Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
A lot has changed about college since I attended the University of Puget Sound years ago. And while students today are much more digitally-focused – with e-mail, social networks, online news and more – the reality is most textbooks are not yet available as e-books. This means students will still need to search out and buy physical books in preparation for the start of a new term.
When I was in college, I either purchased the books new or used from the school bookstore or was lucky enough to buy books used from another student. At the end of the term, I was thrilled to sell my books back to the bookstore or to other students and pocket some extra cash. Today, students have a variety of ways to buy, or even rent their books online,
- Purchase new or used from online store,
- Purchase used from individuals via sites such as eBay, Craigslist, Amazon Marketplace etc.,
- Rent new or used from online service.
We recently started working with Bookbyte, a company that buys and sells textbooks online and I was surprised to learn the number of options available to students for securing school textbooks.
For the cash strapped student, renting books sounds like a great option, but it is important they read the fine print and to be disciplined about taking great care of their rented books and returning them on time. Failing to return your rented book on time, accessing marking in the text or the theft of a rented book can result in costing a student a lot more than estimated.
As the back-to-school rush is getting underway, there have been a number of articles about textbook rental. Many of these articles tout rental as a way for students to save money, however they only offer part of the story.
Renting a textbook may sound good because the upfront cost is less than buying the textbook, yet in many instances the student will end up paying more for the use of that book than they would have if they bought the text used and sold it back at the end of the term. Clearly, if you do not have the money to buy the textbook, then rental may be the right answer for you. However, buying used and selling the textbook at the end of the term offers the lowest overall cost.
To illustrate this point, Bookbyte recently compared the costs associated with renting and buying a specific book, the seventh edition of, “Project Management: A Managerial Approach” by Jack Meredith and Samuel Mantel. The analysis revealed buying the book used and selling it back at the end of the term would save a student 29 percent or roughly $18 over renting the same book. Multiply that savings by five, which is the average number of textbooks a student needs per term according to a 2009 report from Student Monitor, and a student could save an estimated $90 per semester.
So if you are a student (or a parent of a student), it may make sense for you to look online to buy or sell used textbooks. You may even recoup enough cash to by an iPad as digital textbooks on this platform are arriving soon.
Our blog post on the Best Small Business blogs was so popular that we decided to develop an article about favorite business books. Our survey was not scientific. It is a compilation of books we recently read and found valuable, along with recommendations from other business people and entrepreneurs. We hope if you pick up and read one of these that you’ll let us know what you think of it and how it impacts your work or life.
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos. According to the author, the best businesses combine “profit, passion and purpose.” The book follows the history of Tony’s life and the growth of Zappos to more than $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually. Anthony Onesto, former chief operating officer with Zeta Interactive, recommends Delivering Happiness because it has completely changed his idea on how to build a successful company.
- Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch. We have to say we’re fans of this book and it also came highly recommended by Robyn Sharp, a small-business marketing guru and business coach. She shares that the value of this book for her business was providing a “great framework for creating my marketing plans on a budget.”
- eBoot Camp by Corey Perman. Angil Tarach-Ritchey, an expert in senior care and franchise owner for Visiting Angels Ann Arbor says, “eBoot Camp was instrumental in allowing me to help seniors and their families far beyond my community.” The book opened up a whole new career path for her.
- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. This book recommendation comes from Marc Pitman, a coach and the author of How to Ask Without Fear. He put off reading this book for years, but recommends it for its practical tips and reminders about avoiding arguments.
- Just Listen by Mark Goulston. We all know how important listening can be when it comes to the health of business or personal relationships. This book has practical advice for improving these skills with example of how communication can impact results and outcomes. We at Communiqué PR found it to be very helpful in our relationship building with journalists, editors and clients alike. For more about this book, you can check out this post: “New Book Gives Blueprint for Reaching the Unreachable.”
- Mastering the Rockefeller Habits, by Verne Harnish. According to Ken Halkin, president of Kenneth C. Halkin Management Consulting, this business book helped him to fine-tune the planning process and make plans simpler, quicker and more focused on critical issues. Based on Ken’s comments, I am adding this to my reading list.
- Open Leadership by Charlene Li – I wrote about this book on July 12 in a post entitled, “The Public Relations Strategies: Interview with Charlene Li”. I am about half way through the book and love it. I recommend it for those of you who are interested in social media and how it is impacting company culture, leadership or corporate responsibility.
- The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I have not read this book, but based on the number of comments I received about it, I have decided to pick this one. We received five glowing recommendations for this book. For instance, Derek Johnson, CEO of Tatango Inc., the maker of a group text messaging platform, says he has read this book multiple times, learning different things at each pass. He said, “Whether you are looking to decrease the amount of work you need to do, or increase your efficiency, allowing you to do more work in a day’s time, this book is a step by step guide.” He especially recommends this book to entrepreneurs. Another recommendation for the book came from Jaime Cevallos, the owner and founder of The Swing Mechanic, a business aimed at helping Major League Baseball players work on their swing mechanics in the off season. He said without Ferriss’s The Four Hour Workweek he never could have shaped his career.
- The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema. This book was recommended by Maralyn Dolan, president of Integrated Printing & Graphics, because it helped her focus on her business core strengths. The book has given her some guidelines that allow her to feel confident in the directions she takes – and it has stayed with her for 15 years.
- The New Strategic Selling by Stephen E. Hieman, Tad Tuleja, J.W. Marriott. This is one of my favorite books. It was recommended to me by my mother who worked for AT&T as a global account manager. The book has been a tremendous resource to me in business development.
Remember when the first thing you did in the morning was make coffee and sit down with the daily newspaper or tuned in to your local TV news? Now it seems more and more the first thing we do in the morning is log on to our computers and check Facebook, Twitter and e-mail to find out what’s happening around the world, in our neighborhood and within our social circles.
According to a recent study of 200,000 people by The Nielsen Company, Americans spend a large percentage of their time online, surfing social networking sites. Some of the key findings of the study include:
- 22.7 percent of our time online is spent on social networking sites, which is a 43 percent increase from the same time last year.
- Online games, e-mail and portals combined, take up just 22.9 percent of our time online.
- If the U.S. Internet time were condensed into one hour, social networks would take up 13 minutes and 36 seconds. Online games, e-mail and portals would take up just 13 minutes and 42 seconds of one hour.
“Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the Web, 40 percent of U.S. online time is spent on just three activities – social networking, playing games and emailing leaving a whole lot of other sectors fighting for a declining share of the online pie,” said Nielsen analyst Dave Martin.
While it should come as no surprise that Americans spend a great deal of time on social networks, it is becoming more apparent that social networks are a rising form of online communication. E-mail, which was number two last year, saw its usage drop from 11.5 percent in 2009 to 8.3 percent this year. Instant messaging also saw a major hit, declining 15 percent from last year to account for just four percent of our time spent online this year.
More people using social networking sites to communicate online, and the decrease in e-mail usage, could be the reason why online gaming moved up to the number two spot for the first time. Time spent on online games g increased from 9.3 percent in 2009 to 10.2 percent in 2010, which now take up six minutes of one hour. Another possible reason for the increase in online gaming is the major presence of games on social networking sites. Games such as Zynga’s Farmville and Mafia Wars have become immensely popular among Facebook users in recent months.
U.S. consumers spend time on the Internet differently when accessing it via a mobile device than when accessing via a computer. Consider the following stats from the same Nielsen study:
- 41.6 percent, or 25 minutes of one hour, of American’s mobile online time is spent checking and sending e-mails from our mobile phones.
- 22 percent of American’s mobile online time is spent on portals and social networks, or 13 minutes of one hour.
- Time spent on social networks on mobile phones increased 28 percent, from 8.3 last year to 10.5 percent in 2010.
The study illustrates that increasingly more of our Internet time is spent on social networks. The reality is social networks play a large role in people’s lives. As people begin to spend more time on social networks, businesses are adapting to this trend and harness the power of social networks to reach key audiences. Businesses will continue to embrace social networks as a way to reach current and potential customers, and customers will look to interact with businesses on a more personal level.
What do you spend most of your time on the Internet doing? Leave us a comment.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about two new social media measurement tools from Marketwire Sysomos that I recently tested out. While my initial thoughts and experience have been positive, it made me reflect on some of the other industry tools and resources available to help organizations measure social media’s impact and effectiveness.
With social media reaching ubiquitous status for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business organizations, it’s becoming extremely important for marketing and PR professions to become proficient in measuring the value of social media activities. This information and insight can often serve as a guide to help companies define and refine their social media strategies and help them effectively leverage social media.
A recent Bloomberg BusinessWeek article outlined the top five social media marketing mistakes organizations need to be aware of. The number one mistake? Not monitoring social media activities. Writer Mike Proulx says, “Companies that do not first “listen” and observe how their evangelists and detractors talk about their brand risk jumping into a cyclone of unanticipated activity. Constant monitoring is a must.”
I thought I would share some of the industry’s best-known tools for measuring and monitoring social media.
- BuzzLogic – BuzzLogic targets marketing and advertising managers and offers a “conversational media platform” that helps pinpoint where online conversations are taking place and where users are most engaged around topics to help organizations build more powerful and influential relationships and track competing products.
Radian6
- Radian6 – One of the more well-known solutions, Radian6 offers social media monitoring and detailed analytics reporting to help organizations track brand performance on various social media channels including Twitter, Facebook and blogs. The company also offers functionality around social media CRM, web analytics integration and workflow management.
- Social Mention – A simple web-based tool that finds brand mentions on a variety of platforms including blogs, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in real time, Social Mention culls them together into a single stream of information for easy dissemination. Social Mention also offers a sentiment rating so that companies can get a sense of its brand perception among users.
Sysomos MAP
- Sysomos – Recently acquired by Marketwire, the company offers two tools, MAP (Media Analytics Program) and Heartbeat, that focus on the core concepts of social media – listen, measure, understand and engage. Sysomos provides real-time business intelligence data to help organizations reach their communications, branding and business objectives as well as manage brands and reputations vis-a-vis social media.
- Trendrr – Trendrr takes real time social media monitoring capabilities and puts the data into perspective with numbers. Specifically geared towards branding, marketing and business managers, Trendrr tracks and graphs activity and trends across a variety of digital platforms including social networks, blogs, Amazon, Craigslist, Twitter, Google News, torrents and video sites.
While it’s clear there are many tools and resources available today to help monitor, analyze and measure the impact of social media, I anticipate these tools will only become more comprehensive. As a PR professional, I find it an integral part of my job to help clients understand the value of measuring social media, the criteria in which it should be evaluated and the tools and resources available to help accomplish this.
Do you have a favorite social media monitoring/analytics tool? We want to hear about your experience with it. Leave us a comment.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been with Communiqué for a little more than two years – it’s been a great experience and I’ve learned so much. However, on Aug. 12 I will be leaving the company to pursue new opportunities in New York City.
I thought I’d take some time to reflect on what I’ve learned over the past couple of years.
- The media landscape has shifted and will continue to change. The economic downturn affected nearly every industry and organization – and print publications were no exception. In November 2008, we wrote a blog post about the economic impact on the industry’s top publishing houses. This downturn forced many magazines and newspapers to cut budgets and staff. During the past year or two we have found that editors have been more receptive to receiving bylined articles due to the decrease in resources. As a PR professional, this has greatly helped me boost my writing skills. Given resources are so limited and editors have less time to sift through e-mails, I have found that it is more important than ever to write very succinct pitches that tell a compelling story in order to secure coverage and share our clients’ story with key audiences.
- Social media is not a fad. It is here to stay. When I first started working at Communiqué Twitter was not the social media phenomenon it is today. I remember when US Airways flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in New York – the fact that this news first broke via Twitter shows the way we exchange information has dramatically changed. Gone are the days when we would rely solely on TV, radio and newspapers to get our daily update on current affairs. In fact, more often than not I learn about breaking news events via Twitter or Facebook before I do via a traditional media outlet. I anticipate social media platforms will continue to expand and as they do, it will be important for organizations and PR professionals (like myself) to engage and familiarize ourselves with these different platforms.
- Transparency is not an option. Transparency, especially in light of the social media boom and popularity of online content, is truly an integral element to participating effectively in online conversations. When I tweet about a client, I make sure to let my followers know that I am promoting a client’s service, product or raising awareness of a recent announcement. I wrote a blog post in July 2009 about a company that failed to be transparent in publishing a product review and the ramifications that this had on the company’s reputation and image.
Working with clients including Attachmate, Tecplot, Tideworks Technology and Florentia Press has been such a pleasure. I’ve met some great people and have learned a lot about different technologies and products, as well as how a company works and the importance of client relations.
I want to thank everyone at Communiqué as well as the clients I have worked with the past couple of years. The experience and skills I have attained will be truly invaluable in my next adventure.
We talk about Twitter and its role in public relations a lot on the Communiqué blog. While we believe Twitter is a great tool and can be used to reach millions of people almost instantly, it is important not to ignore the biggest social media platform, Facebook. It not only dwarfs Twitter in the number of users (500 million registered Facebook users to 75 million Twitter users), but can provide organizations with a unique way to build and extend their brand and engage with key audiences.
A recent study from Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business, found that companies that use Facebook to reach fans see customer loyalty significantly increase among their fans. As such, Facebook recently began seeing an increase in companies harnessing the power of the platform to deliver their key messages.
Facebook can be extremely effective in reaching key audiences. When one person “likes” a fan page, that piece of information will show up his or her friend’s news feeds, allowing them to see the page and possibly “like” the page as well. This acts as a sort of word of mouth tactic and can help a product or brand gain more followers.
Additionally, when someone “likes” a page, they are given the option of inviting their friends to “like” it as well. Once a customer “likes” a page, they will then receive updates directly in their news feed, making it extremely easy for businesses to deliver their message to their fans.
Customers can comment and “like” specific posts and write their opinions or thoughts on the company’s Facebook page, providing businesses unfiltered information. This data can then drive new offerings, adapt messaging or help improve a product.
To help PR professionals learn the power of Facebook, the company created a fan page called PR on Facebook. The page is run by Facebook itself, which hopes to “share what we have learned about creating social content, promoting events, optimizing Pages, and integrating with tools off of Facebook.” I recently took a close look at the PR on Facebook page and want to share my initial thoughts.
Much of what is shared on the PR on Facebook fan page is how Facebook uses its own platform for day-to-day PR activities. However, all examples shared can be easily applied to any fan page. Facebook has shared examples such as how to provide reporters with permalinks to screenshots and announcements, and criteria for building and maintaining a successful Facebook Pages.
Most recently Facebook has shared how to set up a live stream box, which lets users visiting your Website or application share activity and comment in real time, on a fan page. To illustrate this functionality and the benefits, Facebook,
- Directed people to Facebook Engineering’s page to watch a live stream of their latest Tech Talk as an example
- Posted a link describing how someone could set up a live stream box on their own page
- Linked to a Mashable post describing how to set up a landing page for visitors
PR on Facebook illustrated how a PR professional could use the live stream box to help a company announce a product launch or do a daily segment with fan interactions, much like what the Facebook Engineers did in the example shared on the page. While the page is still in its infancy it appears to be a resourceful tool for PR professionals looking for ways to integrate Facebook into campaigns and initiatives.
So the next time you are planning a PR campaign don’t over look Facebook, consider integrating your activities with this powerful platform. PR on Facebook is a good resource as you investigate how to leverage the medium to your advantage.
Have you used the PR on Facebook fan page? We’d love to hear your thoughts on this as a PR resource.