Just a quick post to say I’m looking forward to giving a presentation on social media tools in modern communications to the foodManitoba Group later this month.

Many thanks for the invitation. I hope it’s an interactive and lively session.

Throughout his seven Tour de France victories, Lance Armstrong earned adulation from around the world. And why not? He came back from cancer and transformed himself from a middle-of-the-pack racer to the best cyclist the world has ever seen.

Not surprisingly, his success fuelled whispers of steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Books and magazine articles have been written alleging his transgressions and several high profile legal battles have ensued. It doesn’t matter how many times he has denied the rumours. And it doesn’t matter which authority has come to his defence. People are inclined to either believe the worst or put an asterix next to his achievements.

And then along came Twitter.

And how does the micro-blog social network help him? Let me count the ways.

Armstrong has been on Twitter for several months now and has become one of the most followed people on the network. Twitter allows him to communicate instantly several times a day to his nearly half a million ‘followers.’ So when he recently crashed during a Spanish race breaking his collar bone, he was able to relay the news nearly as fast as the news networks.

I’m alive! Broken clavicle (right). Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days. Thanks for all the well wishes.

For the past week or so he’s reported on his subsequent surgery, return to the United States and ongoing recovery. He’s also posted links to video messages and continued to promote his other main passion - fighting cancer through his Livestrong Foundation.

But where Twitter has really helped is with the drug tests. Twitter has given Armstrong a tool to broadcast to the world exactly when and where he is being visited by drug testers. You need only follow him for a few days to notice the frequency of the visits. Here are a few tweets following his March 17th test:

March 17:

Yet another “surprise” anti-doping control. 24th one. This one from the French authorities. Urine, blood, and hair! Classic..

So I’m clear - never complaining about these tests. Def part of the job. Feel targeted? Of course. But anything to prove I’m clean. Onward.

March 18:

I’m hearing from a lot of folks that there’s a lot of press clips re: my hair test/drug test yesterday and I was surprised and asking ?’s.

First off, I’m never surprised anymore. What does surprise me is that AFLD feels the need to publicly comment on confidential matters. (AFLD = the French anti-doping agency)

The Tweets about the ongoing drug tests are illuminating. Taking Armstrong at his word, they’re almost always a suprise; testers are frequently awaiting him at his home or hotel just after training rides; they come at odd times and are conducted by multiple agencies.

Reporting these events as they happen is a powerful means to rehabilitate his reputation to those who question whether he’s clean. Simply reporting after the fact that he’s been tested x times over x days by x agencies just doesn’t have the same credibility as reading about the tests as they happen.

I’ve always wanted to believe in Armstrong. His story is so good that it’s hard not to pull for him. I really hope he recovers from his current injury in time to compete at this year’s Tour de France and I hope he goes on to win for a record eighth time. If he does, and if he continues to use Twitter the way he has been, his reputation will be polished to a high gloss shine.

WINNIPEG, MANITOBA–(Marketwire - March 5, 2009) - The Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Public Relations Society has named Heather Plett Manitoba’s Communicator of the Year for her work directing a national campaign to raise money and grain donations for distribution to developing countries, and to educate and engage people in hunger-related advocacy.

Plett is the director of resources and communication with the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB), a Winnipeg-based, national non-profit organization.

Award sponsor Marketwire - one of North America’s leading newswire and media distribution companies - will present the honour at a gala luncheon on March 18 at the Fort Garry Hotel.

Plett was chosen by a panel of senior CPRS Manitoba members for her success in targeting diverse audiences across the country with a multi-platform campaign and a limited budget. With a clearly articulated strategy, Plett and her team rebuilt CFGB’s website, added a microsite for a special campaign (www.endhungerfast.com), developed videos, ran their first direct mail campaign and employed social media tools to reach her organization’s goals. These tactics resulted in widespread media coverage in both rural and urban outlets, a nationwide campaign in which thousands of people “fasted for change,” and a record year in donations totalling more than $11 million.

“This year’s winner demonstrates that small shops with small budgets can get big results,” says Adam Dooley, past president of the Manitoba CPRS chapter, and chair of CPRS Manitoba’s Communicator of the Year committee. “Heather Plett and her team launched a national campaign with results that resonated on a global scale.”

Plett was among a distinguished field of nominees for the second annual award, which CPRS Manitoba established to honour those who have demonstrated excellence in public communications.

This year’s gala will offer a special morning program of professional workshops on government relations, which is sponsored by CNW Group.

For ticket information, go to www.cprs.mb.ca and click on the Communicator of the Year icon.

Twitter has lately become all the rage. It’s the tops. It’s da bomb. It’s the new black.

So what is Twitter really? Technically, it’s called a microblog, which allows users to record what they’re doing  or thinking or finding interesting in small 140 character messages. It’s also called a newsfeed in that it constantly feeds news about its users to whomever wants to receive it.

But I’ve got another definition for people who are unfamiliar with both blogging and feeds: Twitter is your own personal broadcasting outlet. You start by following a few people like your friends, family members and work colleagues. Then they’ll follow you. Voila, you have the beginning of your audience. Then you can start following other people and organizations you find interesting. Find mavens like popular bloggers or journalists or thought leaders. Follow the people they’re following.

Find other people living in your home town, province or state (you can use Twitter’s search or you might want to use Twellow for this). Look for people in the same line of work or with the same interests as you. In time, you’ll notice more and more people following you.

If all your posts are just notes about your morning breakfast and what the cat’s doing to the couch, you may not care too much about who’s following you. But if you’re running a business or interested in networking, Twitter can be your best friend. There is currently no faster (or free) way to reach such a huge targeted audience as quickly as Twitter. And as more and more people join the service, it’s becoming an increasingly robust means to target people by demographic group, interest and geographic region.

Twitter hasn’t turned a profit yet, but its owners seem confident in their plan:

Todd Dagres, founder of one of the venture capital firms backing the microblog, Spark Capital, recently told blog Innovation Economy, “We know how we’re going to do it, and we’re very confident about how we’re going to do it, and it’s not necessarily in our interest to tell people how we’re going to do it. There is a biz model that has yet to be implemented. Of course, I can’t guarantee it’s going to work.”

Speaking of Twitter: if you’re already using it (or even if you’re not), why don’t you join us for our Winnipeg Tweet-up next Tuesday, March 10 at 5 p.m. at the Confusion Corner Bar and Grill. #wpgtweetup

Facebook backed down today to a storm of protest over its new terms of service that granted the social networking site ownership of all network content forever. Founder Mark Zuckerberg said in his blog that the site was going back to the drawing board and rewriting the terms. In the meantime, the old terms will prevail.

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Discontent and complaints erupted over the weekend when Consumerist revealed the new terms of service and questioned whether Facebook should be able to own all the rights to all the content that users post on its site.

Part of the issue, I believe, is the way Facebook went about changing its terms of service. They did it very quietly, making no public mention of it other than updating the terms on its site. Nothing leads to a swarm of negative attention on the Internet like the appearance of deceipt and abuse of power.

Now Facebook seems to have learned that the old rules of public relations have plenty of application in social media. I’d argue they’re even more important. With Facebook, we’re dealing with the biggest community relations experiment in human history.The key is to win credibility by acting with consistency, integrity and honesty. You need to be prepared to consult broadly, which means you need to be prepared to not like what you hear.

The process can be messy. It can take longer. It might lead to imperfect solutions. But if done well, it should leave you with your organizational reputation (and market share) in tact or strengthened.

Facebook says today that it will consult with its users as it redrafts its terms of service. That process will be more difficult for it today than if they had started with that strategy two weeks ago before posting the new terms unilaterally.  Instead Zuckerberg and his posse violated one of the most sancrosanct rules of public communications: don’t bully communities.

Cross-posted from snoo.ws…

The pace of technological change on the World Wide Web has been absolutely breathtaking over the past few years. Our new ability to share art, design and ideas through all kinds of media also has the potential to let consumers the world over break free of mass produced sameness.

We’re living in an age where average computer users can create just about anything from their own jeans to cars, mugs to movies. Writing in The Business Times, Dr. Sivam Krish said this week that for the first time since our grandparents’ generation we can again have personalized and unique products en masse. He should know. As the founder of Genometri, his company is offering customers the chance to design and produce their own t-shirts, picture frames and other keepsakes.

I agree with him. In the last few months, snoo.ws has written about a large number of companies that are latching on to the ease of new technologies and our basic human desire to express our own uniqueness (or at least feel as though we are).

Toyota is letting its customers influence the design of its Scion models; CafePress lets us design t-shirts, mugs and just about everything else; RYZ is generating buzz in fashion circles with its UGC shoes; and we have all seen countless options for customizing avatars, the epitome of online self-expression.

Left to themselves, these user-generated content companies may have been able to carve out small niches somewhere in the great Web cloud. But they’re not alone. Thanks to the proliferation of social networks, many of these companies are expanding quickly as word of them is passed from friend to friend.

This week’s announcement of a partnership between CafePress and Sellit is an example of how the technology is spreading. Using embeddable widgets, the companies are offering users the opportunity to set up virtual ‘franchise’ locations across social networks. A lot of what’s on offer may only be trinkets and t-shirts today, but I believe it won’t be long before the trend spreads far and wide into new industries, irrevocably changing each business model as it does.

For the last few generations, only the very rich could afford such personalization in what they purchased, wore drove or sat on. Soon, I expect we’ll all be able to get that [fill in your choice of product here] in just the right colour, size and shape delivered right to our doors… just the way we designed it ourselves.

Are corporations looking to spend more on social media or less? Plenty of brands are still sitting on the sidelines looking in at social networking sites and user-generated content, but how many are going to start investing in it as part of their marketing strategies?

Two recent surveys give conflicting answers. First up is the rosy view of the third annual Online Customer Engagement Report, produced by online publisher E-consultancy and digital agency cScape, which took a look at how a degenerating economy will affect customer behaviour and psychology. It says that more businesses are going to invest in social media as a way to focus on customer engagement, though fewer than half said they actually had a strategy to do so.

Of those who said they had a strategy, 41 per cent said they are monitoring online product and service ratings and reviews, 37 per cent are interested in user-generated content and about 36 per cent are looking at blogging as an option. More than one-third said they were making advertising on social networks a priority too. Micro-blogging tools such as Twitter also showed an increase, but still trail the pack with only seven per cent of respondents saying they’re using them.

Meanwhile, a survey by Epsilon said that marketing executives aren’t actually turning to social media in the droves we expect. More than half of the respondents showed little interest in incorporating social networking sites into their marketing plans. Only 35 per cent said they were very or somewhat interested in doing so. Only 10 per cent said they are using Facebook and MySpace in their marketing.

The results of these surveys are a bit of a head scratcher. The lessons that marketers should be learning are these: if their markets are engaged in social media (and most are), then they should be, AND if they’re not using the technology available to engage their customers, they’re missing a great opportunity. My view is that social media is a way for companies to take a step back to the intimacy they had with their customers before they all migrated to mass media advertising. Advertising will remain a tool, but word of mouth will always trump it for effectiveness.

If you haven’t already, check out the blog we’re editing and writing on social media and user-generated content: snoo.ws.

The snoo.ws is a project of Dooley Communications client ICUC Moderation Services, one of the busiest online content  moderation companies in the world. We’re happy to provide our editorial and communications services for this daily news blog. We’re also working with ICUC on a number of other projects to build its business actively through social media, media relations and via speaking engagements.

But why is snoo.ws a cool project? Why does it make sense to do? Because over time the snoo.ws will demonstrate ICUC’s expertise in this field. They are really leading the pack in social media moderation - discussion forums, video, photos, text to screen, etc. - and this blog will help them cement that reputation. It also gives them an opportunity to reach out and connect with people in marketing and public relations fields who are tapping into user-generated content initiatives to drive market share and brand value for their organizations and their clients.

This is PR 101 for the 21st century.

WINNIPEG, July 2, 2008 - Dooley Communications is pleased to announce it has signed online moderation company ICUC Moderation Services as a client. Dooley will be helping ICUC create and manage a daily blog (www.snoo.ws) as well as various other public relations and communications projects for the Winnipeg-based company.

“ICUC is one of the world’s most successful companies in the online moderation space,” said Adam Dooley, President of Dooley Communications. “They are leaders in helping top brands manage user generated content online. We’ll be leveraging our mutual expertise in communications and social media to help ICUC build its own brand and business.”

ICUC (www.icucmoderation.com )works with some of the world’s top brands – including Dove, Knorr, Molson, MuchMusic and Virgin Mobile. Working in multiple languages, ICUC moderates all kinds of digital content from real-time chat to blogs, online communities, forums, videos, photos and more.

“We were looking for a communications company that understood our business and could bring the skills we needed to spread our message,” said ICUC President Keith Bilous. “We’re looking forward to working with Adam and his team.”

Dooley Communications is a Winnipeg-based public relations and corporate communications consultancy. Its clients include UNICEF Canada, Tetrem Capital Management, Wellington West, the Manitoba Cattle Enhancement Council, and the Teachers’ Retirement Allowances Fund. It has also done project work for Costco Canada, Manitoba Public Insurance and the Business Development Bank of Canada.

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For information:

Adam Dooley
(204) 291-4092
adooley@dooleycommunications.ca
www.dooleycommunications.ca

I wouldn’t want to be the owner of Yellow Pages (yes, I know there are millions of ‘owners’ through the company’s shares). What a tight spot to be in. I’ve been singing this tune for the past few years now. I remember several years in a row when my Yellow Pages rep sat down with me at Cambrian Credit Union to discuss the annual ad buy. Each time, as she valiantly tried to upsell me, I had to persuade myself that we should be in the old book at all.

I kept Cambrian in the book during my tenure, because a large enough portion of its clients were of a generation to use it regularly. For the rest of us, I’m not so sure. The Google deathstar has Yellow Pages in its sights. We just don’t search for information the way we used to when the phone book was the only game in town. 

Today, my clients and I will talk about search engine optimization strategies for a week before anyone even mentions the phone book. And while Yellow Pages also has a searchable website, it’s costly to advertise on it and its share of the web audience is puny compared to Google, Yahoo or MSN.

Optimizing your search engine results isn’t easy. You need to deliver relevant, fresh content constantly in order to rank anywhere near the top in organic searches. Paid search is easier to control, but then you can also blow your budget quickly if you’re shooting to be near the top.

But then, you don’t need to be at the top… sometimes the best place to be is third or fourth in the paid search list. Just take a look at this article from imedia’s Chris Lien: How to win the search position game. I think the author’s formula for determining how much a click is worth is out of whack (it’s no good to break even on conversions when profitability is the key to your enterprise), but he’s got some good thoughts on the subject of optimizing keyword search results.

Adam Dooley