I had the great honor of providing a commentary in this morning’s Washington Post, “Action, Not Just Words.” The Washington Post article was based on a Buzz Bin post critiquing the Board of Trade for spinning DC as a green city. There’s more at play here than just green PR.

Command and control organizational cultures believe that spin works and that perception is reality. Instead they must change to meet the times, and learn that conversations with the public must be backed by substance. Companies and organizations need to walk their talk.

Current studies indicate politicians and organizations suffer from incredible lack of public trust. Consider that the latest polls have Congressional approval ratings at 20 percent. Bush’s approval rating is at 24 percent. Only 22 percent of Americans trust corporate leaders.

It comes down to a combination of ethos (profits versus society) and spin. We’re in a strange time where the media environment continues to move towards two-way channels, enabling the public to effectively question organizations. Fractured media environments allow for the widespread word-of-mouth dissemination of information, forcing accountability into corporate communications.

Yet companies and organizations are still acting as if they are in an era of mass communications. Command and control, spin, and hype seem to take precedence over substance. This needs to change if we are ever going to turnaround the public’s view of our companies and governing organizations.

The Need for Change

Executives, marketing pros and PR execs alike must acknowledge that the world has moved beyond mass communications. Authenticity and facts mean more than saying what people “want to hear.” Ultimately, people would rather see the flaws than find out political PR types and corporate marketers have manipulated them.

To ensure strong brands, companies and organizations have to ensure their promises have actual weight. Brands are communicated in three ways:

When the experience does not match the communicated brand promise, trust evaporates. It’s hard to trust anything or anybody that cannot do what they say.

These statements may seem like an old saw to some. Yet, it seems that we need to repeatedly discuss these issues to change the marketing profession for the better.

Now more than ever, organizations must walk before they talk. They must ensure that their communications have actual substance. Otherwise, organizations will continue to reinforce the general distrust that America’s public feels towards them.

This extends beyond green PR into all facets of business and life. In the tech sector, the dot com era was caused by over hype without substance. Are we going to learn the lesson, or recreate venture backed 2.0 bombs? Will reform cause special interests to lose their hold in Washington or will politicians continue to sell their soul?

The future is never certain. As the current movement towards user-generated media continues, distrust will certainly provoke change. Will corporate America and organizational communicators meet the challenge? Or will the downward spiral create a new group of socially-responsible companies better able to serve its customers? Probably a healthy mix of both.

We know there is lots of interest in social media right now from businesses. But there’s also significant hesitation due to lack of case studies and measurement, as well as a general fear of change. Enter Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae, his latest book focused on the “New Marketing,” set for a December 27th release.

Make no bones about it, this book arrives at the exact time it was needed. Now Corporate America has been told by its most revered marketer that the old ways aren’t working, and that it’s time to change — not just marketing, but also product development — to meet the new conversational media forms.

Seth Godin tells them why they should be a part of the New Marketing. And he does it in his usual creative way: With the meatball allegory, plus 14 trends and a great group of refreshingly new case studies.

This book will make it “safe” for many marketers to really begin actively experimenting with social media. And it is likely to trigger another wave of businesses moving into two-way conversations.

It’s not a book for those of us who have been engaged in social media marketing and public relations for some time. Really, we’re the choir and reading the book did not generate any massive revelations. Meatball Sundae does validate a lot of the drum beating inside our echo chamber.

For experienced social media marketers this book really has two intrinsic benefits. 1) It’s the perfect gift for the Doubting Thomas in your executive suite. If the reader is still saying, “I don’t know” after reading this, then just mail it in. They are in for a long ride, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 2) The case studies are new, refreshing and great. It’s hard to argue that social media doesn’t produce results after reading “Meatball Sundae.”

Here are some notable things I liked in the book:

Buy your copy of Meatball Sundae today! Other Seth Godin-related posts: Interview and Book Review: The Dip.

Rob Lagesse and Kami Huyse have started a Thanksgiving meme about who was most or very influential in your career. Thanks for tagging me, Kami.

For me, that would be Victor Watts. I actually blogged about Victor anonymously last year when this blog was still in Diary of an Ad Man mode, chronicling the first year of the start-up.

Victor turned my career around in the middle of the last recession. At that time, as one of the few account execs at TMP Worldwide’s Integrated Marketing Communications Program (now Monster) who could sell, I was put into business development full time. We needed business or people were going to get laid off.

But I slumped. Eventually our president got fired, and Victor inherited me. He took the time to teach me not to spin or hustle in business development, pitches and in life. Instead he showed me Dale Carnegie, Denis Waitley and Jeffrey Gitomer; folks who touted other-centric behavior.

It was more important to listen than talk, to give than take, to represent yourself accurately from the get-go. Why? My job was to build trust and faith so that business could occur. And he made me realize when I was negative, I projected it, and attracted bad results. He helped me refocus on the positive.

I closed approximately $32 million in contracts and IDIQs within one year under Victor.

More importantly, I became a much better man who could participate and give in all my relationships. I was able to be a true partner with my soon-to-be wife. And a true PR practitioner who understood what it meant to build goodwill within a community. Really, Victor helped me grow up… I am so in his debt.

Gratitude for this Year

Here are my six tags, all of whom have influenced me this year:

Toby Bloomberg was the first A List marketing blogger to shine a little of the limelight on this blog when I was still in the Diary Mode. Toby and I have a top secret project right now. Very exciting.

Brian Solis showed me some of the core tenants of social media marketing in his reviews of my initial Now Is Gone drafts. Couldn’t say it better than the acknowledgments page, but you get the drift.

Valeria Maltoni kicks butt. People say I rose quickly this year once we switched to the Buzz Bin. Valeria has risen quicker. She’s a great example of what to do right.

Josh Hallett gave me my first inside-baseball speaking opp. at BlogOrlando. He didn’t know me, and didn’t need to give me a shot. I made great friends because of this event. Thanks, Josh.

Ike Pigott (yes I know you are double tagged) is a blogger’s blogger, and adds a real pragmatic voice to both my views and the social media sphere, in general. He’s a good friend, too.

Kyle Flaherty: An early reader of the Buzz Bin, and a continuing member of my community. I think Kyle’s Engage in PR is one of the better, and more under-appreciated blogs out there.

Thank you for being a valuable part of my life. I continue to learn from all of you.

Happy Thanksgiving. The Buzz Bin will return to its normal publishing schedule on Monday.

P.S. The next major holiday (at least in my tribe) is Chanukah. A little Adam Sandler for you.

Lee Odden shows that there is a “method to the madness” of Twitter when it comes to marketing and PR. He also includes a great list of other posts about tools and tricks of Twitter, and some quick tips for users.

James Cherkoff at Modern Marketing writes that marketing is no longer in the hands of marketers, and that social media and networking have taken messaging and put it into the hands of citizen marketers. Great marketing and a good story can be quickly squashed by a simple Google search and some bad reviews. Official branding is no more, and there is indeed a loss of control of the message.

Another example of branding and customer loyalty comes from Eli Portnoy at The Brand Man. He posts about Starbucks and their recent decline in revenue (and consequential advertising boost), and whether or not that is indicative of their overall struggle to maintain their brand, or if it’s just the way the market is trending? In order for Starbucks to stay ahead of the competition, they need to go “back to basics” and provide the same caliber service and standards that people are accustomed to. People pay for luxury when they know they are getting the experience they are looking for.

A question of identity is raised by Jon Greer, who provides insight into a policy that should be included with every corporate blog. Ethics always come into play when a company uses social media, so take the time to make sure all parties involved are clear on what is acceptable and what is not when writing or commenting on a blog.

The most influential social network and blog rankings list raise some interesting facts from Ann Handley about the entire system. MySpace and Facebook continue to lead the way for social networking, with Blogger and Wordpress are still fighting for the lead. However, Wordpress has an impressive 444% growth rate.

Book widget maker Shelfari has been accused of one of the largest astroturfing incidents ever by competitor Library Thing, with a massive astroturf spamming campaign using the handle “schaufferwaffer.” Shelfari CEO Josh Hug admitted astroturf occurred, but blamed an intern:

As for the astroturfing, that was an unintended work of an unexperienced but well-meaning intern who failed to make himself known as he commented on blogs. That was not our intent and we were unaware that was going on. It has stopped.

The astroturf disclaimer occurred in a post from Seattle bookseller Michael Lieberman and in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. However consider, that in one case the VP of marketing followed up schaufferwaffer and supported his claims. And then look at this Google search for schaufferwaffer and see the widespread proliferation of astroturfing comments on behalf of Shelfari (image credit: pakalwaters).

Since the incident and the public disclaimer on the astroturfing early last week, Shelfari’s blog has gone silent.

Shelfari’s a well funded company that’s recently received money and a board member from Amazon. Yes, the same Amazon that angered many authors across the social media sphere with their Kindle reader that gives away intellectual property for free.

Yet what’s most alarming about this incident is the lack of attention here in the social media world. Outside of O’Reilly Radar, meyerweb, and select industry specific blogs, nobody’s talking about this astroturfing turkey! And this is not the first case of unethical marketing by Shelfari.

Here’s the deal, folks. Companies will keep doing this unless we marketers call out our brothers and sisters. This kind of marketing is absolutely unacceptable, and Shelfari needs to do much more than slough off the incident on a “well meaning intern.”

Since Internet usage became popular in the mid-nineties, there’s been a great debate about identity versus privacy.  But as time has progressed, demonstrating, verifying and protecting identity has become an increasingly important part of online relationships.  Now more than ever companies, marketers and consumers are concerned about demonstrating identity.

Several recent events have driven that home:

• Second Life and IBM’s initiative to open Second Life avatars so they can be used in a wide variety of virtual worlds
• The inclusion of identity API’s in Google’s OpenSocial initiative to possibly enable transfer of personal data across social sites that support OpenSocial
• The rise of online identity credibility providers like SezWho and honestyonline
• A discussion with Georgetown University’s Communications Culture and Technology students last week (see companion piece on Now Is Gone and GNOVIS podcast) had some serious points on identity
• Brendan Cooper dropping the Friendly Ghost avatar, and the bizarre fall of anonymous troll Amanda Chapel and associated blogs Strumpette, Furthermore and Daily Diddle

Geoff Livingston verifies his identity with honestyonline at the TNNI conference earlier this month.

Identity, Trust and Marketing

Generally speaking, experienced Internet users have been burned by anonymous identities, and want to know who we’re dealing with. Certainly, there’s an element of Internet citizens, etc. who must remain anonymous, in large part to keep their jobs. Others want to protect their privacy, but on the grander scale providing genuine identity is essential to facilitating trust online.

As we said last week, honesty, transparency and ethics — including accurately identifying yourself (anyone can claim to be Pete Townsend) are critical to online relationships:

There is no body language, no tone to hear, no eye to eye communication. Even in ?user-generated? video and audio, re-recordings and edits can mask inconsistencies. Authenticity and trust is based on a very generous gift of faith from the consumer, whether that?s in a C2C, B2C or a B2B environment.

Sales and marketing professionals, consultants, and PR pros must build trust to create results.  Identity anchors trust.  By providing an open identity, whether as a company or an individual, we foster trust in digital communities. And so it’s critical to practice ethical codes and foster accurate identity and transparency in our actions online.

Accurate identity’s importance has been confirmed by the pressure put on industry pundits to identify themselves.   The increasing rise of start-ups to verify individual identity and even rank their credibility fulfills a marketplace need.

Even more encouraging, are the Second Life/IBM and OpenSource initiatives.  It seems that consumers, application providers, and social networks alike also want universal identification capabilities across social networks.  This allows for easier extension of personal brands as well as extension of preferred personal applications across communities.

Open identities also reduces social network fatigue. Users can explore more social networks without the rigors of starting anew every time they join another hot community. A win-win that enables much more fluid and pragmatic usage. 

Identity has always been a moving target, but now it really seems to be moving.  What are your thoughts on this pertinent topic?

Six months ago we wrote up the “top 12″ DC marketing, social media and PR blogs as ranked by Technorati authority.  Oh, how little we knew. This new top 12 16 list should demonstrate how strong DC’s social media scene really is!

Blogs must be in the Greater Washington area (Baltimore included), must feature marketing related content somewhat regularly, and have approximately a 100 Technorati authority (as of 11 p.m. Friday, November 16). We’re including Chris Abraham because he just moved to Germany and this is his U.S. base of operations.

1) Technosailor (Aaron Brazell) - 800

2) Influential Marketing Blog (Rohit Bhargava) - 710

3) BlogWrite for CEOs (Debbie Weil) - 444

4) Somewhat Frank (Frank Gruber) - 378

5) The Buzz Bin (Geoff Livingston & Company) - 300

6) Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog (Katya Andersen) - 248

7) Because the Medium is the Message (Chris Abraham) - 216

8) Presto Vivace (Alice Marshall) - 177

9) Ogilvy PR 260 Digital Influence Blog (Rohit Bhargava, John Bell, Kaitlyn Wilkins & Company) - 158

10) Digital Influence Mapping Project (John Bell)  - 157

11) Marketing Conversation (Chris Abraham & Company) - 147

12) Verge New Media (Jim Long) - 126

13) Now Is Gone (Geoff Livingston & Friends) - 120

14) Advercation (Peter Corbett) - 116

15) The Webpreneur (Nick O’Neil) - 96

16) Catch Up Lady - (Kaitlyn Wilkens) - 91

It should be noted that Susan Reynolds belongs in here. Her URL - http://susanreynolds.blogs.com/ - registered more than 500 reactions, which would seem to pretty much guarantee approximately 175-225 authority. However, Technorati probably borked and would not recognize her blog listing. Otherwise this would have been a top 13 list!

And then we would have included another Ogilvy blogger, Kaitlyn Wilkens, whose blog currently has a 91 authority ranking. Why? Because having a top 13 list is unlucky!  Strike that!  Kaitlyn’s been added thanks to Qui’s comments below…  We added Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing blog, and we can’t have a top 13 list. We also added Nick O’Neill’s Webpreneuer and Peter Corbett’s Advercation (they just keep coming out of the woodwork). Let’s get all of the great local marketing blogs that qualify.

It should be noted that Technorati rankings in general are not accurate measures of traffic and performance.

Recently, we were asked to promote Julia Nixon, former Broadway Dreamgirl and award winning artist with the debut of her new cd, ‘Keepin on Track.’

Sounds simple enough. Julia is a story in and of herself. Besides being an award winning artist (receiving a 2007 Helen Hayes award for her role in Studio Theatre’s Caroline, or Change), she’s performed for many mayoral and presidential inaugurations, and was a frequent performer at Mr. Henry’s in Adam’s Morgan and Blues Alley in Georgetown.

But she walked away from her profession twenty years ago to raise her son. And now she’s back.

Our challenge — we only had two weeks to promote her ‘Welcome Home’ concert at The Lincoln Theater. We had to think fast and here’s some of the ways we did it.

First and foremost is perseverance. When we weren’t getting the traction we wanted, we retooled the pitch. We tried new outlets. Then we tried them again.

Overall, our campaign included media relations, blogger relations, radio and TV outreach, as well as social networking (Myspace, Facebook, Virb). Most importantly, it included a lot of teamwork. And we did it. Her CD review in today’s Washington Post speaks for itself.

We are so excited for her show this weekend at The Lincoln Theater.

The Buzz Bin went overseas to talk to Steve Bridger, a Social Media Consultant & Online Community Mentor at Sift, in Bristol, UK. He is also the owner of nfp 2.0, a blog dedicated to helping non-profits and social media work together for a common goal.

BB: Tell us about the Buzz Director posts?

SB: It’s funny how these things develop a life of their own on the web. Much of my work is with not-for-profits, and in November 2006 I began to work up the concept of a “buzz director” for people inside organizations who champion the use of social media to promote the cause (although I believe much can be transferred with relative ease to the corporate world).

BB: Why Buzz Director versus Community Manager?

SB: The Buzz Director role goes beyond that of community manager.
In the old online community world, I think the role of community managers was to build places for people to come and to then manage and facilitate their participation once they got there. I’ve had this role myself for a number of years, and see myself both as a kind of ‘conductor of the orchestra’ (very ‘light touch’) and an ‘advocate’ for moving the community to the heart of the host organization.

Things have changed, and it is becoming more and more important to understand how to use the whole web as part of your community strategy, rather than just your own corporate website… oh, and Google. A buzz director will identify clusters of people, wherever they are, who are already participating around brands and encouraging them through access and links rather than through building tools and managing their interactions.

The more traditional online communities with which I have been involved have tended to be ‘bolted on’ and linked to existing social structures and ways of doing things. It was quite costly and difficult to create online places, so they tended to be collective (’what’s in it for us’), rather than personal (’what’s in it for me’). You now need to be in many places at once.

A buzz director will move seamlessly back and forth through the ever-more porous outer membrane of organizations, going outside the organization online space to establish a its presence in other people’s spaces.

When I first began to play with the buzz director concept, one of the main drivers was that we might be able to confine ’silo-thinking’ to the dustbin of history once and for all. What many executives do not appreciate is that social media is like a two-way mirror, that reflects back on them, and demands a new way of working.

It goes without saying that a buzz director will ‘walk their talk,’ and blog to facilitate discussion and embed learning across program areas and / or departments.

BB: How do you think regular social media citizens react to corporate social media titles?

SB: Job titles don’t go to the heart of the issue: there’s something about organisational / business-orientated hierarchy that causes problems for ‘buzz director’ type people, and what they are trying to do.

Internally, most not-for-profits (and corporates?) look pretty much the same as they did a decade or more ago. Adding social media to existing ‘deep frozen’ structures will not give us the vehicles for action that we need in future.

But to answer the question, I’ve had a first pop at defining what a buzz director job description might look like but I’m not naive enough to think organizations will just embrace buzz directors (and what they stand for) into their networks without demanding some measure of oversight and control. But I do think there is a happy medium, perhaps a combination of ‘vision + participation’ that would make the role more palatable to naysayers.

I confess to having some second thoughts about the “[Buzz] Director” title, but I think it needs to be like that, otherwise we’re losing the organizational imperative that I am advocating.

As you hint in your question, buzz directors wouldn’t be alone; they would co-create targeted engagement strategies with appropriate colleagues, especially ’social reporters’ and ‘community technology stewards’, as well as brand ‘ambassadors’ beyond the four walls.

BB: What do you think the biggest challenge is facing business social media?

SB: There are many challenges, but I think the biggest is the perception that by simply adding social media to existing structures will give us the vehicles for (in the case of social change organizations) action that we need in future.

The result - a disconnect between what could be achieved and what actually happens through lack of Leadership 2.0. It’s mission critical that we get leaders who understand what’s happening. Some agile budgeting would be a start.

The most successful not-for-profits (brands) of the future will be those who “think from the outside in”, and who give up some control in return for greater reach.

As Stuart Henshall wrote recently, “You cannot talk about the future of the organization without addressing tools that every college student is immersed in, uses and manages their life and social interactions around.”

Organizations need to learn to distribute some trust, too… beyond the chosen few. Give a little slack. Bear with me for a moment: if you ask an astronaut (admittedly, this is something I haven’t done) what was the most frightening part of their mission, they will most likely respond: the launch, and the space walk. Of course, astronauts spend much of their training practicing spacewalks and working out the details before they launch. But what’s it like to walk in space? Truly liberating, so we’re told! Buzz directors take the earthly equivalent of spacewalks.

BB: What measurement tools do you use?

SB: I get an absurd kick from seeing my blogs “authority” creep up in Technorati, but it’s personal emails which demonstrate value do the business for me. For example, I received hundreds of testimonials in the 6 months I published afterwilma.info a citizen journalism blog which documented Cancún’s recovery from Hurricane Wilma in 2005 (makes a damn good PR 2.0 case study by the way).

The ROI of social media (and digital marketing in general) is something I’ve blogged about, although I bow to others doing great work in this evolving discipline, like Forrester Analyst, Jeremiah Owyang.

Although there are quite a few guys out there in the buzz metrics space, I’m unaware of anyone who has managed to effectively nail the people bit of the equation. The problem is that this requires some form of human assessment, which makes it both expensive and something that requires thought.

Measuring ‘engagement’ is like eating an elephant: it’s a big job and you’re not sure where to start.

I visualize a dashboard as a sort of ‘virtual’ mixing desk… with levers and buttons, dials, green and amber lights, a few scary red ones, a built-in early warning system. Basically, this ‘thing’ would be so cool that nobody will want to be without one. Not if you’re a buzz director, anyway.

BB: You haven’t been blogging much… Where are you engaging? Facebook, Twitter, etc?

SB: Well, I’ve been eating a bit of my own dog food and hanging out on Facebook. I guess I’ve been kind of micro-blogging over there. I’m a huge fan of Flickr (which I still believe is to Web 2.0, what Amazon was to Web 1.0), with the odd tweet here and there. I’ve been saving up some blogging stories though.

BB: What’s next for Steve Bridger?

SB: Funny you should ask that; a freelance career as a consultant beckons - with a few projects lined up to support not-for-profits navigate the challenges of this dynamic new environment.

Although I reckon we’re perhaps 12 - 18 months away from the real breakthrough, when the not-for-profit sector really gets ’social’, I’m excited at the prospect of plenty of continued experimentation and innovation in 2008 from among the pioneers.

Oh, and I’m making it my mission to find the buzz directors who might already be out there, and I’m keen to unearth a significant number of case studies, which are oddly still lacking.

But right now… I need a cup of tea.

Our usual interview did not arrive today (boo!), but we hope to run this in the next day or two so hang in there.

In the interim, a pretty cool conversation is taking place over at Shel Israel’s blog today. Shel picked up a thread from Dave Fleet, who asked, “Where’s the line between PR pros participating in social media and PR pros exploiting it? Who draws that line?”

Shel was pretty pragmatic acknowledging that businesses are here, and they are here to make money. He had a fantastic response: “To me the number one ethical issue is that companies come to social media willing to have conversations rather than deliver messages.”

This discussion mirrors an expose over at PR Squared. Todd Defren revealed a guerilla marketing firm’s proposal demonstrating a desire to astroturf comments in social media realms. A fascinating conversation ensues in the comments section, too.

Why Social Media Principles Are Necessary

It’s time to be brutally blunt to our marketing brethren and sisters who think the old ways will work. Your efforts to make money at the expense of basic human relationship principles will fail. Picking up on my comments at Shel’s blog, two things have happened that demand these principles.

1) Over the past years, companies and, in general, media outlets have violated the public’s trust of their information. The command and control approach to marketing worked to the point that special interests corrupted media outlets. Consider that in a recent Guardian article, BBC Chairman Sir Michael Lyons had to publicly state that his company faces a “big challenge” regaining the public trust. We’re not talking about a small advertising driven trade publication here.

2) Digital culture is a very fragile one. In general, there is no body language, no tone to hear, no eye to eye communication. Even in “user-generated” video and audio, re-recordings and edits can mask inconsistencies. Authenticity and trust is based on a very generous gift of faith from the consumer, whether that’s in a C2C, B2C or a B2B environment.

So entering social media worlds, companies a) have two strikes against them because no one trusts them and b) must realize the frail nature of relationships within the media form. To succeed, marketers have to play to the form, which means fostering faith and trust through conversational communications. That requires ethical, honest and transparent touches.

To fly in the face of these principles simply invites disaster. It’s too easy to get busted out here. And when you do get busted, we’ve seen all too often that the power of Word of Mouth is a double edged sword.

Smart, progressive communicators get this. Innovators will also adopt this. In the case of more conservative organizations, competition is the great motivator. Why? Since fear drives them, ultimately fear of losing their market share will supersede fear of change.

And then there will be the unethical ones. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, they think they can get away with it. And they will be the bad apples that will continue to upset the barrel no matter what we do. But we can be firm and say, “This will not be tolerated. You have been warned.” The rest is on them.