Posts Tagged ‘social media’

As I mentioned in my last post, our new research on executive placement at the right conferences covered some interesting information on social media. It would be difficult not to explore how executives were using or not using social media to tell their company story in addition to taking the podium.  Not surprisingly, the results show that online channels are not being used as effectively as they could.

• The tool most widely used to communicate externally by the C-suite is posting written messages on the company web site (66%). And that is a big step from a few years ago, so this is good news. Despite its widespread usage, executive communications professionals surveyed do not regard C-level web statements to be among the three most effective ways to communicate externally. Instead, the #1 most effective channel, according to respondents, is recorded video on the Web site, followed by live webcasts and blogs.
• Among the social networking tools, Twitter is considered more effective (25%) than Facebook (19%) and LinkedIn (16%) for external C-suite communications. Yet Twitter is woefully under-utilized by executives as a way to connect or communicate. It is reported by only 6% as a means that the C-suite uses to communicate now with external audiences. There is alot of debate about whether execs and CEOs should spend time on Twitter and Facebook. The best answer to the question is “Depends.” It depends on the industry, the regulations governing the industry, whether the company is customer-facing or not, and whether the executive has the time. Few execs have the time to commit and after talking to CEOs, they do not usually have the time. I keep wondering if there is an in-between but have not found one.

Video, on the other hand,  is a preferred communications channel today because of its ability to viscerally humanize executives. Right now, video of CEOs or other execs talking, interacting, and engaging can go a long way to attracting candidates, putting a human face on the company and just saying, “I’m showing up.”

  We at Weber Shandwick just issued a new report on placing senior executives at conferences. As you know, one way of building reputation is to get your senior people, including your CEO, out on the conference trail. Not only is it important for CEOs to be visible in times of economic recovery but the same goes for the senior management teams who can individually support the overall positioning of the company. Years ago I used to refer to the CEO job as that of the narrator CEO — communicating internally and externally about where the company was headed and what the storyline was. Now I have been thinking about reframing that reference to CEO as content provider. It actually makes sense with all the channels available to communicate to employees, customers, media and other stakeholders. Since CEOs have the bully pulpit and are in great demand, they can provide the content that tells your company’s plotline.

I wanted to share some of the findings of our recent research (“From Guessing to Planning: Placing C-Suite Executives in the Most Strategic Forums”) that we did with Vital Speeches of the Day and David Murray, its founder. We both found ourselves at a conference in February on external communications and realized that external executive communications pros appeared anxious about figuring out a process for placing senior executives.  Everyone was seeking the holy grail and asking if someone had a better way to judge if a conference was right for an executive and if they had only limited time, which ones were most important. We decided to do a little more digging and here we are. You can find out more here and don’t miss the executive summary either. Here are some key findings:

• Senior executive participation at business leadership conferences has held steady or grown since the start of the global economic crisis, according to nearly three-quarters (73%) of external communications professionals we surveyed in April.
• CEOs, according to those surveyed, consider speaking engagements prime channels for communicating thought leadership platforms (61%), attracting new business and cultivating customer relationships (58%), and defining or redefining brands (52%).
• CEOs are most interested in speaking at top-tier business media events (44%), public policy conferences (41%), and business school gatherings (31%). Jen Risi, my colleague at Weber Shandwick who runs our Voiceboxx practice on executive visibility and conferences,  says: “Essentially, this new data validates what we’ve been saying to our clients. While financial media continues to be the preferred outlet for enhancing corporate reputation by executives, the strategic use of high-level speaking opportunities is steadily becoming a close second.”
• One of the bigger messages in the survey was that placement is an art, not a science. Clearly the conference business needs greater metrics and better demonstration of ROI to prove that executives are using their time well.  With substantial risk for making a bad recommendation about an appropriate executive conference, communications pros told us they depend upon various resources to confirm their suggestions. Ultimately, they admit that they need to do their own research including networking, monitoring event Web sites, conducting media searches, leveraging agency expertise, and “cold-calling” conference organizations for their schedules. A large 44% report that they have no related processes in place.  Of the remaining 56% who say they have a process, confidence in their system is evenly split – exactly half are confident and half are not. All the more reason to call us……

Hope you find the results useful in getting your CEO out there as content provider. Check in tomorrow for more on executive conferences and social media.

 My journeys in Europe continued all week although I am now safely home and enjoying the first warm weather of the past two weeks. One thing that struck me in retrospect was that there was no market that did not talk about recession-weariness. Everyone mentioned how tough times had been with the global recession and might be getting worse as Greece faced its debt crisis, the EU bails out several members and the Euro was dropping. My presentation on The New Normal was perfectly timed.

• In Amsterdam I learned that some companies were rising to the challenge of the recession. Dutch airline Martinair had offered a similar program to Hyundai Assurance in the US where people who booked transatlantic flights could cancel their flight without cancellation fees if someone lost their job. It is called Boek Gerust Verzeking or worry-free booking insurance.  As well, the CEO of KLM, Peter Hartman, was applauded for going on YouTube to sympathize and apologize about the flight cancellations caused by the volcanic ash a few weeks earlier. A perfect example of CEOs resetting their reputations.  In addition, several people in our panel discussion mentioned the book The Truth about Ikea when we discussed this new  “tell all” and “see thru” world that has emerged. I also learned about an online site where you can “couch surf” or find a couch to crash on in another city so you can save some money. Smart alternative to paying for a hotel if your finances are strained. The Dutch also have a group buying site —  ichoosr.com – and their CEO had joined our panel to discuss the site’s success in this new age of austerity or what we were calling the New Normal.
• In Paris, at our luncheon discussion, one of the guests mentioned that they were moving their communications and marketing back to print since they were not convinced that the ROI online was working as well as they would have liked. Also had my first experience in Paris being interviewed in-person by bloggers. Turned out to be quite a lot of fun. This fits into my prediction that face-to-face communications will be back as a new channel for communicating.
• London was fascinating because I arrived the evening when the new coalition government was announced. The first day of the “new politics” or “plural politics” was brisk and spring –like, the perfect day for a new beginning. In our breakfast seminar, it was hard not to discuss what the new governance model in Great Britain meant but one idea I had was that the future would undoubtedly include more coalitions in business partnering over the next few years. Additionally, I thought that the outcome of the election was indicative of the new normal in that there were no winners and losers (except Gordon Brown) but something in-between. Not black or white, but just grey all the time.
• I could have sworn that Heathrow airport in London is scented. I could not believe my nose! There was a great scent in the air and although I can not find an article on why it smelled so therapeutic (aromatherapy), I think it might just be the air from the spa facilities inside. It is a great idea if it is true.
• Madrid had just heard their Prime Minister Zapatero talking about civil service workers’ salaries being frozen, pensions cut and other budget-minded recourses when I arrived. Like other cities, people instinctively knew that frugality was back with a vengeance. I had read in the paper before I arrived  that Zapatero had said it was the toughest speech he ever gave. I considered that quite humble although I doubt most Spaniards felt the same way upon hearing the news. In the world of reputation, leaders get all the credit when things go right and all the blame (and then some) when things go wrong. An interesting experience during my media interviews was that each journalist asked me what I thought the future of journalism was.  I think this happened everywhere I went when journalists took the floor. The reputation of journalism is sure taking a hit in this new digital world. I recall in Brussels how a journalist said that online was killing them off one by one. Is a global phenomenon and one I have a lot of sympathy for.

Now that I am back on solid ground for a few days and not spending my days and nights in airports and hotels, I can more easily get back to posting more regularly about reputation matters.  However, reputation is everywhere. Danny Rogers, the editor of PRWeek in London wisely pointed to the frequent mentions of the word “reputation” in media coverage. It was not always like that.  It is unavoidable these days.

I had a great time with my colleagues at Weber Shandwick and meeting clients and journalists, bloggers,  among others. Mind-expanding is good for the soul.

   Attended an interesting roundtable yesterday hosted by Business Marketing Association and Forbes. The topic was managing reputation in the new world of the Internet. Some interesting points surfaced:

• It is easier now to track reputation and ROI with the Internet. However the field of social media is so new that it is very difficult to track back to a baseline.

• Marketers are now interested in reputation as they realize that the company behind the brand matters. CMOs are the new entry point into companies as they see the connection more vividly. Product marketing is not enough.

• Perception is nice to have but behavior is have to have. You need your customers to act – buy your products, give you the benefit of the doubt in time of crisis, recommend you to others, spread word-of-mouth.

• Social media is the new Petri dish.

• Reputation Institute’s Anthony Johndrow reported on a study among CMOs and CCOs. They found that 97% are interested in reputation, 89% are doing something in the space but only 33% are measuring its impact. Disturbing when companies spend so much on reputation in general.

• We should be referring to “social business” not “social media.”

• Integration between traditional and social is key.

• One of the reasons more companies become social is that competitors force their hands. When a competitor starts using Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, its rivals are propelled into this new world.

• Sometimes your critics can be your best advocates. An example was given of a relentless critic who also links to company articles mentioned on Twitter that promote the company’s point of view. So your online enemies can also get your word out if you just time it right.

Everyone agreed that reputation has become more complex, harder to manage and everyone’s job. In addition, the bar is now not as high or as low as it was just one year ago. Since so many companies are now using Twitter for engaging customers and neutralizing reputation damage, some of the early examples such as Dell and Comcast are just that – text book examples and expected today.

One of the ways I try to tap into trends is to keep a mental note of requests from clients, colleagues and the media. At first, I may not notice that something is bubbling up but by the third time, I begin to scratch my head and wonder if something is up. Then I mull it over, ask a few people and try to decide if the trend is at all noteworthy and worth mentioning.

Lately I have been thinking about CEO visibility. Since I have been following CEOs for what seems like forever and witnessed the pre-Enron, post-Enron, pre-financial tsunami and now mid-financial tsunami, I think that we are starting to see CEOs emerge from the shadows once again.  As our recent research showed, few people have positive perceptions of CEOs in general (14%) but when it comes to their own CEOs, positive perceptions are sky high (86%). Thus CEOs seem to be getting the message that they need to speak up on behalf of their industries and their own companies. Over the past two months, we have increasingly been asked more about how CEOs can get their messages out in this kaleidoscope of news. CEO conferences never went away but many were scaled down as the economy took its toll and public scrutiny intensified over how CEOs were spending their time, where they were going and how they traveled from one place to another. What we are now seeing is that CEOs are more willing to speak at conferences that drive their messages and sales home. Whereas it is often hard to control the message in the media, it is easier to manage the message at a conference.  With the advent of social media, Twitter and all things digital, CEO conference keynotes, panel discussions and Q&A are easier than ever to circulate to wide audiences instanteously. My sense is that executive conferences are poised for a major comeback.

To say the least, the article in yesterday’s New York Times on blogging made me wince.

“According to a 2008 survey by Technorati, which runs a search engine for blogs, only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days. That translates to 95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.” 

I obviously fit into the 5% that keep blogging (or sticks to their knitting). Is there something wrong with me?  What distinguishes this 5%? When I finished my dissertation many years ago, I realized that there were many fellow students who never completed the degree. I thought to myself then that there must be something wrong with me for toiling all those years  when others just made the decision to move on. I guess I don’t move on well.

Back to my blog, two interesting tidbits for my posting this evening. 

First, I read that the pre-presidential Obama administration asked the following of applicants: “If you have ever sent an…email, text message or instant message…that could…be a possible source of embarrassment to you, your family or the President-elect if it were made public, please describe.”  We should all be adding similar questions to our employment applications. Social media is key to reputation-building and reputation-busting whether you are in public or private business. [This appeared in the Economist, April 18th, 2009 and cannot find the article.]

The second item I saved recently has to do with the CEO of online shoe store Zappos.  CEO Tony Hsieh is the new Jeff Bezos.  You may have heard this story if you follow social media tales among the executive set like I do.  Hsieh’s Twitters are now quite famous and the company receives extraordinarily high marks in terms of its reputation for extreme customer service (“deliver WOW through service”).  What I particularly like is this story about Hsieh’s team focus.  Since talent is so important, recruiting at Zappos is heightened.  Imagine this. Hsieh offers new employees $2,000 to quit their call center trainee jobs in order to weed out those who won’t make the grade.  As reported, three people took the money and ran last year.

    I recently Twittered about this survey since I thought it had some excellent information. The research comes from Deloitte LLP and is their 2009 Ethics & Workplace Survey. The topic this year was social networking and reputational risk in the workplace. Timely.  Since we conducted our survey on how executives manage their reputations online, Deloitte’s survey added some nuances that we did not cover. Deloitte had Opinion Research survey 2000+ employees and 500 executives in the U.S.  Here are some of the more interesting facts that caught my eye.

Employees

• 74% of employees believe that it is easy to damage a corporate reputation through social media (That’s high awareness for sure)
• 24% say they don’t know if their company has a social media policy and 11% say their company has one but they don’t know what it is about.
• 49% say that they would not change their online behavior if their company had a corporate social media policy (the survey also found that 29% of employees were being a bit more careful about what  they did online in insure that they kept their jobs in these tough economic times)
• Somewhat more than one third said that they rarely or never think about their boss, colleagues or clients when participating online (I’d call that risky)
• 26% say that their company does not allow them on certain social networking sites during work hours (I hear that often when traveling in Europe and was initially surprised. But there seems to be a large enough portion of the workforce that has no access to certain of these sites.)

Executives

• Only 15% of executives are addressing risks from social media at the board level
• Only 17% say that their companies have management systems in place to identify online social media risks (Not good news)
• Only 22% say that their company has formal social media policies and guidelines in place for employees (This is increasingly important as the FTC becomes more involved with social media and begins thinking about changing rules.)
• 67% of executives say that their company does not discuss how to use social media to leverage their strengths or mitigate risks (That’s an awfully high percentage. This is risky in itself!)

Since I joined the communications field, I have always been fascinated by the intellectually stimulating and wide variety of activities that comprise communications officers’ jobs. At first, I encountered “you are in the pr field?” when I told people that I left publishing for public relations. I used to oversee public relations as part of my previous job as Marketing & Communications Director at Fortune. Perhaps I have been luckier than most but the field suits me fine because of its expertise in shaping corporate and CEO reputations. Therefore it should come as no surprise that I am very interested in examining the reputation of the corporate communications professional today. As I saw presidential strategists’ David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs shape candidate Obama’s daily messages and actions, I knew that the CCO job might finally be recognized as critical in a 24/7 always open always on marketplace.

Last year we partnered with executive search firm Spencer Stuart on researching the changing role of the CCO (Corporate Communications Officer). Now we are in year two, a more challenging year. What did we learn about the CCO’s job, reputation and responsibilities?  In a time of unprecedented economic volatility, global CCOs have actually seen their “stock” rise over the past 12 months. Just what I predicted. In The Rising CCO, conducted with KRC Research, 58% of global Fortune 500 CCOs now report to the CEO, compared to 48% a year ago. That is a large increase. Not only do more CCOs call the CEO their boss, but 40% of CCOs consider the CEO to be their biggest ally in the organization. This leadership momentum coincides with an increase in CCO tenure: in 2008, CCOs’ average tenure was 65 months, compared to 54 months in 2007. By comparison, the average tenure of chief marketing officers is 28 months, according to research conducted separately by Spencer Stuart. The CCO is definitely on the rise and a greater asset than ever during these critical times.

We also found that experience in crisis communications and issues management is critical to a CCO’s success. It was not always the case when the marketplace was plentiful and everything seemed to be pointed upwards. According to CCOs surveyed, the need for crisis/issues management experience increased 45% since 2007. Additionally, and importantly, CCOs cite social media/blogging as the most frequently added function to their corporate communications departments in 2008, and they believe that social media/blogging will be their most important tool in 2009.

As corporate reputation—anticipated to be the number one communications priority in 2009—endures extreme stress and the Internet provides unanticipated opportunities and risks, skills often “owned” by the CCO are in greater demand: crisis and issues management, social media monitoring and online engagement, reputation management, and management of a complex portfolio of stakeholders such as employees, investors, nongovernmental organizations and trade media.

It goes without saying that CEOs and boards are under tremendous pressure to navigate through the stormy seas of the current economic tsunami. Like never before, CEOs are depending on CCOs for crisis and issues counsel to steady their company reputations and calm stakeholders.  

Traveling requires a bit of adjusting when I return home. I was in LA and Dallas last week and then returned home to find my laptop not working properly on Sunday. I know….never work on Sundays. Therefore I was locked out of writing my blog and here it is already Wednesday without me having posted anything until now. Travel can be very disruptive despite the well-neededflight time where you get some time to read and think.  The passenger sitting next to me missed his flight to Berlin for business and that got me all anxious as we tried to figure out what the chances were that his connection would also be delayed.  Turns out he worked at HP in communications so we got to talking about PR. He missed his flight unhappily.

As usual, I was storehousing information on reputation and online reputation management which has occupied a lot of my time lately (the first three from The Economist where they had an insightful special report on the “rich.” The reputation of the financial services sector has certainly taken a big hit and am hoping to see signs of some renewal. But as the facts below convey, people are having a hard time believing everything they hear these days.  

• 63% of wealthy Americans have lost faith in financial services companies (Harrison Group)
• 64% of people living in Britain think that banks that have taken government funds should not allow executives to get any bonuses at all (Populus Poll)
• 70% of rich people took some of their money away from their financial advisors (Prince & Associates)
• Turning to social media…41% of companies say they have developed social media policies and guidelines (Paper presented to the 12th Annual International Public Relations Conference by Donald Wright and Michelle Hinson)
• Most intriguing and fun to learn was this… Hitwise, the social media metrics site, says that social media has taken over from pornography as the number one use of the Internet (Paper presented to the 12th Annual International Public Relations Conference by Donald Wright and Michelle Hinson)

All this brings me back to traveling. Yesterday I paid rapt attention to a book review in the Wall Street Journal by David Myers. The book by Winifred Gallagher, RAPT, provides strategies on living a focused life.  Ah yes. I felt calmer just reading the book review. But this is what has stuck in my mind since I read the review and hopefully the book (if I can focus long enough to get to Amazon.com).

“To preserve my own mind from electronic takeover, I spend an hour alone each afternoon, without a computer or phone, in a local coffee shop, and I ask my assistant to forward messages from my public email address only near the end of each day. I’ve noticed that I prefer long plane rides to shorter ones, thanks to the extra time for uninterrupted thinking or reading. A University of Michigan research team led by Marc Berman recently observed that students who took an hour-long walk in the serenity of the Ann Arbor Arboretum, rather than through downtown Ann Arbor, showed an increased capacity for attention.”

In an article from Tom Friedman today on Pirates and U.S. foreign policy, he said. “The issues we have with them look less like problems that can be solved and more like conditions that we have to manage.” This made me think about social media – not easily solved but you need to manage. This week I was talking to a company about the importance of online reputation management and the need to be prepared and understand how to use this media if your “Dell moment” arrives.  I do not think I made much headway because they felt safer being under the radar.  Companies might not be able to solve the countless ways that their reputations can be harmed online (think Dominos pizza) but they need to try to manage their online reputations because doing nothing or next to nothing is irresponsible. You’ve got to think of your employees, customers and investors. That’s my two cents.

By the way, participated in a new business meeting with my colleagues in LA. They are damm good!