Moving from “Buzz” to “Business”: Social Commerce Camp DC Is Coming Up
Why bother with PR?
One of the things that yours truly focuses on in her, er my, “day job” is the business use of public relations – or, in other words, why bother with “PR” if it’s not going to impact business indicators? Far too often, I see and hear people assuming the raison d’être of “PR” is to “create buzz.”
I won’t belabor the point here but in a nutshell, it’s not. Effective PR is designed – and implemented – with a view to helping an organization achieve its business objectives. In other words, it really is about managing the relationships between an organization and its “publics,” and thus impacting the bottom line.
Which is why I’m excited to be a part of Social Commerce Camp DC this weekend (Saturday, Feb. 20); a free educational event that is geared towards small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses and are looking for the tools to get them started.
Now, it’s a half-day event so no, you won’t be writing an encyclopedia on small business after attending, but what you should definitely walk away with is an understanding of how to use “social” to jumpstart your business (or kick it into high gear). And yes, PR is a part of that, and that’s what I’ll be focusing on.
Here’s the agenda
- 8 – 9 am: Continental breakfast , registration and networking
- 9 – 9:45 am: Social Media 101 for Small Business, with Shashi Bellamkonda , Social Media Swami, Network Solutions
- 10 – 10:45 am: Creating a Killer Social User Experience with your e-Commerce Site, with Steve Fisher, browncoatsmovie.com
- 10.45 – 11.15 am: Check your Twitter account/ blogging time
- 11:15 am to 12 noon: PR Tips and Best Practices for Small Business – Shonali Burke (me!)
Major props to the sponsors: Mayer Brown, Network Solutions, Kikscore and MyBusinessAssistant.com.
Will I see you there? Remember, it’s free, so come on out. You can register here.
Image: Daniel Broche, Creative Commons
Cross-posted from Women Grow Business, of which I am editor.
Speaking Season Begins
I didn’t think this would happen so quickly, but my 2010 speaking “season” has kicked off.
So – here’s where I’ll be over the next few months, adding new dates as we go along. Do let me know if you’ll be anywhere that I am, so that we can say “hello” to each other (and if you can join a webinar or teleseminar, I’ll be delighted).
By the way, if you’re interested in measurement, tomorrow I’m doing a webinar for PRSA Tampa Bay that reprises my turn at PRSA’s 2009 International Conference. You can register until 11 a.m. EST tomorrow, I believe.
Updates will be made to the speaking page on my website, if you want to keep tabs on it. I hope to see you soon… somewhere!
- January 25: a “head of table” at Social Media Club – DC’s inaugural social media breakfast
- January 28: PRSA Tampa Bay, a webinar of “From ROI to KPI” originally presented at PRSA09
- February 4: PRSA teleseminar on the nexus of PR and social media
- March 25: IABC Cleveland
- May 26: WebCom Montréal 2010, Montréal, Canada
- July 21: PRSA Alaska
Image: Tom Raftery, Creative Commons
Tweetupin’ a Storm in San Diego
Disclosure: no one’s asked me to write this post, and I’m sure not getting paid for it, but I do thank sponsors of a certain event coming up. Now that you know all that… read on.
I don’t know what’s gotten into everyone lately, it’s tweetup this, tweetup that… oh wait, it’s that whole thing about moving your online relationships offline. My bad.
So in a few days, when I head to San Diego for PRSA 2009, I have not one, not two, but four tweetups to try to attend… and three of them are on the same day. Wow. We PR people sure like to party.
The one I’m doing a shameless plug for, though, is #shonalitweetup. Yup, you read that right. Before you start throwing rotten eggs at me, I didn’t come up with the name (I’m not that egotistical… I don’t think…). Here’s how it happened:
When I knew I was going to be in San Diego for PRSA09, I wanted to make sure I’d be able to meet up with some of my friends. A certain Jen Wilbur (who appropriately uses @rockstarjen as her Twitter handle) took on the unappetizing task of organizing it and next thing I know – she christened it with my name.
Whoa! And – wow!
So the long and the short of it is that from being a small get-together for a few people, we now have a possible 33 folks converging on Bar Basic from 5 – 7 pm on Saturday, November 11, to guzzle, greet and grin together.
I’m really looking forward to catching up with @Natalie_Joy, @DowntownRob, @richandcreamy, @JenMitch, @vargasl and so many more, and meeting @EricLeist, @nicklucido, @tressalynne and many others for the first time.
I’m also psyched that PRNewsire, Mike Smith Public Affairs and dna13 have seen fit to sponsor this tweetup. I know I speak on behalf of the entire PR community (or at least the tweetup attendees) when I say, “Your generosity shall not go unnoticed… or unburped.”
If you’re attending the tweetup, get there early if you want to enjoy the hosted drinks and pizza before they run out. I’m told there’s seating for 12 (hey, we didn’t think this would get so big!), and after that it’s Squishing and/or SRO. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Ditto if you’re a late RSVPer.
And please say “thank you” to our sponsors by leaving a comment below and/or giving them a shout out on Twitter (don’t forget to include the hashtag #shonalitweetup). Where would we be without them?
See you in San Diego! And I found this great photo of fireworks in Serithian’s Flickrstream.
Sun, Sand and… Measurement
In a few days I’ll be Westward-bound; one of several hundred (or is it thousand?) PR and communication professionals converging on San Diego for PRSA’s 2009 International Conference (that’s me on Coronado Beach a couple years ago). My first experience of PRSA’s annual shindig was last year, when I was lucky enough to co-present with Katie Paine on measurement in Detroit.
The entire experience was a blast, and it will also live forever in my memory because that’s where I first met the beauteous and brilliant Shannon Paul and Lauren Vargas, caught up with the dynamite Kami Watson Huyse, first encountered Jason Falls, and was dissed (and defended, thank you Kami!) at my first tweetup. Ah, the good old days.
This year I’m lucky enough to have been selected by PRSA as a solo speaker and will be presenting on measurement on November 9 (here’s an interview I did to promo it a while back). If you’re attending the conference, do come by.
But more than plug my session, I want to pick your brains.
See, the thing is, my take on measurement is very simple (and yes, has been strongly influenced by the afore-referenced Sashet, the Measurement Goddess, aka Katie Paine).
You start at the end – what are your measurable objectives? And by “measurable,” I mean quantifiable and time-bound, not “increase buzz” or some crap like that.
You focus on what outcomes you’d like to achieve, not just outputs (like media impressions) and, if possible (because usually this takes some budget dollars), outtakes as well. A lot has been written about these recently, but I believe in going to the source, so here’s a great dictionary from the Institute for Public Relations (you should bookmark this).
And then you map out your strategy and tactics, track everything along the way, and then analyze the results of your program, based on what you were trying to achieve in the first place.
I like to use a couple of case studies, showing how this has been done both with “traditional” and social media, sometimes on a very tiny budget.
I show how, at my last job, we patiently tracked our communications against organizational key performance indicators, and how we were able to calculate – using a formula that was given to us by the equivalent of the marketing department – the value we added to the organization’s bottom line.
And I will tell you to stay away from ad value equivalency or AVE, which I hear IPR’s Measurement Commission recently voted down as a no-no when it comes to PR measurement.
My presentation’s probably not going to be earth-shattering for anyone (and I kinda hope it won’t, because the measurement debate’s been going on long enough).
What I hope it will be is engaging, and show practitioners who might be overwhelmed by all the jargon out there that measurement is not necessarily tough, mind-blowingly expensive, or tedious… and how to get started, or get back on the right track.
Looking for the Wisdom of Crowds
Here’s my question to you: are there any other questions you think I need to address? What else can I add to my presentation so that attendees can walk away with tips and ideas they can really use?
I can’t promise I can answer all of them, but I’ll try; if I can’t, I’ll try to find resources who can. Or, do you have tips I can include?
The bottom line is, I want the presentation to be about you, not me. So I’m asking you to help me deliver the content that will be most useful to you. I’m sure I can go it myself, but it’ll be so much more fun this way.
I’d very much appreciate your thoughts and feedback; just send me a tweet, or leave a comment below. I promise to give credit where credit’s due, and will be uploading it to SlideShare so that you can all see it.
Thank you!
DC Conference Mania
There are two great events coming up in DC next week that I’m really looking forward to. Here’s my not-so-subtle pitch for you to come and be a part of them, if your schedule and wallet allow, because I think they’re smart conferences for smart people to attend.
The first is the Grow Smart Business conference on Tuesday, Sept. 29 (you’ll have noticed my blog’s been sporting the badge recently). I was lucky enough to be invited to it and I can’t wait to hear from Chris Anderson, Sen. Mark Warner, Bob London, Jill Foster (I’ll finally get to meet her!) and so many others. I’m also going to be helping to staff a “learning center” that will be open throughout the day at the conference, so if you’re planning to attend, please do stop by and say hello.
I’m chuffed that IABC/Washington (y’all have heard enough about how I’m involved with them, no need for me to go on about it, right?) is a partner of the conference; with a significant number of our members at or owning consulting firms, this is a golden opportunity to learn from some real movers and shakers. So if you’re an IABC/Washington member interested in attending the event, you can get $100 off the conference registration fee ($299) by using the code IABCGROWSMART here.
The second is Communitelligence’s Rethinking Corporate Communications conference, immediately following GSB (Sept. 30 and Oct. 1). There are some really interesting speakers lined up, including Mark Weiner, David Henderson, Jack Holt from the DoD, my friends Mark Phillips, APR and Ned Lundquist, ABC, and many more. Yours truly will be part of the measurement panel along with both Marks (MarkyMark?) on Oct. 1.
IABC/Washington is also supporting this conference, which is built around delivering value in a tough economy; again, if you’re a member, you can get $300 off the standard registration of $900/$600 (depending on whether you work in a corporate or government/nonprofit setting). The details are on our website.
There’s always a lot going on in DC and no doubt I’ll be wiped after next week, but I wouldn’t miss either of these for the world. I hope I’ll see you there.
You, Who?
You know how, sometimes, you’re reading a conference line-up, trying to decide whether you’ll attend or not, and you see a name you’ve never seen, or heard, before? Happens to me every now and then. I like to think I know more than a few people in our “biz,” but sometimes I can’t help but go, “You, who?”
Yes, I get excited by events that are being headlined by the rock stars of our industry, or the folks I call the “WHOs.” These are the folks who – at least to me – are the real deal, not just big fish in whichever echo chamber they’ve taken up residence. They have terrific experiences and lessons to share, and it gives me a kick to meet them.
What I’ve started finding lately, though, is that the “whos” are often more exciting to me than the “WHOs.” Because they share new ideas and have fresh voices – the stuff that keeps our profession growing and relevant. And I’d really like to see and hear from more of them.
If there’s one thing you can do for yourself as a communicator and our profession at the same time, it’s to share what you know. Because that’s the only way others will learn, and we can continue to shape the body of knowledge that future generations will draw on. And what good are all those great ideas if you keep them inside yourself?
So if you’re a “who,” here’s my challenge to you: start doing something TODAY that will take you from a “who” to a “WHO.” Get involved with your local IABC or PRSA chapter. Look for and speak at local events. Share your thoughts on Twitter or your blog. Better yet, do both.
If you’re a “WHO,” are you paying it forward? Are you reaching to the “whos” of our world to help them climb the ladder you did so successfully?
Take it from a former “who” not quite a “WHO.” And if you won’t take it from me, take it from Smokie. Don’t be Alice… or the guy who lived next door to her.
Whether “who” or “WHO,” how have you been helped? What tips can you offer those trying to break the thought leadership ceiling? Do share, I’d love to know.
Pulling My Talking Shoes Out
I should probably have done this earlier. Don’t they say something about better late than never?
Right, then. I have a hectic couple of weeks coming up with no less than four conferences in two weeks (probably baby food for some, but for me, that’s a lot). If you’re going to be at any, I’d love to say hello in person.
June 3 is PRNews’ PR Measurement Conference at DC’s National Press Club, which I’m really looking forward to because it’s on… you guessed it, measurement. I’ve been to several great conferences but the measurement ones are always my favorite.
If you were thinking of coming, please let me know so that I can get you the speakers’ guests discount code. If you can’t make it, PRNews is on Twitter and will be giving out a hashtag soon.
June 4 is Vocus’ 2009 Users Conference, where I’m participating on a panel on Twitter.
Er, did I just see you rolling your eyes?
Seriously, I love this conference. This’ll be my third year as a speaker, and I can’t wait, especially since I don’t have to prepare any slides. I’m told the hashtag is #vocus, so if you can’t make it, follow along.
June 9 I’ll take a long-overdue Acela Express trip up to the Big Apple to speak at T3PR on – you guessed it, measurement. This one’s a first for me, but several Twitter and IRL pals will be there, so I’m excited about it. Plus, I haven’t been in New York in ages.
And then June 12 I’ll be attending – not speaking at – BlogPotomac. Phew. I’m really looking forward to meeting, and re-connecting with, several Twitter friends.
So if you’ll be anywhere in my vicinity, do let me know. I’d love to meet you.
