As Tech Image rides the Social Computing wave along with the rest of you, we have come back to the realization that we are really in the business of customer service. In fact, anybody in a tech company today should look at their PR program – first, foremost, and forever – as customer service.
Why? Because PR at leading-edge companies has evolved into a strategic business service that goes beyond dials and smiles to build communities with all of its key publics. It understands the interface between an organization and the businesses and other communities that surround it.
That’s a lot different from the PR of old, which pushed messages out from corporate or an agency to customers, prospects, media, partners, competitors, influencers, employees, lobbyists, policy makers and government officials – you name it. However, in the Social Computing world now taking shape, all of these publics speak directly with each other and corporate, bypassing or even eliminating the traditional top-down messaging model.
Blogging is probably the most well-known communication channel in this area. However, Social Computing comprises several tools and technologies, including Real Simple Syndication (RSS), wikis, podcasts, vidcasts, mobile media, social networks, social bookmarking, and tagging.
While there is a high FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) factor at play when it comes to Social Computing in the B2B world, much of it is turning out to be unfounded. According to Jennifer McClure of the Society for New Communications Research, there are several benefits – strikingly similar to traditional PR – to these new tools and technologies, which:
- Enable conversations
- Allow for customer feedback
- Strengthen relationships with all key audiences
- Build customer loyalty & trust
- Enhance the corporate image
- Grow brand visibility
- Increase search engine visibility
- Position executives & organizations as thought leaders
- Enhance media relations and PR efforts
- Deliver timely and candid information on important industry trends and issues
- Augment traditional communications channels
Sure, Social Computing today presents a great opportunity for your company to provide valuable content to target media and industry influencers through these Social Computing approaches – ultimately realizing many of the valuable benefits listed above.
Tech Image has seen this impact already in the print media. Steve Hamm of BusinessWeek, Kevin Delaney of the Wall Street Journal, Kevin Maney of USA Today, Peter Lewis of Fortune, Om Malik of Business 2.0, Allan Alter of CIO Insight, Stan Gibson of eWeek, Kim Nash of Baseline, Tom Keating of TMC, Russell Shaw of VON, Brian Dipert of EDN – all have blogs today.
The same goes for industry influencers such as Nick Carr (IT Doesn’t Matter) and John Battelle (The Search). Gartner has blogs on mergers and acquisitions in the communications industry, Windows Vista, CRM, and Emerging Trends & Technologies. Forrester has blogs – more consumer-focused than Gartner – dedicated to wireless carriers, Web/tech, and mobile communications.
In addition, several media and analyst outlets produce podcasts, vidcasts and webinars from corporate and industry events such as trade shows, user group conferences, and analyst conferences.
However, there are really two levels to the Social Computing phenomenon. One is a new channel for the same types of things you are already doing. For example, publication-based vidcasts are something for which you can pitch your company spokespersons as subject matter experts using tried and true methods.
The second level, however, requires a change in your approach to PR. This is that true Social Computing model, where clients generate their own blogs, podcasts, vodcasts, etc., lay themselves bare, and seek direct interaction with their customers.
Technorati (www.technorati.com) reports that since March 2004, the Blogosphere has doubled in size every five to seven months. There now are more than 53 million blogs, with 150,000 blogs created each day – nearly two blogs per second. There are more than 1.6 million postings each day, or more than 66,600 per hour.
MarketingSherpa’s 2006 Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide surveyed 4,500 business and IT professionals across a variety of job titles, vertical industries, and company sizes. In a report titled How Blogs and Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Impact B2B Technology Purchase Decisions, MarketingSherpa reported that 80% of respondents already take advantage of blog technology, with 51% reading blogs at least once a week, 28% on a monthly basis, and only 10 percent have never used blogs to access business or technology topics. The audience is already there.
The same survey found that 53% of respondents felt the content they read in blogs already influences their purchasing decisions. Blog credibility still can improve, though, with only 57% rating blogs equally as or more credible than more traditional forms of media such as news outlets, industry publications, vendor white papers, analyst reports and industry or professional associations.
And that’s why the biggest opportunity for your company right now is in content generation. The MarketingSherpa survey found that 67% of respondents did not feel that there were enough expert bloggers currently covering technology topics.
The other immediate opportunity for your company to have an immediate impact through a Social Computing approach to PR is in content distribution, through RSS technology. RSS feeds make blogs and other online content available for syndication or distribution across the web.
Instead of bookmarking websites or periodically visiting them, RSS enables media, customers, partners, influencers, and all of our clients’ important publics to have news and information from our clients’ Web sites automatically delivered to their desktops in a single, organized reader tool. RSS capabilities will become increasingly important to your company as spam filters and firewalls continue to negatively impact our ability to pitch targeted media and analysts via email. Yet many companies have yet to place an RSS feed on their Websites.
Retailer Marshall Field encapsulated the essence of customer service back in the 1800s with the simple statement, “Give the lady what she wants.” Today, Social Computing puts smart organizations in a better position than ever to follow that edict by building communities and providing more interaction between the organization’s decision-makers and its customers. By taking a customer service-oriented approach to public relations, PR professionals can make themselves more important to the organization than ever.
