There are a number of factors that would lead you to expect that brands operating in Australia would be investing heavily in social video content and leveraging the large user communities in the top sites, such as YouTube.

These factors are:

1. The simple fact that Australians are demonstrating a huge appetite for online video.  Close to a billion, yes a billion, videos were consumed by Australians in the month of January 2010. A billion in one month, or 33.3 million per day, or 23,148 per minute.
2. Video and mobile. 42% of online Australians use a smartphone, according to Nielsen.  Everything is going mobile, therefore brands need to provide content that works well on mobile devices.  The answer is video.
3. Because the average online Australian spends more than 6.52  hours per month in social media (Nielsen).
4. Video content is three times more clickable than text – this is an anecdotal fact that I hear quoted regularly. I don’t have a source for it, I’m afraid.
5. YouTube is emerging as one of the leading search engines.
6. The media landscape is shrinking, presenting fewer opportunities for brands to engage with their target audience.  Therefore, brands have to seize the initiative and begin creating their own branded content.  That content could take many forms; educational and how to guides; infotainment; news; opinion; video based campaigns and so on.

The fact is that 65 per cent of the brands that we studied did not have an official brand presence in the top social video sharing sites. That figure is a little disappointing but not tragic – the bad news is that more than (just over) 50 per cent of the corporate channels were inactive, which we generously defined as having not been updated for more than 2 months.

Now, this inactive issue is one we have encountered before.  It points to the issue of brands engaging without the necesary resources or strategy or integration in place.  We’re not saying this stuff is easy but I strongly feel that no presence is preferable than an inactive / dormant account.

Here is the full presentation and a link to the press release on our local website:

One of the challenges when conducting this research is identifying a credible list of companies that can act as the sample for the research.  In this case, we used the Nielsen Top Advertisers Report for 2009.  We worked with Nielsen to make sure that they were comfortable with our methodology for the study.  It’s important to stress that the study does not assume any direct link between media spend and social media strategy or between advertising content and social media.

It’s possible that the methodology caused us to miss video content that is being produced by these brands because it is served via their own corporate website, or a third party channel provider (such as Viocorp) or Facebook.  That could be the case but it still represents a missed opportunity.  If you’re creating video content then you may as well make it available via the most popular online video service, even if your primary video channel is hosted elsewhere.

The research is far less rigourous and detailed than anything that Nielsen would do (for obvious reasons) .  Having said that, we do feel that the research produced some interesting findings.  It can act as a benchmark for brands in Australia that want to assess their social media engagement and presence against industry as a whole.

We’ve worked on quite a few of these now.  It follows our study into the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) by twenty top Australian brands and an evaluation of online newsrooms.  For both of these studies we drew the sample companies from the Interbrands Best Brands report.

Have all of the leaves fallen off of your marketing program for the 2010 fiscal period?

Or, have you started stripping leaves to ensure that the full year budget is spent before the end of June?

Deciduous Marketing leads to consecutive campaigns targeting big groups of customers when simultaneous campaigns  with each targetting relevant / interested groups of customers would be more effective.  It is one reason why brands generally have a poor understanding of their customers.

Maybe its time your re-evaluated your marketing processes and approaches.

It is an interesting area for PR consultants to get involved with as it provides an issues rich environment for them to really add value through research, insight and execution. 

The best PR practitioners recognise that thought leadership presents an opportunity for their client to add value to its customers and differentiate itself.  In practice, PRs often struggle to find clients that can enunciate and commit to a thought leadership position.  

Organisations encounter a number of issues when it comes to executing against a thought leadership strategy:

1. They believe that thought leadership exposes them to risk – what if people disagree?
2. They’re happy to fly below the radar – no-one else is taking a position so why should we?
3. They don’t have the industry insights required to take a credible position on a topic
4. They don’t have the individual talent to deliver the content or are unwilling to invest in it 
5. They’re focus is lead generation and sales – they don’t see the reputational value in thought leadership
6. They’re not prepared to invest in the necessary research or partnerships required to establish a thought leadership strategy
7. They unable to take an industry view - their industry perspectives are insular, biased and self serving
8. Marketing investments are focused on promotional outcomes, rather than ongoing corporate objectives

Occasionally, you see organisations jumping onto an issue because it has become a business imperative, a good example of this is the Environment where many organisations are keen to be seen to be doing the right thing.  Don’t get me wrong, I believe that most companies are genuine in their intention to reduce their impact on the environment but the adoption of these goals was largely responsive in nature – it become a business imperative.  It was not a proactive altruistic motivation that could be described as genuine thought leadership.

The challenges in this area can be mighty frustrating for the PR agency and in-house team that recognise the opportunities presented by thought leadership to:

1. Build positive brand perceptions
2. Proactively lead the media agenda and add value to media relationships
3. Initiate discussion and generate publicity
4. Provide PR campaigns with a consistent theme or message
5. Raise the profile of senior executives
6. Add value to their industry and been seen as a positive contributor
7. Motivate and engage employees and partner organisations
8. Help drive a shared agenda with stakeholders
9. Engage new audience groups; Government; Industry Associations; Industry Leaders

I think the importance of thought leadership will grow in the future as brands become more attuned to their customers and marketplace.  Brands will need an agenda in order to ensure the sustainability of their online communities.  They’ll need to have opinions and insights in order to drive activity online and empower customer advocates.  They’ll also need to respond to increasing customer expectations about the role that their brand of choice plays in the community.

As a result, we’ll see brands re-assessing their thought leadership strategy and working to identify the relevant opinion platforms for their business.  I think we’ll begin to see support from brands for thought leadership topics that genuinely reflect the interests of their community and, as a result, more credible, personalised, actionable and specific. 

What do you think? Does this also apply to individuals online?  Will it become more important to take a personal position on an issue or are we more likely to exist in communities that reinforce our own world view?

It is particularly true today.  The Internet has empowered consumers to challenge, advocate and interact with the companies of their choosing via readily available and inexpensive forms of mass media.

Marketing conversations were largely one dimensionl pre-Internet.  Regular and hopefully relevant messages were filtered via various marketing channels and disciplines to the end customer.  They were generally self serving:

Look at this new product!
Take up this offer on this new package!
Here’s what we think about this. Aren’t we smart/committed/interesting?

The conversations were intermittent and short lived – more often than not the communication existed to drive sales, acquire new customers or build a brand image.  Budgets and marketing finance decisions were similarly focused on near-term outcomes.  Business priorities  were identified at the beginning of the year and then in quarterly planning cycles.  Dollars, Pounds, Rupee, Dinar etc. would be allocated.

Most companies still manage their marketing programs in this way today.

At the end of the fiscal year, if the marketing department has done its ‘job’ properly, all of the dollars are spent.   Like a deciduous tree all of the leaves have fallen off and the tree remains bare for a period of time .

The conversation goes on hold.

This isn’t a problem if the company is continually talking about itself but if the company has been successful in initiating a conversation, then consumer’s will notice – unhappily.

Many well established marketing practices are no longer relevant or useful in the context of social media, including traditional approaches to budgeting.  Social media demands that brands commit fully to the online conversation – you can’t pull in and pull out when it suits you.

One way for companies to tackle this issue is to embed social media engagement (and related costs) inside standard business process.

Ford has a plan to have 2% of its workforce telling the story of their lives at Ford via social media.  This combined with a dedicated resource for social media strategy and measurement allows the company to engage in authentic conversation over the l0ng term.

Failure to identify the necessary resources for social media engagement is one of the main reasons why projects fail to get off the ground, in my experience.  Lack of resources is one issue but cultural and procedural structural barriers to the long term view are another.

Senior marketing professionals need to adjust their mindset, and that of their organisation, to the new dynamics of social media and continuous conversation.

Each media site has its own visibility rating based on a combination of data points, the site’s physical characteristics (i.e. location, lumination etc.) and eye tracking data, which is charted on Move’s Opportunity To See (OTS) and Likelihood To See (LTS) metric.  

Could such a system be applied to PR measurement online?  What is the Likelihood To See (LTS) of a blog post (a product review for example) or a recommendation on Twitter?  The PR industry is hamstrung by the Advertising Value Equivalence measurement model, which serves it poorly.

There is a need for the PR industry to develop an industry standard for measurement, which isn’t related to advertising spend.  Every campaign has its own set of objectives but there should be some foundation metrics in place for measuring the impact of PR campaigns that result in online coverage and social media activity.    

• The Australian: Big Brands Are Failing Social Media Test (Simon Canning)
• Marketing Magazine: Social Media Still Misunderstood by Brands
• Campaign Brief: Australian Social Media Study of Top 20 Brands Shows a High Number of Inactive Accounts

One of the challenges that we encountered with this study was sourcing a list of the top brands in Australia.  Initially, our intention was to survey the ASX100 but this presented us with a few challenges, not least the increase in project scope that this would lead to.  Many of the companies in the ASX100 own multiple brands and so we would have been presented with a challenge of what to include and what not to include.  Including everything was not an option.

Ultimately, we opted for the Interbrand Top Twenty Australian Brands report for 2009.  Although relatively limited in scope we felt that this was a good option as it covered a broad spectrum of Australian brands in various sectors while enabling us to identify some industry sector trends in financial services and retail. 

Our thoughts on the findings are included in the media coverage and in our release/ report. 

Ultimately, my view is that many social media campaigns continue to be the preserve of the PR and marketing department.  I don’t believe that business leaders have recognised the need for authentic communications or the benefits of social media, as a component of PR strategy.  The vast majority seem focused on the risk over the reward.  The US is a different story.  Corporations are far more advanced when it comes to social media.  Its becoming ingrained within standard business and comms practice, we’re yet to see this in Australia. 

I think there are a couple of reasons for this if we put the fact that Australia has a more conservative business culture to one side.  First, the majority of the world’s IT industry is based in the US.  Clearly, the IT sector has been an early adopter, leading the way for many other American industries. 

Second, many large American corporations faced serious PR and reputational issues as a result of the GFC and social media provided them with the tools they needed to begin re-building and re-orienting their reputations and corporate culture. 

Neither of these factors apply in Australia. 

We’re seeing a lot of interest from our clients and are actively engaged in this space with many organisations.  I am looking forward to seeing a more flattended, transparent and communicative corporate culture in Australia.  We are hoping to speed up the process by providing good advice and compelling insights. 

The fact that corporate blogging is virtually non-existent is evidence, for me, that we are yet to see this change at the highest levels of Australian business.

We produced the following report of the results and developed a media release, which was offered to The Australian as an exclusive. There’s more where this came from. B-M Australia will be announcing additional research over the coming weeks and months.  

I wrote an article in favour of these guidelines for Mumbrella.

BzzAgent refers to its network members as volunteers.  I thought volunteers worked for not-for-profits.  I think its inevitable that the WOM agencies will have to make full disclosure and transparency core to their service offering in order to stay on the right side of the FTC and similar enforcement agencies in other countries and for the reasons that I pointed out in the article for Mumbrella.

This graphic from BzzAgent provides a neat summary of the obligations under the FTC Guides and the steps that PR professionals and marketers can take to ensure compliance.

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Julian posed the question: Is Google Sidewiki a threat or an opportunity? I think that it is both and made the point that active participation in conversation via Sidewiki provided another PR opportunity for organisations to communicate with their customers.

I also suggested that businesses develop a policy for Sidewiki and that they publish this so that customers know what to expect when using this form of feedback. Brian Giesen makes a great suggestion when he says that companies should ‘claim’ their Sidewiki by making the first comment (if possible).

A quick scan of major corporate websites highlights the fact that Sidewiki is yet to take off in a big way. Potential commenters need the latest version of the Google Toolbar and they also need to be aware of the service. The digerati set will be well aware of this but I am not convinced that Joe Bloggs has this on their radar. There is more activity around social media related news sites and social networks, check out Facebook as an example of a active Sidewiki.

Google Sidewiki is an extension of an existing service from Google; which is the ability to place comments on search results.  This didn’t take off or hasn’t taken off as yet (it continues to be available – check out the speech bubble icon below organic search results in Google).

Radian6 announced last week that it now offers the ability to monitor Sidewiki, an important development for businesses that need now to be aware of conversation in a wide range of digital tools.

I think Sidewiki represents a major PR opportunity for small businesses, who may not necessarily want to invest in discussion boards, recommendation and feedback mechanisms for their websites but are provided a free infrastructure for exactly that via Google Sidewiki.

Sidewiki causes a PR headache

ALREADY struggling with the mountain of blogs, forums and social networks, public relations consultants are weighing up whether a new Google tool that enables consumers to leave comments next to a brand’s website is a threat or a challenge.

Google Sidewiki gives a new and very transparent avenue for disgruntled customers to air their grievances against companies.

Travel websites already carry customer reviews of hotels and resorts.

Google says it is all about ”facilitating the conversation on the internet” between general users and experts but the PR industry is watching closely to see if Sidewiki will become as popular and as powerful a tool for opinionated internet users as Twitter and Facebook.

Gabriel McDowell, the managing director of Res Publica, said companies that failed to understand Sidewiki risked damage to their image and reputation. ”This is going to sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to managing corporate reputation,” Mr McDowell said.

Although Sidewiki presented ”yet another channel for them [corporations] to manage”, Daniel Young, the digital director of Burson-Marsteller, said it could be a useful tool. ”If one person has a complaint and you respond to it then, in a way you are answering others before the question has even been asked,” he says.

Brian Giesen, who heads the digital consultancy in the Asia-Pacific for Ogilvy PR, says Sidewiki could prove to be a handy way to spot potentially hot issues and the pressure groups pushing them.

”It just reinforces the need for brands to listen to such media. This is also a useful way for companies to find out who are the people who are making the comments and then to reach out to them,” said Mr Giesen, who recommends companies race to be the first to make a Sidewiki comment on a page, a privilege Google extends to website owners.

Mr McDowell said Sidewiki could also provide an avenue of redress by corporations that felt they misrepresented in the mainstream media. For example, a public relations consultant could post the entire statement given to a journalist, rather than the truncated version that might appear in an article. ”One of the major complaints about the media is the time it takes to get a correction up. This could go some way to rectifying that.”

But there are concerns that because Sidewiki is ”completely unregulated and uncontrollable”, as Mr Young put it, it will be harder for companies to sort out the legitimate complaints from the serial sledgers. Deciding on whether to answer was going to be key, he said.

Mr Giesen said Google ”needs to take greater responsibility for the comments that appear on Sidewiki”.

A spokeswoman for Google Australia said it had not received any concerns from Australian publishers. ”Website owners and publishers here and abroad have told us that they see this as another way to connect with their users, similar to conversations they’re already having on their blogs, YouTube channels, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.”

This individual has had a stellar career working for leading advertising agencies in the US, London and Europe.  He is now based in Australia.

Planners, as I understand it, act as a point person between the client and the creatives – they facilitate the process which seeks to identify the connections between people and culture and brands  They unearth insights that form the basis of really effective campaigns, concepts and messages.  These insights are based on facts (i.e. research) and emotion, as our speaker explained.  The insight should be able to be expressed, very simply.

The need to get to the nub of a communications challenge and to capture the essence of  the connection between people and brands or products is something that all marketers should remember at a time when fragmentation, immediacy, multi-media, interactivity, technology and globalisation are grabbing the headlines and commanding mind-share in our industry.

The ability to see the woods for the trees and present knowledge or an idea in a way that  is compelling and actionable is what clients pay for at the end of the day, as is the ability to make connections.

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As a PR person its important to remain cool, calm and collected when sitting with your spokesperson or spokespeople and waiting for your journalist to arrive. You know they were confirmed by phone or email on the morning of or afternoon before the briefing.

Here are some things that PRs can do to fill the time when waiting for a journalist to arrive for a briefing. I am assuming that the executive briefing has been completed and the two or more of you are literally sitting in room waiting for the journalist to arrive.

1. Re-cap over the key messages for the briefing. Ask your spokespeople to repeat – succinctly – the key messages that you want to convey in the briefing.
2. Role play the journalist for five minutes. Ask your spokesperson a red flag question and see how they respond. Advise them on how they might improve the response – if possible.
3. Ask your spokespeople which questions they don’t want to be asked and work with them to develop the appropriate response.
4. Talk about your industry. Use the time as an opportunity to ask intelligent questions about your client’s industry sector and current issues and trends.  Demonstrate your understanding of the industry and your opinions.
5. Provide some insight and information about the journalist that they are about to meet. What have they written about lately, where are they coming from (you may know that they are a specific event). This is a good way to provide your spokesperson with some ice breakers if they have not met the journo before.
6. Put a call into the journalist or his co-workers to try and find out their ETA.
7. Highlight some recent team successes. Talk about something that has gone well recently and provide some suggestions on how you might extend or repeat the success.
8. Remind your spokesperson that the journalist will likely ask if there is anything they want to add at the very end of the questions and provide some suggestions on strong answers, incorporating the key message.
9. Work with your spokesperson to develop some analogies that help bring the story to life or try to tease out some examples (i.e. customer stories) that they can build into their answers to illustrate a point.
10. Ask your spokesperson to explain something about their business that you have never understood.
11. Get Personal. People love to talk about themselves. Use this time as an opportunity to find out more about your spokesperson, their family, interest, hobbies, background.

You’re in trouble if you find that you’ve used up all of these and the journalist still hasn’t arrived. You’ve obviously been trying to reach your journalist throughout this process via text, SMS, email.

Next step:

Apologise on behalf of the journalist and provide a deadline when you will get back to the spokesperson to re-schedule the meeting. Apologise for wasting their time but highlight the fact that you’ve made use of the time and the fact that they are fully prepared for the re-scheduled briefing.

Follow up and demonstrate how you have put the insights and information provided by your spokesperson to good use.