Are you Tweeting or Squeaking?

How to measure the impact of Twitter on your media relations program

You land a great story in The New York Times and then you see that people are Tweeting a link to that story. You know that the readership of the story is dwarfed by the number of people who are reading it because of the Tweets. Even a couple dozen Tweets by influential Tweeps can reach hundreds of thousands of followers. But, how do you measure that for your marketing department?

There is an accurate and repeatable way to measure the reach of your news stories on Twitter. If you take five minutes to measure them, you can greatly improve the metrics on your media relations program. Additionally, this quick research will uncover the people that are the true influencers in your industry.

Here are a few steps you can follow to measure the reach of your news story:

1. Count Tweets - People who are referring others to your news story will include a link to that story online. Topsy.com has a tool that allows you to plug in any URL and it will show you all the Tweets that include that story. This search engine gives you a quick count of Tweets and lists each message so you can drill into them a bit more. It wonderfully walks each shortened URL so you have all the Tweets in one place.

2. Count of followers - The total potential reach of your story is the count of followers of all the people who Tweeted that story. For the old-school marketers, this is like the circulation of a magazine. You know not everyone who received the magazine read your story, but it is a objective measure of the weight of the publication. Unfortunately, there is no super easy way to get this number right now. Topsy doesn't tally all the followers of the Tweets (Note to Team Topsy - I'd love to see this feature). Yahoo has a unofficial tool called Important People that will count followers for a key word, but won't work on a URL. It allows you to download your search into a spreadsheet so you can easily tally and filter it. For example, I did a vanity search on myself and I pulled up five Tweets that mentioned my name that reached a total of 27,000 people. If these tools don't work, you can count the followers by hand.

3. Click Throughs - Search advertising where you pay when someone clicks on your ad has dramatically changed advertising because marketers can measure the reach of their ads. In a similar way, you can easily measure the number of people who clicked on a Tweet and read your news story. More than one-half of all Tweets use a service named Bit.ly to shorten URLs. In addition to saving you characters in your Tweets, the service gives you a count of the people who have clicked on the link. To figure out how many people have clicked on a Bit.ly link all you need to do is add a + to the end of the URL. For example, add a + to the end of this URL and you can see exactly the number of people that have responded to an event I'm putting on in February.

Link to event - http://bit.ly/c0Ahzl

Number of people who clicked on this link: http://bit.ly/c0Ahzl+

It is also a great way to see how much traffic your competitors are getting on their news stories. All the information is public so anyone can use it.

If you use this tool, don't forget the Tweets that don't use Bit.ly links. I recommend that you estimate the total clicks based on the ratio of Tweets that use Bit.ly links.

4. The value of a click - When an executive is unsure how effective your media program is at moving sales, be sure you don't skip this step. Nearly everyone agrees that traffic to the Web site is gold for your company. Advertisers can pay $1 to $7 for a keyword for search advertising to get people on your Web site. If you can show your company a large click-through rate, you can multiply that by the market value for your company's name on Google Adwords. If you get 3,000 clicks on your Tweets and the value of the keyword is $1, then you have a story that is worth well over $3000. If you can speak in dollars, everyone will understand you. I wrote a blog post that details this process.

5. Web site referral traffic - Every company has a Web analytics tool that lets the Web master know where traffic to the Web site is coming from. The standard reports from this tool can be a PR person's best friend. Because news stories have a relatively high trust among readers, articles have the power to drive a lot of traffic to your Web site. You know this already, but do you ask for those reports? Even five minutes looking at a Web referral report will likely show you that several of your recent news stories are driving much of the referral traffic. Again, this is another opportunity for you to put a cash value on that traffic. Buy your Web person lunch and get regular access to these reports and add them to your next business review meeting with your boss.

Getting your news stories into the feed of people's updates is a great way to increase the reach of media relations program. It is exciting to see your story be ReTweeted and go viral. Now you have the tools you need to measure these programs.

Do you have tools that you use to measure the impact of Twitter on your media relations and marketing programs? I'd love to hear about them in the comments section.

Wikipedia Editing Guidelines for Marketing and Public Relations Professionals

Can I edit my Wikipedia entry?

Wikipedia continues to be one of the most trusted sites on the Web and is regularly listed in the top one or two places on any search. The search engine visibility factor drives every marketing person to peek into what Wikipedia says about their own company or product. That pressure may drive a well-intentioned, but uninformed marketing person to push for inappropriate changes.

Often, PR and marketing people are the ones asked to create or edit a Wiki entry for their client. Creating an entry for a company that you work for is against the Wikipedia conflict of interest policies. Although it is frowned on by the Wikipedia community, everyone has a story about a marketing friend that edited their company's entry and was never caught.

In response to this problem, I drafted this detailed set of guidelines in 2008. Because this piece continues to be my most popular post, I thought it would be good to update the information and re-post it. You may find it overly detailed, but I worked to address every editing temptation that an eager executive could press upon a PR person. I've also linked to nearly all of the sources so it is easy for you to navigate the conflict of interest labyrinth.

Although there are a lot of "No Nos" in this post, at the end there is a clear path for an ethical communicator to address true inaccuracies found in a Wikipedia entry.

If you enjoy the piece and use it, please drop me a line and let me know.

Wikipedia Editing Guidelines for Marketing and Public Relations Professionals

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008. There are more than 85,000 active contributors working on more than 14 million articles in more than 273 languages. Entries to Wikipedia often rank high in search engine results and are generally held in high regard by online communities. This trust is fueled in part by Wikipedia’s emphasis on transparency.

Wikipedia Guidelines

Wikipedia includes a list of guidelines that govern its use. When observed, contributors can freely make edits and advance the Wikipedia project. Violations of these guidelines are looked upon negatively by the Wikipedia community and will be removed. Occasionally, an editor or organization that violates these rules is exposed in a public way that diminishes their credibility with customers and other constituents. A simple Internet search of “conflict of interest Wikipedia” returns dozens of stories and blog posts exposing companies that updated a Wikipedia entry. Even factual changes made contrary to the guidelines can damage trust. Content guidelines should be reviewed before an editor makes changes to Wikipedia.

Conflict of Interest

Wikipedia’s conflict of interest page is the recommended first stop for all marketing and public relations professionals. This short article clearly outlines that Wikipedia aims to produce a neutral, reliably sourced encyclopedia. Directly from the Wikipedia site – “COI editing involves contributing to Wikipedia in order to promote your own interests or those of other individuals, companies, or groups. Where an editor must forgo advancing the aims of Wikipedia in order to advance outside interests, that editor stands in a conflict of interest.”

Although an employee at a company may be the best expert on a topic, technology or product, they have a conflict of interest if their comments benefit that company. According to the guidelines, they should not edit Wikipedia pages “in areas where there is a conflict of interest that would make the edits non-neutral (biased).” Remember that changes are forever recorded in the history section and Wiki editors use tools to trace changes back to individuals to assess their conflict of interest.

Wikiquette

Wikipedia operates on the principal of assumed good faith and its editors follow etiquette guidelines. People come to the site to collaborate and write good articles and in return expect transparency and open disclosure.

Highlights:

· Sign and date posts to talk pages

· Work towards agreement

· Argue facts, not personalities

· Recognize biases and keep them in check

· Observe conflict of interest guidelines

· Make all entries verifiable by including references and evidence for each claim or fact

The list of what Wikipedia is not helps contributors understand that the site is not a soapbox, publisher of original thought, advertising outlet, repository of links, directory, democracy or a battleground.

Correcting Information

Wikipedia does have an outlet for circumstances in which information on a Wikipedia page is incorrect and the editor has a conflict of interest. For example, if a page on a specific company incorrectly states the inventor of the company’s key technology, a PR or marketing person can justifiably initiate a correction process. This entails making an appeal to the discussion page located on the top row of tabs of each Wiki entry. This is a place where editors can discuss the contents of the pages and mediate their disagreements. By making an appeal on the discussion page, the contributor is asking a fellow editor without a conflict of interest to make changes. On pages where there is frequent discussion and monitoring, changes can be made quickly by a neutral community member.

Neutral third parties, such as industry analysts and user group members, can be contributors to articles in their subject area. By scanning the list of previous contributors, you may find a neutral party whom you already know. Contact that person through the user talk page to discuss your update.

Experience shows that it can be effective to publish correct information on a company-sponsored page and release it for publication on Wikipedia, giving a neutral third-party editor all the information needed to make a correction. Please see below a letter from Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder on this topic.

Encouraging experts without a conflict of interest to contribute to Wikipedia speeds the correction process and builds reciprocal trust.

Recommendations for appeals to the discussion page:

1. Clearly disclose your affiliation and conflict of interest. Transparency is key to building trust.

2. State your recommended changes and cite verifiable references.

3. Explain your recommendations so others can see their validity. You are working towards a compromise and a balanced presentation.

4. Feel free to discuss the issue on the discussion page. You may even post your recommended changes on this page.

5. Check back on the discussion page to answer questions from the community about your request.

6. Follow wikiquette guidelines.

7. Maintain a neutral point of view.

8. If you find you are in dispute with a specific editor, see the dispute resolution page for assistance. There are formal and informal methods of resolving the conflict.

Resources

· Wikipedia: Five Pillars – Summarizes official polices and guidelines

· Letter from Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia:

I think we need to be very clear in a lot of different places that PR firms editing Wikipedia is something that we frown upon very very strongly. The appearance of impropriety is so great that we should make it very very strongly clear to these firms that we do not approve of what they would like to do.

It is all well and good to say, well, it is ok so long as they remain neutral, but if they really want to write neutral articles, they can do so, on their own websites, and release the work under the FDL [MIT’s GNU Free Documentation License], and notify Wikipedians who are totally independent.

Additionally, it is always appropriate to interact on the talk pages of articles. If a PR firm is not happy about how something is presented about their client, they can identify themselves openly on the talk page, and present well-reasoned arguments and additional information and links.

Of course it is always going to be the case that unethical practitioners may get involved in inappropriate behavior, but I think this is no argument for simply accepting it. Rather, it is a strong argument for asking people to do this the right way: transparently and allowing independent editors to make the actual editing decisions.

--Jimbo

- Nabble.Com Mailing List

August 21, 2006

This document was drafted by Travis Murdock on August 28, 2008. This document paraphrases and copies text from several Wikipedia articles. These articles have been referenced where possible with their corresponding URLs. Last updated on January 31, 2010.

How many clicks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop

The value of a click for PR and marketing professionals

All sorts of marketing departments around the world are meeting right now trying to figure out how to get their enthusiastic followers to Tweet about their product. They imagine that each Tweet will drive one more click to reach the chewy customer at the center of the marketing campaign.

I believe there is a hard cash value for each Tweet. Just like any traditional outbound marketing or lead generation program, there is a value to every customer action. Each new customer that comes in the door brings in money. Twitter brings people into your cause or company and they buy your product. I'm not suggesting that marketing departments blast Tweets like they do with direct mail, but instead it makes sense to engage with customers online and listen to the conversation. If you are investing time and money into a social media program, you'll want to know what that investment is getting you.

So, how do we measure the value of a Tweet? I've put together a basic formula that I think calculates that value fairly well. At least it gives you a baseline value to compare against your other customer engagement programs.

Nearly every topic and word has a value in today's online marketplace that is set through Google AdSense. Thousands of people are bidding for these keywords and this auction ensures that the value of the word is set just about right. For example, pretend I work for Specialized, the bike company. If I look up the value of the Specialized Epic on Google Adsense, I know that Google will charge me $.59 each time someone clicks on my ad. Or, the value of that click is at least $.59.

The next step is to count the number of clicks that you've had on your Tweets. If the Tweets in your campaign use a Bit.ly link to shorten the URLs, the service will give you a real-time count of who has clicked on that link. The formula is something like this:

(Dollar value of keyword) X (# of clicks) = Baseline value of the campaign

Imagine that the community posts a cool video of Team Specialized from their last competition. If I saw that I received 11,000 clicks on the link to the video the day it posts, I could estimate that the Day 1 value of the campaign is $6,490.

This formula omits a few important considerations for influence campaigns. Unlike a TV ad where the sender (the TV) is neutral, the sender in social media has a reputation that can greatly enhance the impact of the message. That reputation factor should be multiplied against the baseline value. Tools like Twinfluence attempt to measure influence, but it is still fairly subjective.

Also, the formula leaves out the value to your brand when someone reads a Tweet, but doesn't click. That Tweet improves your brand, but is even more difficult to measure. All marketing campaigns suffer from this problem so it probably equals out when you are comparing the success of campaigns within the same company.

Each click takes marketing and PR professionals closer to the customer. Now that you have a baseline value for those campaigns, you'll be able to quickly demonstrate their value by counting the clicks that it takes to reach the center of the candy coated customer.

How to be Indispensable: More Cowbell!

Thoughts on Seth Godin's new book Linchpin - Are you indispensable?

You are a genius. That start to Seth Godin's new book got my attention. If this guy knows how smart I am, then I definitely want to listen to him.

Godin proposes that we must become indispensable in our jobs. The days are gone when we could show up to the factory (or cubicle), follow the instructions and then be guaranteed a regular paycheck. The market has always favored the cheaper alternative and it is easier to find those alternatives. Journalists, car factory workers, chicken slaughterhouse cutters and engineers have all learned that there is someone willing to do their job for less. The solution to this downward spiral is to become an artist - someone that invests their emotional energy into their job to deliver something that is uniquely different. Like a linchpin that connects two rail cars, indispensable employees can't be removed and discarded.

Godin explains that indispensable artists are a combination of dignity, generosity and humanity. This is a person who can walk into a chaotic situation and create order. They also connect people and naturally give gifts. Just like the famous Saturday Night Live skit that features the cowbell player of the Blue Oyster Cult, artists invest completely into their art - always willing to give more cowbell.

SNL: More Cowbell - Click here for video

The author spends much of the book convincing the reader that things are truly bleak for the average order taker. He convinced me of this fact in 10 pages, so I wanted to quickly skip to the part where told me how to solve it. People have critisized Godin in the past that his books present all problem and no solution. His unapologetic response - "There is no map." Art is intrinsically new and applies to that situation. He can't map out the solution, only give you the motivation to put in your passion to solve the problem.

The art of shipping is the concept that grabbed me the most in Linchpin. The only purpose of starting is to finish according to Godin. Shipping is the practice of regularly finishing the project (art) you are working on. It doesn't do any good to come up with great ideas and then not put them out there. Also, it doesn't do any good to continuously refine them and never actually ship them. I can really appreciate this discipline after working in several startups. You are always in the dark about what the customer really wants until you put something out there for them to evaluate. So many marketing meetings arguing about feature sets, messaging, pricing, bugs, packaging without any real knowledge of what the market wants. Once it is out there the customer tells you what they like and don't like. Then you can refine and ship again.

Godin's book is inspiring. I lept off my chair when I finished the book eager to share what I'd just learned with the world. Although the book doesn't give the reader a map to the treasure, it confirms your faith that exerting the extra emotional labor, delivering unique creativity, and investing in developing your domain knowledge will pay off.

Disclosure: I got a free preview copy of Linchpin that is scheduled to be released on January 26. Godin put together an innovative pre-release marketing program with the hopes that people will share their feelings about his book with their friends. You can buy the book here - I don't make any money from it.

Responsibilities of a Digital Citizen

How to encourage critical thought online

This week I had a great conversation with a small group of leaders in the social media world at Lunch for Good. The topic of conversation was how to encourage critical thought in online conversations. The discussion at my table turned to the role that each of us has as a digital citizen to drive more engaged thinking in our online communities. We came up with the following guidelines:

Travis Murdock - Lunch For Good #2: Sparking Critical Thought from Lunch For Good on Vimeo.

1. Think about what I publish or pass along - Blindly Liking, Thumbing-up, Spamming or ranking information in our feeds needs to change. There is a lot of useful intent found in each online share, but this only works if we do it with thought. Facebook Live Feed and Google Reader 'sort by magic' show that the information stored in our sharing patterns has the potential to help us find more relevant information for our lives. My6Sense does a great job of delivering data that I want, but it relies on a basic level of critical thought when I rate what I read.

2. Disclosure on conflicts of interest - The web of interconnected influencers helps us discover more information, but it also requires that we all elevate our standards a bit to approach those of traditional journalists. At a basic level, as digital citizens, we need to disclose real and perceived conflicts of interest.

3. Use the appropriate tool for the appropriate conversation - 140 characters is great when I'm bounding down the mountain bike trail and I run into a four-point deer, but good digital citizens would move a more serious conversation to another forum when needed. Several online communities are popping up where critical thought and reason are promoted.

4. Be open to opinions that are different - Real-world and online conversations both flourish when we have more tolerance for those with different opinions. Also, we should accept that opinions can change.

What do you think are the responsibilities of a digital citizen? I'd love to hear it.

(Disclosure: Lunch For Good gave me a free sandwich, salad, ginger ale and cookie at the Lunch For Good event mentioned in this post. (Secretly, I took an extra cookie on my way out.))

Is engaging online a gateway drug for civic engagement?

Encouraging respectful and engaging online conversations

Yesterday I attended Lunch for Good an event that explored the idea of responsible online engagement and participation. The group was inspired to discuss how we can dramatically improve the online conversation and drive more people to contribute their well-thought out opinions.



I personally believe that online conversations dramatically improve when people are encouraged to use their real names and be authentic online. This helps the reader understand the context of the opinion and brings deeper understanding for both people. There are obvious personal safety exceptions, but a general move toward accountability and away from anonymity causes online communities to flourish.

David Cohn, director for Spot.us, led his small group's discussion and reported on their opinions in the video. Spot.us is a community funded reporting project where the public can commission journalists to do investigations on important and perhaps overlooked stories.

Highlights from the video:
1. People feel empowered when they contribute
2. Easy to find like-minded people online, but also need to find opposing points of view
3. Online engagement is the gateway drug to civic engagement

How do you think we can drive more thoughtful and respectful conversations both online and offline?

Connecting with Colleagues in the Silicon Valley

How to effectively network with marketing and PR people in the Silicon Valley.

A couple of times a month a colleague will ask me how to go out and meet new people in the public relations and marketing industry. Since I'm giving this advice all the time, I thought I'd put it in one place. If you have suggestions, please add your favorite networking event in the comments.

The first place to start is Facebook Events. In the San Francisco Bay Area, this is the single best place to find networking opportunities. The digital cork board for these events changes every few years, but right now Facebook is the best place. Everyone that has an event puts it on Facebook because they know it will get easily shared on people's Facebook wall. As soon as you get to the Facebook Events page, click on the Friends' Events tab to see the events that your friends are attending or hosting. This filter will help you quickly find an event that someone you trust has already evaluated.

If you don't have a Facebook account, please create one so you can connect with all your current friends and colleagues. No need to meet new people if you aren't maximizing your current network. I strongly believe that online interactions lead to more real-world connections. If you don't believe me, come to one of these events and I'll be happy to convince you. :)

I've put together a great list of organizations that are generally focused on PR, marketing, technology and social media. I regularly attend these events and I find them quite helpful, well-organized and fun. I normally set a goal for myself to add one person to my network at each of these events. Everyone that attends is there to meet new people so it is easy to approach a new face and strike up a conversation.

Where to network with PR and marketing people:

• PRSA Silicon Valley
  
• PRSA San Francisco
  
• San Francisco New Tech
• Silicon Valley New Tech
• Silicon Valley American Marketing Association
  
• Social Media Club
• Girls In Tech
• TechKaraoke
  
• Silicon Valley Tweetup
• LinkedIn Events - Like Facebook, LinkedIn is a great place to connect with colleagues and friends. The events section should be checked if you are looking for industry specific events.

Whether you are looking for a job, new clients or just getting to know more people, the events by these organizations will help you connect with your colleagues.

Do you have a great networking event? Please let us all know about it by posting a comment.

(Disclosure: I serve on the PRSA Silicon Valley board of directors as the immediate-past president.)

Transparency and Informed Decision Making

Transparent communication in public relations and marketing

The MobileCrunch story titled Cheating the App Store: PR firm has interns post positive reviews for clients details alleged misconduct by Reverb Communications. The story has stirred up another round of discussions about ethical behavior and transparency in public relations. When these controversies surface, it reminds me that professional public relations practitioners have a code of ethics that is well defined by the Public Relations Society of America. They aren't complicated and do a good job of anticipating a situation where a communicator would be tempted to unfairly promote their client's products or interests.

The core principle of the code of ethics is that open communication fosters informed decision making in a democratic society. The intent is to build trust with the public by revealing all information needed for responsible decision making. The principle requires that a PR person reveal the sponsors for causes and interests represented and openly discloses financial interest. An example of improper conduct is a front group that implements "grass roots" campaigns or letter-writing campaigns to legislators on behalf of undisclosed interest groups. Certainly, employees that get their salary from a client they are reviewing would need to disclose that fact to readers under this simple definition.

The online world expects more transparency and disclosure than we have seen in the past so PR and marketing professionals need to rise to that standard. If you find yourself responding online (or offline) to a comment, just open with a sentence that says "I work for XX that represents XX." That quick disclosure avoids a real or perceived conflict of interest. I often hear that the people who work and sell a company's products are the most knowledgeable about the product and the problems it solves. I agree that they probably are the best experts on that topic and should respond to questions, but the code of ethics and general honesty require that you disclose your affiliation. I find that it actually increases your credibility in the online conversation when you disclose these facts because people know that you have strong domain experience.

Next time a client or manager asks why can't they edit their company's Wikipedia entry or anonymously respond to criticism on a blog, point them to these clear ethical guidelines. If that doesn't convince them, direct them to read the outrage in the comments section of the MobileCrunch story.

Now for my disclosures - I am the past president for PRSA Silicon Valley and I work at Edelman, a PR agency.

Like magic, marketing speak makes your documents disappear...Poof

Search engine visibility and optimization for PR and marketing professionals

Early in my career I worked for a small start-up company with really smart executives. The first time I met them I thought, "Wow, I must work here so I can learn from these people." Along with that intelligence came a large vocabulary and a desire to infuse every marketing document with the richest language. The CEO was regularly rewriting my press releases trying to pack more and more into each paragraph. We were in a new space so we were inventing language for everything we did. This brewed a thick marketing-speak mess that journalists didn't appreciate. After sending out one of these hyped-up press releases, I received an email from an editor at one of the largest business newspapers congratulating me on winning their Buzzy award. He and a group of other editors had calculated the ratio of real words to marketing words in my release and I had the worst score of any other release that week. Obviously, I was embarrassed. The good news is that I was finally able to convince my truly smart team that simple, real language is much better than jargon.

Today, the consequence of using marketing-speak in marketing documents is much worse than getting the Buzzy award. Marketing speak can actually make your documents invisible to people using search engines. People rarely search for those terms and those words push down easy-to-understand descriptions of your solution. With 90 percent of web sessions starting with a search, visibility in search is critical for marketing and PR professionals who want to create pull for their documents.

How can you increase the visibility of press releases, Web copy, marketing documents and the company? Here are a few techniques:

1. Use natural language - Strongly avoid industry jargon, acronyms and other abbreviations that the average person who buys your product would not use.

2. People search for headache, not aspirin - When people search, they probably start with the problem and not the solution. When someone has a headache, that is what they will search for. They probably won't first search for aspirin. Your documents must prominently mention the problem - preferably in the headline. This point is expanded in Edelman's position paper titled Search Engine Visibility. (Disclosure: Edelman is my employer)

3. Use online tools to rank and test words - Search engines make it easy to discover what people are searching for. They do this because they want you, as an marketer, to buy those search terms. Lee Odden at Top Rank has a great list of these tools in his blog post titled How to Choose the Best Keywords for Optimized Public Relations.

4. Publish or perish - To create strong pull for your products or services in online search, you simply must have content for people to find. You can increase your existing content by four or five times simply by re-publishing everything in many different formats. For example, if you do a written customer case study think about how you can create a short format video or podcast of the same material. Instead of taking notes, turn it into a video interview with Skype. If you plan from the beginning to produce content in multiple formats, you'll find that it costs almost the same amount as producing for just one.

5. My CEO makes me use big words - I understand your problem, I lived it. If showing them this blog post doesn't solve the issue, you can go ahead and use those difficult-to-digest phrases. Be sure to also include the average person words too. Put them higher in the document and fight hard for the headline. If your document or press release gets mucky at the end, that probably won't hurt your visibility. When you get the Buzzy award, put it in a frame and put it over your CEO's desk.

The good-news ending to the Buzzy award story is that I was able to develop a real relationship with that reporter and turned it into a small story in his paper. Now, when I encounter marketing speak, I tell this story and like magic I'm able to banish the big words.

Do you have other techniques or stories about search engine visibility? I'd love to hear it in the comments.

Pimp my event with Twitter

Engage with top Tweeps to drive attendance at events, conferences and networking mixers.

Public relations and marketing professionals are trying to figure out how to incorporate the promotional power of Twitter into their events. Instinctively, you have a feel that Twitter is a perfect tool to promote the event and engage with your audience, but you may get stuck on where to start. I've used Twitter over the past year for several networking mixers, trade shows and professional development events. Used well, the communication tool will drive more attendees to your events, increase the event's brand equity and increase your media coverage.

Before we dig into how, I'd like to quickly talk about why. Twitter could just be one more hassle in a already complicated event. Let me explain why it is worth it for both the small professional organization all the way up to the 30,000 attendee conference.

First, I assure you that people are already Tweeting about the conference before and during your event. The conversation is already occurring so you should join it.

Second, if you don't claim your position as event organizer, someone else on Twitter will. So, doing a little organizing of the conversation will help you monitor it and increase the quality of the discussion.

Finally, Twitter will drive more registrations to your events and it is a measurement dream. It is easy to tell exactly how many people clicked on your Tweet invitation to register. Take that data to your marketing team and they are sure to fund these efforts in the future.

I've organized these tips into three categories: promotion, engagement and measurement.

How to promote your event using Twitter

1. Set up a hash tag for your event - If you only do one thing, do this one. Set up a hash tag for your event so everyone has an easy way to follow the Tweets about the event and so you can monitor the conversation. It should be short, but very obvious. For example, if you are doing an event for the PRSA Silicon Valley chapter, make the hash tag #prsasv. Put the hash tag on every registration email, promotional email, panel PowerPoint and printed hand-out. You want everyone to use the same one.

2. Invite Tweeps with lots of followers to attend the event for free - People with a large following are sure to drive a lot of people to your event. Once they know they are receiving a free conference or event pass, they are likely to push out the information to their followers and continue the conversation during the event. At one event I organized, we allowed all the high-follower Tweeps into the press room where they had Internet access, food and the exclusivity normally reserved for reporters. These people Tweeted almost constantly during the event to their large following. We recruited these Tweeps through the Web site and verified that they had a large and relevant following. They also happened to know all the parties and made the after-event scene a lot of fun.

3. Email speakers with a suggested Tweet and a discount code - Weeks or months before the event, send an email to your conference speakers with a suggested Tweet. Crafting the suggestion allows them to cut and paste it into Twitter and encourages them to include all the needed details. Because they are speaking at the event, they are likely to enthusiastically share it with their followers. Also, give them a special registration discount code so your speakers feel they have something unique and valuable to offer their followers.

How to engage with event attendees using Twitter

1. Display the Twitter stream at the event - Conferences seem to have screens everywhere. Dedicate a few of them in the hallways to displaying the Twitter stream. This physical reminder of the online conversation will incourage people to Tweet more often and serves as a good information point for those who aren't closely monitoring Twitter. I've also seen it used to bring in those who weren't able to be there in person.

2. Ask for questions through Twitter - By engaging the audience through Twitter, you encourage more people to ask more questions and you help people keep their questions honest. They are among their professional peers and they are unlikely to ask unfair questions. I've also seen panelists and moderators who have been corrected when the material isn't meeting the needs of the audience.

3. Recognize strong Tweets with an @reply - Very quickly the stronger Tweeps will surface in the online conversation. Send a Tweet out that recognizes their work with the conference hash tag to encourage others to follow them. This act will drive the strongest Tweeps to continue their reporting and point the conference followers to these emerging leaders.

4. Tweet the after-parties and activities - When people travel for events, often they are in a town they don't know and are eager to meet their colleagues. Actively organize the after-event parties and activities and Tweet them. This added value to the attendees will drive more people to follow you and also help them to listen to your information during the standard conference hours.

5. Post photos and links to live video - Twitter might be 140 characters, but the platform allows you to make the conference interactive and dynamic by adding links to photos, videos and recordings of the sessions. This content is interesting for those attending the event, but also elevates the stature of the conference for those who couldn't make it this time. I use Twitpic for photos and 12seconds for video.


How to monitor and measure the Twitter conversation

1. Monitor the conversation in real-time - To keep your eye on the conversation, use a tool like TweetDeck or Seesmic that allows you to easily see, sort and reply to Tweets about the event.

2. Use a URL shortening service to count clicks - To count the number of times people click on the links in your Tweets, use a URL shortener that includes stats such as Bit.ly. For example, I recently blogged titled How to influence the influencers. I used a Bit.ly link to direct people to my blog. This data shows that 255+ people clicked on my Tweet and all the people that ReTweeted it. With this data, it is easy to show the Tweets that are working to drive traffic to your registration page and the Tweets that might need a little rewording.

Twitter is appearing at every event and PR and marketing professionals have the opportunity to engage with the community in ways that help build relationships and expand the influence of the conference. If you take just a few minutes to consider these points well before the event, you will grow your event's brand equity and probably increase your revenues.

Have I missed something? Please take a moment to share with me your successes and failures. If you have tools that work better than the one's I've mentioned, I'd love to hear about it.

Resources:

• For those looking for a nice video tutorial on Twitter, please go here.

Who influences the influencers?

Building relationships and engaging with mavens is a focus of every marketing and PR program. Marketeers and PR practitioners everywhere want to believe that they are they influence the Influencers, but we know that others also play a large role in helping Influencers form their opinions. Reaching and influencing the original idea creators or trend-spotters is often an effective way to communicate with the more vocal Influencer.

Because Influencers like to influence, they publish their thoughts a lot. In the process of publishing, they leave behind, often intentionally, bread crumbs that lead to the people they listen to. Extending your PR efforts to this idea-creator crowd will exponentially grow your impact on the Influencers and on your target audience.

Like any friendship, building relationships with trusted trend-spotters requires honest engagement and two-way communication. You aren't trying to sell them your wares - You are working to get to know them and provide them with something valuable in return.

How can you find who influences the Influencer? Here are some tips:

1. Check who they are following on FriendFeed

FriendFeed and the many other feed and social activity aggregators are a great window into the mind of an Influencer. Look through their list of Subscriptions and you'll quickly see the conversations that are reaching them. Also, take a look at what they have Liked. That can really drill into the types of conversations that are moving them. Occasionally you'll see that an Influencers has thousands of Subscriptions because they are following everyone that is subscribing to them. In this case, the Likes becomes more important. For example, Louis Gray and Robert Scoble, well-known tech bloggers, each have 20k+ subscriptions, but if you drill into their Likes you can quickly get a taste of their favorite flavor. If you really want to zero in on their current ideas, subscribe to just their Likes and Comments.


2. Follow Influencer RSS reader feeds

Another way to see how Influencers learn about news is to follow their RSS feeds. Most of the popular readers have a way to see what the Influencer reads or is sharing publicly. The most popular reader in the tech crowd is Google Reader. All of a person's Shares are public so they can be followed easily. For example, Steve Rubel (fellow Edelman employee), frequently shares his favorite blog posts. Drilling into the people's stories he is sharing can provide a lot of insight about Steve and who he trusts.




3. Research Facebook events

If you have earned friend status with an Influencer on Facebook, it is easy to see what events they are attending and who else is attending those events. I frequently find the best events and also new friends that share my interests through this powerful tool.

4. Research ReTweets and @replies on Twitter

Influencers on Twitter seem to be collecting followers like they were Pokemon cards so a simple look at who they are following is not very useful. What you want to know is who they are engaging with on a regular basis. These are likely people that they find interesting and who help shape their views. A tool like TweetStats can give you a detailed look at an Influencer's behavior on Twitter. A quick look at an analysis of Guy Kawasaki's traffic shows that he most often replies to @marinamartin and ReTweets @tweetmeme and @louisgray.

5. Follow the social brick road

One thing you can be sure about Influencers is that they like to let others know their opinions. Because of that fact, they are likely to have created a clear path to find them online. Go to their blog and website and look around. Often they will have a list of social networks where they are active. Those tools often allow you to see the Influencer's friends and interactions.

With a little research and extra time building relationships, PR and marketing professionals can expand their Influencer friendships to include those those that quietly, but consistently shape the tastes of the big names.

Do you know of other tools, services or techniques that help you discover the people that influence the Influencers? Please let us all know by putting it in the comments below.

How to shoot customer interview videos

Several years ago I was asked to put together a series of customer video interviews to be used for generating customer leads and to help close sales. Like most companies, our customers were dispersed around the U.S. I put together a request for proposal and sent it out to professional video vendors. All the bids I got back were for about $35,000 plus travel expenses. As I reviewed the bids, I could see that their costs were reasonable. It simply costs a lot of money to script, shoot, edit and deliver business-quality videos. As a start-up, we didn't have that kind of budget so the project got pushed back several times.

Some of our more enterprising sales people were shooting videos with their personal hand-held cameras. These amateur videos were quite compelling because they were eye-level, face-to-face interviews with the customer about what they liked about the product. The sales people began to pass these videos between each other to show to prospective customers and to help train new sales people. It was apparent that we didn't need the glossy, voice-over video to help advance our sales prospects. To our audience, the "people-like-me" videos were far more compelling. To the marketing budget, these videos were also more compelling because they cost less than $100 each to produce. In a short period of time, we were able to build a library of customers from different backgrounds that would appeal to many customers.

In the process of shooting and publishing these videos, I learned a few tips that can help your marketing and sales teams do the same.

1. Train your army

You aren't going to be able to shoot these videos on your own. Most marketing and PR people aren't in front of their customers regularly. The best way to get a lot of customer interviews is to train your sales team to shoot the videos on their own.

To get started, ask sales teams to shoot four interviews of their teenage children. Ask the teens about their favorite topic - themselves. Practicing a few times in a pressure-free environment goes a long way to help your sales people master the camera and sound. They should also edit and upload them to YouTube. Getting them comfortable before they sit in front of their customers will help them build confidence and will ensure that you get a lot more usable video content.

2. Shoot first, ask questions later

Good marketeers ask their customer's PR department for permission before they shoot a video. Don't do that - Shoot the videos first and then get permission. Capture everything you can with your own camera while you are in front of your customers. Of course, don't upload it publicly to YouTube without permission, but get it in the can now and ask permission after.

This single principle will dramatically increase the volume of customer interviews you have to develop. A good customer reference program needs lots of customers and you can bet that some of the interviews will not turn out as planned.

Even if the customer decides that you cannot publish the video publicly, they will most likely allow you to use it for internal training. Whether the customer approves it or not, you will still have the case documented for marketing or training.

3. Master the minute

Your customer interviews should be short. Even the most complicated of products can be discussed by your customers in one or two minutes. You don't need them to discuss the technical details. What you are looking for is a simple endorsement that will help your prospects see that someone else has trusted you to solve their business problems.

Getting an interview down to a minute or two takes a little bit of practice. First, interview the customer off camera to hear their story. Take notes about why they selected your product and listen for what is unique or different from other customers. Second, help the interviewee outline the top few points and then immediately shoot the video. This allows the person on camera to remember what they are saying and allows their passion for your solution to come through on the camera.

4. One shot, one kill

Shoot the interview from beginning to end without stopping the camera. Before you hit record, check that the interviewee is positioned properly and is ready to speak. Cue them from behind the camera and let them speak. When one or two minutes has elapsed, let them know with another cue to wrap up. The goal is to shoot the video so it doesn't need to be edited at all. For every two minutes of video that you shoot, it will take you 20 minutes to edit that video. If you are producing even a modest amount of interviews, that editing time can quickly consume your budget and will become the bottleneck.

It took me years to learn this lesson. I'd shoot video and it would sit on my computer for weeks as I tried to find the time to edit it. Then David Spark taught me this simple technique and I quickly began to shoot videos with nearly zero edits. Producing content always slows down at the editing stage. Metaphorically kill your subject in one shot and you'll do yourself, and your budget, a big favor.

5. Hosting is hard, let YouTube do it

Streaming video content in a reliable and scalable way is very difficult. Fortunately, we now have great services to do it for us for nearly free. Let YouTube, Vimeo, or one of the other free video services do all the hard work for you.

Also, these services have millions of people coming to their sites daily. By having your videos on their sites, you will attract their audiences. YouTube has become one of the top search services so uploading your content there will immediately start to drive traffic.

When you upload the video, carefully consider the tags or categories you assign to the video. These words are how the video service search engine will help direct people to your content. Use the natural language that your prospective customers use when talking about the problem your product solves. I find it helpful to playback the video and type every relevant word said by the interviewee. Then add all the appropriate acronyms and product names. Often this can tally 20+ words in an average customer interview.

6. Viral videos

Each page, video, photo, press release, whitepaper or piece of content on your Web site should have a universal sharing menu that allows people to push that information to their friends. There are several free tools that do all the hard work for you. I don't have any reliable stats, but people see roughly 10 percent more page views by simply adding a sharing menu to plain content. Stuff that is hot (like videos) will see much sharper increases in views as fans pass it along.

One way people determine the value of a video is its viewer count. This is often visible at the bottom of the video window. Because of this fact, I recommend driving all of the traffic to one video hosting site so the view counts steadily climb. If the video is hosted in several locations, then counts will also be split and it will appear less successful.

For more detail on making your content viral, see this post titled Marketing in the Feed.

7. Geared up

I've shot several videos that follow these basic points using a simple hand-held video camera. I've included links below to a few examples.

I recommend arming your sales and marketing teams with inexpensive cameras, like the Mino HD Flip. These cameras can shoot in high definition and cost under $200. As with all company-owned electronics, some of them will get damaged or evaporate. At this low price, you can easily re-arm your team when you lose the equipment.

Video examples:

Chris Gulker - Rays of Light for Cancer Patients

TradeMark G at Maker Faire

Habitat for Humanity - La Ceiba, Honduras

When you add video testimonials from your customers to you marketing and sales collateral you'll quickly see that they become the most viewed and credible tools in your marketing mix. These videos are compelling because they help your customers see that someone like them solved a similar problem with your product. With these tips I hope you are able to produce 350 videos for $35,000 instead of only one.

What works for you? Tell me about it in the comments.

Friendly disclosure: I work at a PR agency that represents several social media companies. One of those companies makes tools that allow you to share content online.