johnporcaro: mktg@large

Online PR - Can We All Keep Up?

A few weeks ago, I was involved in what amounted to an “industrial accident” when we released some confidential information before its embargo time, despite pledging it wouldn't happen, and being very careful.  In my career, this has happened only once or twice, and it's always extremely painful. 

As I was describing what happened, it made me realize how much has changed in such a short time. 

We're nimble.  We're evolving.  We created a “Video News Release” as part of our communications plan.  In a short video, we summarized the news that we were going to announce at the biggest trade show for our industry, E3.  The plan was for it to go live immediately after our press conference, with our official press releases. 

About 30 minutes prior to our press conference starting, we're backstage at the auditorium, making preparations.  My co-worker gets a text message on his phone, and his face goes flush.  One of our community members tells him that we just leaked some confidential information.  You know that feeling when the blood rushes to your head, and you have to work to catch your breath?  I hope you never do.

The next two hours were a blur, as we tried to find out what happened.  We ran to our laptops, to plow through a flood of text messages and emails, and assess the damage.  And as soon as I knew what happened, I had to inform everyone I work with what had happened.  All as the press conference was happening a few steps away.

We didn’t do a blog post.  We didn’t publish any links to the video.  It wasn’t even on our “channel” page of the video host site. We didn’t email a link to anyone. We hadn’t even set up a blog post where we would embed the video, because we didn’t want the off-chance that it would leak.  What happened? 

Because it took time to upload the video, we pre-staged it on our host site, and set it to go live at 12:30.  Turns out, the video host server is on Eastern Time, and we’re on Pacific Time.  And we set up automatic pings to Twitter and iTunes when we post new videos.  Someone saw the notice on Twitter, opened the link to the video, and notified us. 

Maybe nobody would notice, since everyone who would report the news was sitting in the auditorium of our press conference, right?  Turns out most of the media sitting in the auditorium had laptops connected to wi-fi, or had cell phones with Internet access.  All it took was 6 minutes for someone to watch the video, pull out the major announcements, and post the news.  All before the press conference started.

Within a few minutes of the video going “live” on the host site, there were posts on the two biggest videogame blogs, Joystiq and Kotaku (>1 million daily views each), outlining some of our biggest announcements.  Luckily, we kept details of our two biggest announcements out of the video, in the event of a leak.  Good thing. 

Just a few years ago, none of this could have happened.  Look at the situation then:

• We didn’t publish news releases to a web site
• We didn’t have a way of notifying anyone when something was posted
• We weren’t actively working with community sites/bloggers
• We weren’t doing video news releases at all
• We weren’t posting any video content to external sites
• We didn’t do a “Social Media Release” or blog posts about our news
• We didn’t have a team Twitter account (for that matter, there was no Twitter)
• The media couldn’t react “real time.”  Most news was run through writers and editors before it went live
• Nobody could get online at press events.  The people attending, even with laptops, were offline. 
• Even if they could get online, nobody would have time to download a video, write a news story, and get it published, without spending at least a few hours.
• Even with a leak, there weren’t enough people online on a weekday morning to spread the news very far, critical mass would take hours.

Wow, a lot has changed in a short time.  What will things look like three years from now?  One year from now?  In six months? 

Online PR - Can We All Keep Up?

A few weeks ago, I was involved in what amounted to an “industrial accident” when we released some confidential information before its embargo time, despite pledging it wouldn't happen, and being very careful.  In my career, this has happened only once or twice, and it's always extremely painful. 

As I was describing what happened, it made me realize how much has changed in such a short time. 

We're nimble.  We're evolving.  We created a “Video News Release” as part of our communications plan.  In a short video, we summarized the news that we were going to announce at the biggest trade show for our industry, E3.  The plan was for it to go live immediately after our press conference, with our official press releases. 

About 30 minutes prior to our press conference starting, we're backstage at the auditorium, making preparations.  My co-worker gets a text message on his phone, and his face goes flush.  One of our community members tells him that we just leaked some confidential information.  You know that feeling when the blood rushes to your head, and you have to work to catch your breath?  I hope you never do.

The next two hours were a blur, as we tried to find out what happened.  We ran to our laptops, to plow through a flood of text messages and emails, and assess the damage.  And as soon as I knew what happened, I had to inform everyone I work with what had happened.  All as the press conference was happening a few steps away.

We didn’t do a blog post.  We didn’t publish any links to the video.  It wasn’t even on our “channel” page of the video host site. We didn’t email a link to anyone. We hadn’t even set up a blog post where we would embed the video, because we didn’t want the off-chance that it would leak.  What happened? 

Because it took time to upload the video, we pre-staged it on our host site, and set it to go live at 12:30.  Turns out, the video host server is on Eastern Time, and we’re on Pacific Time.  And we set up automatic pings to Twitter and iTunes when we post new videos.  Someone saw the notice on Twitter, opened the link to the video, and notified us. 

Maybe nobody would notice, since everyone who would report the news was sitting in the auditorium of our press conference, right?  Turns out most of the media sitting in the auditorium had laptops connected to wi-fi, or had cell phones with Internet access.  All it took was 6 minutes for someone to watch the video, pull out the major announcements, and post the news.  All before the press conference started.

Within a few minutes of the video going “live” on the host site, there were posts on the two biggest videogame blogs, Joystiq and Kotaku (>1 million daily views each), outlining some of our biggest announcements.  Luckily, we kept details of our two biggest announcements out of the video, in the event of a leak.  Good thing. 

Just a few years ago, none of this could have happened.  Look at the situation then:

• We didn’t publish news releases to a web site
• We didn’t have a way of notifying anyone when something was posted
• We weren’t actively working with community sites/bloggers
• We weren’t doing video news releases at all
• We weren’t posting any video content to external sites
• We didn’t do a “Social Media Release” or blog posts about our news
• We didn’t have a team Twitter account (for that matter, there was no Twitter)
• The media couldn’t react “real time.”  Most news was run through writers and editors before it went live
• Nobody could get online at press events.  The people attending, even with laptops, were offline. 
• Even if they could get online, nobody would have time to download a video, write a news story, and get it published, without spending at least a few hours.
• Even with a leak, there weren’t enough people online on a weekday morning to spread the news very far, critical mass would take hours.

Wow, a lot has changed in a short time.  What will things look like three years from now?  One year from now?  In six months? 

What the F**K is Social Media?

What The F**K is Social Media?

view presentation (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing web2.0 socialmedia)

Finally got around to looking at Marta Kagan's presentation. Best f***ing presentation I've seen in ages.  I LOVE this style of presentation.  And some very good points made throughout.   

What the F**K is Social Media?

What The F**K is Social Media?

view presentation (tags: socialmediamarketing marketing web2.0 socialmedia)

Finally got around to looking at Marta Kagan's presentation. Best f***ing presentation I've seen in ages.  I LOVE this style of presentation.  And some very good points made throughout.   

Wanna Job Doing Social Media? Do You Measure Up?

Andy Sernovitz posted a "job description" for someone expected to do social networking for a corporation.  He asked for suggestions on Twitter, and posted a response from Todd Defren.  How do you measure up?

1. A person who blogs or understands blogging and participates in social networks and online communities, has an understanding of web TV, podcasting, wikis and social bookmarking sites, and can translate that knowledge in to recommendations for the Company.  The experienced individual should understand the importance of ongoing monitoring and response speed in social networks. 
2. A person who is comfortable teaching social media to others. (Some internal evangelizing will be required.)    
3. A person who enjoys engaging in conversations, both on-line and off. 
4. An excellent writer. 
5. An independent thinker and task master. 
6. An insistence on honesty, transparency and integrity. 
7. A quick thinker and witty conversationalist/writer. 
8. The ideal candidate should have a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and should have his or her own blog already. 
9. The candidate would be expected to create a private Content Calendar so that s/he has material to talk about based on the Company’s announcement schedules.  Of course, s/he can blog about lighter topics along the way.  The candidate should have the authority to conduct written or video interviews w/ execs and/or the occasional guest blog post.  S/he should have companywide authority to track down anyone at any level to get answers that have been posed outside the Company. 
10. The candidate should be focused on content creation,  but s/he will also work w/ the PR Team and PR Agency to develop overall communications strategies and rapid response plans. 
11. Recommended reading: on Twitter, the candidate should start following @Comcast_cares, @RichardatDell, @Zappos, @JetBlue, and @Southwest.  The candidate should also subscribe via RSS to Jeremiah Owyang’s Web-Strategy blog as well as other PR and marketing-oriented blogs found in the AdAge Power150.

Only thing I'd add is that the person should be a good on-camera spokesperson who will resonate with your core customer (or at least the target of the content you create). You won't see me in too many of the videos on our Xbox blog because I'm a 45-year-old--not exactly someone that an audience of 14-28 year olds would identify as a "gamer." :)

Wanna Job Doing Social Media? Do You Measure Up?

Andy Sernovitz posted a "job description" for someone expected to do social networking for a corporation.  He asked for suggestions on Twitter, and posted a response from Todd Defren.  How do you measure up?

1. A person who blogs or understands blogging and participates in social networks and online communities, has an understanding of web TV, podcasting, wikis and social bookmarking sites, and can translate that knowledge in to recommendations for the Company.  The experienced individual should understand the importance of ongoing monitoring and response speed in social networks. 
2. A person who is comfortable teaching social media to others. (Some internal evangelizing will be required.)    
3. A person who enjoys engaging in conversations, both on-line and off. 
4. An excellent writer. 
5. An independent thinker and task master. 
6. An insistence on honesty, transparency and integrity. 
7. A quick thinker and witty conversationalist/writer. 
8. The ideal candidate should have a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter account, a Facebook page, and should have his or her own blog already. 
9. The candidate would be expected to create a private Content Calendar so that s/he has material to talk about based on the Company’s announcement schedules.  Of course, s/he can blog about lighter topics along the way.  The candidate should have the authority to conduct written or video interviews w/ execs and/or the occasional guest blog post.  S/he should have companywide authority to track down anyone at any level to get answers that have been posed outside the Company. 
10. The candidate should be focused on content creation,  but s/he will also work w/ the PR Team and PR Agency to develop overall communications strategies and rapid response plans. 
11. Recommended reading: on Twitter, the candidate should start following @Comcast_cares, @RichardatDell, @Zappos, @JetBlue, and @Southwest.  The candidate should also subscribe via RSS to Jeremiah Owyang’s Web-Strategy blog as well as other PR and marketing-oriented blogs found in the AdAge Power150.

Only thing I'd add is that the person should be a good on-camera spokesperson who will resonate with your core customer (or at least the target of the content you create). You won't see me in too many of the videos on our Xbox blog because I'm a 45-year-old--not exactly someone that an audience of 14-28 year olds would identify as a "gamer." :)

The Evolving Role of Online Communities

I had an interesting conversation today with some co-workers about the role of enthusiast communities in the videogame market.  We all recognize the value of our most passionate customers who spend their own time and money to build online community sites like Evil Avatar or Gamertag Radio or Talking About Games.  In fact, the last three employees I've added to the team have been bloggers or podcasters.  Their desire to gather information and share it has helped make the Xbox community what it is today.

As we move into a world where every company has a blog, every journalist has dozens of RSS feeds for instant access to news and inside information, and every customer has a Facebook or MySpace page, we're left considering how best to support these influential community leaders, and how to create and distribute information that resonates with our most engaged customers (while supporting our brand goals).

Several years ago, it was inefficient to share information with customers.  It was hard to create, requiring agencies and executive reviews and legal reviews, etc.  It was expensive to share, buying mailing lists, paying for advertising, pitching stories to magazines that served millions of people.  As online tools developed, customers were quicker to respond than companies. 

A few years ago, there were lots of bloggers and small sites hosting forums and discussion groups who were scrappy enough to find bits of interesting information and publish them.  Individuals appreciated the targeted information, and loved having conversations about something they were passionate with others like them.  As publishers, we found that there were lots of community sites full of passionate customers who loved hearing any kind of news about an upcoming product, so we created our own blog.  Perfect match: community with leveraged distribution model who only lacked information, together with a company with lots of information but no easy way to distribute it. 

Then along came the Wal-Mart of videogame blogs: Aggregators who were good at finding information from lots of smaller community sites and publishing it quickly.  Joystiq, Kotaku, and Destructoid became the "department store" of the videogame community, publishing rumors, reviews, opinions, news, a dozen or more times a day.  Pretty soon, Joystiq joined sites like Engadget that re-defined how information is delivered, and began increasing their reach into the millions of daily readers. 

Companies like ours began treating sites like Joystiq more as news sites than as a blog, and they soon learned that they had access to official and employee blogs usually reserved for community enthusiasts, as well as invitations to PR events, access to executives and pre-brief information reserved for official news sites. 

Fast forward to today.   I'm seeing fewer and fewer links from big news sites to smaller community sites.  I'm seeing more and more publishers creating their own content, rather than the old method of distributing assets and press releases to press sites in advance.  And I see individuals selectively sharing information they stumbled across on YouTube or Twitter with very small groups, maybe just a handful of Facebook or MySpace friends.  I've seen podcasters realizing that it's almost impossible to grow beyond a few thousand listeners (after 63 weekly podcasts, my team realized that, and we're rethinking how best to meet the goals we originally set for that kind of content). 

We've seen video become the preferred way to consume content, and we've seen the software and hardware required to create videos become available to almost anyone.   

Harkens back to my days in Business School, studying perfect competitions and supply/demand curves.  What happens when there's lots of information supply and everyone has access to publishing tools?  In information, the only differentiator is going to be quality.  Who is going to be the best at creating high quality content?  Publishers.  Who is going to be best at delivering high quality content?  Sites with enough money to pay a full-time, qualified staff, or a few charismatic, talented, or hard-working individuals who will be the cream to rise to the top. 

The next 6-12 months are going to be fascinating to watch. 

The Evolving Role of Online Communities

I had an interesting conversation today with some co-workers about the role of enthusiast communities in the videogame market.  We all recognize the value of our most passionate customers who spend their own time and money to build online community sites like Evil Avatar or Gamertag Radio or Talking About Games.  In fact, the last three employees I've added to the team have been bloggers or podcasters.  Their desire to gather information and share it has helped make the Xbox community what it is today.

As we move into a world where every company has a blog, every journalist has dozens of RSS feeds for instant access to news and inside information, and every customer has a Facebook or MySpace page, we're left considering how best to support these influential community leaders, and how to create and distribute information that resonates with our most engaged customers (while supporting our brand goals).

Several years ago, it was inefficient to share information with customers.  It was hard to create, requiring agencies and executive reviews and legal reviews, etc.  It was expensive to share, buying mailing lists, paying for advertising, pitching stories to magazines that served millions of people.  As online tools developed, customers were quicker to respond than companies. 

A few years ago, there were lots of bloggers and small sites hosting forums and discussion groups who were scrappy enough to find bits of interesting information and publish them.  Individuals appreciated the targeted information, and loved having conversations about something they were passionate with others like them.  As publishers, we found that there were lots of community sites full of passionate customers who loved hearing any kind of news about an upcoming product, so we created our own blog.  Perfect match: community with leveraged distribution model who only lacked information, together with a company with lots of information but no easy way to distribute it. 

Then along came the Wal-Mart of videogame blogs: Aggregators who were good at finding information from lots of smaller community sites and publishing it quickly.  Joystiq, Kotaku, and Destructoid became the "department store" of the videogame community, publishing rumors, reviews, opinions, news, a dozen or more times a day.  Pretty soon, Joystiq joined sites like Engadget that re-defined how information is delivered, and began increasing their reach into the millions of daily readers. 

Companies like ours began treating sites like Joystiq more as news sites than as a blog, and they soon learned that they had access to official and employee blogs usually reserved for community enthusiasts, as well as invitations to PR events, access to executives and pre-brief information reserved for official news sites. 

Fast forward to today.   I'm seeing fewer and fewer links from big news sites to smaller community sites.  I'm seeing more and more publishers creating their own content, rather than the old method of distributing assets and press releases to press sites in advance.  And I see individuals selectively sharing information they stumbled across on YouTube or Twitter with very small groups, maybe just a handful of Facebook or MySpace friends.  I've seen podcasters realizing that it's almost impossible to grow beyond a few thousand listeners (after 63 weekly podcasts, my team realized that, and we're rethinking how best to meet the goals we originally set for that kind of content). 

We've seen video become the preferred way to consume content, and we've seen the software and hardware required to create videos become available to almost anyone.   

Harkens back to my days in Business School, studying perfect competitions and supply/demand curves.  What happens when there's lots of information supply and everyone has access to publishing tools?  In information, the only differentiator is going to be quality.  Who is going to be the best at creating high quality content?  Publishers.  Who is going to be best at delivering high quality content?  Sites with enough money to pay a full-time, qualified staff, or a few charismatic, talented, or hard-working individuals who will be the cream to rise to the top. 

The next 6-12 months are going to be fascinating to watch. 

Corporations and Web 2.0 Adoption

I just added CRM for Xbox and Games for Windows to my responsibilities (in addition to Online Community), so I'm in the mode of catching up--it's been a while!

Everyone I talk to about my new role as Director of Customer and Community Relationship Management (that's a mouthful, tell me if you think of something better!) is intrigued by the idea that social networking, blogging, influencer marketing, WOM can actually live side by side with CRM and "traditional" Marcom.  I've been describing it as the infusion of targeted content and the machine of CRM.  The biggest challenge in WOM is distribution and reach (especially when most corporations are using the toolkit of traditional advertising), and the biggest challenge of good customer messaging is targeted, relevant content.

One of the few newsletters I allow through my mile-wide firewall at work is the Harvard Business Publishing's email update.  Josh Bernoff published something I've been talking about with co-workers on our Global Marketing team--Why Web 2.0 Is No Bubble: Corporations Are Willing to Pay for It. 

I am talking about companies that serve corporate social application needs. ...in many of these companies, the technology itself is positively mundane. But the startups grow because they deliver value for which they can charge a premium and get customer loyalty. The customers of these companies don't defect when something shiny and new comes along, because they like the service they're getting."

Jeff also outlines a handful of companies that are building tools to help push-start efforts, and prove the ROI.  It includes my friend Sam Decker's company, Bazaarvoice, and others that are helping companies get their arms around making sense of this new space. 

Every company is--or should be--grappling with making sense of what this all means to their Integrated Marketing efforts.  Some will approach it using existing strategies and tools, with limited results.  Others will ignore it, to their peril.  Hopefully your company is going to stay ahead of the wave.  My prediction is that it's only going to be possible if you're paying attention to what's going on, hiring the right people, partnering with the right firms, and investing appropriately.

Corporations and Web 2.0 Adoption

I just added CRM for Xbox and Games for Windows to my responsibilities (in addition to Online Community), so I'm in the mode of catching up--it's been a while!

Everyone I talk to about my new role as Director of Customer and Community Relationship Management (that's a mouthful, tell me if you think of something better!) is intrigued by the idea that social networking, blogging, influencer marketing, WOM can actually live side by side with CRM and "traditional" Marcom.  I've been describing it as the infusion of targeted content and the machine of CRM.  The biggest challenge in WOM is distribution and reach (especially when most corporations are using the toolkit of traditional advertising), and the biggest challenge of good customer messaging is targeted, relevant content.

One of the few newsletters I allow through my mile-wide firewall at work is the Harvard Business Publishing's email update.  Josh Bernoff published something I've been talking about with co-workers on our Global Marketing team--Why Web 2.0 Is No Bubble: Corporations Are Willing to Pay for It. 

I am talking about companies that serve corporate social application needs. ...in many of these companies, the technology itself is positively mundane. But the startups grow because they deliver value for which they can charge a premium and get customer loyalty. The customers of these companies don't defect when something shiny and new comes along, because they like the service they're getting."

Jeff also outlines a handful of companies that are building tools to help push-start efforts, and prove the ROI.  It includes my friend Sam Decker's company, Bazaarvoice, and others that are helping companies get their arms around making sense of this new space. 

Every company is--or should be--grappling with making sense of what this all means to their Integrated Marketing efforts.  Some will approach it using existing strategies and tools, with limited results.  Others will ignore it, to their peril.  Hopefully your company is going to stay ahead of the wave.  My prediction is that it's only going to be possible if you're paying attention to what's going on, hiring the right people, partnering with the right firms, and investing appropriately.