I just Graduated!

It was FANTASTIC to finally get my Master's. The graduation became particularly special to me because I gave a speech to 2000+ people representing all the graduating students. I mainly talked about what it means to me to be a 'communication expert'. Below is my speech. Enjoy!

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished faculty, proud parents and friends, and most importantly, the class of 2010!

I am humbled and deeply honored to have been given this opportunity to share this momentous occasion with you, and to thank everyone from the Department of Communication for the incredible help and support they have provided me, for playing such an important role in cultivating great minds, and for challenging and inspiring all of us to take a life journey as communication experts. My education in this program will make a difference in all aspects of my life, and in all corners of the world to which I travel.

We are – all of us graduating today - communication experts. We value the importance of understanding how human communication shapes and guides society; we understand the significance of symbols, meanings, and messages; we know how to inquire into the nature of human communication and to think critically about the ways in which we attempt to influence one another.

But are we really communication experts? Or as Karl Weick asks, “how can I know what I think until I see what I say?” I started to try to answer this question some two years ago, when I first arrived in this country from China, and became a graduate student in the department of communication. The question became particularly relevant when I began to see how easily misunderstandings occur in intercultural communication situations.

During my first semester in Raleigh, for example, I volunteered in a local elementary school where many students and their parents were new immigrants from China and could speak little English. So I became the unofficial interpreter during teacher-parent meetings. One conversation between a teacher and a parent remained in my mind: “Mrs. Li, Johnny refused to answer questions in English today,” the teacher told Mrs. Li, Johnny’s mom. “I am so sorry Miss Gillian,” replied Mrs. Li. “We tried our best, but it is very difficult for us to help our child improve English. I really appreciate everything you have done to help him.” As I translated, I tried to reassure Miss Gillian, the teacher, that this is all Johnny’s mom had said - or ‘had to say’.

I regret not telling Miss Gillian then that the Chinese mom was not shying away from her responsibility to have her son be better prepared. Instead, as is the custom in much of Asia, she was trying to pay the highest respect to the teacher. From the perspective of Johnny’s mother, the authority of an educator is to be esteemed, not interfered with. The mother did not want to interfere with the teacher’s relationship with Johnny.

I also regret not telling Mrs. Li that a better way to show respect to a teacher in American culture is to proactively work with that teacher - to create a collaborative relationship in order to help the child improve.

What I learned from that intercultural interaction is how important it is to know something about how communication works – how important it is not only to facilitate the flow of information, but also to facilitate understanding and trust.

This kind of knowledge about human communication also applies to communication in workplace. In my experience as a marketing communication intern in a Raleigh-based public relations agency – and, more specifically, in my efforts to assist local technology companies develop business contacts in Asia and Europe -- the most critical question I have always needed to answer is: “How can we ensure that other markets and cultures trust our clients enough to cooperate with them?”

I am pretty sure we all have similar stories and face similar challenges. I want the graduating students today to know that, as communication experts, we are all helping people learn and trust each other; we are shaping the way the world see things; we have the knowledge and the ability to connect the globe as a whole.

In China, we have an idiom called 抛砖引玉- you throw out a few bricks, hoping that some fine jewelry or jade will follow, or you offer some commonplace remarks, in hope to inspire valuable opinions from others. So what I’ve said are my bricks, and I do hope you have the jade in your mind as a communication expert. Let’s start our great adventure, and good luck!

Relationship Maintenance Strategies on Chinese Fortune 500 Company Web Sites

This is a PowerPoint summary of a semester-long research project I completed with two fellow graduate students Chaofan Wu, and Jing Zhao. Enjoy! Let me know if you'd want to read the 34-page paper! I'll make sure that I email a copy.

Relationship Maintenance Strategies On Chinese Fortune 500 Company Websites May 7 2010

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iRlease: the Social Media Press Release

The social media community (bloggers, podcasters, online forum participants, Facebook users, etc.) is not a big fan of old school news/press releases in which companies issue news about themselves, usually only from the marketing and/or sales point of view, in a manner of one-way communication.

The social media community demands news/press releases to prioritize values to viewers without trying to directly promote or sell. Thus, the releases should be communicative, interactive, educational, inspiring and sharing.

That's where social media press release (SMR) comes into play. It takes into consideration their particular demands for information. In nature, it's a two-way dialogue that the readers can engage in. Some of the characteristics of SMR are --

1. Headline is optimized for search.
2. Formatting is attractive.
3. Has a precise to-the-point writing style.
4. Includes how-to information to guide and help readers.

In fact, Tod Defren from Shift Communications has introduced the first-ever template of the social media press release in 2006 and the social media press release template version 1.5 in 2008. Some other very helpful FREE resources regarding this topic include-

1. PitchEngine offers a full suite of Web 2.0 tools for PR professionals and journalists (i.e. links to your social network profiles, video and audio capabilities, etc…). Readers may opt to receive a release on any social networks they belong to.

2. Pressitt is a free service that allows you to create, publish and share your news to an online, socially connected audience.

Like any other communication approaches in the era of Web 2.0, SMR is about telling good stories, and having good conversations with the key publics to establish meaningful connections. I'd like to hear your thoughts concerning SMR. Thanks!

Do's and Don'ts in Blogger Relations

Nowadays, much news is generated and disseminated from the blogosphere. According to comScore, there are more than 77 million blog visitors in the U.S., a number greater than the total audience of Facebook or MySpace. While some of these visits are casual or entertainment-oriented, 50% of all readers report that blogs influence their purchase decisions, and the majority report that online reviews are often more helpful than speaking with a sales associate.

With such a captive blog audience, organizations need to be ready to cultivate positive relationship with the relevant bloggers to interact on content, image and influence. I've come up with a very short list of do's and don'ts when organizations approach and communicate with bloggers.

Don'ts --
1. Don't spam bloggers with irrelevant information to influence stories.
It’s easy for bloggers to spot who reads them and who doesn’t, and guess who gets the welcome?

2. Don't try to pay to get your products/service favorably blogged.
90% of bloggers claim that they talk about brands in an unpaid manner. Exchanging content for cash is not widely accepted. Tapping into this existing behavior is really important.

Do's --
1. Know your bloggers, and know them really well.
Dedicating time to read and interact with the target blogs. Think in their shoes; help make their work easier; be the kind of blog participants you wish to have with your own blog.

2. Respect bloggers' decisions.
If your target bloggers decide not to review your products, you'll need to be able to respect the decision and continue cultivating relationship with them. After all, the power of the blogosphere lies in its truth and authenticity - bloggers' decisions are part of it, so embrace it.

What do you think organizations should/can (not) do in terms of blogger relations?

Questions, Variables & Meseaurement of Social Media

Be aware! This post will show how much the comprehensive exam I had weeks ago is still haunting me. :)

So this week, I started to think about how to measure the value of social media, and I couldn't help thinking about operationalization, that is, to specify the measurement on variables in relation to a concept.

The concept is obviously social media. Variables are multiple depending on what questions you've asked. You may ask what is the increase in traffic to the organization's web site with the implementation of social media; or you may ask how is the interaction going between the social media users and you; or you may directly ask what is the sales driven by the social media. Other variables may include and are not limited to attention, retention, perception, engagement, etc.

With different questions, your inquiry will look much different. Some more qualitative, and others more quantitative. Various measurement tools are attached to both approaches.

Qualitative
Perhaps you want to know something about the reputation of your business/product/service, the ongoing conversations, and customer relationship. You may ask-

"Do we have a voice in the conversation about our product/service/overall industry?"
"How is our voice different from our competitors?"
"Are we making monologue or having a dialogue with our key publics?"

In-depth exploration and human analysis are involved to catch interaction and competition, and get answers to this kind of questions. Also, tools such as Sentiment analysis and opinion tracking may be used to get a picture about the conversation.

Quantitative
If your questions mainly address numbers, ROI, sales, profits, traffic, SEO ranking, you may take a more quantitative approach. Tools such as Google Analytics and Feedburner can help analyze blog traffic, subscriber count, keyword optimization, etc. I recommend this article if you want to learn how to use some of the most advanced tools and metrics. Also, for reference, this article introduces more than 50 tools designed to track traffic.

The key takeaway is that organizations need to ask clear questions, specify variables before they get down to choosing tools and metrics to measure social media successes.

Inform CEOs: Social Media ROI is Measurable!

This Wednesday I attended the Triangle Game Conference which featured a panel discussion on the use of social media for gaming companies. While expressing the passion for social media, the panel of investors and CEOs expressed concerns over the use of social media to market and promote products, a reason being lack of measurement on success, with success majorly perceived as return on investment, or ROI.

This tells me several things. First, in order to successfully including social media in the communication strategy, businesses need to be able to determine whether or not a social media program is moving products or making impacts. Second, the management tends to think that social media ROI is not measurable at the monetary level. Third, the burden of education and operationalization is on us communication professionals. We need to help the dominant coalition understand the value of social media by clarifying the fact that social media success, even when it is defined as ROI, is measurable, and below are a few initial thoughts on how to do that-

1. Well communicate goals and objectives.
It is important to touch base with the management what should be realized with the implementation of a social media program. Is the investment expected to be returned by higher sales, more profits, more leads or otherwise better retention? Knowing what needs to be quantified is the first step to proving a social media strategy is beneficial to businesses. Choosing the appropriate tools to quantify successes though, is another topic I'd like to discuss with my next blog.

2. Measure baseline.
To demonstrate ROI, it is essential to let the number speak. That's how statistic-based metrics comes into play. To ensure the dominant coalition see how much difference the social media makes for the business, a before/after picture needs to be depicted. Thus, we need to not only measure the gain after social media is introduced, but also where the business currently stands at- what is the sales now, how much customer attention we are getting now, etc.

3. Well translate the data.
It is better to provide to decision makers data-driven insights than to provide raw data. Explain with your data how social media help accomplish goals and objectives. For instance, if your ultimate goal is to increase sales, it is important to explicate the correlation between social media use and increased sales with your data- how much more traffic is driven to the e-commerce site after a new Facebook message or new Tweet, and how much increase in sales do you see with that extra traffic?

I believe in the value of having open discussion about how to best measure social media impacts. Ultimately, it is important to let key decision makers see such impacts can be measured beyond ROI. But I tend to believe ROI will always be on their mind, so we can figure out ways to start from there.

Facebook vs. Twitter: Which is Better for What?

Facebook and Twitter, both are too important to miss when it comes to social media marketing communication. However, when we need to closely strategize when to use which, an essential question would be: Facebook or Twitter? Which is better for what? That is to say, which social media platform offers the best strategies for the specialized needs of business, market and the key publics?

A recent analysis by Irbtrax may help answer the question. The highly triangulated study compares social media marketing strategy benefits of Facebook verse Twitter. Results are summarized as below.

Facebook wins in these areas-
1. More effective in driving traffic;
2. Better social media intimacy, or interactivity;
3. Direct Internet communication from a client contact and human resources management perspective;
4. A better platform for Business to Consumer marketing.

Twitter wins in these areas-
1. Better for viral marketing;
2. More effective in market research and trend identification;
3. A better platform for Business to Business marketing.

I think the comparison analysis is very interesting and useful, especially when social media choices are made for a marketing communication project with specific objectives, timetables, budgets and evaluation criteria. After all, the desired mutually beneficial relationship needs to be cultivated using the most appropriate tool. It's important that we understand each tool we have.

Job Seeking 2.0: Interactive Self-Branding

Social media is penetrating to all corners of life, including job seeking. Today, a plain CV may not be your only choice when you get down to introducing yourselves to prospective employers. With web sites such as VirtualCV and Ning, job seekers are able to provide richer information such as self-introduction videos, hyperlinks to references, images, charts, and other portfolio documents. (Please go here to take a look at a sample VirtualCV resume.) These web sites also provide networking resources to interact with employers, and users can control who has access to view their online resumes.

One important idea underlying these web sites is self-branding- instead of telling what they can do (in plain text), job seekers now showcase what's been done in order to demonstrate what they can do. The technologies enable job seekers to tell stories, make presentations, and draw pictures of themselves for potential employers, giving them a clearer feel of the "persona". Another big plus about these web sites is that it will help improve your Google ranking, adding more weight to your personal brand.

With almost all technologies being double-edged swords, it can be argued that VirtualCV and Ning have potential down sides for job seekers and their self-branding. In my opinion, disadvantages may include- information overload, challenges of branding with multimedia (for example, people need to know how to speak properly in front of a camera in order to make a good self-introduction video), keeping a balance between being completely open with one's online resume and being highly selectively open (after all, you don't want to be transparent to everyone with your professional information, and at the same time, you do need to direct useful traffic to view it). I'm curious to know your opinions about online job seeking, self-branding and pros and cons of these web sites.

SNS China: What Can You Do When Everyone is Playing?

The major function of SNS, or social networking sites, is pretty self-explanatory: networking, and building and reflecting social relations. In China, where internet is considered as an entertainment highway for some 340 million web users, SNS has two main focuses- networking and entertainment.

According to a 2009 research by iResearch, China's top market research firm specializing in customer behavior in internet media, e-commerce and online games, 48.6% of SNS users in China use SNS to keep in touch with old friends, and 32.2% of them use SNS for entertainment, more specifically, playing casual/webpage/interactive games provided as SNS applications.

To be more specific, many college students and young white collar employees (two most important demographic groups of SNS population in China) kill time by selling SNS friends for virtual money, stealing each others' vegetables in the SNS farms (extreme cases involve people setting up spreadsheet for effective farm stealing!), 0r competing for virtual parking spot. They don't care to add a company/brand as friends; they don't pay attention to organizations on SNS; they just want to have fun with mostly people they know, which brings a question for organizations aiming to build relationships on SNS- do we still have a shot?



The answer is yes. Entertainment elements highlighted on Chinese SNS give a lot of potential to interactive marketing communication. Organizations may think in way: if it is hard to be invited to play a game and get entertained with SNS users who happen to be their key audience, it is easier to be part of the virtual game and help your audience realize the real value of the brands. Citroën China successfully penetrated into the popular SNS game of competing for parking spots. The player who earned the msot virtual money can win a real car. Players interact with the brand in this most played SNS game in osmosis. Though Citroen is not "friended", it has successfully got into many SNS social circles. This case tells us that creative and entertaining measures need to be sought to communicate with key publics on SNS in China... perhaps also elsewhere- what do you think?

Location-Aware Text Messaging

Text-messaging is getting more and more location aware. Mobile phones influence how we interact with space when mobile interfaces “know” their location. By being able to connect to satellites, cell phone towers or wireless routers, mobile devices acquire geospatial coordinates which allow users to access location-based information about that space and to find other users in the surroundings, depending on their relative distance to one another. The trend, which Dr. Silva describes as "network locality" (being connected to a network with local information embedded) can be found in corners of lives. I'd like to bring to you an application in China.

Municipal governments in China often utilizes the database that contains all mobile phone numbers, sets up a public text messaging terminal and sends one-to-all SMS for various administrative purposes. During the Beijing Olympics, the Beijing municipal government frequently sent messages to all mobile users within the network of Beijing, notifying them of temporary transportation issues. Also, mobile phone users who take an intercity trip in China will receive automatic text messages as soon as they cross a city limit (departing one city and entering another). The text messages welcome them to the new city and provide local information such as famous places of interest, weather forecast, and accommodation hotlines. The government-initiated one-to-all text messaging can be seen as a unique appropriation of the Chinese society because on the one hand, it is enabled and complies with the centralized authority, and on the other, it reflects the cultural orientation of collectivism that bases decision-making on what is best for a group.

I believe location aware text messaging is a promising application not only for government initiated public administration. Welcome text message travelers receive as they reach new cities benefit local commerce, tourism and the general city branding. I'd like to hear your thoughts about the possible organizational use of location aware text messaging. Thanks!


P.S. Above is an example of the possibilities of being location smart for organizations. Mobile phone users who pass by the billboard can scan the QR code (something similar as bar code but more advanced) on the billboard with their mobile phone and access a website embedded. Instead of sending text messages to everyone, you can let others go to you.

Good Medicine Tastes Bitter, Like Negative Online Reviews

"Come on, good medicine tastes bitter," whenever my mom made me take the Chinese medicine when I was a kid falling sick, she would say this Chinese saying to me. Until today, I still firmly believe that the good medicine, a.k.a the brown-ish liquid slowly cooked from all kinds of herbs with bizarre names, is, and is going to be the bitterest thing I've ever had!

Actually, there is another part of the saying: "Good medicine tastes bitter; sincere advice jar on ear." Well, I am not sure if all sincere advice has to sound jarring, but I guess it certainly applies to those negative online customer reviews that may sound really unpleasant to business owners and product/service providers.

Of course, nobody enjoys hearing criticism. It hurts feelings. In terms of online reviews, while good reviews are considered to be reputation boosters, bad ones are usually not- they are discouraging, disappointing and uninviting. But let's face it, although everyone wants to have, and only have customers that put the sweetest words about their most satisfactory five-star experience ever, many would use the online review service to let others know they are not happy or not sure about whatever they have received from organizations reviewed. Oops, jarring words. How would they ever help?

First of all, they do help. Instead of thinking about how to fire back, how to erase bad words, or how to bribe happy patrons to write good reviews, businesses need to have the right attitudes toward negative online customer reviews- they can hep, and they do help! Here's how-

1. Helping Customer Communication
According to a 2009 Nielson report, 90% consumers surveyed trust recommendations from people they know, and 70% trust consumer opinions posted online while 70% trust brand websites. Your customers want to listen to what fellow customers have to say about you, exactly as much as they want to hear what you say about yourself. Your customers would appreciate you facilitating authentic and transparent communication among them. That customer review system is just too important not to be provided. Besides, 87% of consumers tend to write reviews when they have positive things to say, which means opening the door to reviews helps you to have probably more good reviews.

2. Increasing Sales & Decreasing Cost
Many cases have taught us that things with customer reviews (positive or negative) sell better than those without. A good way to look at the benefit of bad reviews is through this formula I learned in my marketing class back in collge-

Satisfaction = Experience / Expectation

This means, bad reviews help decrease psychological expectations, and thus increase the chance of satisfaction. When weaknesses of products are exposed through bad reviews, customers are likely to have a more realistic expectation, which can reduce the number of complaints or returns.

3. Free Customer Insight Research
You get to know what customers don't like. Is it the product, or the pricing, or the promotion, or the competition... Those good or bad words about you are your first-hand customer insights, and the best part- this valuable information is completely free!!! With it, you can stop guestimating, and get to improving things. Please don't ignore the jarring words. Listen and learn! Good medicine is bitter, but it heals.

Organizations: Ready for Wiki?

My internship projects at a PR agency handle business development for three gaming technology clients, two of which have their own Wikipedia entries. The third client, a fairly new game artificial intelligence company from Germany does not. Our project team thought it was an issue while many competitors have presence on Wikipedia. "Why wasn't it there though?" I had this question. The computer-science-professor-turned CEO was very technology savvy; the company embraces social media- it's on Linkedin, Twitter, Youtube and Facebook; so, why isn't it on Wikipedia?

Then the project with this company got a major focus away from social media use, so my question hasn't got answered yet, but below are some possibilities when an organization is not Wikipedia ready:

1. Not 'Notable' Enough

Wikipedia has a special rule on notability- For a topic to be considered worthy of its own article, it must be considered “worthy of note”. In the case of organizations and companies:

"An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable."

It is obvious that Wikipedia emphasizes the importance of verifiable, non-editorialized content for organization entries. Thus, press releases issued by the organization itself are not considered a credible resource. Organizations need to include several external references and cite as much as possible in the entry, which can be quite a challenge for small start-ups.

2. Not the Best Platform

Some wiki platforms can handle robust file types, while others can only support text or HTML files. If organizations need to use complex file formats, Wikipedia may not be the best choice. Also, since types of wiki are very diverse and specified, Wikipedia as the general one, may not be the best wiki that meets users' objectives. For example, the game artificial intelligence discipline actually has its own professional wiki.

3. No Time Taking Care of it

It takes efforts to manage the use of wiki. Constant monitoring, editing, and maintenance are required, which again can be quite a challenge for smaller-sized start-ups.

In sum, though having presence on Wiki, or specifically Wikipedia is tempting, organizations need to self-check readiness- what are the needs, possibilities, pros and cons, etc.

Listening & Making: Exploring Two-Way Podcasting

Podcasting has been considered more of a one-way communication means as the process of making a podcast usually does not involve opinions from the groundswell. Podcasts are usually created and made available for interested public to download with related technologies.

However, in organizational use of podcasting, it is important to address the needs and wants of the target audience. Making podcast more audience-oriented and interactive would be a great move to engage with viewers/listeners, which would help organizations develope preferred relationships with the target publics by making and using of podcasts. Here, I'd like to introduce a few cases to discuss some possibilities in bringing podcasting, specifically audio podcasting into a two-way communication pattern.

1. Involve audience in the creative process.
Just like magazines have special pages for readers' letters, and blogs have places to leave comments, podcasting programs needs to listen to what the listeners have to say/suggest about the works, and try hard to respond to the criques/suggestions with action. The Royal Airforce Museum in London are giving out lovely Teddy Bears as they are soliciting listeners' suggestions about which celebrity would be most ideal to record the next podcast series. I think this move is very beneficial to the organization-audience relationship established through podcasts. For organizations, it is a great way to understand the preferences of the target audience. It is also a positive message that says organizations care about the feelings and insights of the audience. For audience, this approach transforms the presumption about their duties involving podcasts- they are now not only expected to download and listen to the latest episodes, they are invited to add wit and wisdom to the creation of the episodes they are going to listen to. And, participation is awarded!

2. Get audience to generate their own podcasts.
Another great use of podcasts for organizations is to hold podcast competitions that encourage audience to initiate podcast creation efforts. Basically, organizations set themes and requirements based on which listeners/participants create and submit podcasts. NASA's 21st Century Explorer Program holds an annual podcasting competition. Participants of 2009 were required to record audio podcasts on what they think is NASA's greatest exploration achievement in the past 50 years. Similarly, Little White Earbuds, a website designed for DJs hosts an annual podcasting competion that encourages listeners to submit their mixing works for award consideration. I think organizations that has a mission of informing/educating target publics can do something similar in order to make podcasting experience interactive, though there is a premise- organizations need to have established a fairly good listener base.

Please let me know your thoughts about two-way podcasting. What else do you think would work?

Viral Video Marketing: The 'Midget' Case

So what do we mean exactly by “viral video”? The easiest way to begin is by thinking of its original meaning used in medicine. Viral is something that “spreads and grows.” Viral video is when other people take your created video and willingly share it with others; it spreads out to a larger audience, and when done right, grows in its reach and influence. Viral videos can be a great way for organizations to promote products and services as they are not full of hard sale like traditional commercials. Instead, the biggest priority of viral videos is being fun and entertaining, making the viewing public laugh hard and become willing to share them with others.

The first time I became aware of viral video marketing is by watching an episode of the Celebrity Apprentice 2009. The episode featured a task for both competing teams to create a viral video for the detergent company, ALL, on their new “small and mighty®” detergent brand. The objective was which team could better impress the executives of ALL with their submitted video. Team Athena's video was entitled 'Jesse James Dirty with Midgets'. Here is the video for you to watch-



Actually, both teams thought they should go with midgets in their videos, simply because it was one of the most popular keyword searches for videos on YouTube. “We searched the internet for one of the most-used keywords when searching for viral videos, and ‘midget’ is one of the top 5 words.” Said Melissa Rivers, who was on Team Athena.

It turned out that the executives from ALL hated the video. They complained about the demeaning of the little people, and considered their image to be very “clean” and conservative; not racy or “dirty”. Viral video marketing experts made similar criticism that the video creators made general assumptions about the searched keywords, rather than addressing the specific and unique interest of the target audience/consumers of the product, meaning that they thought moms/housewives wouldn't appreciate watching a video with little people in it.

I think the case touches a very important aspect of viral video production for marketing purposes-

1) Learn the target audience before making a video that you think EVERYONE would find funny. Who is your target audience? What is their demographic? What videos are they watching? What keywords are they searching for? What websites do they frequent? What online communities are they participating in?

2) Learn the expectations of your client before making a video. Are they looking for something edgy with strong appeal to humor, or are they intending to deliver a solemn yet inspiring message?

I'd like to know your thoughts and comments about making/using viral video for marketing.

Social Media: Gaining Executive Support

Social media transforms organizations. However, in the real world, not every organizational leader are Steve Jobs or Twitterpreneurs. To make some executives realize the strategic advantages social media brings to organizations takes efforts. To help them understand it, we PR and social media practitioners need to show to executives how big, dynamic and relevant the groundswell is, and maybe even get the executives into the groundswell. The persuasion would be no easy task, and several things need to be paid attention to.

1. Uncertainty stops executives from acting.
Executives may have already been informed how important and helpful social media is, but lacking first-hand experience of using social media makes them have second thought about implementing a customer centric communication program. Also, they may think what awaits organizations in the groundswell may be an organizational opportunity or threat, creating the impression of uncertainty and out of control with social media. Two things need to be clarified to reduce the anxiety- 1) how is social media transforming the organization in a positive way; 2) a fully developed plan to reassure that social media helps relationship building (maybe by using ROPES model, and including case studies).

2. Approaches should reflect each executive's current level of support.
A scale should be introduced to measure different levels of support. Some executives may be blind about the value of social media. You need to educate them from lesson one. Some executives may be positive toward social media, but may need your help with a specified plan of action. Other executives may be social media enthusiasts, and they'd be your important assets for selling the social media plan to other executives.

3. Be ready to walk a long way for support.
PR practitioners should be prepared to take a long road gaining executive support on embracing social media. Timing (when to approach executives), information (what to present to executives) and manner (how to talk about it with them) all substantially matter, and all takes time. You need to be faithful and persistent in face of all kinds of challenges.

Happy Crowdsourcing!

When talking about embracing the groundswell, Li and Bernoff point out the importance of making customers an integral part of the way an organization innovates. They argue that organizations should be proactive in engaging customers in the product/process improvement to increase the chances of developing and presenting something customers want.

What organizations can do with the new trend are threefold- 1) listen to what customers are saying; 2) keep customers' talks going; 3) proactively ask customers to tell what they think needs to be done.

The third one touches the idea of crowdsourcing which combines "crowd" and "outsourcing". A crowdsourcing is done through an open call to a large group of people (a crowd) asking for contributions. An example using social media is a request made by Luce Foundation Center for American Art on Flickr to have people help with the task of finding a perfect substitute art piece from their online archive to fill display gaps when certain artworks are out on loan (as image below shows).



The "Fill the Gap!" crowdsourcing is very successful. Many people go to posted their selected artworks to fill gaps. They also interact with each other by commenting each others' choices. Eventually, Luce Foundation Center would fill each gap by following people's recommendations (as image below shows- the previous gap filled!).



Two important factors I've learned from this social media based crowdsourcing project are-

1) 'Crowdsourcability': make sure it's something your target publics know, care about, and are willing to participate in;

2) Execution: when great ideas come out from the crowd, adopt them. It's the best way to keep crowdsourcing efforts going.

Please let me know your thoughts about organizational crowdsourcing using social media. Thanks!

Photosharing= Photos + Sharing

How you are going to show whom what pictures?

For organizations, to effectively make a presence and exert impacts on photo sharing sites, they need to do more than uploading pictures, and hard-selling information/product/service with the pictures. An essential part of successful organizational photo sharing is... sharing.

With sharing, the logic is actually quite simple- those photos should not only be yours; they should also be your viewers', which means something within/about your photos can be felt, recognized, liked, and remembered by the target publics. Such emotional connections will lead them to give their inputs on the community (by commenting photos, or even sharing their photos), and become more involved with the organization (by joining your photo sharing groups and actively participating in communication).

Throughout many success cases, two aspects are consistently crucial with organizational use of photo sharing.

1. Helpfulness is valued in photo sharing, too.
Nikon Digital learning Center on Flickr is popular because of helpful photo taking tutorials and advices on member-uploaded photos given among group members (mostly photography enthusiasts) and by photography professionals hired by Nikon. Also, Nikon's Flickr has well served a large number of frequent Flickr users who care about quality of photos they take.

2. Participatibility is key.
Every month, Mass MoCA's Flickr Finds gives themes to its Flickr group members to take photos on. The January 2010 Flickr Finds featured photos capturing a touch of blue. Best photos were picked out and then put on the Mass MoCA blog (below are some of them).





Mass MoCA's Flickr has become very popular, as again, with its very interesting participatory Flickr activities, it manages to engage photography enthusiasts- a demographic factor too important to miss out on for using Flickr.

I'd like to hear your thoughts about what elements are important for organizations to secure the sharing in photo sharing!

Weibo, Scarf, and Microblogging

Since Day One of microblogging, many questions have been raised about current and potential organizational usage, a major one being how can organizations achieve two-way symmetrical communication when using microblogging? I want to share a success story of VANCL, an online fashion retailer in China, as its microblogging strategies have gained many thumbs-up from PR and marketing professionals.

In 2009, Sina.com, one of the biggest online portals in China launched a microblogging service called Sina Weibo (Sina Microblogging). Sina cleverly punned on the likeness of “wēi bó” (microblogging) and “wéi bó” (scarf) in Chinese pronunciation. Thus, instead of asking people “have you microblogged today?” Sina asks “got your scarf today?” The naming created a buzz, and attracted thousands of netizens to come and get their scarves.

VANCL were among the first companies on Weibo. Their first updates were about giving free VANCL scarves to new followers. Relevant and fun, the campaign helped VANCL gain initial attention and followership. Many of VANCL’s updates later were also about freebies and bargains- giving gifts, time-limited ￥1 purchase for some ￥888 apparel for followers who leave comments the earliest, etc.

But that was not all. Besides good at giving away scarves, VANCL also made efforts to connect with followers/consumers emotionally. What they did included:
- Sharing designers’ new creative ideas for new seasons
- Sharing photos of office, studios, team activities and energetic friendly looking new VANCL employees
- Answering followers’ questions in a timely manner
- Asking for and rewarding design suggestions
- Recruiting catalog models
- Reminding people to dress warm and travel safe for Chinese New Year.

Several good lessons could be learned from VANCL on organizational usage of microblogging to interact with key audience in dialogues and interactions:

1. Find a good bonding point between your organization and the microblog. For VANCL, it was on Weibo because its target consumers (young people in the early years of career who like to shop online) are comfortable with microblogging. What makes the reason for your organization to be on Twitter?

2. Introduce yourself. Tell organizational stories. Help people know what you do and what you believe. Build emotional ties.

3. Listen and be responsive. Microblogging is not another place to put news and news releases. It enables organizations to directly communicate/interact with the audience. Value their feedback by ingratiating and responding it on time.

4. Prepare incentive packages to encourage participation. Everyone can use a giveaway or a few coupons, so give a wéi bó (scarf) for their “wēi bó” (microblogging)!

A Brainstorming Exercise for Organization Vlogging

As an owner of a very popular vlog, Philip DeFranco has actually made a vlog on how to make a popular vlog.



In summary, DeFranco mentioned (in an entertaining manner of speaking) three important elements of a vlog-

1. Has a theme/themes a vlogger is passionate about;
2. Gives interesting/innovative input;
3. Solicits audience feedback.

All these elements are actually applicable and critical to organizations’ vlogs, too. First, a theme sets the tone for the vlog and the perception of the organization in the vlog audience’s eye. Second, interesting input is the key to identifying with the audience. Jason Calacanis, enabler of the vlogging sensation Mahalo Vlog Idol believes that a great corporate vlog needs to be: a. entertaining, and b. informative, and that the order is important. Lastly, vlog, as a form of social media, needs to be interactive and participatory. Philip DeFranco solicited feedback from other vloggers by promising to publicize the best vlogs; Blendtec invited the audience to tell them what to blend next time. In essence, vloggers need to have ways to ensure viewers that feedback is expected and worthwhile.

So, how about some brainstorming exercise for organization vlogging? It only takes two steps-

1. Name an organization you want to work for (ideally or realistically);
2. Help the organization come up with a theme for a vlog.

Toyota’s Hibernating Blog

Once bitten, twice shy.

To owners of 8.1 million Toyota vehicles worldwide, this idiom has become increasingly relevant. A massive recall due to a sticking accelerator problem has made a substantial number of loyal Toyota customers reevaluate the reliability of their Toyota cars as well as the maker of them.

Toyota has, gradually, implemented crisis communication programs (here’s a timeline regarding Toyota’s responses to the incident). Social media wise, Toyota has, again gradually, addressed issues on Youtube, Facebook fan page and Twitter. But with this post, I’d like to direct your attention to an official Toyota blog that is fast asleep during a whole winter of crises.

Our Point of View is a blog written by Toyota associates that aims to “explore current issues in the automotive industry”. A frequent author is Irv Miller, Toyota’s VP of Environmental and Public Affairs. The first post was written in January 2008, and the last in December 2009. As the tag cloud indicates, the blog makes the most effort to inform/educate/promote “hybrid”, “Prius”, and “Venza”. It’s interesting that though tags of “recall” and “recalls” are listed in the tag cloud, they don’t link to any related posts.

Also as said, the blog stopped being updated since December 2009 when the floor mat problem started to hugely affect the carmaker’s reputation and revenues. Information related to the most recent recalls is not available on the blog; nor is a hyperlink to Toyota’s official recall website. The last post has generated 205 comments, but none of them were responded. Speculations, anger, and disappointment were everywhere yet unheeded-

“You asked for it..You got it Toyota”

“The problem is not the pedal but the electronics. Toyota needs to come clean and tell us the real problem. And then fix it.”

“Be a company of integrity, if there is a problem admit there is a problem, and fix the problem. be a company of integrity, honesty, open communication and be responsible and do your part, so step up to the plate.”

……

I feel that since Toyota has decided to open a blog in the first place to directly communicate with its stakeholders, it needs to carry on the communication, and make efforts to turn the hatred into discussions- before the place becomes a recycle bin of hatred and negativity.

I’d like to hear your opinions on Toyota’s hibernating blog. Do you think they have stopped updating the blog for a reason? Or do you think the carmaker needs to wake up the blog, and manage the crisis through frequent and genuine communication with the blog readers?

B2B Social Media: Putting a Human Touch

B2B, or business-to-business, describes commerce transactions between businesses (e.x. between a manufacture and a wholesaler) as opposed to B2C (business-to-Consumers) or B2G (business-to-government).

You may wonder why I am writing on this topic since I’ve decided to focus more on consumers in this blog. Well, the point I am trying to make with this post is that we may treat B2B more like B2C when implementing social media efforts.

As Li and Bernoff point out, it’s important to look at the target audience of B2B not only as businesses (organizations), but also as businesspeople (contact points representing the organizations). This concept is crucial when a business approaches another business using social media- you cannot connect, communicate, and share ideas with a business, but the people doing the business.

My experience as a marketing communication intern in a Raleigh-based PR agency has helped me understand the importance of putting human touch to B2B. I have worked on three B2B projects using social media to help our gaming technology clients (game engine, game localization, and game artificial intelligence) develop and maintain relationships with such businesses as game developers, game publishers, and game education institutes. We make efforts to reach them, impress them, and make connections with them, so as to create business opportunities for our clients.

In retrospect, the critical part of our work always involves learning and connecting with the key people in the businesses. For example, we do regularly email campaigns for a game engine client to inform game publishers of the technology. We customized campaigns when reaching various key decision makers. For CTOs and chief programmers, we inserted video demos in the email, and included the link to the online community where they could discuss technical details with the engineers from our client side. The strategy was implemented based on the fact that management on the technology side contribute to the decision making by making critical judgment of advantages and disadvantages of technology, so they need to know what kind of technology is available here. Whereas for CEOs and CFOs, they go to trade shows and they care about price, value and budget. Thus we reach them with the help of Salesforce event management function- before major trade shows, they would receive emails that inform them of our client’s competitive edge (addressing past successful titles of similar genres developed with the technology, price-performance ratio, etc.), plus a chance for a coffee together in the upcoming trade show.

In a word, knowing who you are communicating with is essential to B2B social media practices. Are they more of spectators than critics? Would they appreciate an opportunity to create contents? Or maybe they are fine as long as they can make comments, or subscribe to things, or share things? Strategies are built on the people, so start to learn them.

Don’t be Evil… Says Who?

My previous blog about Pizza Hut’s viral marketing through social media in China brought Paromita and I into a very interesting discussion about ethics of social media marketing. Was it unethical of Pizza Hut not to disclose that it was the creator of the original post? If you were on the team that strategized and implemented this campaign, knowing that self-disclosure was not essential with the local law and industry regulations, plus absolutely tempted by the fact that the campaign would sell much better if “astroturfed”, what would you do? Where would you place ethics for an organization such as a corporation? What would be your priority, and at the same time, how would you define your bottom line financially and ethically?

How I wish there were a universal ruler that measures ethics, but after all, life is never a black-and-white, good-or-bad dichotomy. In the business world, ethics is a challenging issue full of gray areas, entangled with variables. Yet, for organizations, attempts must be made to answer these questions, because publics of interest care to know what kind of player you are in the market before they decide what kind of relationship they want to have with you. To help with the thoughts, I’d like to share Google’s word about ethics.

“Don’t be evil,”

says Google in their organizational philosophy. As a technology/service provider that integrates information, Google believes that it is unethical, evil to manipulate information. This ethics standard can be seen as an underlying motive of Google’s recent statement about leaving China (by closing its google.cn domain) when Gmail accounts of several pro-democracy dissidents’ were censored and hacked. While many thought it was a morally advantageous excuse to shut a poorly performing line of service (google.cn’s market share has been disappointing), many believed Google was a hero. As the picture below shows, some people even presented bouquets (as a way to say goodbye to the beloved) to Google’s Beijing office when the announcement was made.



I tend to believe that Google’s ethical practice in China has largely combined interest of itself and the key publics. Google’s revenues rely on a stable service that reflects natural unmanipulated information flow, which serves as a legitimate reason for Google to stick to the ethical standard. More importantly, Google’s key publics (users, investors, the press, etc.) expect to see consistent execution of “don’t be evil”, even when it means making clear the core values against the "Great Firewall of China" (Government PR efforts are much needed after that though.) It reassures them that Google is trustworthy, protects the brand, and in the long run, it helps cultivate the Chinese market. Thus, what Google did in China was both a moral bottom line and a moral high ground for its stakeholders and itself.

What I’ve learned from this incident is that, for organizations, ethics can be and should be strategic. Ethic standards should direct organizations to developing positive relationships with their key publics. Organizations need to decide the ethical DOs and DON’Ts in a big picture thinking about long term consequences, and in the eye of the publics on whom an organization's success or failure depends.

Eat up Pizza Hut

I’d like to share a story about Pizza Hut in China, but before I do, I’d give some background information: 1) with many remarkable efforts, Pizza Hut has successfully upmarketed itself in China. It is relatively expensive, but offers happy exotic dining experience. Therefore it is typical to find young couples going on a date or celebrating Valentine’s in Pizza Hut (to get a feel of its branding strategy and target consumers in China, here are some commercials of Pizza Hut China); 2) on its menu, there is this all-you-can-eat fruit salad. It is self-served, comes with a tiny bowl, can be fetched from the salad bar only once, and costs ￥30 which is not inexpensive at all considering its regular amount.

Anyway, some three years ago, a post titled “How to Eat up Pizza Hut” became extremely popular and got forwarded onto thousands of discussion forums, blogs and SNSs in China. In fact, a search of the title in Chinese still generates 48,300 exact results now.

The post begins by complaining that Pizza Hut’s all-you-can-eat fruit salad is ridiculously expensive. Then it gives detailed instructions on how to take steps to pile up the salad really high so as to maximize the amount. Here are some crazy pictures from the post-







So the post became sensationally viral, and everyone after reading the post wanted to go and try eat up Pizza Hut. It wasn’t learned until last year that the one that called on eating up Pizza Hut was Pizza Hut itself.

In my opinion, the most amazing part of this social media campaign is that NOBODY, for two years, felt it was a campaign! People went to Pizza Hut out of curiosity. They believed it was one of them that had sent the original message.

Three lessons I’ve learned from Pizza Hut:

Research Comes First.
Pizza Hut obviously had learned what held their consumers back from buying the yummy salad (i.e., the price/amount ratio). When it becomes so tempting to just use the social media to make a buzz (as if such a function were automatic), it is important to make sure that you have carefully listened to and thoroughly understood your consumers.

Choose the Right Channel.
Being able to differentiate various social media technologies and employ them appropriately is also crucial. Pizza Hut ‘made the wave’ (thanks everyone for liking the metaphor!) through discussion forums, blogs and SNS as these social media spread entertaining contents very rapidly, and congregate the most young audience among whom many are Pizza Hut’s target consumers.

It’s a Conversation.
Social media is about communication, connecting, and sharing. Thus, instead of treating it as a one-way marketing channel and directly pushing messages across the board, organizations need to engage in conversations with the audience. Like the post by Pizza Hut, it encourages people to come with ideas of how to pile up the salad higher. In response, many netizens posted their Pizza Hut triumphs. Some even posted salad piling structural charts to teach people how to build a stable salad foundation! The orange bars in the second chart were supposed to mean carrot sticks :)





FYI, the campaign was so successful that recently Pizza Hut China had to take all-you-can-eat fruit salad off the menu. Pizza Hut is happily eaten up.