A little shameless promo: Head Diva of the Powder Room Diaries, and founder of Success in the City, Cynthia de Lorenzi, was featured in today’s Washington Post for being the social networking diva that she is. We’re thrilled for her. What a great way to kick off a Monday.

Business transparency has become a hot button in the public relations world, and new media’s the driving force. Users want to be a part of product development, to understand how to use a service, and contribute to the overall experience of the product’s target community. Whether or not a company participates in this open environment is a strategic decision.

The ability for millions of people to openly express their opinions and expose injustices however creates problems for businesses. Truly a brand manager or public relations professional is responsible for a company or a brand’s reputation in all media forms. They risk brand reputation by not participating. Further, as more and more companies embrace the new media era, competition will force companies to participate openly or lose market-share.

Authors Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams thrust this trend into the limelight with their book Wikinomics. Their $9 million research project turned book goes into great detail about how online communities and group contribution through socil networks benefited businesses. The result: “While some leaders fear the heaving growth of these massive online communities, Wikinomics proves this fear is folly. Smart firms can harness collective capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.�

Blogger Joe Wikert does a great job encapsulating the Wikinomics principles, “As they see it, the four keys to success are openness, peering, sharing and acting globally.� Wow, whil enot necessarily a direct hit, this is veryrelative to the whole PR 2.0 debate.

The Wikinomics principles from a communications standpoint are essential in the new media environment. As a marketing executive or a PR practitioner, I would interpret the four principles of success from a communications perspective openness, visibility, a willingness to share valuable information, and a conscious effort to embrace your entire constituency.

If businesses would embrace this approach in all of their communications efforts, much less new media, how would that work? I think it would be quite amazing. By the way, much of this theory reminds me of crisis communications principles. Hmmm.

Looking for an example, we stumbled upon Toby Bloomberg’s (Diva Marketing Blog) great interview with Simon Schneiders, CEO of BabyChums.com. This site is a classic example of the principle of Wikinomics at work, though it’d be interesting to learn more from Schneiders. In the interview, Schneiders details how Babychums.com was an idea born without focusing on commercial drive but what the market needs, the gap and embracing current technologies. The community’s target audience is the newly mothering female.18-45 with little or no experience of social networking.
Babychums is often the first entry for this target audience into social networking via Free Baby Websites. We reviewed the site and found it to be simple, using classified advertising and other discreet promotions for revenue generation. The simple, easy to use site works without a lot of help from the company. And content is driven by the community, not BabyChums.

More to be explored on Wikinomics and PR, Social media…

It’s Sunday a.m. Yesterday was an interesting day. Breakfast with a CMO of a $x billion+ firm, then afternoon snacks at my friend Eduflack’s house (Eduflack’s blog is getting some nice attention out there, so if you’re into Education issues check it out). And like most conversations amongst marketing pros these days, both chats inevitably turned towards new media.

During conversation with said CMO, he dismissed the new media revolution as something not worth controlling. The logic, they don’t affect his buyers opinions, and the commentators are not credible. So when negative comments occur in the blogosphere he ignores them. We debated this for while, but in the end, we just resigned to respect each others opinions.

This caused an interesting analysis from Eduflack and I, both experienced PR pros and bloggers who used to work together. We agreed that my CMO friend’s analysis is true of the average consumer blog (I also think because of the nature of its business, his company probably should not have its own new media content creation strategy). However, once the negative hubris from smaller blogs gets picked up by larger, more well respected blogs, social networks and even the media, the negative hubris spreads virally. Then it becomes a big issue for a PR or brand manager tasked with protecting a suddenly reeling corporate reputation.

Social Network Control?
This is a dramatic shift for communications professionals who have been trained to control the message. Prior to the new media revolution, the biggest danger to a company was a reporter that was feeling his or her oats. A rare occurrence that only seemed to occur when scandals like Enron broke out, or a massive product recall occurred.

During conversations with conservative CMOs and PR execs, it is common to find that they dismiss new media revolution as something not worth controlling. More importantly to note, is their drive to control the message, and subsequent abandonment of this strange new media phenomena. Perhaps its because they instinctually know they can’t control the blogosphere, thus it’s not worth their efforts.

It’s only natural that you can’t contain the social networks because they mirror human relationships. Assuming that social network behavior = human behavior, we can analyze further. First, it’s pretty much assumed that people in this country really detest being controlled. They resent it. However, people will listen, they’ll even allow you to influence them and give your argument/product/service chance. However, if they find that trust is broken for whatever reason (e.g. I’m not a crook, or nuclear weapons are a slam dunk), there’s a whiplash effect that attacks credibility in very serious ways.

Back to the social networks, that means pros can’t control new media forms like they used to. It’s too egalitarian now. Consumers and communities are no longer beholden to monolithic traditional media forms, and can use new media to state their views… and they don’t have to submit to a managing editor for facts.

A paradigm shift of this nature requires a 180 degree shift in approach. Businesses must resort to influence now, and understand that controlling the message is a luxury of times now gone. Further, this influence is based on trust, so more than ever true relationship building is thrust upon corporate America. This means they have to be honest, communicate, give as well as take (value for $), and be prepared for feedback.

LComm Notes

I don’t comment as much on the company’s growth/progress. In an effort to be transparent and practice what I preach, I will try to begin the week with a little notes section. The company’s current strategy of three services — marketing strategy, PR and new media — is going very well. Further, we’ve successfully transitioned from projects to retainers over the past two months. This means sustainability.

We are close to loaded up again and are probably going to hire during the summer. In the interim, we’ve got a couple of consultants and a full time intern lined up, so life is good on the bandwidth front though unfortunately, I am starting to work during the weekends again.

The company got paid on a lot of outstanding invoices last wekk, so we promptly tithed or donated some profit to charity. That felt good.

From a self marketing perspective, the blog is about break Tech-nor-ati’s top 100,000 ranked blogs in the world (there are 71 million world wide). Also to note a couple of editorial opps are coming for the company, as well as some great sponsorships of two upcoming events. So we’re getting the word out, too. Things are rolling.

Start of the Week Quotes

“Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate, ” Chuang Tzu.

“A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward,” William John Bennett.

Earlier this week I sat though Blogging for Basics, a course at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Being a writer, I’ve taken many courses at the Writer’s Center over the years and was thrilled that they offered one on blogging. But what I learned is I’m not a beginner.

I’m not an expert by any means, but I knew Technorati. I knew some of the buzz words. The lingo. The class touted that I would learn how to leverage my own personal passion, my own personal artistic voice and my unique perception of the world into this online organ.

But I didn’t. I learned how to construct a blog. Literally, through WordPress. Step by step. I learned a blog should be short. And to write a lot. I could have found that out online. I didn’t learn about the words. The power of the medium. As a PR blogger, I didn’t learn what I should or shouldn’t say and the women who were there to launch a blog for their company didn’t learn how to do that either.

Apparently, I could have gone on instructor Chris Abraham’s blog and saved myself $65. All of the necessary tools are on there. And then some. There’s Bloggers Can Ignore Basic Journalism Ethics and Blogging Needs a Code of Honor, Not a Code of Conduct. This would have been helpful when I first started blogging. The class wasn’t.

He could have said, ‘so I want to be a blogger,’ ‘here’s how to do it, what to write, rules of writing,’ and finally ‘how to be successful at it.’ Personally, that would have been helpful to me and probably to the stay-at-home mom who wants to blog about her sick child and the traveling woman who wants to blog about her exquisite journey. Instead, he was all over the map.

There’s an intermediate class next month, but I think I’ll sit that one out. I’ve decided the only way to blog is to get out there and do it. Going to other blogs, seeing what they’re doing right will teach me more than a brick and mortar class. Although I will say, during the class, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Naked Conversations by Shel Israel and Robert Scobel on corporate blogging. From the looks of it, I just might read that.

Yup, it’s that time again. Weekly links are up.

Before we begin, Conversation Agent author Valeria Maltoni interviewed today on the Buzz Bin and is taking Qs from readers. Just visit this very interesting post and comment, she’ll answer you.

The PR 3.0 gaff is quite amazing to me. PRWeek emailed me today telling me I was wrong, that all PR firms are blog believers. That’s kind of like George Bush trying to justify the war… again. Anyway, here’s their official response to 3.0 fury. What to like about PRWeek’s approach to this: The newspaper is dialoging and having a conversation with its constituency. This is progress. No matter what the end result on the moniker “3.0,” this demonstrates the true power of new media.

Another recent interviewee Communication Overtones’ author Kami Huyse has a hot, hot posting on the seven types of social media forms. This Communication Overtones posting is a great primer for anyone trying to figure out the whole new media environment. A must read from a very savvy marketing mind.

OK, next on the plate. Locally, Andrea Morris’s Write Ideas Marketing and Matt Smith’s Integrative Media are both making serious headway on blog traffic. The key to success? Great tagging, and intelligent leveraging of buzz topics.

Another DC Metro blog features LComm accountant McGuire Associates president Kathleen Huston. In Life and Times of Accounting she writes about how succesful her blog has been , inspiring conversation everyday with clients and vendors. A great example of how a basic blog can benefit a small business. There’s some shameless LComm promo here, too, so be forewarned.

She’s a corporate marketing communications professional who has evolved her blog to become a true Conversation Agent. In a pretty interesting interview, Valeria Maltoni gives some interesting insights into where the blogosphere maybe going, including more collaboration between practitioners, a possible scenario of traditional media leading the charge into new media, and other evolution scenarios. She also offers other bloggers some good tips. Read on for more of Valeria’s insights.

BB: To what do you attribute the success of Conversation Agent?

VM: Success to me means keeping your promises. So in that sense, my online persona followed the principles that have served me well over the years. Integrity, honesty, and good sense of humor wrap around the experience of me in relationships. I love to listen to what others have learned and let them help me expand my thinking through conversations.

We’re all so overwhelmed with information, yet many of us want very much to exchange what we know in meaningful ways. I am aware of that when I blog and think hard about the usefulness of what I write. I also give people a lot of credit – we are definitely smarter than I am – and know that they can often chew more than they bite.

BB: Has Conversation Agent benefited your business?

VM: I work in corporate America, so I also bring that whole dimension and reality check to the conversation in the blogosphere. It benefited my own awareness and sense of direction in business, the ability to figure out what works and learn exponentially through the exposure.

I have now written more than 200 posts, received more than 600 comments and 39 trackbacks and have 537 permanent inbound links (my Technorati ranking is still split between domain URL and Typepad URL, yet the links are unique). This means that I have a much better sense of what resonates, what I am absolutely passionate about, and what catalyzes my thinking and moves people to action.

Professionally, I’m a hybrid for sustainable work: a marketer who loves the power of words and is passionate about communications and a communicator who can sell with the ability to get the right people in the room and make something happen. If I had to distill the essence of what gets me up in the morning, it would be the curiosity to uncover and pursue that space between creative ideas and deals/execution and help people grow and evolve in the process.

BB: What’s the best conversation or blog post you’ve had and why?

VM: My best posts are the ones that get shared and provide a launching pad for deeper conversations and thinking in the blogosphere. Maybe the best posts are comments to posts at other blogs.

But I do have a couple of early favorites, which you can see in my “Timeless” list on the sidebar: ‘Getting your Message Through’, and ‘Communicating Change’ as well as ‘The Truth of Signs’. They are my favorites because they prove what people have been telling me my whole life and career: I am ahead of the times. Maybe my next job will have a think-tank work component to it. My being fascinated by and attuned to what people do and keenly observant of the trends that will stick, make me a better marketer.

BB<: How do you see your blog advancing people and companies in their day-to day efforts?

VM: This dovetails nicely to my last comment. Relationships make the world go around and my posts are all about people grappling with them. Whether the relationship is to a new idea, implementation, pattern I observed, or with each other. Sales and profit are outcomes of all those activities, just like you network is the outcome of reaching out to others.

I post both about small changes in thinking that can shift the way you do things for the better, and mega trends/big picture ideas that can potentially change you personally and thus the way you operate in the economic engine.

BB: What tips would you offer other bloggers?

VM: (1). Be yourself – you are the best original and a masterpiece in progress. I dare you to be who you are, or to become yourself through blogging. When you get ideas for posts, jot them down unfiltered and then ask yourself the same questions your readers would: why? when? how? what? But remember that it still starts with who – you.

(2). Choose mentors online if you need to get a feel for the medium. Better if the style and topics are radically different from yours. The purpose is not to imitate, but to see the possibilities. If you engage your mentors, remember that it takes a while to get noticed from anyone – online and offline. Be patient, remain responsible *and* stay in learning mode. Successful people in the blogosphere tend to be successful because they are also nice, yet because they are successful, they are very busy.

(3). Start fresh every day. It’s a good idea to not take anything for granted, not even amazing statistics. Relationships that take years to build are worthy of having, and we build such strong ties over time by working on them every single moment. To stay fresh plan ahead, squirrel away a couple of timeless pieces whenever you get the chance, so that you will not be tempted to post for the sake of posting.

BB: Do you see social networking as an art or a science?

VM: I see it as an outcome. Having said that, I believe that the building blocks are science, yet the success is more art. You need to be aware of both and respond accordingly.

BB: Time dubbed bloggers person of the year. What’s next for the blogosphere?

VM: More collaboration on projects for practitioners. We’re already seeing some of that in my neck of the blogosphere. I also see the integration of this tool in the future of work; it will be executed initially to help manage time, relationships/dependencies on projects, and feedback from results. There’s an irresistible customer-centric component of information posted on the Internet, and that’s what’s going to add the secret sauce to this environment.

I wrote about it recently posing the question about traditional media. The lines are already blurred. Will traditional media play the role of facilitators of conversations? Like with all great innovations, there is unprecedented opportunity to shape what’s next, as with every other new thing we had, there is also amazing responsibility to be mindful of all of those who may be left behind. The blogosphere can be inclusive, or it can be another way to drive us apart. It’s up to us to choose, which it will be.

Are these guys for real? PRWeek declared the era of PR 3.0 has arrived (see Brian Solis’s excellent write up of this gaff), after skipping the whole 2.0 debate. This is the spun version of a mia culpa. We were wrong, new media does matter.

I can’t imagine trying to push PR 3.0 given the reticence to join the current revolution… Convincing people that our business has just been turned upside down once (a.k.a. 2.0) has turned into a war of resistance for many of my aging, competing agency brethren as well as business owners locally in DC. Folks just don’t want to believe that new media is worth their corporate time… Meanwhile their competitors are engaging with their communities through the Internet, wreaking havoc!

People have a hard time grasping how much new media has changed PR, demanding a new level of transparency and openness. They just don’t get it. And they probably won’t get it until their jobs become endangered.

I think PRWeek hurts us more than it helps us with this PR 3.0 moniker. Enough people in the industry are fighting PR 2.0. Now with this article we give them extra bubble fodder.

I’m not the only one kvetching… Murphy’s Law slammed the article, “Rather than just discuss the changes taking place to PR in terms of new tools (e.g. blogs and podcasts) or practices (e.g. conversation) they have to give it a new moniker.” Engage in PR says, “What I don’t get is how PR Week is so out of touch with what has been discussed on blogs for 24 months concerning the changes in our industry.”

I am working on a book, “Now Is Gone.” Here’s the initial intro…

Now Is Gone. The face of communications has been altered forever. New media – blogs, social networks, user generated video and audio – have arisen with millions upon millions of content producers. This is different than the dot-bomb era, as users are fueling new media, not VC backed start-ups. As a result, the trend will continue to grow in scope, scale and impact.

The real end game is the internet (and the technology industries fueling it) has fulfilled its promise, providing the world a Guttenberg press (in addition to their own production studios). The result is dynamic new environment with incredible amounts of information, content, and entertainment streaming throughout the world’s information infrastructure. The wires and cables and airwaves are atwitter.

With more choices and much more content, media usage patterns have shifted. Generation X, Generation Y and the following generation (Z?) are increasingly digital, leaving behind cable TV and print newspapers in favor of text messaging, You Tube!, and Digg! Now instead of having to trust a newspaper review about a movie or a magazine write up of a car, potential buyers can go online and read actual consumers opinions based on pragmatic experience. They are no longer beholden to one voice (oft influenced by public relations professionals), or a limited network of friends.

A world of experiences lie at consumers’ fingertips, and many simply go to Google (or Yahoo!, MSN, Ask! Or Technorati) to begin their search for information. When they search, socil media sources are often listed as top content vehicles. The result has challenged corporate outreach campaigns, providing disruptive feedback that counters their marketing and public relations efforts.

On March 9, 2007, BusinessWeek wrote, “Trashing brands online can also be high theater. Rats cruising around a Greenwich Village KFC/Taco Bell on YouTube. MySpacers busting their employers’ chops. Faux ads bashing the Chevy Tahoe as a gas-guzzling, global-warming monster. Millions of people watch this stuff—then join in and pile on. Is it any wonder companies lose control of the conversation?â€?

Traditional Media Lingers

At the same time, with the rise of new media trust in traditional media forms has dramatically declined. People no longer wholeheartedly believe the media now that there are alternative voices to read and verify contemporary newspaper reports.

In 2006, newspaper subscriptions declined 2.6 percent, according to the Associated Press. Further, newspaper subscriptions have been in decline since 1987. Broadcast media suffer from dwindling audiences and a complete lack of trust. Pew Research Center’s report, “News Audiences Increasingly Politicized,� demonstrated that no news outlet enjoys a complete trust rating higher than 33% (60 minutes). It’s worse for the traditional print media, with the highest trust rating going to the Wall Street Journal and US News & Report at a whopping 24%.

New media users don’t always believe the old world anymore. Why? Because their personal and online experiences tell them the Washington Post, CNN, the New York Times, etc. are not accurate. And while a blog may be opinionated and inaccurate, the raw voice inspires belief, while the glitzy polished news product says silicon snake oil. The two must co-habitate, an uncomfortable marriage but one forged by end users.

How far will the pendulum swing? Inevitably, too far, but then it will return to a modest balance between new and old media. Wherever the dust settles, we are only at the very beginning of this marketing revolution. The facts are simple. In the United States the baby boomer population is moving towards retirement, actively approaching the time when corporate America passes them by to focus on the next generations of buyers. In some instances, this is already occurring, with major brands like Southwest airlines, Doritos and Nike using new media to actively promote their wares.

With each passing day, the gap between out-dated tactics and current marketing needs widens. It’s incumbent upon our industry as communicators to learn new media, not just from a theoretical level, but as practitioners. Without new media our ability to effectively counsel executives and clients is incomplete. The revolution’s impact on real business marketing campaigns demands our professional attention.

Last night my wife and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. We were fortunate enough to take a complimentary stretch limousine from my client Kristina Bouweiri’s Reston Limousine to our dinner at Citronelle in Georgetown. Of course dinner was great (I think we still prefer the Inn at Little Washington), but the limousine ride made the day.

I cannot tell you how relaxing this was after a long day driving all over the place. It’s just another league of luxury. Well worth it. It’d be great to get a car for a day when I have 4 or 5 appointments.

Shameless Promo

Speaking of, Reston Limousine’s blog Make It Better was featured yesterday on Fox 5’s morning news. And then we scored a client an interview for this summer’s Business 2.0. A nice day on the traditional media relations front. Last piece of shameless promotion. We launched a new web site yesterday for the company. Check it out.

Laura Ries is one of the most respected minds in marketing today. I remember seeing her speak as a guest of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and promptly bought ten copies of her latest book to give to associates. Laura and father Al Ries’s collective works have easily influenced ten million marketers, and her new blog Origin of Brands has quickly ascended to become one of the most well read destinations on the internet.

With a new Ries via internet video series about to be launched (www.riesreport.com), Laura took some time to discuss new media’s impact on brands. What better way to celebrate one year in business than publishing this thought provoking interview.

BB: How do you like blogging as compared to speaking and writing books?

LR: Writing a book is a long and sometimes agonizing process. A book can take years from the time you write the words down until the time someone reads them. Once written and published, however, a book can reach hundreds of thousands of people around the world in almost every language for many years. Al’s book Positioning is still in print 26 years after it was first published. All of the four books we have written together are also still in print.

Speaking live in front of an audience is exhilarating because of the audience feedback. But speeches require a lot of planning, contracts and travel time. Even in business class, sitting on an airplane for 24 hours is not all it’s cracked up to be. And one speech can only reach maybe 1,000 people at a time.

Writing a blog is the best of both worlds. You have the ability to reach a mass audience on a global scale immediately. It gives me the opportunity to comment on breaking business news and relate our branding laws to the situation. A blog also can reach people with a frequency not possible with either a book or speech. Making a trip to India certainly cannot be done on a weekly basis.

BB: Has communicating with the blogosphere via Origin of Brands benefited your business?

LR: I believe my blog has greatly benefited our business. Fans of our books and/or our speeches can sign up and get my latest blog post as well as read posts from the archive which offers a treasure trove of ideas, advice and observations.

Our consulting business also benefits. Having a blog keeps us current and relevant in the new Internet age. It also gives prospects a constantly updated catalog of our branding philosophy. Reading our books and/or blogs is what drives people to pick up the phone or email us to book a consulting session.

BB: Your blog comments a lot on major brands and their strengths and weaknesses. Can you discuss how new media can positively affect a brand?

LR: Word of mouth is what builds brands today. But you still need a way to get that first mouth moving. The best way is by PR, not advertising. Advertising doesn’t have the credibility to drive the word of mouth process. Also, PR benefits from the proliferating choices of new media outlets. Compared to decades ago, there are more places today to generate PR.

BB: And conversely, how can it negatively impact a brand?

LR: As quickly and as easily as PR can build a brand, PR can take a brand down. Negative PR is incredibly damaging. And with the growth of new media, mainly the Internet, it can happen faster than ever. Look no farther than Don Imus, JetBlue or Taco Bell for proof of this fact.

Luckily, we live in a celebrity obsessed society. This means that famous people and famous brands are always given a second chance. The ability for famous people and brands to generate PR, gives them the tools they would need to rebuild what negative PR has destroyed.

Non-famous people or brands can be annihilated by even mild scandals. If you’re not famous, you seldom get a second chance.

BB: How will new media impact the creation and diversification of brands as outlined in your book, the Origin of Brands?

LR: The Origin of Brands says that over time more and more brands will inhabit the earth. (It’s an analogy with the book, The Origin of Species, which states that over time more and more species will inhabit the earth.) The best way to succeed is by being first in a new category and then creating a brand to dominate that category, as Apple did with the iPod, the first high-capacity MP3 player.

You can also be successful today by creating categories that serve small market segments. The Internet gives brands the ability to reach even the most narrow of segments profitably.

Niche is no longer a dirty word in branding. A niche can become a billion dollar brand. Red Bull and Under Armour, for example.

BB: What are your favorite blogs?

LR: CK’s Blog (http://www.ck-blog.com), Brand Autopsy (http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/brandautopsy/), and Bl Ochman’s What’s Next Blog (http://www.whatsnextblog.com/).

BB: Last December’s Time person of the year article really seemed to legitimize blogging and other web 2.0 technologies. How did this impact the blogosphere?

LR: You answered your own question. The Time person of the year article gave blogging and websites credibility and legitimacy as an alternative source of information. Credibility is both the most difficult to attain and most valuable thing an industry needs to survive. Now that the blogosphere has it, it is sure to survive, evolve and diverge.