• Hats Off to the BBC
• Word-of-mouth at its most elementary
• Wik-e-commerce
• PR People: Your Next Must-Learn Tool
• Low-Tech WOM Programs Still Work
• All About Authenticity

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Check out this piece from today's Guardian on the BBC's plans to revamp its web site.

Talk about your basic understatement.

Ashley Highfield, BBC's director of new media and technology, unveiled the plan to his staff earlier today in a presentation entitled "Beyond Braodcast."

In a nutshell, he plans to focus all BBC digital output on three broad concepts of citizen journalism: find, share, and play.

He's also asking the public to help him re-design the BBC site to fully exploit the functionality and usability of services such as Flickr, YouTube, Technorati, and Wikipedia.

This isn't BBC 2.0. This is Journalism 2.0, and you're all invited.

Technorati Tags:
bbc, journalism, media

When we all came into work this morning, my colleague had a story to tell. Her friend Harry had gone to his favorite hangout, a wine cafe in the trendy Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park, as he does a few nights a week. That evening the restaurant was particularly full and he was denied a table. Harry asked to speak to the manager, who knew him well because of his repeated patronage. Surprisingly, the manager did not pull a few strings to find Harry a seat. Instead, he got into an argument with Harry - and told him to get out and never come back!

Harry was so stunned and upset that he went home and called several friends and family members. Those friends and family members told their friends and family members, and so on. Everyone who hears this story will likely think twice about going to that restaurant. This one serious lapse in customer service could result in not just one customer lost, but hundreds.

Today, we tend to think of word-of-mouth as some abstract marketing concept we hear about at seminars, but let's remember the basic principle that makes it relevant in the first place: people talk to each other...a lot. If you want to generate positive buzz about your brand or product, give people a legitimate reason to talk about it. Give them quality. Give them excellent service. Give them creativity and innovative ways of solving their problems. Give them something they can't get elsewhere. If you do, they will come back and bring their loved ones with them.

But if you don't, the BEST you can hope for is a resounding silence.

Technorati Tags:
wom, word of mouth

Wikis are a popular CGM mechanism online for people to collaborate and co-create. I find wikis interesting bc their outputs are a continuous, organic evolution. While it lets people apply their individual POVs and unique contributions, it stands on a premise that the larger consensus naturally rises to the top and applies a means of quality control.

Wikipedia is one of the most popular online resources on the Internet. It's become a standard "go-to" for definitions and pop culture info. And today, we have a new wiki in our midst - ShopWiki.

We are all well-aware of the numerous product comparison, rating and evaluation sites out there as well as specialty and aggregate search engines that crawl many sites for you. It will be interesting to see how a wiki fairs in the e-commerce game.

My first thoughts: ShopWiki will interestingly allow us to see how consumers classify products in a very quick manner. It's letting consumers take the reigns and push something to the top rather than wait for the back-end of the website to crunch numbers and tell the story. It will also show where consumers could likely go online to purchase. Nonetheless, the overall relative value of watching this behavior depends greatly upon the audience size and level of active participation which is yet to be seen in its beta launch.

I wouldn't yet say "I wish I had thought of that" - but I see this and it reminds me that we've certainly reached a point where it's likely that "it's been done before." The next great ideas are often "old" ideas applied in a unique situation, with a variation, to derive different outcomes and end up having its own allure, value proposition and WOM flair. So it's caught my attention at this point.

Technorati Tags:
cgm, wikis, wom

A last-minute thing comes up, and a media alert is needed. PR pros think nothing of firing up MS-Word and writing it up. Within a few hours, it's on the wires.

Your Chief Seamless Integration Officer needs to give a presentation yesterday. You put Powerpoint to work along with your favorite graphics program (I'm a GIMP enthusiast, myself), Google some relevant supporting data, and he or she is ready to go. (You'll work on building the time machine after lunch.)

Your EVP Of Disruptive Feature Richness needs to put out a special edition of the company's podcast immediately after a speech and it needs to sound well-produced and well-edited.

Gulp?

Hint... PR people need to learn how to use a basic audio program. I'm a big fan of the free Audacity and the inexpensive Goldwave, myself. Guaranteed, this is going to be a skill that PR pros are going to be expected to know cold.

Technorati Tags:
pr, public relations, podcasting

Interesting story in the Seattle Times today about how organizers managed to pull together up to 30,000 people for this week’s immigration rally in Seattle. Although the headline credits a “word-of-mouth network” for spreading the word, blogs and online communities are nowhere to be found in the story. Good ol’ fashioned person-to-person outreach through churches and community groups, fueled by popular local radio stations, has been the primary driver for these events in Seattle and across the country.

It’s no surprise that the Web hasn't been a major promotional vehicle for these rallies. Web-based tools like blogs and podcasts may never become powerful among audiences that are significantly impacted by a lack of technological resources. Given that, it’s refreshing to see that a classic, grassroots Word of Mouth campaign can still shake up the hallowed halls of power.

However, it's worth noting that this human approach shares a crucial characteristic with a high-tech forum like this: Both speak to the power of “a person like me.” Word of Mouth programs have been around since the dawn of man and new tools like blogs are another way for engaged groups to share information and mobilize around causes. The medium changes, but the underlying principle remains the same.

These days, when you go to enough conferences and read enough blogs about communications, the word "authenticity" comes up a lot.

What I find disturbing, though, is that many communicators too often talk about "authenticity" in one of two senses.

First, some discuss "authenticity" as if it is some kind of spice or tonic that makes a lame program a great one. Almost as if to say, "We'll just throw some authenticity in there, Bob. It'll be fine." (I'm paraphrasing of course. I hope...)

Second, others describe it in terms of something that can be created, as in "A blog is a good way to create authenticity for a company." (I'm not kidding you. I have actually heard that one before.).

It really all comes down to companies working to find their voices online. Authenticity is a quality that should arise from that process.

Over at the Northeastern U's class blog, the writer (Laura05) was inspired by this post from Microsoft's Heather Hamilton.

Laura writes:

Being authentic is not about telling people what you are great at, but what you aren't so great at.

Well, it can be a little of both, of course, but I believe her ultimate point is this: A blog that does nothing but beat one's chest is unsustainable from a community participation perspective.

When you're at a cocktail party, do you choose to engage with the biggest blowhard in the room? Probably not. In fact, you try to avoid him.

I encourage you to read both Laura's and Heather's posts.

Technorati Tags:
pr, public relations, blogs, blogging

TalkShop is a blog about word-of-mouth and the Me2 Revolution, published by Edelman and hosted by Phil Gomes, the company's Senior Counsel, Online Communications. This blog pulls in thoughts and opinions from members of the worldwide Edelman network.

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