Conversationblog

Time to look at my own little "neck of the woods" here in Belgium and see how my Belgian PR colleagues are using (or not using) tools such as blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds etc... in the context of business communications.

Two little surveys are helping me to fine-tune my own personal impressions:

First there's the results of the social media survey of Leads United - Blackline's sister agency - which were published this afternoon.

My colleagues at Leads United collected feedback from 70 PR professionals working in companies across all industries located in Belgium.

Here are the major results:

• Only 24% of respondents use RSS feeds.
• Only 1.4% are active wiki users.
• The implementation of blogging guidelines has risen from 4% in 2007 to 20% in 2008.
• When speaking about strategically applying social media tools, it is seen in this order; first external communications, second internal communications and third, crisis communications.

You can find more details in their social media press release here.

And then there's my own, personal, non-scientific, listing of PR agencies located in Belgium, who are using (or not) RSS feeds to distribute their own (or their client's) content.

As with recent years the trends are not improving that much....

Here are my findings:

• From the 27 PR agencies surveyed, only 9 are using RSS feeds on their website.
• 1 PR agency decided to finally start with RSS feeds on their website in 2008.
  
• 4 didn't optimize their feeds to be recognized by a browser.
• 1 PR agency website was not available.
• 1 PR agency website had RSS feeds in 2007, but not anymore in 2008.

As I wrote on numerous occasions before, RSS feeds and their use is a basic & fundamental skill for someone, or an agency who claims to have experience in "social media" or "online PR".... I can't understand that some PR agencies claim they have those skills and then not implement RSS feeds for their own use on their own website....

You can find the full list and results on my public wiki. Comments about the list and the results ? Please let me know..

Also, for those of you who have heard about RSS and are willing to spend a couple of hours this summer to learn about it, go here and check out my 2 new Summer Courses .

Everyone is welcome !

Although I could agree on "most agencies don't get social media" it is not even me saying this but a recent survey by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony.

The survey, based on 60 responses from marketeers in the US, UK and in France had one clear message: agencies - be it PR, Marketing or Creative/Design agencies - do not understand social media and tend to treat them like any other medium.

One critique that came back from in house marketeers was that agencies themselves have no real hands on experience with these new tools and apply the same communications model they are used to apply.

Here's my take on this, based on my own experience as a freelance consultant/trainer:

• Agencies have been my very first clients; my first training session about social media was with a "traditional" PR agency eager to understand what social media could mean to their business. So do they "get it"...? Well, I think they all know that blogs, RSS feeds etc.. are influencing their profession and are on the agenda of their clients. But that doesn't mean they are all experienced in using social media.
• Each year I track which PR agencies (based in Belgium) have RSS feeds on their websites. I do believe that this is one of the signs that show if you "get" social media or not, as RSS is the basis of good content syndication and information management. Guess what... agencies are very, very slow to get with the RSS game and only 8 out of more than 20 agencies use feeds to promote their content.

So what's the problem...?

It is the model... or rather the fact that the communications model we all learned in PR, Communications, Marketing school doesn't apply to social media at all. It is not about the "sender" and the "receiver" as it used to be.

When using social media we are entering an ecosystem where feedback, two way communications and transparency rule, and most of us are simply not used to this. Many of my colleagues in agency are used to the command and control model and feel very uncomfortable engaging the public online, for all to see and react.

But to be fair - several of my corporate clients feel exactly the same way and need as much information, awareness training and hands on experience before using social media than my agency colleagues. In short, we all have a very long way to go.

According to a study by Awareness, a social media company in the US - about 54% of enterprise size companies are using so called Web2.0 technology. The adoption of blogs, wikis etc... even rises to 74% when looking at companies with less than 500 employees. The report is based on 112 completed surveys.

From all the Web2.0 technologies used, blogs rank first in adoption with 87% of the respondents saying they have used them in an enterprise context. Some other findings include that 96% of the respondents say that all of their Web2.0 initiatives have been successful and 91% claim that using social media for internal purposes has improved communications and collaboration.

The report goes on with interesting insights in the use of different kind of social media and the importance of security, deployment and so on. The major obstacles to the adoption of these tools are limited internal resources, internal budget and - last but not least - security considerations.

While the report gives a very good insight on what is happening in the enterprise world in the US, I would love to see the same kind of study done in Europe. Just over the last week I visited several companies, large and smaller ones and come to the conclusion that we all have a very long way to go.

At the same time, questions from clients are more precise, more elaborate than before showing that the interest in using social media for business communications and collaboration is clearly there.

How about you ? Do you think the time is right to start thinking about deploying social media, or is it too early for your organization ? Let me know.

Euroblog, the conference which focuses on (the only) scientific research on blogging, social media and communications in Europe will take place in Brussels on March 13/14/15, 2008.

I was there last year and did a short interview about the findings with the researchers then. If you are even remotely interested in the impact of social media on the communications profession you have to attend.

Here's the Facebook event page and here the call for papers. Please join in and submit your findings, case studies and survey results.

Apart from that, it will take place in Brussels (my favorite city - see Serge's clip), the center of Burgundian life and good food and drinks... and, I am hosting a pre-conference dinner/drink if there's enough interest ! Don't tell me you need more incentives... ;-)

Let me know if you're interested to join me for a relaxed dinner & drinks and I'll set something up.

Technorati : blogging, brussels, euprera, euroblog, research, social media

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A recent study by the European Interactive Advertising Association found that Europeans read more and more news online.

Some details:

• 65 per cent of European internet users access news sites at least once a month.
• 28 per cent of the respondents admitted to reading newspapers less frequently as a result of the availability of news online.
• 40 per cent said they watched less television.
• 22 per cent found they were listening to the radio less.

Combine this with the latest online shopping trends from The "Social Shopping Study 2007," commissioned by PowerReviews:

• 70% of all online shoppers said customer reviews and ratings on a retailer's website were extremely or very important when they are selecting and purchasing products - these shoppers are called "Social Researchers" in the report.
• 86% of Social Researchers find customer reviews extremely or very important, vs. 70% of all online shoppers.
• 64% of Social Researchers research products online more than half the time, no matter where they buy the product (store, web, catalog, etc.)
• 76% of Social Researchers (vs. 69% of all online shoppers) are more likely to shop on a retailer's website - vs. its competitor site - if it offers social navigation.

Two important trends that clearly support the case for understanding what social media and online trends could mean for your company and products. As I wrote before, at least start listening through the use of RSS feeds and active online participation.

Technorati : EIAA, europe, media, newspaper, online news, powerreviews, research, social researcher

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Here it is again, my quick and dirty 2007 overview of which Brussels based public relations agencies are using RSS on their website.

As said before, this is not a scientific study but only shows that most PR Agencies are not using RSS feeds to syndicate their content which is something I can't understand.

In the 2007 edition we have 3 newbies to RSS;

• Anthonissen & Associates have discovered "the feed" this year and have a great looking website if you ask me...
• Interel, one of the known names in the Belgian PR world finally added their RSS feed logo. A bit of an explanation for newbies would be good though.
• and last but not least... my former employer Porter Novelli also added RSS feeds but only on their international site.

I do not understand why an agency like Fleishman-Hillard - which sets up a blog on Wordpress about Public Affairs 2.0 (!) - is not using RSS feeds on their own website...

In short, in the 3 years I have been tracking this list of 26 PR agencies based in Brussels we're now up to 7 of them who are using RSS to syndicate their content.

Why should they you ask...? Call me... ;-). PS: You can see the full tracking list here.

Technorati : anthonissen & associates, blog, brussels, fleishman-hillard, interel, porter novelli, pr, pr agency, public relations, report, rss, wordpress

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Wikiscanner, developed by Virgil Griffith, allows anyone to check which organizations (or/and IP addresses) have been making anonymous edits on Wikipedia.

I just ran a scan on the location "Brussels" and found the following interesting list:

• Catholic University of Louvain: 4136 anonymous edits in Wikipedia.
• Department of Economic Affairs: 1250 anonymous edits.
• European Commission: 928 anonymous edits.

You can see the full Brussels list here. Other searches reveal that many corporations are making anonymous edits to entries about their organization and also show that CIA, NSA etc... are changing information related to hot topics or less popular incidents.

PR Agencies worldwide are also doing some anonymous editing, see Porter Novelli, Edelman, Hill & Knowlton...

Wikiscanner is getting a lot of attention of the mainstream media and the blogosphere at this moment. Great initiative though...

Technorati : Belgium, Brussels, EU, KUL, VUB, cia, nsa, wiki, wikipedia, wikiscanner

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A new report from Forrester gives some insights into the use of RSS in a marketing context and it's Johnson & Johnson versus the Red Cross in the blogosphere...

I was reading Adriana's blog today and saw her post about her client Johnson & Johnson who is suing.... the American Red Cross. No this is not a mistake, they are suing the American Red Cross because of an infringement on one of their trademarks.

As you can imagine this is no easy decision to make for an organization and it is definitely not an easy task for the PR/Corporate Comms. Manager to handle. But Ray Jordan & Marc Monseau from J&J Communications are doing a good job blogging about this issue in a very transparent way.

They must be fighting with legal over this but I do believe it helps give insight on the 2 sides of the story here. Will it keep J&J safe from a dent in their public image ? Not completely but it will balance the views somewhat, at least in the blogosphere.

I hope someone will condense this story into a study report for the next generation of PR professionals so they can read, study and learn how the profession is (slowly) changing and opening up to (don't be scared now) transparency.

Is RSS the best invention of the whole web2.0 phenomenon ?

That's what several online publications are asking in their articles based on the latest report from Forrester. According to this 2007 report about 40% of US based interactive marketeers are using RSS. More statistics give a general idea of the uptake of RSS although other stay skeptic.

I don't get it.... I have written before about the use of RSS and how it can be applied to marketing, business communications, news gathering and monitoring. Other people like Rok Hrastnik have been writing books about it with great case studies and clear ROI measurements. Why does something so straight forward seems to be looked at as the biggest mystery of all (online) times ?

This is not the first report by Forrester on the topic... Here's one dating back to 2005 I found on Charleen Li's blog. Already at the time there was a huge interest in RSS by Marketeers and the benefits were clearly stated.

Oh, and for the Belgian PR professionals reading this.... Yes, I will soon update my listing of Belgian based PR agencies who use/do not use RSS on their website/blog.

Technorati : J&J, adriana lucas, charlene li, forrester, pr agency, red cross, rok hrastnik, rss

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Dear readers,

I will not apologize for being silent on this blog for so long.... No, I will not as I think even a blogger has the right to "disconnect" for some time.

I hope you had a great holiday as well or that you're still looking forward to take some time off. For my part I have been traveling to the US and did a coast to coast trip between New York and Portland. At the same time I changed jobs at my full time employer IBM and had a lot of catching up to do but here I am again...

In the meantime:

• 97% of US newspapers are using RSS feeds now ! The Bivings Report shows a strong increase of RSS use at newspapers and the use of online video jumped from 61 to 92%. How are Belgian newspapers doing ? Well, that's one of those projects I started but never finished. On my to do list... Feel free to help.
• A fake Steve Jobs Blogger has been found out ! The Media Guardian is covering the story of the Forbes Magazine Editor who faked being Steve Jobs and was writing a pretty influential blog called "The Secret Diary of...". Here's the snippet on EJC.net.
• The most famous reporter in the world is getting sued ! "A Congolese student has launched legal action in Belgium to have the comic book "Tintin in the Congo" declared racist and removed from bookstores.". Read the story here.
  

Next to these funny and interesting stories I can also announce that I'll be running a public workshop in Brussels in October (more info and registration page to follow soon) and that the China Blogging Tour is on track.

I am happy to be back, hope you're thinking the same ;-)

Technorati : US, bivingsreport, china, holiday, media, newspapers, steve jobs, tintin, transparency, trust
Del.icio.us : US, bivingsreport, china, holiday, media, newspapers, steve jobs, tintin, transparency, trust

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Last week I was asked to screen the websites of the 3 major Flemish contenders for a new government (we vote this Sunday) by De Morgen, one of our national dailies.

It was a fun exercise to do and I was happy when I saw the article in this Friday's edition. Even better, I was interviewed together with 2 other professionals in the on-line communications sector and although we were interviewed separately, we all came to the same conclusion; "close but no cigar".

All three candidates are using their websites to appeal to potential voters and state that they want to set up "conversations" with them. Although they have bloglike sites, and update the content regularly and in chronological order, they are not pushing the envelope all the way; no public commenting allowed, badly designed RSS feeds, community features and completely focused toward one way communication.

I would have thought that our Belgian politicians would have done a better job. I mean, they have the case studies, the examples of how it should be done and they have proof that on-line communications and blogging do play a role in political elections.

"Blogs influenced voting decisions in France, according to Echo's weekly elections tracking within the blogosphere in France, the UK and USA. Despite intense personal criticisms, Sarkozy was perceived in all three blogging countries as the most likely to change France and put forward the necessary reforms." From ECHO Research.

Yesterday for instance I received a very interesting report from ECHO Research (opens a PDF) who screened and analyzed blogging activity and coverage during the French elections. Very detailed and full of strong insights.

Let's see what the next elections bring.

Technorati : belgium, de morgen, elections, france, propaganda, us