The issue of who owns social media and how it is best applied is still being grappled with by larger enterprises.  So the SAScon debate on social media on this issues was particularly interesting.

The panel was:

Will McInnes of Nixon McInnes

Phil Jones of Brother UK

Neil Hardy of Co-Operative Travel

Ivan Croxford of BT

And Malcom Coles

I will start with a Phil Jones quote: “Social media is B2me.”

Will McInnes followed with “sustained conversation is expected with social media.”

Quite simple pronouncements, yet many big enterprises get it wrong, perhaps it is years of pushing through messages through mass media channels and not having to interact as much on a one to one basis in their marketing:  Sainsbury’s being one possible example of how difficult larger businesses fail to grasp this.

Maybe smaller concerns are more geared at establishing a one-to-one relationship.

On the question of who owns social media and how it should be applied, well, there was a multitude of answers.

I was surprised, not that I should have I suppose, that customer services was a strong candidate for ownership (as Ivan Croxford pointed out at BT customer services had embrassed social media).

My vested interests said PR.  It could be marketing as well.   But it really depends on the application.

Neil Hardy looks on Twitter as a helpline for instance.  The conclusion surely is that it it is a versatile instrument and will be used as best fits purpose?

Phil Jones again: “Social media should be integrated, should engage and lead to “marriage.”  I agree.

Malcolm Coles: “Social media helps engagement with customers that do not use current channels.”   In this alone is must be seen as essential.

What came out of the debate was a recognition – as you would expect – that social media has to be applied and that its exact role is still developing.

I will leave the last word to Malcolm Coles about the need to experiment to find out social media can be best applied: “Getting it wrong is not a disaster.”

Could you imagine a lawyer or accountant using Facebook to engage with their publics?  No, unless they are catering to a rather young set, this would be the received wisdom.

Personally I have not historically been a fan of Facebook.  It is a bit, well, it’s for kids isn’t it and other people with hands on their time?  I never really took to the platform and I never bothered.

Of course for B2C products and services it is rather more promising.  Unfortunately my work is nearly all B2B – PR for men and not boys – actually happy to receive inquiries from B2C businesses.

So does Facebook have a role for those that do not run B2C campaigns?

I think it can.  I have been using it more recently and although I prefer Twitter and LinkedIn to help my clients craft their communications, Facebook can have a role, for me at least.

Your clients are your sales team, if you do your work well.

But your friends can also take up that role, if only occasionally.  With a Twitter app pulling through content it is possible to give your friends more of an idea about what you do.  They might have a vague idea, but if they become more familiar with your enterprise, well.

The other thing is that Facebook builds up relationships, which is what social media is all about.

Some friends on Facebook will not know you as well as an old school friend, so there is the opportunity to talk and get to know each other.  Sometimes small talk and fun is the best way for friendship, for work.

Now I know what you are thinking: it is all a bit mercenary.

I wrote a little time ago that the boundaries between work and the personal life are disintegrating.  I am not happy about it.  Yet where does your personal life stop and your business life begin?  Mmmmm

So where before I refused requests from business contacts into my Facebook arena, now I am minded to accept.

There is the ever present danger of not looking professional or exhibiting an opinion that is not for professional consumption although my Facebook pages are not really controversial.

The thing about social media is that it is like water: you can contain it for some time, but if it wants to break a barrier, social media will and can.

Don’t get me wrong I will continue to use Facebook for friends and it is not a business tool primarily.  I will just occasionally mention my work – I have anyway given in to trying to stop the tide.

Postscript

Toprankblog has a good little entry on using Facebook more effectively for business – take a look.

Artisan will be giving a talk about blogging at Manchester Business Breakfast Club this Friday.

It’s just an introduction so businesses can understand what blogging is all about and judge if it will be of help to their enterprises.

Manchester Business Breakfast Club is all about networking, members helping members to grow their businesses through referrals, advice and sometimes direct supplier relationships.

The club has 35-40 members and about 25 attend at any one meeting.  The club is always looking for new members, including:

Architects

Recruitment professionals

Arts venues

Surveyors

Couriers

Hotels

Leisure (although we have a football club, none other than Wigan)

If you are interested in coming along please leave a message or e-mail.

You might know this quote from Dr Zhivago – the film version, not the novel; I believe the novel does not contain that phrase. (Uttered by Pasha Antipov played by Tom Courtenay in the film if you want to check next time it is on TV, which is every Easter or Christmas).

That was about the Russian Revolution,which I am not sure  ever succeeded in its aim to dominate all aspects of an individual’s life.

The social media revolution seems to be inadvertently achieving it, or at least blurring the line between private and working lives as soon as you engage in it.

My opening is a little journalistic but a few days ago a business contact asked to be accepted onto my Facebook circle of friends.  I have not replied.  I don’t like saying “no” but this is not the place to engage with someone you know only in a business context: I really do use it for informal personal communications by and large.

I didn’t think much more of it until Matthew Goldsbrough a marketing consultant was speaking at a recent Manchester Chamber meeting about social media.

Matthew made the exact point that our work and private lives cannot be compartmentalised anymore, certainly not as we might wish.

We all know stories about someone misbehaving on holiday or saying something a little too frank about their boss on their Facebook or Bebo page and losing his or her job, or indeed having an offer for one withdrawn.  These stories having been doing the media rounds for years, so there is little surprise to be really had.

The realisation that “I am a brand” – a concept I do not like or completely agree with seems to be being imposed upon me.  But there it  is, if you aim to use social media for work you have to accept that your marketing, image and reputation do not get put on hold when you leave the office after a hard day’s work.

It never fails to surprise when a big concern like Habitat makes a mess of their social media.

Well maybe a story like this probably was bound to happen at some point soon – somehow some big corporates don’t have a feel for it -  but I am still shocked at how blatantly deceptive and poorly thought out this was.

Habitat are facing the ire of many Twitter folk at the moment after using hash tags inappropriately to drive traffic to a sales offer.  The fact that some hash tags were about the recent events in Iran did not help.

The thing about social media is that is gives the small guy a voice.  And many users see themselves as social media Robin Hoods: you cannot throw your corporate weight around or throw a big budget to get a result – you play by the same rules as everyone else.

Really, social media follows many of the same etiquette as face to face networking and other human interactions, so common sense, manners and a bit of thinking come in handy.  Three simple rules to start:

No hard sales – nothing turns people off you as being sold to, especially if they did not ask to be the centre of a sales talk

Be honest – try to fool people on social media sites and you set yourself up for a backlash

Listen and contribute as much as you speak and take, if not more – giver’s gain

Habitat say they are “sorry” and that this particular use of hash tags was “absolutely not authorised.“  Good so far, but as Habitat declined to name those responsible – in-house or agency – means that this will go on for a little longer than necessary.

Let’s be honest though, how many people enjoy something as big as Habitat messing up?

In this era of Ping, Ning, Twitter and Flickr you might be forgiven for thinking that we have a new paradigm.

Social media, the Internet and mobile communications are making the transfer of information so fluent, so easy that it somehow relegates some of the basics of marketing.

I remember one of my lecturers Peter Betts (Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester Business School), a really gifted lecturer, ask, “where does you marketing start?”

His answer was with the first person you come into contact with at an organisation, probably the receptionist.

That was the mid 90s and yes for many people a first experience of an organisation might well be online now.  It might be an unguarded comment on a blog or someone else’s comment about your organisation on a Google search.

What I am saying is that in any organisation the guardian of the company’s reputation is not just the PR professional, it is everyones.

Reputation is a central component of a business and without a decent reputation it is hard to trade.  So before thinking it is just media relations it is worth looking at all points of contact.

I think we all have a strategy when it comes to Twitter, well to some measure.

People that don’t I would assume become bored with the concept and fade away – you have to have a reason and an approach.  Without the first you have no motivation and without the second you are not as likely to have satisfaction in meeting your aims.

Of course there are not many users that plan with careful meticulous thought, perhaps write it down, and then incisively and determinedly follow through their objectives.

You could say, and this is probably my approach to networking, that I am more tactical than strategic.

I do think about my networking as thoroughly as possible (face to face and social media) and develop my activity almost organically.  There is a logic behind my tweets, not all the time granted but in general yes.

I come across from time to time the comment that I do not want to hear about “what someone has had for breakfast or what they are watching on TV.”  But even here there could be some logic.  Let me explain:

I go networking at Manchester Business Breakfast Club most Fridays.  One of the members, Nigel Moore of branding agency Flag Digital, delivers his pitch / presentation / 60 seconds in quite an offbeat manner.  He can be funny, obtuse, a little surreal at times.  But if you speak to Nigel when he is at work you know he is very serious and focused about his design work.

One day I asked him why his 60 seconds are apparently haphazard.  The answer was that the members know that he is good at what he does and that he is focused.

Nigel explained that the key for him is that they know that he is approachable, sociable and that they will be able to form a working relationship.  Strategies are not always apparent.

And what is my Twitter strategy?

Well my Twitter objectives are (but not limited) to:

• Follow journalists – spot editorial opportunities and understand their personalities and professional needs and concerns
• Find interesting material about PR and social media
• Improve my knowledge of social media so I can help clients with this aspect of their communications
• Raise awareness of Artisan Marketing Communications
• Not, at present, to find clients even though the last point seems to contradict that
• Be sociable

And from that follows my tweets, my use of Mr Tweet, who I follow derives.

This will develop over time and will change, but somewhere there is some sort of planning, however chaotic.

I resisted the garden on a hot evening to attend Social Media Cafe in Manchester’s Northern Quarter this week.

On my last SMC I had spent my time talking to other attendees and not attending the presentations.  But here was a chance to hear about Ning and how it had been used in a live project.

Ning enables users to “create their own social networks around specific interests with their own visual design, choice of features and member data,” as expressed on Wikipedia. It continues that “the unique feature of Ning is that anyone can create their own social network for a particular topic or need, catering to specific membership bases.”

The talk was delivered by Maria Ruban of Littlestar who described her use of Ning as an organiser of the Futursonic event that was recently held in the city.

Maria only had 6 weeks rather than 6 months that she preferred to organise the volunteers and make the event a success.  She was looking for a social media tool that could be quickly adapted; the aim was to build up a feeling of comradeship, interaction and focus.

Maria said she found Facebook too “clunky” for such an objective but Ning fitted the bill perfectly.

With its applications (such as blogs and photo sharing) and ease of use it was adopted rapidly and justified its choice.

Maria did not indicate any drawbacks.

One issue for some groups will be that it is invitation only, outside parties cannot gain access for comment or viewing.  This might prove to be a disadvantage for some, a boon for others, as was the case here.

Ning has been about since October 2005 but this was one of the few case studies I have come across.

I have a potential pitch that could use Ning, early stages though, but very useful to have a clearer idea of what this tool can offer.

The question that comes to mind though is why has Ning not been more readily adopted?

Postscript

There are of course many organisations using Ning successfully and I imagine in some cases for a couple of years.  I say “imagine” because I really have only heard Craig McGinty alone talk about it other than Maria.

Why, I don’t know but some might see it as pioneering to use this tool, others old hat perhaps.  I would be interested in hearing from those that have established Ning communities or are users and get to know a bit more about their viewpoint.

A new social media masters at Salford University is being launched as announced on Twitter earlier this week and covered by Sarah Hartley, online Manchester Evening News editor on her blog The Mancunian Way.

Apparently this is a disputed first with Birmingham City University, but it is still a notable landmark.  It must surely show, if interest and take-up is high, the gap between current levels of knowledge and that desired.  Add into the mix job insecurity, a recession, the pressure to up-skill and the 20 places could be taken quicker than an Abba reunion.

The value?  I tend to think education, at this level, is not about remembering facts, finding new sites before anyone else or having a “cool” sounding qualification for a CV but about a way of thinking and an approach to applying knowledge, which lasts for years.

I think we are going to see some discussion about this….

Tom Cheesewright, managing director of IO Communications, Manchester’s premier technology marketing agency, gives his views on how PR is changing and how we need to take note.

PR is half as valuable as it was twenty years ago. Why?

Twenty years ago, PR used to be something that differentiated companies. Actively managing news coverage and creating positive stories was something done by only a few, forward-looking organisations outside the FTSE 100. Today, PR is commoditised. If you have engaged a PR agency, most of your competitors have one too (or soon will).

Secondly, there are more news and information sources out there than ever before. No longer does everyone rely on their daily newspaper or even the 9 o’clock news for their information supply. Now they refer to tens of TV channels, hundreds of magazines, and thousands of websites and blogs. With so many authorities out there, each one has slightly less impact.

Thirdly, journalists are now less influential than they were. Research from Influencer50 suggests that in the early 90s, journalists accounted for 80pc of the external influencers on a buying decision (based on a survey of businesses buying technology). Today that figure is less than 40pc.

Combine these three factors and you would have to conclude that the value of PR has fallen sharply. Except, of course, it hasn’t.

The sharp ones amongst you will have noticed that I am not talking about PR, but simply media relations. PR can and should be so much more than that. The tools we use for reaching out to the media and analysts can be turned to other targets, enabling us to engage with other influencers – the peers, competitors, consultants, bloggers, regulators and more who now reach more directly in to our lives and our businesses.

PR people need to raise their game and recognise the value of some of their skills in the changing business environment. Creating compelling content, for example, that can be re-used and re-merchandised not just to influencers but in creative campaigns across the marketing mix.

Networking and interpersonal skills too are a hallmark of good PR people. When a company buys in professional help from a freelancer or agency, it should be like bringing in extra business development staff who can connect them with interesting potential partners or customers.

PR practitioners need to be aware of the impact of technology and market forces on their business, and adjust accordingly to make best use of the skills and resources they have available.

PR isn’t really dead, it is just changing. But any practitioner that can’t keep up, may well be facing extinction.