Are you a brand ambassador?

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 6 June 2011 at 08:52 {no comments}

Source: Dictionary.com

Since moving to London I’ve had two great opportunities to to meet with and interact with members of separate US embassies.  Both times I was impressed with the openness and genuine interest from the representatives in what I do. This clearly had me thinking about ways that we can all be better ambassadors for our brands. Here are my thoughts:

  • Elevator Pitch. As a brand ambassador you meet a lot of different people from various walks of life. Therefore, it’s incredibly important to know how to succinctly tell who you are, what you do and why your organization matters. In addition, if you want an ambassador to remember you, because they meet a lot of people, having your pitch down becomes important. Do you have your pitch ready?
  • Ask Questions. Ambassadors are curious and inquisitive. They ask good questions not because they are trying to move the conversation along, but because they are good listeners and sincerely interested in what you have to say. Whether you are heading to an industry event or an internal cross-functional meeting be prepared to ask thoughtful questions. But remember, you can’t ask good questions without listening.
  • Follow Up. As ambassador you meet a lot of people and you receive a lot of requests. It seems simple, but following up on requests goes a long way when you know the answer. More importantly, if you don’t have an answer finding someone who might and connecting those two people or doing a bit of research on your own goes even further. Setting up some type of a follow up system and reminders will be key as you turn the act of following up from a task into a habit.
  • Personalization. A good ambassador will make things personal for you and toward you. Think of the people you know who do this well and you will know what I mean.
  • Everyone is an Ambassador. Keep in mind that being an ambassador doesn’t mean you need to be a CEO or CMO.

If you enjoyed this post you may also want to read:

The most important question you can ask

A discussion with Mark Ragan, CEO of Ragan Communications

Book Review: Empowered

What the LinkedIn IPO could mean for B2B communicators

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 18 May 2011 at 07:03 {6 comments}

Tomorrow marks another milestone for social media with LinkedIn’s IPO. You can catch up on the latest news here: Forbes, Fortune, Deal Journal, TRB, Term Sheet, Mashable. But as this story in Bloomberg details, LinkedIn gets “70 percent of revenue from business subscriptions, a model that’s similar to Salesforce.com.” So perhaps instead of treating LinkedIn like social media perhaps its future is more like the CRM model. With that in mind I wanted to offer my thoughts on how it can make improvements as a better resource for marketing and sales.

For those of you who read this blog regularly and know me, I am a long-time supporter of LinkedIn. The network, more so than other online platform, is a transparent resource for businesses — I can see your work history, your real name and what people are saying about you through recommendations. With a reputation for catering to recruiters and job seekers for so long, the company has really made some great improvements in the last two years to become much more useful to communicators. And they will continue to build these services out post IPO.

With a fresh round of cash in its coffers expected tomorrow — estimated at $340 million — what’s next for the social med…er…CRM company? Here are a few things I hope they are considering:

Company Pages

The company pages section in my opinion seems to be the most lacking in functionality for LinkedIn. You are fairly limited as to what you can do on this page and I would like to see that expanded. For instance, having our Twitter feed on this page would seem like an easy add-on given their partnership. As much as I understand this is a career networking site, the profiles they feature are not very useful. What would be helpful is if they could show those people’s status updates, groups they’ve joined and other relevant information. The space these profiles are taking up is valuable real estate. I would also like to see the ability to add more RSS feeds. Finally, I would to have the ability to customize this page — let me choose which items I add and where to put them. The analytics they provide to this page are excellent and I hope they continue to build that out for the benefit of recruiters and marketers.

Group Pages

We use the Group Pages functionality in many ways and I’ve written here about not overlooking groups for B2B companies. One change they made for groups that I wish they would use in Company Page is the scrolling headline of posts. This is extremely useful to see who and what’s been posted. And similar to my thoughts on the Company page, I would like to have the ability for more customization. One thing that Facebook has done really well with the company pages is just this — the ability to add and delete tabs and features. Facebook makes me feel as if our company page is our company page. On LinkedIn I still feel that our pages are us on LinkedIn. LinkedIn also needs to look for more add-ons to the group pages. I honestly feel like we could do so much more with polls, events and even careers. Finally, where they really need to step up is in analytics for group managers. This option is simply non-existent and the company needs to figure our a better way for us to analyze, evaluate and measure our group pages. At this point it’s a guessing game with no historical evidence or info to measure against.

Build a Dashboard

The company clearly does a great job at connecting people, but they need to do a much better job at connecting information. What I mean is that I wish they would do a better job connecting all of the things I do on LinkedIn. Not only do I manage several of our group pages, but I’m also a member of other communication groups, formers employers’ groups and university groups. I would like LinkedIn to figure out what all of this means not only to me but to the people and groups I’m connected to. For the most part, I feel inundated with information from LinkedIn — from email notices by groups and posts, connection notices, the stream on the site, the addition of the news feature — forcing me to make sense of all of this does no one any good. In reality, the company should build a dashboard that I can customize (e.g. think MyLinkedIn as your home page) and view with real-time information.

Make Me Pay

Yes, that’s right. I’d pay. Similar to the model for recruiters who have to pay for services this model should be used for marketers as well. If the company goes down the path of integrating with Salesforce.com, provide deeper analytics and gives me useful options to add content I’d pay.

What did I miss? Let me know what you think.

We’ll see how well the market receives the listing in 24 hours. And of course, if we aren’t connected on LinkedIn let’s do so. You can find my profile here.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Don’t overlook the power of LinkedIn Groups

What’s your “I” in social media?

Using social networking sites in B2B businesses

Finally, a comprehensive B2B social media study

Five Questions on the Profession of Public Relations

Filed under Soap Box, Uncategorized by on 12 May 2011 at 05:59 {no comments}

One of my former students at DePaul University some time ago asked me to help him with a class assignment. He had five questions for me to answer about the profession of public relations. Below are my thoughts I shared with him.

1 What has changed in the profession in the last decade?

By far the greatest change has been technology — from email to websites to social media. The rapid evolution of how people can connect to each other, research information and contribute content has made a big difference. The advancement in technology has created new ways for us to communicate with stakeholders, monitor for issues/crises and build more of a demand for creativity from the profession. But it cuts both ways. Our workload has increased. Rumors spread faster. Without managing it properly it can simply become too much. I have days like that and I’m sure others do as well. I know people who try to turn it all “off” but I don’t think that’s the answer. The 24/7 work cycle is here and here to stay, so the better solution is trying find a way to manage it.

2 What issues are currently hot in your profession?

Everyone is focused on social media but it’s not so much the technology — that’s a big part of it — but the way this technology is used by media, competitors, legislators, etc. The industry is working fast to understand how to use all of the tools to protect and promote the reputations of their business or clients. Right now I see social media touching every aspect of our profession — media relations, investor relations, employee communications, crisis communications. We are still in a “revolution” phase I believe. As a profession we have to learn to cope and adapt to these changes. The people who can change and can see the bigger picture will be the ones who succeed in the long term. I’m hopeful that the future of public relations is very bright and the the new generation of communicators will take this profession to a new level.

3 What new skills and/or certifications are people acquiring to stay current in the field?

I see two areas where the profession needs to focus. First is technology and how to use and apply it. I remind people on my team who don’t want to use it that they don’t have to. I don’t force them to use it. But they do have to understand the effect of it and how to leverage it. Second would be the ability to continue to learn how to analyze and evaluate our work. If we want to be business leaders — not just communicators — we need to continue to develop ways to better measure our performance similar to other buisness functions within a company.

4 What major trends will affect your ability to continue working in this field?

One of the biggest challenges facing public relations is the fragmentation of communication and the control — or lack thereof — of information. Just a couple of years ago it was very easy to have distinct silos of work — advertising, investor relations, marketing, public relations. That is changing. We need to understand how the entire mix of communications works together and can enhance what we do. While I think of myself as a public relations professional, when I look at my work I think of other ways the work can impact our advertising, branding, customer service, sales and more. We need to think more broadly and understand more about the various functions of communication.

We’re also seeing more and more non-traditional communicators become very important to a company or brand. There are a number of great examples, such as  my good friend Ramon DeLeon of Dominoes. He has no formal communication background/degree yet he is now very public and someone who exemplifies the brand and speaks on behalf of it. As professionals we have to deal with this new reality and not fight it but learn how to cope with it, use it and take advantage of it. The transition will not be easy for most, and what new technology awaits us is unknown, but the fact is we have change.

5 Other items/issues to know about your profession.

Public relations continues to fight with itself on its own reputation. I don’t see this debate ending soon. There are those in the profession who misrepresent it. There are those in the profession who set the standards higher for us all. We can learn from both. For me the best approach has been to look at my job as a director of the business who uses communication versus a director of communication working for the business. There is a difference and I think this approach matters. This is a mindset and how I approach my job every day.

Now it’s your turn to answer one or all of these. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

If you enjoyed this you may also enjoy:

Getting your degree in “Business Acumen”

The most important question you can ask

Is motivation the key to success?

Integrating social media with a corporate website

Has Social Media in Financial Services Arrived?

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 10 May 2011 at 07:15 {2 comments}

It’s been a busy week for social media in financial services…and it’s only Tuesday.

For years I’ve been an advocate of using social media in a B2B/financial services setting. I recently spoke in London at the Finextra conference about our experiences. It allows you to educate, build advocacy and monitor for issues. There is clearly no doubt that social media has made its mark with consumer brands and in breaking news. But who is lagging and why? Many have pointed to the financial services industry as being the late adopter. In some cases this is true, but in others it is not (e.g. at CME Group we’ve been using social media since mid-2007).

But in the past few days there has been a flurry of news surrounding social media and financial services. Why now? Before I answer that let’s look at what’s been written:

Financial Times: Embracing trends in social networks

Reputation is one of the most valuable assets companies possess, but controlling it amid the rising influence of social media is a growing challenge. Financial services personnel who naively think their company has no presence on social network sites are sadly mistaken, according to Mark Park, head of digital at MHP, a London-based public relations consultancy.

Financial Times: Twitter research promises trading success

However, because these tweets are effectively broadcast for global consumption they can be data mined.

Gorkana: To tweet or not to tweet

Current and potential clients of asset managers increasingly consume their news and conduct their research into new products on the web. The frenetic blackberrying of business people on commuter trains, in airports and by the pool on holiday are reminders of this trend.

Asset managers need to start experimenting and take some steps into the world of social media. At the very least, it is clear that social media is becoming an increasingly important communications tool for journalists and offers asset managers additional ways of communicating with its stakeholders in a very personal and interactive way.

USA Today: Wall Street traders mine tweets to gain a trading edge

Measuring investor sentiment has long been used by financiers as a tool to divine the future direction of stocks. But traditional tools are decidedly low-tech and less timely, such as the weekly polling of individual investors and financial newsletter editors to see how many are bullish and how many are bearish.

The skyrocketing use of chatty and highly trafficked sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube has created a fresh, massive and useful warehouse of new data. Sophisticated investors view the mining of digital chatter via machines as a way to gain an edge.

Derwent Capital Markets, a London-based hedge fund, was so taken with Bollen’s findings that it will soon launch a fund based on the methodology in his paper.

StreamBase: Twitter and trading – a ripple in the big data wave

In these terms, all of Twitter generates only a sand castle of quality data a day. While some of that data is very valuable, such as tweets from CME Group (@CMEGroup), most of it simply tells us about mass sentiment. And because its open and available to everyone, it doesn’t provide an unfair advantage to the computers of Wall Street. On the other hand, the talk about Twitter does reveal the opportunity and challenge of big data.

Wired: CNN Money relaunches website, adds StockTwits for Wall Street Chatter

CNNMoney will begin pulling content from StockTwits’ network of 55 independent bloggers, Lindzon told Wired.com by phone. “Our goal is to make our stream richer with great content, not just tweets,” Lindzon said.

As Twitter has insinuated itself into so many aspects of our lives — as well as major industries, institutions and companies — Wall Street and the broader finance world have been somewhat behind the curve on harnessing social media. With its new redesign and partnership with StockTwits, CNNMoney clearly hopes to change that.

So what’s changed?

First, we’ve had an enormous amount of media attention given to social media companies and its use, from LinkedIn’s up and coming IPO to Facebook talking to Baidu of China to the Royal Wedding in London (infographic), it’s been difficult to escape the usefulness as well as widespread use of social media. In fact, many will argue social media is now the norm.

Second, we’ve seen the financial services industry show an interest in investing in social media companies. Clearly they see value in these organizations.

Third, I think as an industry we’ve had good direction and guidelines set by regulators that have helped define what is acceptable.

But those three reasons alone don’t necessarily justify the recent uptake and interest in using social media by the industry. The real reason as nearly every story above indicated comes down to one word: data. Information, sentiment, links and more on social networks are creating a mountain of data. We’re finally at a point where we have so much data about economies, companies and markets that it can be useful. For instance, just look at this chart generated by LinkedIn at the rise in the number of links shared on its network.

While some may think that the recent firehouse of data is just too much, smart companies will be able to wade through the information and data. Google Analytics is one way of doing this. Using StockTwits to follow your company is another way. Hootsuite also has recently updated its tools for users to better refine and measure effectiveness. And PR firm Cognito has recently launched its own tool for financial services companies to help monitor social media.

So what can a B2B company — not just a financial services company — do to navigate the data? First, have a plan. The best way to do this is to conduct a social media audit. Know what you want to achieve from using social media and more importantly what you want to find out. Second, search for the right tools. You will need to take some time to do this but a good place to start is searching through the Mashable site. In addition, make sure the tools you use fit into your overall branding efforts. Third, build your own social network. Connect with people at the companies you want to emulate and see what they are doing. I’ve always felt that benchmarking — not copying — against others in a variety of industries will help you think smarter. Finally, always remember the focus is on giving your followers what they want. This may take some experimenting but don’t be afraid of failing.

We’ll see in the coming months and year what other changes financial services firms make to their social outreach. Not only will the results of Derwent Capital be followed closely, but I think we’ll see an evolution (not a revolution) of financial services firms being more active in social media. Some great destinations to watch these trends unfold include The Financial Brand, IR Web Report, StockTwits and Visible Banking.

Let me know your thoughts, but more importantly your questions, on this this topic.
If you enjoyed this post you may also want to read:

Visualizing B2B Social media marketing

Finextra: The growth of social media in financial services

Is motivation the key to success?

The Most Important Question You Can Ask

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 5 May 2011 at 05:32 {3 comments}

This post is inspired by Marc Cenedella, Founder and CEO of The Ladders who offered his single best career tip on his blog last week.  As one of the top search companies for executive jobs his blog is a must read. I like how Marc offers a variety of thoughts and information to his readers and doesn’t just talk about finding a job. What I like about his post that inspired me is that based on his years of experience and insight the advice was a question (sorry, you’ll have to read his blog to find out the question he suggests — no spoilers here). No deep, zen-like words of wisdom. A question.

Good questions are at the heart of good ideas and thinking. If you look around your network and think of the people you admire I will guess that the majority of these people ask good questions. They challenge people. They make you think differently. They push you to be better. And they don’t have ask a lot of questions, nor do they have to be asked in a tone that provokes you to dislike them.

Why are good questions so important? Asking the right questions as this post at Harvard Business Review points out can clarify something that is misunderstood, build relationships, inspire others (and you), and also challenge the status quo. There’s even thinking around the idea of Question-based Leadership.

So based on my experience working in public relations agencies and companies what is the single most important question I’ve learned to ask?

“What are we trying to achieve?”

As communicators, we’ve often heard people start off planning meetings with the questions, “What are we doing to do?” or the declaration, “Let’s do a news release.” We know that tactics always come at the end of planning and we should never be dragged into the trap of trying to find the solution for the things we are tasked to do. If you focus people — and most likely a leader — on what they want to achieve you can not only get into their thought process and decision making, but you can help bring everyone together. This can happen because this open-ended question tends to focus the discussion around goals and objectives. Not tactics.

I’ve also found that asking what you want to achieve works personally as well as professionally. Whether its sports, family, school or your job, begin with what you want to achieve. And the next time someone starts a meeting with the need for a news release ask them to explain what they want to achieve. From there your planning should not only be easier but probably more successful.

What about you? What question drives your thinking?

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Getting Your Degree in Business Acumen

Other Voices: A discussion with Mark Ragan

Relaunching an Online Newsroom

Filed under Case Study, Discussion, Soap Box by on 21 April 2011 at 05:06 {no comments}

In 2006 I took a leap of faith and decided it was time to outsource a key part of our website — the media room. At that time PR Newswire was partnering with The Fuel Team and provided an outsourced solution. When we launched the new media room later that year we had a more dynamic landing page for journalists, analysts, educators and customers who were interested in reading news from the company.

Part of that redesign allowed us to immediately add social media functionality, video content, integration between the newswire and our site, and the company’s first RSS feed. The site has evolved over time but for the most part has retained the same look over the years.

Fast forward to this week. Our media room receives hundreds of visits every day, so making this site relevant, easy to navigate, and more useful to our broad range of stakeholders remained an important objective of the team when we decided last fall to relaunch it. As part of the relaunch, one of the very first things we did was a tremendous amount of research benchmarking our media room content and design not only against our competition, but also against some of the world’s leading brands such as Toyota and Cisco.

After our benchmarking phase, our objective was to keep things comprehensive, yet simple to navigate. In addition, we heard requests from a variety of journalists on how we could improve our content to provide more timely and key additional resources. We continue to use PR Newswire and outsource these pages and last week after many revisions and tests with our internal website team we hit the “refresh” button.

Here are some of the key highlights of our new page at CME Group:

Get the News You Want

Receiving news from CME Group becomes easier as stakeholders can now choose which content you want delivered to you via email – corporate, commodity products, financial products, OTC/clearing — or via an RSS feed.

Banner Updates

When you come to the page online you will immediately notice four large banners at the top. These banners will be updated regularly and point to some of the key news, issues and trends that we feel are important and timely.

Featured Videos

On the right-hand side of the page the latest video content will be posted. These are updated as we add new content and showcase commentary from our management and product teams. We have also made it easier to share this video content through a number options controlled by the user.

Single-page Content

We have made the content expand horizontally rather than vertically, which means users no longer have to scroll down the page for what they need. We did this by placing the tabs across the screen for news, speeches, research and other resources.

Integration with Open Markets and Social Media

When we launched our blog Open Markets in March 2010 we were excited to have a new resource for journalists to gain insight on our thoughts. Open Markets is now linked to our Media Room via our “Keep up to Date” tab in the right-hand corner, which also includes links to other social media platforms we use. We’ve worked hard over the years to build our presence in social media as a financial services firm so it was a nice surprise to view our home page this week showing how “right” the decision was to use these resources.

Like all things online our media room will continue to evolve. This current phase has helped us utilize many of our internal resources to build a better and more integrated site for our many stakeholders. Since we just went through this process what questions do you have? Post them in the comments.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy reading:

Finextra Review — The growth of social media in financial services

Integrating Social Media With Corporate Website: How far can we take this?

Finextra Review — The Growth of Social Media in Financial Services

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 11 April 2011 at 08:36 {no comments}

Last week I had a great opportunity to speak on a panel and also moderate a panel at the 2011 Social Media Days London hosted by Finextra at Thomson Reuters. The event’s next stop is New York on May 18. There were three key themes that I noticed being discussed during the day:

  1. Measurement and Evaluation: Most of the questions and “water cooler” conversation focused around measuring social media efforts. I was surprised to hear so many people ask about how social media is driving B2B sales. While ultimately all things we do in the marketing/communication mix should be to increase sales, I’m not sure focusing on sales is critical at this stage. Sales measurement in the B2B space for communicators has always been a challenge. While I’m hopeful that so much data being produced can give us better insight and we will continue to be better at measuring our efforts in social media, I am still of the belief that focusing on supporting the brand and building your presence for now is key. Like all things, this will take time and the brands who understand this will do a better job of using the data. For a look at some of the leading brands at what they are doing in social media I found the Social Brands 100 study helpful.
  2. Who Owns It?:  There was a good discussion around who owns the strategy and process of social media at a company. A social media team? Corporate communications? Marketing? Advertising? The individual? Or all of the above? Usually we’ve seen strong individuals take the lead at companies and they come from a variety of backgrounds. We continue to move rapidly toward a model where everyone can play a part and contribute through providing content to distribute or monitoring conversations. I continue to be impressed where more and more people at CME Group pass good content over to us to distribute and help us monitor the conversations. This should be the case for most companies moving forward. As for what department internally should run social media there is no simple answer.  Due to culture, structure and processes there really is no “one” model that works better than another. But finding the “right” model should be the focus of chief communicators.
  3. International Growth: With the conference held in London there were a number of questions on how to reach stakeholders not just throughout Europe but also in Asia and North America. I enjoyed some of the commentary about new technologies coming to bypass translation, but the fact that moving the social media needle to expand corporate content into a 24/7 cycle is going to be a challenge. It’s a topic like this that makes the challenge of using these resources so exciting, and something I am certainly going to research more.

I also had a chance to sit down with Liz Lum of Finextra who organized the event. You can watch my interview with her here.

If you liked this post you may also enjoy:

What a Wonderful “Mesh” We’ve Made

Beyond Social — What’s Next?

Socialnomics — The Revolution is Us

Integrating Social Media With a Corporate Website

Is Motivation the Key to Success?

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box by on 6 April 2011 at 07:11 {no comments}

What drives success in our profession?

Source: Winnod

This has been on my mind lately because as I’ve talked with so many different people the topic has been raised. How does one become successful in corporate communications? What skills does one need? I will argue that it comes down to motivation.

I believe that motivation is a key driver. And motivation is needed due to the demands of the 24-hour news effect, globalization, and the rising importance of communication as a management function. The bottom line I believe is that motivated communicators are the ones helping organizations succeed.

Here are 10 ideas I think can motivate you to be successful:

1. Leadership: Effective leadership allows communicators to transcend geographies, organizations, and cultures. It will produce desired results despite the ambiguity and level of risk. The key is to be a true leader.

2. Relationship building: Having a significant personal network of people will continue to be a smart way for communicators to operate successfully in their careers. Remember that relationships—supported by action steps–are the basis of personal credibility.

3. Learning: Communicators need to understand how they learn, from the point of view of both effectiveness and efficiency. Are you considering degrees in higher education in order to advance your knowledge?  Are you actively engaged in learning about the details of how your organization operates and generates revenue? Are you looking for ways to expand your knowledge is other fields and areas of interest such as technology, psychology, social issues and international trends?

4. Business acumen: Communicators must be able to talk with businesspeople in their language. But even more important, they must understand the industry, where their companies play in that industry, their unique selling proposition, how they make money, and what their customers are like. How else can they possibly understand where  communication can help add to the revenue stream? Public relations is a unique profession that is in a demanding position to understand the intricacies of a business, including legal, product development, regulatory, human resource and financial/investor relations.

5. International cultures: Globalization will require that we learn to work with and understand international cultures. The “our way” of thinking will not always bring success in how we run our business or in how we develop and nurture our relationships.

6. Listening: The skill of listening can be key to gaining influence. Communictors need to hear what’s not just expressed in words–but also body language, tone being used, etc. Too often, we’re busy determining what we’re going to recommend next, rather than understanding what is being said, in order to influence management.

7. Mentoring: If public relations is going to contribute to an effective organization, we have to mentor the next generation of communicators. The real legacy a person leaves is an effective, skilled organization – not just communication skills but business skills as well. Keep in mind this is a two-way street — I have learned many things from people just coming into this profession simply from questions they ask. We should encourage that.

8. Project management: The emphasis of the future has to be in the leadership and interpersonal skills that ensure sound project-management practices. Projects fail because relationships and expectations fail.

9. Trust: This is a necessity as change becomes our steady diet. Communicators will not be able to lead others through changing times and situations if they cannot learn to earn trust and be trusted.

10. Producing results: Successful communication leaders will get results by setting the direction, aligning the people, and motivating them to produce results. Helping drive the value of communications throughout the business and providing business value – not just media relations value – is a factor to success.

To be effective, communicators also need to understand what motivates their teams within the context of the roles they perform. Knowing “how” and “why” to motivate employees is an important skill. Motivation is complex but important. What are your thoughts? What motivates you?

If you enjoyed this post you should also read:

Getting Your Degree in “Business Acumen”

Beyond Social: What’s Next?

How Well Do You Know Your Social Network? Probably Poorly

Integrating Social Media into Disaster Recovery

Filed under Application, Discussion, Soap Box by on 5 April 2011 at 04:55 {no comments}

A recent story in InformationWeek caught my eye – Few Businesses Use Social Media For Disaster Recovery. As communicators we know the increased usage of social media helps us listen to a variety of stakeholders and communicate what is happening inside our company. It should come as no surprise then that social media also is an area where crises can manifest and take on a life of their own. There are many examples already and I’m sure the list will continue to grow.

I continue to be intrigued by social media and not just for its uses to promote a company. Social media resources are becoming more and more a part of our communication fabric and a topic I enjoy studying. In January, I was able to participate in a live chat on the topic of crisis communication and I wrote about the topic extensively in grad school. Like many past examples, crises tend to raise the profile internally of the communications team and perhaps this will be the case with social media teams.

What surprised me about the InformationWeek story is not the lack of understanding or use of social media by the business continuity teams, but it’s the lack of coordination by the communication teams to have social media included (NOTE: We have it as part of our planning where I work).

What should the role of social media be in contingency planning? Let us know your thoughts.

If you enjoyed this you may also want to read:

Have you hugged your InfoSec team today?

A Busy Week in London

Filed under Discussion, Soap Box, Uncategorized by on 4 April 2011 at 04:44 {no comments}

It’s been three months since I moved to London. For those of you who know me you realize the pace of my life is always “go”. It should come as no surprise that I’ve been working on a number of things to take part in and build upon the financial social media community here in London. Here are a few things going on this week:

  • On Thursday, April 7 I will be taking part in my first speaking engagement in London as I particip

    The Royal Exchange, London

    ate in the Finextra Social Media Days. I will be on a panel discussing B2B social media and how we use it and also leading a panel focusing on what’s next in social media for the financial community.  The entire conference is full of great topics and if you use Twitter you can follow the entire day using #FINXSM.

  • My good friend in the trading community Toby Bryans and I decided when I announced my move to London that we would host regular tweetups as an opportunity to build on the social media community. Our third one takes place this Wednesday (thanks to Liz Lum of Finextra) in Canary Wharf.  If you are in London this week please plan to stop by and introduce yourself to the group.
  • This week I’m submitting a byline to CorpComms magazine and you can count on a social media mention. I plan to post parts of the byline on this blog once it has been published.

This should be a very good week and I’m looking forward to all of great activities ahead.

If you liked this post you may also want to read:

Socialnomics: The Revolution is Us

Beyond Social: What’s Next?

Social Media for Financial Communicators

Do You Believe?

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