Walter: This is my second tour of duty here on this topic. I wanted to talk about how I teach and approach this topic and give you three different frameworks. How we name things in communications – I started teaching a class about word of mouth marketing and social media, the first, full-semester class dedicated to this topic. This year I’m teaching a class on conversations, including online and social media communications. The first framework is to set up the context for this topic. It’s about coordination and control and you can look back to trace the history on both of these topics. What we’re seeing now is a new way to conceptualize these topics within companies. The second model is more practical than theoretical and how companies come to understand this social media world and marketing. It’s a 5-6 stage process and people being oblivious about conversations. People then become indifferent or neglectful to it, and usually don’t pay attention until it blows up in their face. Then they move into monitoring it. Some companies are doing social media because they don’t want an issue to blow up in their face. The final stage is joining in these conversations in a participatory level. Dell is a great example of this that has gone through each of these conversational platform phases, ending with the Dell Idea Storm. The third framework I use is looking at what are the imperatives  for these organizations to succeed, like generating word of mouth and product innovation. These are some of the frameworks I use to conceptualize social media to my students.

Robert: I would like to say we’ve revolutionized our decisions at Ball State based on last year, but we haven’t but these topics and conversations on social media have shaped my own personal opinions. The framework that I’m coming from is public engagement. I align closely with one of my colleagues who feel we should have named this field “public relationships.” It is our job to engage in conversations and communicate with people. I think we need to approach social media in the same but different way from traditional PR. Social media are tools, new tools, but just tools. I think we it’s more imperative to teach our students to strategically use those tool to create transparent and authentic communications. We need to understand the message and the dialogue for us to start this communicate with our target audience. Social media pushes us in a new direction or one we’ve always been headed in, in engagement and authentic communication with transparency. That might take a bit of a mindset shift because that is a risky strategy and it’s difficult for leadership to be transparent and authentic and that means our students have to be more courageous when entering the business world to push for this. It assumes people are rational most of the time, which is risky. It’s essential to teach the fundamental s at a strategic level to our students than we did before because they’re going to have to translate the benefits of that high-risk strategy to that leadership. This is a leadership story, not a technology story (a comment from yesterday). We’re in the throws of putting together a new curriculum together at Ball State around this and we’re implanting a pioneering spirit in that curriculum. It’s especially important in the growing field of social media.

Clark: I don’t want to be a modest, I want to light the passion and share the dreams. Last week I was carrying the Olympic torch in China and I’ve been using this at a metaphor in my teaching. The torch is a symbol of what has changed in the last few years. The model of communication over the last few years and especially since the 1970s has really changed. The motivation I have this is the world that as the world changes, so does the way we have to teach, and that includes adding social media components to the teaching. There is an extraordinary amount of sharing and communication between faculty members on this topic. We are incorporating social media tactics into the strategies that we’ve developed and we’re seeing a growth in placements in the new media outlet’s we’ve used for our clients. The Northwestern Medill School is using research-based strategies, channel tactics, action and summative and formative research tactics in our programs now and teaching to students. These are all things we’re looking for. Students are rebelling to some social networks, like Linked In because they don’t want to be out there.

John: Social media is here, what departments provide training in this? Communications and PR only or are other departments teaching this?

Clark: Our graduate school Kellogg went through Web 1.0 and tried to build a department about it but it wasn’t popular enough and not many other departments have ventured in here. Social media is taught under communications and other departments are using a Communications platform in their curriculum.

Robert: We imbed it in all classes we teach, especially in Journalism, where there is a new media class. Our president has made emerging media an important topic to include in curriculum across all disciplines.

Walter: I see it more across a number of disciplines but are using it as educational support for their departments and support its educational missionary curriculum. We also have some people doing more cultural studies approach, how do we live with media? Not as much how we use media as a tool.

John: How tech savvy are students now?

Clark: They’re all “thumbs” basically, but they do have the technology with them. So between the grad students who use it on a daily basis and the undergrad students that the students will be teaching me things that are “new” and popular in this medium. All of them are smart and savvy and I tell students that if they don’t have these skills they likely won’t have a job because employers look for this.

Robert: I have to back that comment up. I’m finding the most challenging the way to help them see the strategic piece of social media in communications. They’re quick to pick things up but not how to use things like this in an appropriate way.

Walter: The new resume is 140 characters long, like Twitter is. Employers are looking at how creative you are and how savvy you are in this medium. Show me your blog, show me your Twitter account and what you’re doing with this stuff already.

Robert: I go back to what others have been saying, people need to get their students involved in a class about this and how to practically use the tool. They have to be familiar with it and they don’t have that unless they have their hands on. It’s not just about building cool stuff.

Clark: There was once an ad about Web 1.0 a few years ago, saying you need to new the new lingo and that’s happening again now. Unless they understand it, they can’t communicate it effectively and if they can’t teach their boss about it, what are they bringing to the table?

Question: To what extent are you helping your students to communicate with people via social media?

Robert: One of the biggest teachable moments last semester came from our student PR firm and one of the students was having trouble with the client and I introduced her to an old technology known as the telephone call. Very savvy kids but can’t ignore the big stuff and sometimes they have. They need to have a strategic understanding of what they’re trying to accomplish.

Clark: How to break out of that model is that by resisting that client opportunity, they have to figure out how to get out of their shell and communicate with people on a natural level.

Walter: I encourage them to blog and put things out there in a blog-format because there is more accountability and allows them to engage with the general public. They need to be taught about search engine optimization, something that helps show them that they’re contributing to something.

Question: Are you Facebook friends with your students? How do you balance inside/outside communication?

Robert: There’ s a level of engagement there that is a fine line to walk. I don’t engage that way very much and my students understand that.

Walter: I do not “poke” my students but actually I accept all invitations for Facebook and Linked In because the people who ask are respectful about it and it’s to help them build their professional credentials.

Clark: I don’t get “poked” very often but I use Linked In and I encourage them to join that because it’s an alumni tool for us too.

Robert: I accept all invitations to Facebook and Linked In as well and find those who reach out to me are respectful as well. It’s students getting ready for the business world and you stay Linked In with them or friends with them after they graduate for alumni opportunities.

Question: Would students respond to blogging and sharing social media information between campuses?

Clark: We would be interested. I would share that survey with my students to respond to.

Question: Is anyone a member of PR Open Mic? There is a great faculty resource now with over 1,300 members to share ideas.

Question: If you’re reaching a course with a heavy social media component and real-world clients, what is your deliverable?

Clark: My student’s deliverable is strategy and recommendations for actions, which is a client-based learning model. It’s in the eyes and the acceptance by the client. There is some implementation but moreso delivering strategy for the client.

Robert: Our deliverable is the Bateman competition, we didn’t place but it was a very innovative approach and this was the perfect medium for them. The deliverable is actual implementation of the plan.

Walter: We’ve had clients take our ideas to develop a social media initiative and reaction to our ideas.

John: What has been successful in your teaching social media and any best practices  or unsuccessful?

Audience: Best thing I did was bring in influential bloggers and podcasters to have a dialogue with them and educate them about what they do and how they used information. We did it with General Motors and how they engage with bloggers and then the students put together a campaign with a heavy social media campaign.

Audience: I had a negative experience with practical application where I wanted to have them do a site on our project and many of the kids were “sandbagging” and playing ignorant on it. So I challenged them to “teach” this and not take “I don’t know how to do it” as an excuse, which lead to them self-educating themselves on this.

Clark: One of the student groups took a class on Second Life and held it in Second Life and invited the agency from Coca-Cola to interact with them on Second Life in this way to hold meetings.

Audience: Do you think that is a trend?
Clark: I think it’s moving in that way and it’s easy for people to do and learn.

Audience: We have access to more bloggers in DC and what’s been successful for us in social media/digital classes and one is taught by a blogger and students blog the first day and then they move up to the strategic class about digital strategy from an agency representative and each Master’s class involves the use of social media. Social media is great for our NGO clients because it’s free and easy to start-up and maintain and share.

Audience: From the student perspective, one of the best things that we did as a student was to start a blog as a class for Auburn when there was negative press around the university. It was all about stories that were happening in the community that wasn’t covered in the news but they were great stories and activities on campus that wasn’t getting picked up either. Allowed for practical community interaction. But it taught us the importance of always updating and not leaving the site, continuing the communication. Now it’s part of the Auburn community newspaper site and it’s continued on with new generations. Getting involved outside of the classroom.

Walter: Some schools nationwide have been unable to relinquish the control needed to create these networks . The only way to control the message is to be the message. You’re not giving up control, you’re identifying and living the message you want to be out there.  You have to ask very challenging questions and you have to make sure the transparency you communicate is actually transparent .

John: I may be the only person who learned about today through Twitter. Rick sent me a Twitter about this event and followed the links to find out more about this Summit. I’m going to talk about three things today, more about the MacArthur Foundation, talk a little about the work I’ve been doing with non-profits and media and lastly if there’s time talk about NGO’s as journalists. MacArthur Foundation is work to make the world a better place with five office around the world, working in 60 countries. Lately our thinking has moved into digital thinking and learning – how digital tool change the way kids are learning. We’ve been keeping an eye on how NGO’s are evolving in digital media and what are the ways as founders can help promote effective non-profit use of these tools? Some NGO’s are moving into the digital world well while some don’t have the resources and are moving behind. Best practices are emerging but strategies are fluid. We are now reaching out and supporting NGO’s who are using digital media as well. Recently satellite imagery and Google Maps has been used by NGO’s to further raise awareness on issues. Issues we’re working to address with our grantees – there’s a birth of human resources to understand and fluency in comfort levels in the digital worlds, which could be a generational issue. Because we work so much internationally, we wonder what is going on in those areas who do and do not have all technology available. Mobile is key in these areas and we’ve looked into increasing the mobile opportunities in parts of the world and now many of them are coming to us. Frontline SMS which is an open-front SMS system that people on the ground in rural and foreign areas can use. How do you connect online and offline activities for our partners? The Obama campaign has succeeded at this and we’ve asked how we can be successful like they have been on this? Metrics is a huge question? How do we measure? It’s not sales measures or figures, going beyond the Web site and have to identify what metrics to track. There’s an opportunity for NGO’s to adopt a “journalist” role to share information effectively. There is a wide variety of non-profit journalism role, like 700 Club and Frontline, who has gone completely online and the MacArthur Foundation supports. Documentary films is serving a journalistic function on a variety of issues, such as Africa, to tell a story. Global Voices aggregates and collects blogs from throughout the world with blogger editors who monitor their areas for key issues and news. Many NGO’s lack the confidence to move forward in this area.

Paul: World Economic Forum is more than just our Davos meeting, which we’re planning on now and right now there are 3-4 areas we’re focusing on. One is meeting on a global and more are on regional level and we’re doing a lot of research on geo-political issues and global competiveness ranking, so there is a heavy research component and finally we are the global platform for corporate local citizenship or responsibility on social issues. The fourth area is our online platform where we’re looking to carry our awareness of our organization beyond our meetings to be an organizational resource year-round. We’re more than an event organization, we’re process driven. The image of the World Economic Forum over the years, we’ve been fortunate to generate the recognition that we’ve been able to around Davos and beyond. We have had trouble communicating and connecting with sectors of society to talk about the World Economic Forum and thankfully social media has broadened the conversations from our meetings in Davos and in other cities. There is a lot of media at our events and nowadays there is no such thing as “off the record” with traditional and social media. Four guiding principles for our work in the digital space: increase digital footprint of the organization, increase the content of the organization, reinforce the community sense of the World Economic Forum, finally of course, requires from our part a large amount of surrendering control. We used to be more “buttoned up” or used to being able to manage what was happening and this has been a process of surrendering control in many ways but has been very beneficial. Right now we have 800 branded photos on Flickr, 150 of those have been uploaded to Wikipedia, 8,000 clicks a week on those photos, 640 videos that were watched 1 million times on YouTube that was uploaded from Davos, put forward a charge for people to ask questions and make videos to be showed at Davos and 8 million people responded. Facebook, we have a group of 819 members, 336 fans of the Forum and we’ve created a number of Facebook sites for the subgroups of the World Economic Forum. We’re on Twitter and BlogTV, where we show all of our press conferences live.  Some people can be skeptical, but the fact is once you go down this road you have to stay on it. We previously would accept blog entries on our site but we would review and edit content as necessary and now we’ve taken a big step from that point. We’re working on a joint partnership with companies to build a platform that keeps the World Economic Forum a resource all year long.

Keith:  How has new media allowed your organizations to get different coverage from traditional media? Does social media allow you to share a different look at your organizations.

Paul: The traditional media would never show things that we can post freely on the Web. We don’t have a lot of complaints about our media coverage, even if it’s not all positive or what we think should have been covered. Part of it is just confronting the realities of media here, largely our coverage has been positive though. One reinforces the other, the amount of traditional media is not decreasing but we’re able to increase and create a new platform to share not the World Economic Forum message but message of what comes from the meetings we sponsor and the messages from the leaders at these meetings. Social media is a plus for us and is a “check” on the responsibility of traditional media.

John: I’m going to talk more about our grantees. These new tools allow organizations who previously were constricted to get their messages out, limited in the newspaper to Op-Ed pages, now they can be their own media makers and tell their own stories and speak directly to people. Challenges come as it takes much more work as I think people are learning and it’s incumbent on funders to takes these things out. Second is what does it mean to have an empowered constituencies? We’re still wresting with the challenge of our empowered constituencies and how we relate to people. From the MacArthur Foundation, we monitor what is going on in the social media sphere and see where there are opportunities for us.

Keith: What is your advertising spend on this if you have one? There is a lot of fight in new media for money because its effectiveness and measurability is difficult?

Paul: We have virtually no advertising budget. We make one or two exceptions, we will do some around our meetings in popular media like full-page ads, and we do that because we feel it shows what the Forum can really do but I have to say that I agree about the relative balance of where that money is being spent and Dan Edelman’s response is that the tailwind is behind the PR industry right now and some chaos in terms of the thinking toward traditional advertising. It may say, we don’t spend money buying space for other traditional advertising media, but if you watch CNBC there’s an ad promoting a meeting we’re hosting in September and it could be viewed as being paid for by the Forum, but it’s an added value through our partnership with CNBC. That goes back to the collaboration between NGOs and traditional media.

John: We don’t have any advertising budget either, but we have the benefit of public radio and the people who listen to it. Our grantees who are featured in media and on public television with our tag is our promotion. There has been some fascinating innovation coming around about transferring from a broadcast to a narrowcast format. The Byrant Park Project was a morning show aimed at a younger adult listener on public radio, largely heard over the Web and on Podcast and is on Twitter where the producers and hosts are engaged – new way of how voices are being brought in. Open Source Media radio show was a blog/radio show in one and still is available today and interacted with people engaging with them on the site.

Question: World Economic Forum turning point to get people engaged was inviting bloggers to attend meetings which could have been risky in the US, how have you engaged people oversees and openness in other markets?

Paul: It was not easy to invite bloggers to attend when we were used to handling the conversation so it certainly was not easy and we had some missteps in our first entry into blogging. Through our regional meetings, we’ve been able to bring that model down to a regional area, including inviting cartoonists to each meeting and let them produce live some reaction and response to what is going on. It’s bringing it down and letting it trickle down from a global level.

Keith: Are NGO’s something that is attractive to students? Is it something they move to right away or after being in the public sector?

John: I think as we’re seeing in this campaign season that young people are exceptionally mission-driven these days. I just heard a presentation from a CEO of a new non-profit consulting firm who said that he’s seeing impressive resumes coming into the NGO sector. There is a large labor need in the IT, software technology section on NGOs and is attracting people with those skills. Technology areas have been the biggest areas where they have identified people to come work to NGOs.

Keith: Do NGO’s need to make it part of their mission to tell students that non-profits can bring a decent salary?

Paul: Is there? I don’t know. No one thinks they want to work in non-profits right away but I think once you get to a point where kids are learning more and possibly in college and available to different groups, that’s when a lot of people make those decisions. The salary issue is what it is but my guess is that it will become less of an issue as it becomes more of a “track” that students decide on and can adjust accordingly. It’s not the deciding factor. The one issue that has struck me over the last few years is the need for ways to better communicate and promote issues associated with a NGO. This coming out of the summary of sessions we had online from Davos last year. Awareness always came up in summaries, our need to promote them. How are we telling students that message right now? The need for technology is right but I would also as much say, how are non-profits communicating? How are they consolidating resources?

John: I’m wondering if there is some level of participatory overload when it comes to awareness on these issues. How much information and change are affecting people when they’re only at your site for a few minutes and what does that mean for change on the ground? With all the success of social media, it’s still competing with other messages that are out there? How much can people drill down on issues? There is more energy on the building side than consumption.

Question: Given our ADD nature, it gives me hope people are focusing on something for more than a minute? Reminds me of some of the tools we use in our teachings, to see what kinds of information is available to bloggers and able to be shared and digitized. I would hope that the issues that are important to society is being more effectively tracked through the Web.

John: I hope you’re right, but the real action happens on the ground and not always online. Is the act of blogging about human rights issues in China, is that just a pressure release and I’m able to move on to another issue? To what extent does that tie to actual social change.  When do we go from attention to change.

Keith: Organizations need to make sure they go beyond just creating a Facebook page but actually getting the message out. Cloggers not bloggers.

Neville: Started blogging back in 2002, early adopter of blogging, write about business/technology issues and the collision of those topics. Also participates in Podcasts with his blog partner. There are a lot of parallels in social media between the UK and US but the UK is actually behind in adoption of the technology. Big topics covered today on social media include measurement and pitching. We’re seeing so much disruptive change that’s happening in the social media community and experimenting with how to interact with this medium. Financial Times is a good example of a mainstream media source who is immersed with the social media evolution and reaches out to bloggers to get their feedback on its connection to them.  UK is embracing on thing around social media not seen in the US, moving from being newspapers that are solely based online and no longer available in print. More online-only content available overseas. For example, the Financial Times has invested a lot of money in virtual newsrooms, which are low-cost, to equip reporters to shoot live video. What we’re not seeing enough of is that shift to the evolution of communication in our society. Mobile phone communication and exchanging of messages is big in Europe, especially in the younger consumers through SMS and text messages. A lot of innovation in the public sector in the UK in media and it is a great time to be a communicator. There is an educational need for the older audience in public relations because of the way we now share messages and information, the older generation helps the younger generation how the corporations work and communicate and the younger generation helps with the new way their generation  share ideas and news.

Michael Maier: Young people are missing the understanding of media. Everyone has a voice but not everyone is a member of the media because they are online, etc.. People need to find how to immerse and communicate their messages in a new way in this new wave of PR. The internet has a strong origin in environmentalism in Europe. My company Blog Farm works with companies and media on the internet and the new ways of communication. We are seeing the death of PR in a way because everyone and anyone can be a publisher themselves and that PR has changed so much since it was founded. All the corporations can do their media work themselves now and that’s also the place where journalism has changed, to be media is not something to just say, you have to really know something. European outlets have internet and more interactive content than the US. What is missing in this debate is: transparency, we need to learn that and apply it. Previously, journalists protect their sources , but now everything is open. Technology – something everyone can use, aggregation – how can you bring aggregated things into context? How do you tell the difference between aggregation and media? How do you still deliver content in the video culture of YouTube and TV productions? Interactivity – how do you interact with your reader? People are sharing news all the time, so how you do interact with them without telling them what to say but hope they will communicate correctly to their friends? Gaming – How is gaming an expression of content and a new media language for young people? It’s the younger generation’s language so how do we reach them? Tubethevote.com will be the first-ever 3-D online magazine with aggregated content available for free reading, melding the media and YouTube on the 2008 Presidential Campaign. (Note: the Web site is not available for public viewing yet.)

Wolfgang: The most successful sentence from a European CEO said, “there is no Europe.” Blogs are popular in France, every other student has one, Wikipedia is popular in Germany while blogs are not as readily available. Poland’s local Facebook club is the most popular online resource in that country because it is only understandable to its native people. Russia bought Live Journal and now all high-quality blogs are housed in that country through Live Journal. Facebook doesn’t have a strong German presence. Linked In is not a big deal in Germany either. There is a local competitor to Linked In in Germany but people are not actively moving there, same with China. Australian online community that now prints a local newspaper with its content and hired an outside staff of reporters to help develop this. Print papers are not dead in Europe. Hyper-local, hyper-focused publications are growing too, for example, a print-only German newspaper in London for German-speaking citizens and it’s very popular too. Journalists do not read a lot of blogs in Europe, 90 percent of reporters looking at blogs is not the case in Europe. Students are not engaging in social media as well. There is a huge space in the online world for companies to move in to because media doesn’t get social media so companies can establish their own media presence in this space.

Marshall: From an international perspective, there is a tension between language and geography, people think about their businesses in markets, focusing on only one place, which is hard in a connected world. The reason people connect with one another is a shared language and interest. Companies have a hard time focusing on that because people will continue to share no matter what. Social media defined broadly is equal in terms of uptake across Europe but the different kinds of technology that was picked up is different. Facebook is big in Europe while blogging is not. People are always connected through some medium. This is not a technology story, it’s a change in cultural norm. We as Americans need to take our blinders off and realize that the impacts on our brands and communications are as much shaped by what’s going on overseas as what is happening here.

Rick Murray: Response to comment about PR being “dead,” any company that isn’t re-examining their business model through the prism in techonology and those changes will be probably out of business because they have to adapt to it. We will look different in 3 years from now, new roles, titles and skills for everyone.

Neville: Agrees with Rick, journalism is dead. If everyone is a communicator, what is their role. We’ve got to add something of value to our clients that’s strategic and beyond press releases.

Marshall: No body naturally instinctively would ever write a press release, you have to be taught to do that, rehumanizing communications, no one should ever write like a press release again in the current dynamic, stop teaching people to write like that, the first thing I have to do to people on our team is “unteach” them the press release language and teach them to write like they talk. Have to communicate like human beings.  We don’t understand the sociological/anthropological approach to social media outlets like Facebook.

Neville: There are niche communities in the UK and they have the ability to connect to a specific, targeted group and people are looking for that information. People are trying to figure out how to filter in all the information they are being given and no one has the answer of the best way to do it.

Marshall: I think about the professional journalist market in a different way. I look at Gannett and look at a hopeless decline of quality. As a mass consumer of information, I don’t read those papers because they are a waste of time. I’ve asked journalists about shortening the paper but making that reporting high quality and many feel it is already there and it’s not. We’re in an informational marketplace and journalists should offer the best information.

Question: How do countries share information because they write in different languages?

Wolfgang: People are able to talk share information overseas because there is an elite group that takes information written in the main language and translates it for overseas audiences (in Europe or the US). People don’t engage in conversations if you just communicate in English because it’s no longer just that one universal language.

 

Dan: Working on the Trojan brand is tough because condom advertising has been banned form most network TV during prime time, so when we had to do something different to get our messages across and move around the network’s restrictions on our advertising. Edelman created traditional and digital media around our brand, including a New York Times story about the new ad that featured the pigs and it was a big hit on the New York Times Web site that week too. The commercial also got exposure on the Huffington Post, blogs and even Fox News. We got a lot of really good buzz on this program starting with social media. This year we’ve seen that traditional media has been working for us, so we are taking the message on the road to college campuses nationwide and taking an “immersion dome,” which is a multi-media experience people can go to during outdoor concert festivals and get a 5-7 video about sexual health and making good choices with sexual health. The road tour and dome have been really successful and we’ve been working with online partners to get the message out about these events, especially Facebook where our hub is. People can go online, experience the bus tour, make a video to pledge being more sexual healthy and see it posted the next day to Facebook, bring experience back to them. Also a film crew films highlights form that particular day at the tour and uploads it for people to share. Exploring new ways for consumers to create their own content on sexual health within social media. Also another one of our brands, First Response, worked with Gather.com, where there is a large hub of women, who were hungry for information on pregnancy. We created a new community called “moms to be” to engage them in a casual dialogue about their experiences and provide them access to experts and engage with other moms on this topic. In two months, over 10,000 people have visited the site.

Jon: A lot of people think Sara Lee is all cheesecake and pound cake but in actuality but we are a global brand. We have gone through a major transformation in our company in the last few years, we defined who we are as a food and packaged goods company and we have really educated all audiences about who we are. We had a more “hands off” and reactive approach to media so now we are focusing on educating people on our brands. My team was able to put together a vision and be a true center of excellence working with our direct and indirect audiences to serve as a single point of contact. We’ve been educating staff on the Sara Lee story to serve as ambassadors in social media networks like YouTube, Twitter and on blogs. We’ve used social media a bit, we still have a long way to go, but I‘m proud of what we’ve been able to do so far but as a corporation we should and could be doing a lot more and that is our goal moving forward. We want to position Sara Lee as the first choice among consumers and customers and position it as one global brand. We need to reach people where they live and hang out by working with traditional and social media. That means we need to listen and understand the new vehicles that are reaching people and resulting in them making purchasing decisions. For example, our Soft & Smooth product is a white and wheat bread option for the family that provide the benefits of wheat bread, which appeals to moms, but has the taste of white bread, that the kids like. We communicated directly to moms to generate interest and awareness of the brand to help them when purchasing at the store. We also wanted to share with them that the bread is an option for them when at the grocery store, making lunchtime fun. So to do this, we looked at ClubMom.com, a mom’s network run by actor Andrew Shue. We also worked with Café Mom, a small group within ClubMom and launched the bread’s Joy of Lunchboxes campaign and get moms to try the Soft & Smooth bread and hope they would switch to this healthier brand. More than 28,000 moms participated in the Sara Lee polls about switching breads and generated 650,000 impressions. Now on social media we’re working on YouTube videos and beginning to have people blog on this topic and work to identify and establish relationships with people within social media.

Drew:  In March 2007 there was a perfect storm on the topic of the environment. I was new at Brita at the time and the brand was rapidly declining at the time. The brand was doing well for a long time, but when the growth of bottled water came around, people started moving away from tap water, municipalities were struggling with it, trying to get people to drive from a faucet. So last March I talked to the Brita brand about the big move toward environmental awareness and trend toward bottled water elimination, because at the time in San Francisco, the city banned the use of city funds for bottled water, which generated a lot of buzz in the media. I said to Brita, we have to do something about this and jump on this, and the brand said, we’re about healthy water and not the environment. I pushed it and they said no, so after some convincing, we created a program that didn’t put the brand front and center but creating a cause and creating advocated on the bottled water movement and people wondering how they could become a little bit more “green.” Sure people can go out and buy a Prius and walk to work every day but people don’t want to do all that and were looking for simple ways so bringing up the bottled water trend was an “a ha” moment for a lot of people. Most people didn’t understand that bottled water can’t be reused even if they are recycled and sit in landfills. But a lot of people don’t like their tap water, which Brita came in to help out and make tap water more attractive to taste. So we began the Filter For Good campaign, educating people and creating awareness online about this issue. Now it’s gotten a lot of attention and the bottled water movement is gaining a lot of attention including from the Democratic National Convention. So we created this site, FilterForGood.com to get people to go online and pledge to try and reduce the amount of bottled water they are drinking. We don’t want people to stop drinking bottled water because there is still a time and place for it, but we asked them just to reduce the amount of bottled water they consume. The Web site we launched generated a lot of attention and NBC called from the “Biggest Loser” and they said, that last season on the show they went through 35,000 bottles of water and NBC was trying to be more “green” too and Brita created a partnership with them that they captured on the show. We also have a partnership with Nalgene to create a green FilterForGood bottle. We also created a microsite with NBC that allowed people to take the pledge and give comments on what they thought about the program, which was very positive, and we will now be on the upcoming and next season of the show too. The Filter For Good site will be growing to become a social network too, creating a community on this topic and feature a guest blogger who will write about a variety of topics related to healthy drinking. Bloggers were a bit part of the campaign because it is a cause they can get behind, including mom, environmental and health bloggers and they have shared the message within their network. We average seven blog posts a day. We have about 75,000 people a day take the pledge because people want that “badge of honor” and 20,000 of the Nalgene bottles sold. We’ve had great success and doing more and more as we continue to grow. For the first month of the program, there was only PR and no advertising and our sales on the PR outreach has been tremendous and at the end of our fiscal year, we will have shattered our sales record.

Alexandra:  I’m going to focus on our My Starbucks Idea, which was launched at our meeting on March 19, this is the homepage but before I dive into the premise of the site, I want to talk about the origin. Starbucks is really fortunate to be a brand that is well positioned for social media. We have a strong social media for creating the “experience” with our customers and partners (employees) that brought ideas to the table for Starbucks to better serve everyone involved. Co-creation and ownership has been a long part of our history.  Our store footprint is large and each are involved in their local community and there are a lot of conversations happening about our brand in social media, including Facebook groups. One of the challenges Howard gave us when he came back in January, he challenged us to bringing back to the corporate culture the customer’s input and insight. So we launched the site in just over seven weeks for the customer and employees to offer their feedback and ideas. The point of the site was to share ideas and engage in conversations and building people up to feel confident to share more ideas and encourage others to do so. Visitors are able to share ideas in a variety of topics around Starbucks and can vote up and down ideas submitted by users and add more comments to people’s ideas as well to make them stronger.  It’s a representation of what is topical now in food, for example we recently were “attacked” by vegan posters who came up with ideas about how to make vegan options available at Starbucks, which is great and let’s us know what people are talking about. People’s feedback can also impact policy, such as including a more “bold” coffee later in the day rather than just in the morning, which generated from the My Starbucks Idea site. We also have 50 “idea moderators” who are real people and passionate about what they do to oversee the site. We have a one-way blog right now with “ideas in action” to let visitors know what ideas from the site are being moved into action or not at this point and why. We’re working to make that blog two-way now. Employees are also able to share their feelings on what would make their time at Starbucks better, such a dress code and pay stubs.

Question:  How did you define success with the Trojan program?

Dan: We are keeping our fingers on the pulse of our consumers feelings toward the brand and working internally to make sure our PR and advertising activities are cohesive and that we are meeting our business goals. The only way we are going to be satisfied is to change the statistic about sexual health and getting to the point where America is more aware of the issue of sexual health and be there to help get that message out there.  We want to be considered the leader in this campaign.

Question: Jon how did you initially get the moms to come to your site?

Jon: We went to their site, ClubMom, which has 1.5 million moms already and is where we knew they were a captive audience and they wanted to hear from marketers so we went there.

Question: Alexandra, everyone chucked when you said this, but what was the leadership feedback when you said you were goin got have 50 employees blog online to interact with customers?

A: It’s a big mindset shift, we’re very selective about spokespeople for our company and it was a lot of conversations but there was a lot of alignment at Howard’s level on this and we did have a lot of battles to win at that level and who would be on the ground communicating. We put a lot into legal, corporate communications and media relations training in preparation for this and that is what won over management and helped them feel more comfortable that people could be “real people” but be ambassadors.  And now management at all the meetings are constantly asking what is going on with the site.

Janet: I know all of us as panelists talked about this before the panel of the company wanting control of the conversation and the dialogue and for good or bad, it is a change to shift how we communicate.

Jon: It was tough at Sara Lee, who is leading in social media, to really understand social media, what it can do and who it can reach. Anyone with a computer is an “expert” now with their own say and influence on brands. If you can create brand ambassadors that are still authentic it allows you to effectively communicate with people.

Question: I’m curious if any of you have worked with second life?

Dan: Not yet no.

Alexandra: we looked at it about a year ago and decided it was not for us at this time.

Jon: A lot of brands are interacting with it though.

Question: the idea of being genuine on the Internet can be turned around on you when reaching out to moms.

Jon: we were very genuine going out to them, proactive and reactive to them and really upfront with them about communicating with them. We wanted to tell the story and interact with them and with ClubMom we knew it was a captive audience and we knew these were people who opted into it and were interested in health issues and as long as we were approachable and provided them with content they were receptive.

Drew: and with the “green washing” thing we had to be quick in turnaround  and being honest with people about our plans and how we are working toward this end goal and that we ‘re taking steps now to get to our end goal because we can’t turn things around as quickly as they might want us to, but we’re working there. A competitor launched exactly the same campaign as us with a supermodel spokesperson and media coverage but then the backlash started

Question: So for those of you using brand ambassadors, how do you identify who gets the choice to speak? And what are some best practices you’ve learned through this format?

Alexandra: I think when we wanted adoption at the highest level down, we looked for recommendations of people management thought would be best. We wanted people who could communicate effectively, be passionate partners and want to drive the business and listen to the customers and enhance their experience. We cut across all sections of the business from store planning and design to beverage and digital so it’s cross-functional team that supports each other. Best practices? Reaching out to key influencers and align in the right ways with them and leading the conversation not in a forceful way but getting ahead of the message was a big learning. Everything we can get a head of in a messaging way over the Starbucks-dedicated blog drives the message in a better way, plus we want to better educate and champion in a more effective way.

Panel Discussion: Rick Murray (Moderator), Steve Grove (You Tube), Lauren Fine (Kent State) Julia Hood (PR Week)

Rick: Let’s talk about the state of the business and changes you have seen.

Julia: Cites a PR Week Survey in which the reponse was that 75% felt their digital budgets would be increasing.  Digital informs every aspect of the marketing mix.  It is a challenge of the marketing mix.  How does PR differentiate itself as an owner of part of digital? 

Lauren: Clients don’t know where they should go for digital knowledge.  The PR community doesn’t yet know whether it should be their expertise or not.  On the client side, they don’t know whether the ROI is there.  It is scary that you cant always control what happens online. 

Steve: There are a lot of new opportunities out there.  The political campaign as we have seen it the past year.  The campaign has been like a war where they are braving the new digital frontier and civilians are learning from these lessons.  Politics on You Tube begins with citizens.  Campaigns can’t not be on these platforms because this is where people are.  How does this system work though, and how do we engage with these people in an authentic way?  Some have succeeded and some have failed- the Romney campaign did it well in the primary.  When Romeny faced his “gotcha moment” at some point in the campaign, Romney uploaded a response video that was tagged with the same tags of the derogatory video.  That was a good step to dispel untrue information. 

Steve:  How do you balance a strategic plan with consumer-generated content?  In the presidential campaign, Clinton’s campaign was very top down, Gravel’s campaign was very open to anyone.  Obama had a very central campaign that was open but still defined the terms.  That sweet spot was key to his campaign, and also applies to companies.

Rick:  Lauren, what would you tell Merrill today?

Lauren: When you look at total ad spend vs. online, there are huge differences.  Traditional is plummeting, and finding the right way to spend digital is vital, but difficult.

Rick: What should PR be measuring to prove the effectiveness?

Lauren: Finding a way to beginning a relationship with your end user.  In terms of true metrics, there is no answer because every online medium is different.  Teenagers relationship community has changed, kids are making their decisions online and are affecting their choices as well as their parents. 

In terms of You Tube, how are you recording results?

Steve: It depends on the campaign.  We do it very traditionally online, impressions, views, ratings, comments.  Advertisers are concerned about where else they are talking about.  Where are people watching these videos?  Who else is talking about them?

Question from the floor:

In your minds, is history linear or is it cyclical?  Is there a sea wall that it hit s or will they wash over it?

Julia: It is an inevitable continuous change.  Communities are hooked on it.  I didn’t become hooked online outside of my professional life until I was pregnant last year.  I have made many deep connections now online because of that- that is happening everywhere.

Lauren: I get overwhelmed by how much time it takes me to maintain all the relationships that happen in the various platforms.  The same trend happens, at some point the novelty factor will decrease, and more tools will become available to help you manage your online life in one place.  The refinement overtime will happen.

Steve: Facebook didn’t event something new of the human condition.  They just put it online.  Hearing about a brand through a friend is much better than hearing about it through the brand.  Content is still king and that will never change.  Some of the best content on You Tube isn’t LonelyGirl 15, its HBO, NBC, Barack Obama. 

Rick: One thing as marketers, we get bored really easily.  The kids aren’t getting bored with Facebook, but maybe we are.  I totally believe the genie is out of the bottle.  It is definitely generational.  I am only willing to do this, but my 15 year old daughter can do a ton of things online and still live her life.

Question: Do you have much research on who are watching political videos online?  Are they people already supporting candidates?

Steve: The influence of cable is still part of the ecosystem, for a candidate if TV picks it up, more people will watch it. 

Lauren: I think people intentionally are passing it along, that are viewing themselves as part of the campaign. 

Question: Are you now being asked to pitch what is online?

Lauren: Yes, when I sat in on some meetings, there is the case of can we put it online as a viral video as a less expensive way to do it and more importantly, reach a younger audience. 

Rick: High 80% of journalists read blogs.  Journalists are getting their information from blogs.

Julia: Most people turned to blogs to gauge sentiment.  They are testing their theories on the blogosphere.  The PR Week editorial staff is producing more than ever before.  The pitching is very ordinary, but the production is huge. 

Rick: from a teaching perspective, we have to be structurally staffing organizations to produce information on a daily basis.  You have to be out there on a regular basis. 

Question: Can you comment on other global regions that have very different patterns then what you see in the US

Rick: Having been various places over the past few months, all of these countries are on somewhat of the same path.  Social media is huge in Russia,  but just a little behind. 

Question: How do we measure the ROI?  Is it all that difficult if the right thing is built?

Julia: There is a step that is often left out.  There is an accountability phobia.  It is setting out the objectives to begin with.  Are we trying to sell more? Are we gaining fans? Measurement is not cheap.  Truly measuring results is an expensive enterprise.  A lot of programs don’t have them built in all the time.  Too few wont stand up to following through.

Rick: Ad is so well measured because people spend more on it.  The typical PR budget is really small.  The clients we work with don’t tend to look at PR in isolation.  P&G has come out and said they cant afford to measure this for anything less than a $1 billion brand.  They have seen it work though.  The solution may be a cross-discipline answer.

Audience Comment: The measurement return cant be put on the table yet because we haven’t figured out how to figure out what our goals will be given all of our options.  Companies are having to go to the table and really make a determination what the goal of this maneuver will be then consider what the collateral effects will be. 

Lauren: There are companies that may try to get an ad on a social network and aren’t sure why they did it and if they sold product.  But for the most part, it isn’t really that difficult than traditional

Question: Do you have any sense on how many agencies are now using social media releases and what the reception is to those?

Julia: I don’t think I have ever had a social media release sent to me.  Pitching is broken though in the PR industry and it needs some serious analysis.  There are still young people given a list of media and its “smile and dial”.    Hone way to penetrating a reporters perspective. 

Steve: In terms of announcing something, video provides a compelling alternative.  Jet Blue’s CEO immediately uploaded a video on YouTube after the runway fiasco.  You can also take advantage of other social media that helps tell your story.  You have a wider content that demonstrates trends and ideas that may be in line with your goal.  It could make a pitch more interesting. 

Lauren: The next generation is natural communicators. 

Audience: How do we help students make a connection between tools they use in their personal life and in their work life?

Lauren:  It does take a fair amount of training.  It is teaching them the proper role of this in the workplace. 

Julia: There is a naiveté about this because they think they have control, but they don’t.  You are looking for your leadership to tell you what to do.  You don’t want to figure it out yourself.

Richard Edelman: Steve, what is your advice to corporations on response?

Steve: I cant think of a reason not to immediately respond.  Sited Obama’s response to the Wright scandal.  They are changing in that it is just faster.

Question: To what degree can PR/Marketing be sliced ever so thinly- or do we just put it back in one big loaf and admit there Is going to be spillover.

Lauren: The blurring of lines have been an issue of for a long time.  Do you try to specialize more and cross sell? In my reading, there is no one way to do it, it I just hoping someone takes the lead and others will follow.

Rick: We need to think more holistically about brands.  Historically I don’t think we are good at that.