joined in the past few months.

As the late great Christopher Wallace touted, “mo money, mo’ problems;” indeed, Twitter is faced with a big problem: it’s popularity has brought an entirely different community of users, and with it a host of bots and money-scheming phantom accounts.

The question, then, is will the conversation stream become diluted, or worse, drained, by these empty users?

A mind shift needs to occur. The more people equate number of followers with authority, the further down the drain this community is going to travel. Only by managing our community can we continue to make this space a valuable resource. Take a few minutes and sift through your followers– you may find that a good chunk of them are wasted space.

Trust=Speed

This is the salesman’s mantra.

Whenever you’re in charge of dealing with the public, you are always selling. And when you’re selling a product– be it an ‘09 Focus or something less tangible like confidence,  hope, passion, excitement, understanding, ease– the fastest route to making that sale is to build your public’s trust.

Stakeholder management is a communications function, and it’s much more than that. It’s about building relationships, and relationships are built on a foundation of trust. This takes time, and so it’s important to realize that you cannot build a stakeholder relationship over night.

Often, stakeholder management and branding become allies in this cause. This is because both rely on the relationship with their public and, therefore, are governed by the level of trust they have with these groups. Think about the most successful brands in the world– Coca Cola, McDonald’s, Wal Mart– all have had their share of scandal that could shake consumer confidence. So why do they succeed? Each of these brands has gone to great lengths to build the trust of the public: Coca Cola is renowned for it’s initiatives in building 3rd world country’s infrastructures, McDonald’s has proven a champion in the quest for healthy fast food choices and Wal Mart is a global leader in price point.

Have you ever trained a puppy? The most effective way to instill good behaviour in your dog is to praise its good behaviour and punish the bad behaviour. These organizations are doing something integral to the stakeholder management process: they are listening to their public and adjusting their approach based on their needs. They are very big, obedient dogs in a world full of owners.

The fastest way to build trust in a relationship is to put in the face time. Simply put, people respond best to open, honest two-way communication. Two way communication for most organizations is relatively new. The most progressive organizations, though, are leveraging the social media space to connect with their public, gather feedback and build relationships. More than ever before, stakeholders are being heard and a new relationship dynamic is being built. Note that the most successful organizations, including the ones above, are aggressively involved in the two-way communications process.

Want to “sell” your public on your initiative? Use the trust=speed equation and zoom past the competition.

Measuring Organizational Change

The sheer scale of a corporate change initiative requires that it’s value be measured.

Our goal, as Change Agents, is to guide our public along the Change Curve (or the Learning curve). Think about it: if you’re an expert in an obselte system, and the organizations goal is to skill you up to become an expert in a new and improved operating system, the distance between the two is your learning curve. How quickly you scale that curve, and how smooth the transition, is dependant on the Change Management role. Simply put, Change Management is the pipeline between your current  state and the future of your role.

How do we measure the rate at which our stakeholders travel along the curve? There are a number of traditional methods, including:

- Change Readiness Assessments, or organizational pulse checks, taken throughout the process and measured against a baseline

- Anecdotal feedback from stakeholder groups

- Surveys

- Performance measures

The savvy Change Management professional is also steadily relying on social media initiatives for metrics.

Internal blogs are a wonderful way to encourage collaboration and two-way communication in otherwise typically siloed organizations. What we’re seeing today, more than ever, is the open, honest feedback from stakeholder groups that has, historically, been very difficult to gauge. Through this medium, we’re able to interact and develop relationships with our target audience, and this transfers into a sharp incline in trust– and in a corporate environment, trust equals speed.

More importantly though, internal blogs also provide a back-end that gathers rich data, including link interaction, employee attendance and popularity of posts. By incorporating this data into the change strategy, we can uncover stakeholder pain points (Example: Post A received over 300 hits, while post B received 90; that’s because post A discussed a topic that is particularly close to our stakeholder’s hearts) and gear our communication direction appropriately. The internal blog, then, is a living environment, maturing and becoming more efficient as it’s used.

My Social Media Trek

A year ago this month I began this blog as a requirement for a SM project in my Corporate Communications post grad. program. I’ll be the first to admit it– I was abhorently against social media, and I made it well known (See any of the five or six initial posts, you’ll note the rebellion).  What’s happened, then, in one year, that’s converted me from SM hater to favour?

Somewhere between graduation and the end of my– albeit, extended– internship, I saw the opportunity to network with some of the most intelligent folks I’ve come to know, to help mould a space that is changing the world; to change it myself. When, in history, have we ever been able to shout across countries instantaneously? Converse with authors, CEO’s, students, professors, activists, musicians and professionals as if they were your roomates? This is an incredible point in history where one person can, in 140 characters or less, spark the conversation that forces organizations to shift multi-million dollar marketing campaigns; hell, through this space, you even have the power to be elected President!

To those who’ve been with me through this journey, thank you for your support and encouragement– you all have a part in the pieces of this puzzle. And to those who are beginning the journey themselves, join hands and march forward, together. The whole wide world couldn’t stop us.

Climbing Social Media’s Back

In a week, I’ll be revisiting Centennial College to speak with a group of Corporate Communications & Public Relations post graduate students about my professional experience since graduating. It’s surreal to think back on the journey I’ve taken in the past year, from intern to corporate suit, non-member to IABC board member, from glass half empty to filled to the brim with Google juice.

I love speaking to students, maybe because I still feel like one. I know what it’s like to wonder where you’re headed, why you’re taking all these courses that have nothing to do with what you’re interested in (I’m an English grad, and yes, I took Old English) and why no one can answer, with certainty, the question that every post-grad students wants to know: how much money can I expect to make?

A new graduate has alot against them; you will quickly realize the stigma against young folks in business, and, if you’re as lucky as I was, you’ll have a mentor who recognizes and supports the value of a young professional. The new graduate also has a lot on their side, and one of the bigger ones is social media.

There are so many senior communicators scrambling to get a grasp on something that many of us, as digital natives, were born into. Many young professionals could type 200+ words before they could drive. We were using instant messaging before MSN, downloading music before iTunes and participating in online communities before Facebook or Twitter. This is a huge advantage!

Besides your experience during your client projects and internship, graduating students have few options to buff up their resume. Volunteering at your local IABC or CPRS chapter events can work wonders and even lead to a position on the board. But what other work do you have to flaunt?

Think of all the things that being involved in social media can do for your career:

1. Networking with the right folks can lead to job references, tips on inside positions and great career advice

2. This space is a knowledge bank; soak it up

3. By maintaining a blog, and commenting on others, you’re boosting your searchability and the chances of being found (where do you think prospective employers go first, even before the interview? Google!)

4. Leverage all the hard work you’ve put into your blog by showcasing your best pieces in your portfolio

5. Deliver prospective employers a digital resume with your portfolio, with links to your blog and other accomplishments you’ve had on line

6. Make your involvement in this space a project and turn it into a case study (communications people love case studies, and SM is far too new to have many of its own)

By leveraging your involvement in the social media space, you can stand out form the crowd and cement your foot in the door.