The supreme court has decided recently to review arguments for corporate funding of political candidates in advertisements. If you are in public relations and are unaware of this you need to catch up. Here are some reasons why:

Messaging: In a new world of  more government involvement combined with being hyper connected we may need to revisit what we say. Not only will you potentially need to revisit your messages, but you will need to address how you distribute them and respond to inquiries. Politics can be a heavily confrontational environment, so if companies are allowed to be more vocal about who they support with advertising we will be expected to be more involved in the public debate. Are you ready to start today? Do you know the issues and candidates your company supports?

Public defense: A change in policy will affect how you position your company’s leaders and its position in the marketplace.  For those of us doing B2B communications we may be entering an entirely new world of having to work with consumers and consumer groups. So what do you have in place to defend your public choices? Will it be social media? Traditional media? Are you ready to support your company’s decision?

Define “advertising”: What really constitutes advertising in today’s heavily leveraged world of social media? While we understand the traditional full-page advertisement in Roll Call or the WSJ, what about a sponsored Twitter account? Or a paid-for blog? Or YouTube videos? In addition, we all know that issues and political advertising usually requires input from the team in public relations, so you will likely need to step in and help manage. We could also be approaching more cases like Nike v. Kasky – which by the way was settled out of court. Could things change based on another case? Are you ready with adding to the internal conversation?

Ethics: When it comes to ethics we need to answer to four audiences: 1) our organization/client 2) our publics 3) our self, and 4) the public relations profession. With a change in campaign finance looming, support of candidates by our company/clients can either be easy (you support the funding/campaign) or difficult (you oppose the funding/campaign). I can see a growing debate on ethics in the near term if the changes happen. Are you ready for the debate?

I’ll be following this news with interest and hopefully you will now too.  Let me know your thoughts on the issue and if there’s anything else that needs to be considered.

This post is dedicated to the letter “I”.

At some point, we have all been asked about the ROI of public relations (no, clip counting and ad value equivalency tools are not what I mean). How do we define the value of our programs? Can we and should we measure revenue generated?  Are our messages resonating with our target audiences and how do we know? These are ongoing questions and remain important topics of discussion and debate for anyone in the communications profession. For more information on the topic I continue to read Metrics Man, KD Paine’s Measurement Blog, and Measurement PR-spectives.

Focusing just on measuring social media, since that remains the shiny object for most of us, ROI is an important question to address, especially since almost every tool is free (not much “investment”). We certainly do not just use social media at CME Group because it is free, and I have been addressing what the exchange gets out of social media more as interest in its use in financial services grows.

Here are some thoughts I have provided recently when discussing the return we get from using Web 2.0. 

Intelligence — Many tools today allow you to really get under the hood and find out a lot about your customers and competitors. Whether it is a key word search on Technorati, hashtag on Twitter or comments to a fan page on Facebook, you can learn a lot about what is on the mind of your audiences. The ability now to follow trends or sentiment from real people in real time has become one advantage of social media.

Influence — The concept of communicating your ideas and building advocacy is nothing new to the profession. We continue to to pursue ways to measure and show that we are moving the needle, and I continue to be amazed at the amount of new (free and paid) tools available (Social Radar, PR Newswire and Twinfluence to name a few I have used).  Just as measurement tools for traditional media relations have evolved to improve our targeting of messages, I am amazed at the depth of some of the new ways to gauge influence in social media.

Integrity — I first heard this from Charee Klimek (@ChareeKlimek) who brought this up at last month’s Chicago Social Media Club Breakfast. As she pointed out, social media today provides another opportunity for people and organizations to be transparent. Through a dialogue in the public stream we can engage, answer questions, clarify information and monitor our actual conversations.

Integration — This can be simple. There are tools out there that help integrate social media to make it more meaningful. Just watch this video of measurement practitioner Katie Paine (@KatieDPaine) and her idea about Google Analytics (it works and will give you some interesting results). I also believe we need to look at how we can integrate our social media evaluation with our traditional media relations evaluation in order to give a bigger picture of what we are doing.

Intimacy — Tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter now give us more ways to connect with people but sometimes only online. Building these relationships into real world connections actually helps solidify stronger bonds and gives us an opportunity to further build advocates online and offline.  

I know I am only scratching the surface on this topic so I want to hear your thoughts. What do you think of ROI in social media? Are the tools useful or useless? What do you use to showcase your efforts? How are you integrating social media measurement with other forms of measurement? Do the ideas above resonate with what you are doing? What’s missing in my discussion?

Arik Hanson here. I’ve spent a decent portion of my career working in the B2B sector—more specifically professional services. One concern I continue to hear from my former colleagues and others I work with in the accounting, consulting and legal professions: Are social networks really the best way to reach CEOs, CFO and controllers? Aren’t they too old for this stuff?

Let’s look at the numbers

According to eMarketer, B2B organizations spent $480 million in advertising on social networks in 2008. That number will skyrocket to $4 billion by 2012.

According to Nielsen, Facebook added twice as many 50-64 year olds visitors (13.6 million) than under 18s (7.3 million) between Dec. 2007 and Dec. 2008 (what do you think the number looks like now?)

And, according to a recent study by Accenture (hat tip to Steve Rubel), baby boomers:

· Increased reading blogs and listening to podcasts by 67 percent year over year; nearly 80 times faster than Gen Y (1 percent)

· Posted a 59 percent increase in using social networking sites—more than 30 times faster than Gen Y (2 percent)

· Increased watching/posting videos on the Internet by 35 percent—while Gen Y usage decreased slightly (-2 percent)

Clearly boomers are moving online, but really, the numbers are just one piece of the equation.

Wait, is it really all about the numbers?

Like so many other things in this space, it’s not all about the numbers. Clearly, numbers matter. Especially to bean-counting CPAs and those accountable for the financial performance of our organizations. But, there’s a softer, more relationship-based side to social networks that makes them invaluable to B2B organizations that make their living on longer sales cylces.

For example, what kind of dollar figure would you put on picking your customer’s brains around new products or ways to improve your existing ones? Don’t B2B companies invest millions in focus group research each year? Social networks give you the opportunity to tap into your customer’s minds—in many cases for very little money.

How much value does a new account have for your firm? By arming employees with the resources they need to tell your story to friends, family and business associates through social networks you can turn LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter into powerful sales tools. And the best part: It’s free and relatively easy—chances are, many employees are already engaging in social networks in their free time and talking about your business. Why not give them the tools they need to tell your story, further your brand and possibly convince a friend of colleague to give your product or service a try?

Is ROI really the roadblock?

There’s no doubt it’s tougher to connect social media strategy to your bottom line. But, don’t we have similar challenges with advertising and earned media? Can we really point to an article in the New York Times and say it translated directly into a $10 million account? I’m not so sure.

So, if you’re looking at participating in social networks from an ROI standpoint, it’s not all that different from the existing strategies in your marketing and communications plan.

Given the numbers mentioned above, the relationship value and the ROI discussion, does the perceived generational gap even matter for B2B companies? Or, does it make too much sense not to give these tools a try? You tell me.