What We Can Learn From The White House's Missed Opportunity

By now you’ve heard about the Air Force One flyover in New York City that has turned into a PR train wreck for the White House. Those of us in the nonprofit and philanthropy worlds can learn from it.

What Happened

Someone wanted to get a money shot of the President’s office-in-the-air near the Statue of Liberty, which is a great idea.

Sadly, not many people knew of the effort and when the large airliner started buzzing Manhattan, chased by a military jet, residents became understandably — well, panicked.

The head of the White House Office of Military Affairs, Louis Caldera, has apologized and taken full responsibility.

I know Louis from back when I worked in politics in Los Angeles. He is one honorable, upright person and it hurts me to see him have to step up and take the hit. And I am proud of his response: “Last week, I approved a mission over New York. I take responsibility for that decision,” he said. “While federal authorities took the proper steps to notify state and local authorities in New York and New Jersey, its clear that the mission created confusion and disruption. I apologize and take responsibility for any distress that flight caused.”

Here’s an example of the distress:

But the incident could have been such a huge win for the Administration, if only they had listened to their own rhetoric a bit more. They only thought to notify the “authorities.”

Why didn’t they notify everyone else?

This flyover could have been a great 100-days-in win for President Obama. Imagine if the White House had simply let it be known through a press release and getting it out to social networks (like this Twitter account) and then built just a bit of buzz:

  • Have a “caption the photo” contest;
  • Set up viewing areas;
  • Have people use Google Maps to pinpoint where they will watch the flyover from;
  • Have a video contest, use a YouTube tag to collect them all;
  • Encourage people to Qik it.

My point is, this would have taken a little more energy — but only a small amount. And the payoff could have been high. It would have fed into Obama’s “technology” and “transparency” brand attributes.

From Neutrality To Delight

The prior notification of authorities was designed to ensure no one was too upset by the flyover.

Image taken with a cell phone by Jason McLane (via Associated Press)

Image taken with a cell phone by Jason McLane (via Associated Press)

But a different strategy would have made it so people were delighted by it. There’s a big difference.

When planning major moves, how often do you think, “How can I use this to delight people?” It’s worth keeping in mind.

In the nonprofit and philanthropy worlds, we spend a fair amount of time notifying our boards of decisions, or hoping that constituents and clients aren’t upset by a new policy change. Chances are that at least some of these could be turned around with the proper groundwork.

Today’s social networking tools are custom made to back this up. Used well, they make people feel a part of decisions and can even give people a role. It doesn’t have to be a big, or substantive role, either.

Next time you sit down to write heads-up memo, think about whether you can instead turn the moment into one of delightful anticipation.

Even if it works once or twice, you’re ahead of the game.

April 28th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: politics, social networks | 6 comments

Why Be In Social Media?

Any new trend generates jargon. It’s necessary in order for people to talk about the ideas embedded in the trend. Pretty soon, the people who follow the trend use so much jargon it loses its meaning. We’re about at that point with this thing people are calling “social media.” Amber Naslund suggests a good thought experiment in which we need to describe social media without using certain buzzwords or catch phrases (e.g., “You need to join the conversation.”)

Photo of The Conversation by Edouard Vuillard is by Flickr user cliff1066

Photo of The Conversation by Edouard Vuillard is by Flickr user cliff1066

People in organizations need a clear understanding of the value — to them — of pursuing social media. Unfortunately, many of the people who are most excited about and evangelists for social media put everything in a kind of gee-whiz, the world’s changing mode. To anyone older than thirty-five, this holds painful echoes of the way people talked about the “new” economy in the late 1990′s.

The argument amounts to this: “You need to be in the social media space because it is new, and many people, including me, see it as cool.” Why? asks the organization leader.

At that point, many will trot out statements that make no sense but that are meant to sound smart. They will say that a brand is “a conversation,” or that people want to be in a “relationship.” Both are silly things to say. I do not want to be in a “relationship” with my bank; I want easy access to my money and I want it all there when I go to get it. Similarly, I may have a conversation about a brand, but as a consumer I understand that a brand is simply a way of conveying in shorthand what qualities I might expect from a given product, service, experience, or cause.

The thing that is missing in so much of this is the key element of why an organization might give a fig about social media. So here it is: the decision. As an organization, I want to influence people’s decisions so that they decide to do what I want them to (examples: buy my product, attend my school, go to my theme park, support my cause, trust my brand, view me as a thought leader).

So, I would make the case for social media in those terms:

  • People make decisions based in large part on recommendations from peers or trusted figures. Increasingly, these recommendations are passed along through social media tools.
  • The key characteristic of social media that makes it different from other media is that the contributions, comments and other responses of users are seen as intrinsically important.
  • To influence people’s decisions, we need to monitor and play a role in these user responses.

For these purposes, important social media tools include: blog posts, comments on blog posts, user forums, email lists, reviews by consumers on shopping sites, and online communities like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Each of these is a channel in which user responses and activities are key. They are all areas where an organization can seek to gain a presence.

But if these attempts don’t have a fundamental connection to the decision I want people to make about my brand or my organization, it’s just wasted time and energy.

April 23rd, 2009 | Tags: | Category: business | 10 comments

Ten Tips For Twitter Newbies

So you’ve signed up for Twitter, followed your best friend and your spouse, and posted two updates. (You are in good company if one of your first updates says: “Trying to figure out Twitter.”) So now what?

Here are ten tips to get started.

  1. Look around and follow a handful of people. Look at who your friend or spouse is following. (By clicking the “following” link on their page.) Now, see who those people are following. Keep going along this way, looking at who people follow. Start following a few people who seem interesting.
  2. Now, sit back and watch for a while. Now that you are following some people, your Twitter home page will have a series of updates. Each time you look, there will be more, as the people you are following issue their own updates. Just watch for a few days; see what people say and how they say it.
  3. When you are ready, start updating yourself. Keep it limited at first. A good amount to work up to is between two and ten updates per day.
  4. Now . . . how do you gain followers? Interact! Send “@ replies” to people’s updates that you find interesting. That means if you see something interesting that Ashton Kutcher said, you update “@aplusk That is interesting. I recently wrote an article about that. It’s here: http://tr.im/irj3.” That will show up in Ashton’s “@ replies” list. Ashton may not notice, but then again he may.
  5. Another strategy: share links. Browse the web and find cool stuff. Share it. A good format is: “Wow, what a great way to get blueberry stains out of tablecloths. http://tr.im/irj3.”
  6. Another strategy: “Retweet.” I hate the word but the concept is simple. If someone says something that is cool, or shares a link that is cool, retweet it! Say Ashton has this update: “I want this new vehicle http://tr.im/irj3.” You check out the link and damn, it really IS cool! If you are pressed for time, you say this: “RT @aplusk I want this new vehicle http://tr.im/irj3.” (See, you just copy what he posted along with his name, so there is attribution, an RT.” If you have a minute more, you say WHY you think it’s cool: “Via @aplusk A new kind of electric skateboard. Whoa! http://tr.im/irj3.”
  7. If you find someone to follow who you think issues really interesting updates, you may want to tell people. When you do, it is considered proper form to use their Twitter name preceded by the character @. So “I am excited to follow @aplusk. So cool!” That way @aplusk can know that you announced you were following her, and feels good.
  8. One thing people look at when deciding whether to follow someone is ratio of followers to following. You should have more followers than you follow back. For a business, it can get to be more 50/50, but if you are following more than follow you, people assume you may be a spammer. I get lots of people following me that obviously are marketing something, with like 400 people they are following but like 100 followers.
  9. People use search.twitter.com to search for their own name (with the @ sign) to see if people are mentioning them. You should too. That way you will notice when people retweet your stuff (and that’s how Ashton finds out you are a big fan.) The whole ecosystem of Twitter is all about sharing. The more you share, the more people like you and the more they follow you.
  10. What’s up with the short links, like tr.im and is.gd and tinyurl.com and bit.ly??? Those are url shorteners. People expect to see shortened links in Twitter and speaking for myself, I mistrust people who post full, unshortened links because it feels like they are trying too hard to market something. (Remember, even if your purpose is to market, people are on a hair-trigger for filtering people out and dropping their follows). So, pick a url-shortener you like and use it. You enter a web address and it gives you a shortened url, suitable for the compressed world of Twitter. bit.ly and tr.im also let you see stats on who is clicking on the links you send out. This is also useful when you share links that you are not in control of.

Okay, I hope that is helpful. Feel free to follow me! My Twitter name is @bradrourke.

April 14th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: social networks | 5 comments

Real World Social Media Workflow — How Much Time Do I Spend Listening?

Social media maven Beth Kanter has been attending a conference on nonprofit use of technology. One of the speakers was Wendy Harman, who runs social media for the Red Cross.

Beth has a great recap of that session here, with these key takeaways:

  • First thing every morning, [Wendy] spends a couple of hours listening – reviewing hundreds of mentions that have been captured in their monitoring radar using a variety of free and professional tools, including Radian 6.   Wendy estimates it’s about 1/4 of her time presently.   I suspect it took more of time in the beginning as she developed her work flow and got over the learning curve – and of course was able to upgrade her tool set.
  • Senior management is not turned off by the term listening.  She often writes social media manifestos, filled with examples, pros/cons, and shows tangible, measurable results from their social media strategy.
  • She has a social media elevator pitch in case she encounters one of the senior people at the organization in the elevator: “I’m the social media lady who builds relationships with our community online.”   Perhaps she extends that to include “that results in increased goodwill, improves our reputation, and donations.”
  • She and the others on staff are no longer afraid of negative comments or posts.  “The opposite of hate is indifference, if someone bothers to post a negative comment it means they care.”  She was also pleasantly surprised about how much was positive.  Negative comments are an opportunity to educate and improve what they are doing.  “It is about being polite and honest.”
  • Wendy balances her personal/organizational social media profiles.  When she uses her personal social networking or twitter account, her rule is not to say anything that would embarrass her mother.
  • Challenges include dealing with the tidal wave of information that they have to analyze and manage. One of the values of a professional tool is that it saves a lot of time in the work flow.  Focusing on the how to represent learning in a visual way.  Laura Lee Dooley shared this example (bookmarked posts of people talking about her organization fed into Wordle)
  • Their community now knows that they are listening and the conversation has changed from talking to how we help you.
  • They have an extensive social media participation policy that has helped spur adoption internally.

Looking at my own workflow, I realize that my mornings are often spent “listening” — yet I don’t call it that. I have seen it as time I am wasting and that I ought to minimize. Now I see I ought to perhaps consider boosting it a bit.

March 4th, 2009 | Tags: | Category: social networks | Leave a comment
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