Allow me to play Umair Haque for a moment and extend some of the thoughts jumpstarted by Mike Manuel’s excellent discussion of what he termed the ‘social media services gap‘ and the ‘social media services billing gap‘. I am in complete agreement with Mike, John Wagner, Jeremy Pepper and David Parmet when they note that it’s not about technology displacing solid approaches to PR.

I have decided this morning that I’m not going along with the idea that this is simply an evolutionary movement. I think there is a radical shift coming in outsourced communications services brought on by

• new tools and dispersed, on-the-fly team building processes
• new consumer expectations about attention and how companies should talk with them
• decreasing influence and strategy decay of the mass media that power the traditional agency model
• disappearance of the ‘gatekeeper’ value traditionally merchandised by PR shops
• the incongruence of the agency model with the need to meld strategy with tactics in the form of nimble teams that quickly work across a host of edges
• the inertia that must be overcome to retool large organizations to meet these new environmental challenges, and finally
• the increasing ease-of-use of media creation tools for video, audio, playlist creation, tagging, etc.

Umair, Jeff Jarvis, Scott Karp, Chris Anderson, Om Malik, Rafat Ali and many others are charting the strategy decay and subsequent contortions of tradtional media. What has not been as effectively mapped is the impact that decay has on other industries that are attached, remora-like, to newspapers, broadcast tv, publishing, and so on. Whenever we see a ‘new’ media approach from an advertising, media buying or PR shop, it typically involves shoe-horning some sort of branded message into a novel, tech-enabled channel.

“Let’s repurpose our ads for mobile phones.”

“Why don’t we make extreme ads to play inside video games?”

“Let’s make it easy to tag our press releases with delicious.”

“Let’s put out our releases via RSS.”

“How can we get our stuff into wikipedia?”
“Let’s do that wild posting thing with these mass produced flyers and our ’street teams’.”

“Let’s get all the bloggers to talk about our new product launch.”

“Let’s do a blog for our [consumer product] using [some brand mascot].”

Not all bad ideas, but all misdirected and a bit ham-fisted because these organizations are built to be in the content business. They exist to develop and distribute messages. In the world of social media, content isn’t king. Connection is king. We are all bringing our own share of content to the party now, and companies have to play a much different role in the coming conversations about their products and services.

Note specifically that I’m mentioning the outsourcing of the services as undergoing this sea change. PR will be more important than ever. How you interact with the multiple conversational edges that impact your business will be huge. I think PR has the odd mix of analysis, synthesis and quick response skills to thrive in this new environment. But not agencies as they are currently constructed.

Here are my observations from being around all sizes of ad & PR shops for the past nine years:

• Agencies are economically rewarding for those who own them; most use their agency experience for training until they can’t ignore the opportunity cost to go client side or start their own consulting practice.
• However large the agency, there is almost always a small bomb-squad of talent that creates value across the agency accounts. Yes, you need resources for large production, etc, but when it comes to the core, creative things agencies do, it’s pretty much my ten against your ten.
• The profitibility of PR shops is built on charging you three times the amount they pay staffers; If I run an agency, I’m incented to sell off-the-shelf media relations programs that I can largely staff with junior workers, paying them roughly $30/hour and billing you from $100/hr and up. I also make money on the senior staffers I charge you a crazy amount for ($175 to $300/hour for), but it’s harder for me to keep those folks around, given their opportunity cost. Plus, the margins aren’t as great for me.
• Lots of shops also make money on upcharging you for services they sub out that you can much more easily source and manage yourself now.
• Agencies have always been self-conscious about how to demonstrate value for their outsized fees, which will only get more difficult as the business becomes less about creating content. They have less of a black box from which to pull ‘proprietary’ stuff.
• The beasts need feeding. This could be a whole post, but at some point, the boutique firm you loved as nimble and innovative gets a certain mass and has to start acting just like all the other large shops — taking on shlocky work, underpaying staffers, mailing it in on certain accounts, etc. It’s not the people, it’s the model. (No, I don’t ultimately think Crispin will be different. God love em.)

“No, way,” you are saying. “Edelman has a blog. They hired Phil Gomes and Steve Rubel. Weber hired Jeremy. MMW has Tom Biro. Constantin Basturea went to a big shop, too.”

Great. I think the world of all these folks and their chops, but they are still isolated specialists within much larger organizations. People don’t scale, and, as I’ve said, the economic model of these agencies precludes them from searching out and hiring 20 Phil Gomes. Much more likely that a Phil Gomes will go off and find five folks like himself and trade on his big brand knowledge to help a smaller client roster find its footing when it comes to social media. (I’m just speaking hypothetically here. As far I know, Phil loves his new digs.) He can also do that faster and more effectively outside the firm, even than if he operated as a startup within the agency structure. As Edelman left Syndicate the other day, he noted that he was on his way to a meeting to stir things up. Only about 15% of his staffers were into social media, he said, and that was just too few. I liked what he had to say. I just think he has an uphill battle to remake his company.
It will become increasingly difficult to sell ‘access’ services. Access to media buyers & publishers, access to journalists and analysts, access to company spokespeople. (You know how agencies tremble when the clients ask for their media lists?) In our new world, people are increasingly accessible. Already, savvy startups are doing DIY PR via blogs and direct communications that is effective for their early stage needs. There is a whole other post to do on community marketing, and I’m not trying to touch that here.

Instead, communication people will come to be valued by how they improve conversations. Not start or manage them. Improve them. Plus them up. That will take a more seasoned practitioner working in closer concert with internal folks. Thus, I think the tendency will be towards smarter communication directors and managers rolling their own teams to form ad hoc social media bomb squads, and outsourcing very specific ad creation skills (and not strategy & messaging) to ad shops. (This is the Sergio Zyman approach.) Already the market for making elaborate :30 films and holding on to the expensive talent this archaic activity requires must be seeing strains. If not, it will.

In a YouTube world, speed, savvy and responsiveness of our communications (video included) will trump high-production values and the fantasy of a tightly integrated campaign.

Even scarier, imagine trying to salvage a business based on delivering content and allocating attention through a proprietary channel:

• Bacon’s
• PR Newswire
• BusinessWire
• Satellite Media Tour Companies

These guys are doomed in a hyperconnected, niched world, the same way that trade media are unless they remake themselves. That world isn’t here today, but it will be. What are you doing to get ready?

I did a WebEx and a lunch seminar at Ketchum the other day, which was great. Lots of good questions and good dialogue that I think will continue. Here are links to some of the what we discussed:
Blogging Buzz/Confusion

The New Wisdom of the Web — Newsweek
BusinessWeek story — “Blogs Will Change Your Business”
Forbes paranoia — “Attack of the Blogs”
Blogging Delivered
Blogging Not Exactly Delivered

The Situation: Attention Scarcity

Long Tail blog on Mainstream Media Meltdown
Brand Hijack manifesto
Most recent Sifry alert on the state of the blogosphere

Pay Attention to:

Wikipedia
MySpace
YouTube
About RSS
Sphere
IceRocket
Delicious
Digg
tech.memeorandum
flickr
Odeo
iTunes podcast support

Business Blogging

Design Public
Robert Scoble
Jonathan Schwartz
English Cut
Stormhoek blog sampling

Essential Reading

Cluetrain Manifesto
Naked Conversations (check out the blog, too)
Small Pieces, Loosely Joined

Useful Marketing Stuff

MicroPersuasion
GapingVoid
BrandAutopsy
What’s Your Brand Mantra?
Church of the Customer
Media Orchard
New PR Wiki
Marketing Begins at Home
HorsePigCow
Like It Matters

Download the slides. (~6 MB pdf)
My flickr set from the talks.

While you could always read Peterme, JJG, Monstro, Odannyboy or other blogs by the wunderkinder @ Adaptive Path, now they have a new group blog. Can you say subscribed? Oh. Yeah. Baby.

We’re presenting sessions on Social Media 101 and Intro to Business Blogging tomorrow as part of a blog workshop hosted by the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. It’s at the Fort Worth Club, bright & early. We’ll be filming & will also post up a recap. Come see us if you’re in town.

Technorati Tags: blog+conference, blogging+tips, blogs, brian oberkirch, corporate+blogging, fort+worth, Weblogs+Work

Rebecca Blood gave a great keynote at the New Communications Forum in Palo Alto in early March. We talked with her later that day about the evolution of blogging and how connection is really the key ingredient to all this.

Listen to the podcast:

• At the Weblogs Worknotes page 
• Download the file (~12MB .mp3)
• Subscribe to the feed

Technorati Tags: brian oberkirch, new+communications+forum, rebecca+blood, Weblogs+Work, Weblogs+Worknotes

We talked with Anil Dash to get his POV on the good, bad & ugly of corporate blogging. As usual, he's charming & insightful. Can you tell we're Anil fans? We even have the t shirt.

Listen to the podcast:

• At the Weblogs Worknotes page
• Download the file (~41MB .mp3)
• Subscribe to the feed

Technorati Tags: anil dash, blog comments, blogs, brian oberkirch, corporate+blogging, movabletype, sixapart, typepad, Weblogs+Work, Weblogs+Worknotes

Dallas’ loss is a gain for open source enterprise junkies: my friend Raven Zachary is blogging a lot more since joining the 451 Group. Check out their new blog on enterprise open source trends, called the 451 CAOS Theory blog.

Technorati Tags: 451+group, enterprise, open source, raven zachary

Here’s an article I did for Floral Management Magazine. It’s meant as a list of real world blogging tips for marketers who want to really put the new tools in play and change the way they talk to customers. As Mike says: it’s time to get real about how hard it is to really have a bunch of ‘edge’ communications. Love to hear what you think.

Living on the Edge: Blogging in the Real World

Ok, we get it: blogs can be really good for business. Over the past 18 months, a lot of words have been laid down to get people to think about blogs as more than online journals, places for cat photos and outlets for political rants. Big companies like Sun, Microsoft, Boeing, GM and a number of others have embraced blogging as a critical way to have conversations with those who matter to their business. A new blog comes online every second, according to blog search service Technorati. Robert Scoble and Shel Israel have just published the definitive book on business blogging – Naked Conversations: How Blogs Are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers.

Blogs are here to stay. So, how do we actually do this stuff?

As my friend Mike Manuel noted at the New Communications Forum this past week, it’s time to move the discussion out of theories about blogging and social media and into the raucous to & fro that is actual conversation. Once you get the big idea (that as marketers our job is to enhance conversations, not try to control them), you need a new set of approaches for getting the job done. The bad news: there are no hard & fast rules. As customers produce their own messages (through blogs, videos, podcasts, photos) at the edges, our marketing has to be flexible, flowing, transparent. Honest. Here’s a handful of real world thoughts to get you started on your own adventure with blogs and other social media:

Get Small Fast.

Social media is an embarrassment of niches. Blogs make small players look bigger & help big players get small. If mass media wastes your message on those not interested, social media helps you offer sharp, targeted stuff that is high value to the right readers. So, you’re not just the floral expert. Maybe you’re the wedding flowers guru. Or you’re the one who’s going to show us the value in everyday flowers. Or you’re going to launch a flower-a-day blog to help us branch out a bit. Drill down. Slice your area in half. And again. Go niche and you’re on your way to better blogging.

Just Do It.

How do you learn to blog? By blogging. Badly at first, but improving with each push of the publish button. See, you’ll quickly learn what gets a response. People will comment, link to you, totally ignore posts that don’t matter to them. Don’t fret endlessly over what platform to use (choose one of the top ones and get cranking). Don’t overdo the fuss over your design (do something clean and sharp that lets people get to the info they want). Don’t overthink it. Start writing a little bit, and see what the world has to say.

Link, link, link.

The most important thing to do in a blog post is provide good links. The second most important thing is to provide really good links. And so on.

Write a Little. Often.

Readership and improved search engine rankings happen through this magical formula: lots of frequent, short posts with links. Have a big idea? Chop it up into a series of posts. Make your blog look alive with routine posts.

Listen. Learn. Rinse. Repeat.

It’s a conversation, right? How can you learn anything if you’re always running your mouth? Pay attention to comments. Respond to them. Use Technorati and other blog search services to track what people are saying about your company, your service, your area of expertise. Respond on their blogs. Great blogging is really about reading, understanding and synthesizing. The writing is mostly flourish.

Ping, Don’t Pitch.

My geek pals & I have a phrase we use when we tap each other for something:  ping.  When reaching out to other bloggers, don’t approach it as you would an old-school media relations pitch.  Offer something of interest to someone you know says Josh Hallett.  A great formulation.  Engage other bloggers.  Comment on their stuff.  By all means, let them know what you’re up to.  (You’re proud of your content, right?)  But, don’t do it in a mercenary way.  Focus on sharing valuable, relevant links & material. 

Spread the Words.

All blog software creates a feed that is automagically updated each time you post. (Sometimes you’ll see an inscrutable orange box that says XML or RSS. That’s what we mean.) Use these feeds to help you spread the word. You can reflow (or syndicate) your blog content to other parts of your Web site. Make sure to prominently feature your blog feed on your page, on your home page, etc. Let readers get your blog posts via email if that’s what they want. Include your blog address in your email footer.

Search Me.

As Elisa Camahort so rightly pointed out the other day, the phrase ‘blogs are great for Google juice’ gets repeated as though it were a form of magic. Can blogging help you show up better on Google and other search engines? Absolutely. It’s a nice, organic byproduct of having real conversations with people. It doesn’t happen by accident, though. Think about what you want to be known for. (Again, go niche.) Then write about those things. Use those terms. And give it time. Blogging is a long-term play with no good shortcuts.  As Jeremy Pepper cautions, though, "don’t just go into blogging for ‘Google Juice’ but because you have passion." Without passion for the topic, the blog won’t continually pull an audience.

Think Beyond the Blog.

When I say ‘blogging’, I really mean all the new tools we can use to self-publish our ideas. Blogs, sure, but there is also flickr and other photosharing services;delicious, digg and other bookmarking communities; podcasting at iTunes, Odeo, AudioBlog and other listing sites; YouTube, Google Video and other video sharing sites; forums, mailing lists and so much more. When you start looking around, the Edge suddenly feels endless. And very exciting.

Updated:

Mike Sansone adds a great point (Rebecca Blood’s incremental value process at work):

Share Your Knowledge.  Mike highlights a key part of the blogging way — sharing know how, linking out, providing value as a ticket into the conversation.  This is fundamental, and I’m glad Mike added his voice to this piece.   

Technorati Tags: better+blogging, brian oberkirch, elisa+camahort, flickr, mike+manuel

What a crazy day. Busy, busy, so it took me a while to post up this podcast interview we did at New Communications Forum this morning. A roundtable discussion of PR & social media with:

• David Parmet
• Shel Israel
• Mike Manuel
• Jeremy Pepper
• Josh Hallett

and later

• Phil Gomes
• Evelyn Rodriguez

I’ll try to index the conversation & questions later this weekend. For more on the New Communications Forum, track the conversation and check out the flickr photos.

Grab the feed for Weblogs Worknotes.

Technorati Tags: david parmet, evelyn rodriguez, jeremy+pepper, josh hallett, mike manuel, newcomm forum, phil gomes, pr2.0, shel israel

Stephen Baker has a piece in yesterday’s BusinessWeek about big companies using blogging technology to improve their internal communications. Good stuff.

Not by a long shot. Instead of public blogs, think about blog technology. That’s the focus for many leading companies around the world. From McDonald’s (MCD) to Cannondale Bicycle, corporations are using the software to revamp internal communications, reach out to suppliers, and remake corporate Intranets.

Technorati Tags: businessweek, internal+communications, stephen+baker

 Odeo’s Noah Glass & Tim Roberts handle the blog thang with perfect aplomb. Right after we stuck a ’send us an odeo’ button on our Like It Matters blog, Noah & Biz Stone zapped us an odeo saying ‘cool, thanks for playing.’ Tim & I have since exchanged notes (via their new feature) about how to improve it, questions about RSS, etc. A few quick moments on their part translate to a great experience with the company on our part. So:

• Listen in (they pinged me within a few hours of my post)
• Respond appropriately (they used their own tool to communicate, which really cements the point)
• Keep the conversation up (quick replies to my question proved, again, that they are paying attention)

Technorati Tags: blog+monitoring, blogs, noah+glass, odeo, tim+roberts