Disqus - Latest Comments for barryhurd

Re: Social Media Should Not be Housed. No One Owns it.

barryhurd — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:47:05 -0000

LoL, I'll give it that the Studio D team at Wag Ed may not be as PR oriented as the rest of the team, but falling into the communication category we may as well just say PR firms = Communication = Social Media = Everything. :)

Isn't that the core problem? That larger firms and businesses in general are trying to discard specialty in favor changing opportunities?

I do agree that communications is at the core of business, but that seems to be driven by the most talented communicator (which may be at the top of the totem or the bottom)

I think that a real issue is that we are seeing digital adopters who are also charismatic, creative and insightful communicators that are redefining a high-value business asset and shifting themselves into new silos/categories that didn't exist five years ago.

Take all this into account, combine it with overlapping geographic and cultural issues... and you have a good recipe for a whole lot of chaos.

Re: Social Media Should Not be Housed. No One Owns it.

barryhurd — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:10:07 -0000

I wonder though: isn't it a strange statement coming from a PR professional saying "social media should not be housed" ?

The underlying commitment to change the fundamentally broken business processes is a painfully apparent issue, but how are PR firms going to migrate the huge shift in communication trends that are at heart of the social media evolution?

Without the silos in place to control the control freaks, social media becomes very efficient at asking professionals to restructure how business is done. The issue isn't really who controls it or what silo it exists within, but convincing silo "stakeholders" that they don't exist anymore.

Re: New FTC Rule Helps Improve Social Media & Travel Reviews

barryhurd — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 17:50:56 -0000

This is really a poorly worded update to the FTC rules. Disclosure can happen nearly anywhere, so a public profile saying "John Doe is a paid agent for company ABC" on a Linkedin account or company page would meet the requirement.

Likewise, it doesn't offer that much protection as the disclosure could be placed in an area that is widely public yes has no visible search engine presence (for instance, a community site or non-indexed page on a corporate site.) that makes finding the information rather difficult to the common web user.

Unless the FTC commits to some form of association or professional ID number (for sake of tracking posts / comments and indexing them) then the disclosure also becomes painful in video media, as we will begin to see flash screens that have 300 disclosures in five seconds (which gives me a bad flashback to cigarette and pharma commercials....)

Re: Acxiom Relevance-X Social

barryhurd — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:56:02 -0000

The Acxiom product sounds more like fluffy vaporware... I agree the detail on the Acxiom site has always been vague.

If you find out it has any real meat to it, let us know. I have a bunch of clients who would love to use a good data product in the social media space.

Re: Are Social Media Reports Doing More Harm Than Good?

barryhurd — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 23:03:38 -0000

I agree with you entirely Jacob. Last week I collected some of the top reports into an article (Forrester, Wave 3&4, Influencedb, 360i, and Razorfish)

Currently I have roughly 100+ reports on my hard drive. Each one is a little different. Each one tries to redefine something (so they can lay claim to coining a phrase.) Each one is of varying reach and of questionable accuracy (sometimes groups as small as 40 in the sample set.)

The worse part is that there are then multiple "executive" oriented firms and organizations that support these whacky channel statements made by social media partners/vendors. In many cases, such firms and organizations have no verifiable experience in social media and they are desperately trying to keep a budget that is vanishing.

Keep up the good insights,

~Barry Hurd

Re: Do Thought Leaders Need To Be Practioners?

barryhurd — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:41:41 -0000

I join this a bit late, but throw in my spare change.

Thought leaders are hard to define in any space, especially one that touches across large entities. I have several international clients, as well as several "competitors" that have utilized my skills.

Since I do audit and competitive intelligence work with a social media focus, it is very easy to realize that I sign non-disclosure agreements on a daily basis. In some cases I don't find out anything. In other cases I find twenty million dollar client lists online (ouch.)

On the flipside- I contribute a lot of insight on my blog, which a lot of PR and University folk stop by and even use for coursework (the first request I received for coursework quotation made me feel like an uber-geek)

On the other hand, there are A LOT of those imposters out there who know how to game a system for simple numbers... who cares if you have 50k followers? (Laughingly, I tried keeping my follower count under 1000 for the longest time because of the methodology I had for using it)

On a client basis, it is also hard to define what makes or breaks the model of being proficient/expert with social media. I routinely audit companies that have been "suckered" by top firms or who have done something technically simple, but incredibly costly. In some cases the "expert" did such a good job building a relationship and greasing the gears that the client was "happy" even though the results were non-existent.

Some examples:

A top ten clothing retailer who paid $100k for a Facebook app that had 72 retail users.
A top ten home builder who had paid over $500k in Google PPC, but was never provided an ROI / conversion column six month into the campaign
A top one-hundred traffic site that had accidentally added "no index" to it robots.txt file (ouch)

I come back and then readdress the question: "Does a thought leader need to be a practitioner?"

Yes. Absolutely.

Otherwise the "thought leader" is a salesperson, not a thought leader. There are SO MANY people spitting out random thoughts here and there, that 1 person out of 1000 will be correct about the future. Does this make them right? a thought leader? a guru? No... it just makes them lucky.

We could compare the same idea to all the stock market wackos who claim they predicted X years in advance. If 95% of your predictions and thoughts are incorrect, the other 5% is just normal luck (not insight or thought leading)

In your comparison to baseball, there may be a difference in theory of hitting the ball and actually swinging at it- but a thought-leader is more comparable to the superstar on the team, instead of the superstar coach.

If we apply ideas of general management to social media, every corporate director could claim they have "social media expertise" - you can read more about my thoughts on defining social media expertise on this article I wrote back in March http://ow.ly/iw7Y

Re: Moving beyond social media metrics to business outcomes

barryhurd — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:25:13 -0000

Love the question and insight Dirk.

I think this evolution in thinking is simply where most went wrong. Social Media didn't create new results, it created new methods of reaching a result. To many professionals simply failed to realize the goal of measurement was to produce the same result they have been working on for twenty years.

If you are looking at specific campaign and project methods, you need to accept that each tool (in this case, Twitter/Youtube/Blogging - etc) has benchmarks for "critical mass" and producing a desired effect.

Another point in this analysis scenario is that "social media" is a HUGE term. If I walked into a CEOs office and said "here is your communication numbers..." he would ask "what does this include?"

I would say something insane- "It includes every conversation, every phone call, your business cards, the phone book, every Marcomm advertisement you bought this year (TV, Radio, Print, Web), your entire public relations effort, the evening you spent at your daughter's Christmas show and said the business name, and that truckload of pens you bought for the charity marathon."

Failing to educate decision makers on the vast number of things being analyzed creates an assumption that apples are equal to oranges.

Re: ExecTweets: The Twitter Business Model?

barryhurd — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:27:32 -0000

Why would anyone think this is stealing Twitter's revenue model? Twitter has hundreds of volunteer developers creating API test models that they can de-activate or charge for at-will.

If ExecTweets makes any impact, Twitter will just limit the API calls and fire of an "enterprise usage" statement to take their portion of the proceeds or they will simply turn it off and run with the business model themselves.

More importantly, they don't have a very robust "executive" requirement. I have a more extensive database of twittering execs sitting on my laptop and my Tweetdeck. As as FM and Microsoft project, I am rather unimpressed.

Re: Ian Lurie says he hates Social Media. Do you?

barryhurd — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:14:18 -0000

Leo, thanks for the commentary (been on your blog before, good stuff)

You are right, I do have a vested interest: not in the exact idea of promoting social media as a radical tool, but promoting the correct ethical, business, and educational ideas around social media. Social media has a place alongside hundreds of other tools to address different needs. In that regard, it is very much like SEO or a good brand: it has the ability to affect the entire mix of tools it is working in conjunction with.

I'm intrigued by your statements simply because it sounds like you say its new, then say it is not- "it is basically word of mouth marketing specifically made for the online world."

Word of mouth marketing didn't exist in the online world. The speed at which a message travels (and to how many) is a fundamental communication change. You could compare this change to such historical changes as the Pony Express, the telegraph, or the Television. We can now relay thousands of word of mouth communications through social media in seconds.

I agree that there are a lot of variables. You can't control what people think (actually, I know some pretty good neuro-scientists that would argue that), but you can measure and monitor reactions faster than any other communication medium available. The ability to quickly adapt to a changing audience response is a unique asset online that can only really be seen in real life events where a good presenter knows how to respond to audience trends. Now online communication has begun to expand this real world interaction to larger audiences- with more audience understanding, faster, cheaper, and with easier scale.

Re: Ian Lurie says he hates Social Media. Do you?

barryhurd — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:25:17 -0000

Thanks for adding. I always like a good conversation.

From the two articles I took a more personal dislike of the subject from it. Comparing social media to apish hooting would seems like comparing climbing a tree to launching a space shuttle. Are you then simply arguing against the term? If we don't use social media as a term, there are no accurate substitutions for it to my knowledge. Terms like SEO and PR are simply components of the greater whole that may or may not be social media.

There are plenty of real "social media experts" out there, to accept the degradation of the industry/term because too many snake-oil salesmen jumped on the bandwagon is simply the wrong decision (IMHO)

The internet world has often been lacking any valid credential process. As an industry, SEO, E-mail, Affiliate Managers, and now Social Media professionals are being challenged by every person who has a Facebook account. This has always been a problem. The technology and the education/credential process are completely out of alignment.

From a consulting perspective, I actually find that the larger communications and design firms (100+) are usually the ones that have the most grievous claim to being "social media experts". On a weekly if not daily basis, I run across major firms that are trying to implement six or seven figure campaigns with social media and the team responsible has almost no experience/talent in the niche (but hey, who needs experience or talent when you have a $500k contract and an unwitting client?)

As a term: I don't believe it is overused. Most of the professional world I interact with has limited ability to actually define what social media is. When I ask "What is social media?" the most common response is simple "Uhm, blogs... Facebook?"

I do believe that there is little to no education on what social media is. It is rarely defined, and many times when it is defined it is done very poorly. Hopefully we will see more research and educated inquiry rather than sadly watching the blind leading the blind happening in so many instances.

Re: Media on Twitter

barryhurd — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:11:13 -0000

It is amazing the number of PR "professionals" that do not even know what Twitter is. Using online tools I can tell you what many professionals do for a hobby, where they like to eat, family members, important dates... the list goes on and on.

As an outreach tool, Twitter is simply one of the most worthwhile technologies there is.

Re: Cash4Gold - One Week Later, the brutal internet exposed

barryhurd — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:36:31 -0000

I really find that hard to believe, the press release in the article http://www.prweb.com/releases/cash4gold/cash4go... clearly states "Larger diamonds and luxury used watches are sent to TheEstateBuyer.com, a division of Cash4Gold for specialized processing and appraising. "

The press release infers that TheEstateBuyer affiliation is part of the Cash4Gold process and that as a division, I wouldn't infer in any way that a division is a separate thing (especially when prior promotions infer otherwise.)

Re: Lack of Knowledge is #1 Barrrier to Social Media

barryhurd — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:21:09 -0000

Laurent - I agree.

I think the small percentage is unfortunately compromised of many professionals who "don't get it" and are fearful for jobs. This is becoming more of an issue since the end of 2008 when the economy and layoffs started deteriorating. There are more and more communication professionals who are looking at social media like it is a sharp axe hanging above them.

Re: Lack of Knowledge is #1 Barrrier to Social Media

barryhurd — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:17:59 -0000

Wayne... I laughingly can "feel your pain"

I wrote some similar information on this site last year on a plan to introduce social media at one level, but the audience it attracted was education, marketing, and PR.

We are still at a very early stage of social media. Most business owners don't have any idea what social media is; and still place it in the category of "yeah, my kid has one of those profiles..."

Re: Cash4Gold Superbowl $2.7 Million Online Reputation Nightmare

barryhurd — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 13:15:21 -0000

Thanks for the conversation Scott.

I agree with you that many clients wait far too long to take action. Once material settles it is extremely hard to move around. I wouldn't recommend doing press releases on an initial stage ORM campaign, as it actually just destroys your press release ability as journalists read the bad results you are attempting to displace (so in fact, you just highlighted your biggest mistakes to the worse audience: journalists.)

There are a variety of faster remedies for getting into spots 3-10, but they are usually only reserved for big budget campaigns due to labor involvement. In the case for Cash4Gold or any major company, it would have made a lot of sense to have a five or six figure campaign to properly fix this. In all cases though, I entirely agree that a *smart* business is thinking about this stuff years ahead and is making sure the have a healthy online presence.

+In this case I think the error to purchase a Superbowl ad may have actually been a death sentence for them.

Re: Six Months Later - PR Agencies who don’t blog?

barryhurd — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:37:46 -0000

I think PR blogging is possible if the person at the keyboard can have enough self-control to not boast about the company or the client every single paragraph.

For instance: there is a tremendous amount of client education that can occur through a blog for a PR firm. If you have three clients asking the same question, chances are the firm has 10 clients actually repeating the same problem.

There are also a tremendous number of resources an insightful PR firm should be pointing clients and prospects at.

I also don't think that a PR agency blog should be used to talk about your own client projects unless it is really something fantastic. I don't think I have ever written about a client project here on 123 and if I did, I would probably have five requests the following week asking "why didn't I get highlighted?"

I try to share my insight and experience here... not advertise my projects.

P.S. Love your writing, I've been reading some of your articles for the past 3-4 months. It is hard to find decent conversation on the mobile advertising trend.

Re: PR is killing itself, and it hurts to laugh.

barryhurd — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:51:06 -0000

That statement at PRSAY is pretty heavy in terms of defense and vagueness.

Perhaps I should throw my name in for a PRSA adviser role. I can be the social media baliwick who acts "like an American bull in a Chinese PR Shop"

The old-school dialogue can remain in some communication.... but wouldn't it be great if a majority of PR professionals could actually figure out how to make an impacting statement in 140 characters on Twitter?

That would be an amazing 1st step into redefining a clear communication style that is embraced by the online audience.

A true master of communication can define entire ideas using simple and precise words.

Re: Social Media Policy Examples

barryhurd — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:37:34 -0000

Thanks for adding some insightful viewpoints on some of the pros/cons to a few of these policy examples. Anyone reading these should take the time to consider the extra commentary you added on your site.

Re: PR is killing itself, and it hurts to laugh.

barryhurd — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:50:23 -0000

Thanks for the reply Bill (and the 4th bullet point typo)

Unlike many corporate blogs: this one doesn't have an editor watching my every article. At the dismay of most communication professionals these are mostly written in a speaking style to the fluent social media mindset. I rarely go back and alter it: but seeing as so many PR pros read this one I may need to appease the demand.

I can understand having a blog to centralize some communication around. I disagree with whoever did your research on building a blog. As you said, you have a membership that utilizes many traditional communication methods. As the PRSA you have too many communication channels and are overloading your bandwidth and losing your audience with confusion.

I think there are some valid steps being made by the PRSA in other channels. Some of my dismay in writing this article was that the PRSA had made some significant ground in creating a substantial user base in Facebook and Linkedin but didn't strategically tie those into this blog effort.

The second main reason I brought this up is something that I feel is critical to the PR professional:

My Post on Jan 22nd @ 6:12 PM
Response date of PRSA = Jan 27 @ 3:10 PM
Delay: 4 days, 21 hours.

In the "speed of thought" communication economy, industry professionals are no longer gifted with the luxury of four days of turn-around time. In this instance I believe a quick response (within a day) probably would have curbed the viral spread of this article that finally brought it back to the PRSA's doorstep.

I am hoping that membership organizations across several industries begin to examine the ramifications of not being actively and constantly involved in the conversation.

I hope to see more of you online Bill. As a leader of such a large organization your leadership and applied understanding in the convergence of PR and social media communication is critical to thousands of professionals. You have a big wave of change to guide the community through.

Re: PR is killing itself, and it hurts to laugh.

barryhurd — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 16:12:11 -0000

I think the "because we can" idea is a bad idea. Regardless of the conception many professionals have, social media is not free: there is a lot of labor, strategy, and relationship cost to effectively utilize a social media channel.

Overloading a user-group of professionals with too many options causes more damage from my experience.

I also don't agree with being everywhere. Companies need to be very strategic and tactical where they are. Being half-present on 15 social sites isn't nearly as actionable as being heavily involved in 2. The Obama campaign is actually a very good case example of limiting yourself to specific demographics clusters and action sites. Edelmen released a PDF recently you can find here http://123socialmedia.com/2009/01/23/social-med... that covers a good strategic plan for social media.

Re: PR is killing itself, and it hurts to laugh.

barryhurd — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:10:17 -0000

Good catch. LoL. Perhaps they should hire some of us as editors. They also left off a letter in the hyperlink at the bottom (they missed the first letter of "Public") All in all, failure point after failure point.

Re: PR is killing itself, and it hurts to laugh.

barryhurd — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:03:13 -0000

Always welcome! I don't often whip out a baseball bat, but this time I just couldn't pass up the bullet-point list of item after item I disagreed with so much.

Re: The Death of Public Relations. Will social media kill the beast?

barryhurd — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:26:04 -0000

Good point TLR. I would be interested in seeing how many communication professionals are using the term social media, rather the more precise definitions like journalist relations, blogging, buzz analysis, etc. I'm sure these numbers would produce some interesting charts if we could separate the common joe vs an industry practitioner.

Even though a lot of my work evolves around the umbrella of social media, I do know that when I am with a communications professional I can delve into more expert terms without losing track of the conversation. I find that many old school communication professionals who label everything "social media" are simply identifying a level of inexperience in the online channel.

Re: The Death of Public Relations. Will social media kill the beast?

barryhurd — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 13:21:26 -0000

I remember the first claims to the death of PR with the web... that was far more comical the first time around.

I do not think that the PR industry will go away or truly suffer a "death" at the hands of social media, but it does appear that many PR professionals are sacrificing the industry title to other terms. I've been watching case after case of old school communications roles shifting to "social media evangelist" or "new media communication"

Considering many of those PR folk are adapting titles: I'm not sure if that is the indicator of acceptance in the industry forcing them to change or if they are actually pushing the trend faster.

Re: The Death of Public Relations. Will social media kill the beast?

barryhurd — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 11:21:18 -0000

I dislike the term social media as well, as an umbrella term it really falls short in several areas. It is often confused with social marketing and social networking, and doesn't identify whether things are online or offline. It has many points of confusion.

Unfortunately I think that the term is here to stay for at least a year or two more, or until someone defines a way to toss Google, Microsoft, and Facebook off the throne and declares a buzz term that sticks. It would have to be a fairly massive change to take over the current usage.