While most clients understand the value of social media to develop a direct connection with customers and build community around their brand, we do occasionally talk with folks who question the value of social media for their business.

For example, I was recently in a new business meeting with a company selling high-end analytics services to Fortune 500 execs. The VP of sales asserted that “the people we’re trying to reach aren’t on Twitter.” I replied, “that may be true, but the people WE’RE trying to reach are on Twitter.”

The fact is, media and analysts (and many of the rest of us) now get much of our news from social media sources.

A recent survey by Cision and Don Bates at GWU University backs up this claim: they found that an overwhelming majority of reporters and editors now depend on social media sources when researching their stories. Among the journalists surveyed, 89% said they turn to blogs for story research, 65% to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% to microblogging services such as Twitter. The survey also found that 61% use Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia.

Click here to read the full article on MediaPost – many eye-opening stats on where today’s stories really come from.

- Posted by Leyl Master Black (@mktgalchemist)

What tongues are wagging about now:

§ The good: 2.2% rise in consumer spending; consumer confidence surged 12 points. Americans feel brighter about the outlook and AP is writing about “Frugal Fatigue”. Sentiment is more positive from the anecdotal conversations we have had

§ The bad: US GDP declines 6.1%, Sun loses $201M in Q1; Interpublic posts $73m loss and 11% dip in revenue, Moto burns $1.3B in cash in Q1

§ The ugly: National freakout about Swine Flu – flights cancelled, gov’t monitoring passengers getting off int’l flights, national state emergency funds triggered

The rest:

• IAC in talks to buy Yahoo! Personals
• MSFT/Verizon planning iPhone competitor
• AOL spinoff
• Iphone Microtractions enabled within apps at 3.0 launch
• Disney and ABC content headed to Hulu decline 30% yet Apple is going to start creating its own.

VC:

• NVCA makes reco’s to address capital markets crisis, revive IPOs at Annual Meeting
• WPP reviews successors for Sir Martin Sorrell following earnings, where debt increased to $3.75b and cash flow decreased ~$500M
• LOT of new startups forming from the newly unemployed. In some circles “everyone whom I know that lost their finance job started an online venture.” PeopleSoft founder raises $75M from NEA/Greylock for Workday, SaaS HR and financial software

Press:

• Entrepreneur Mag’s Entrepreneur of the Year award submission due 6/15.
• CTIA Call for papers due in May

Parties and Events:

• May 7: Churchill Club CIO Update 2010
• May 11: MediaBistro party at 111 Minna Gallery: Raffling off a free ticket to their 6/3 MediaBistro Circus: Extraordinary Event (attending, will send notes)
• May 14: PaidContent Social Media Mixer
• May 20: Media 140: London’s first Microblogging and Twitter event. Lot of press attending.
• May 20: Churchill Club Top Ten Tech Trends
• June 10: Digital Download 90 sec Mobile App Shootout

Spark held an informal end of year tech panel today in London and it was great to hear from companies that are feeling positive despite (or because of) the current climate. Much of what you read these days is doom and gloom – layoffs, businesses shutting down, others having difficulty raising money – and while all of those things are happening, there are also companies hiring, growing, expanding into new geographies, and feeling bullish about 2009. So, in an attempt to get that side of the story told, we got together founders and execs from some of London’s most interesting tech companies.

Participating in today’s panel were: Cesar Mascaraque, the European MD of Ask.com, Matt Jones, founder of Dopplr, Frank Meehan, founder and CEO of INQ Mobile, Martin Stiksel, co-founder of Last.fm, and Richard Moross, co-founder and CEO of moo.com. Reshma Sohoni, CEO of Seedcamp, was the moderator.

Of companies on the panel, most, if not all, talked about plans for fairly aggressive growth in 2009. MOO will be expanding into the US and is currently hiring. Ask.com grew 25% this year and will be increasing its marketing spend next year (in Europe at least). Last.fm is focused on expanding in the US market. INQ Mobile has impeccable market-timing with a low-cost, social networking phone for the masses, and Dopplr is capitalizing on the trend of the internet becoming truly mobile, and helping people optimize their travel (at a time when people are concerned both about cost and their carbon footprint).

Another common theme of the day was focus – this word was probably mentioned 100 times. Everyone agreed that to be successful in a challenging climate, the single most important attribute for a company is focus. Martin, who started Last.fm in the last downturn, said the restricted economic environment really helped them because they had to focus on their core value proposition and not chase the many other things that might have been possible. Cesar from Ask.com said that they would continue to focus on their core customer, while much of their competition was worried about who was going to buy who and for how much. Richard from moo.com believes that this environment will be good for companies who can focus and execute because a lot of the noise will fall away, reducing distractions, eliminating some of the competition, and making it possible to hire amazing talent.

While things are certainly not as stable as many would like, what the people on today’s panel talked about more than anything was the opportunity this presented if you were in a position to take advantage of it. On that note, here are a few predictions for 2009:

Matt from Dopplr expects companies like Last.fm, Mint and Wasabi to do well – he calls these “personal informatics” companies. They measure, analyze and help you visualize your behavior. They can reflect your behavior back to you so you can make decisions and optimize what you’re doing. Like a personal dashboard – great when people are trying to cut the fat out of their lives and do more with less.

Cesar from Ask.com is planning to take advantage of the falling price of TV ads – he says they’ve fallen 25% already this year and thinks that will happen again. It’s a great opportunity for companies to get high profile advertising at a low cost.

Frank from INQ Mobile thinks that mobile advertising still has a way to go, mainly because the current interfaces don’t yet deliver relevancy to the customer and the trade off isn’t worth it.

Martin from Last.fm said that the online music industry is really still in its infancy and he expects consolidation in the market. He also pointed out that recessions can be good for music in general – developments like punk and raves both happened in recessions.

Reshma from Seedcamp said funding will continue to go to companies that can show that people are willing to pay for their services or products right away. It will be difficult for those who don’t have a proven business model that results in near-term revenue.

So with that dose of inspiration, here’s to finishing 2008 with a bang and starting off strong in 2009!

–Rachel

Here’s an interesting post by Sarah Lacy about what PR people should keep in mind when pitching journalists using today’s many mediums (twitter, facebook, IM, etc)…

Here’s a repost and link:
http://www.sarahlacy.com/sarahlacy/2008/05/what-about-semi.html

May 09, 2008

What about Semi-Spam?

Ok, Ok, Owen Thomas will likely read this and think I’m being bitter or haughty or nasty again or whatever. (Qualities ValleyWag knows nothing about of course!) But amid the discussion about Facebook and Twitter needing spam control, how are we defining spam? Because a lot of business folks (especially Valley ones) borderline-abuse these services for business gains. Ultimately, I guess it’s in the eye of the follower. I like when bloggers I follow Twitter-tease new entries because I don’t have all day to go between blogs. But I can’t help but feeling “spammy” when I do it.

And, like, I know there’s a “Jason Nation” and all that’s apparently such a force it needs a logo. So clearly those people like endless Calacanis “COMMENT ON THIS PHOTO OF MY BULLDOGS NOW” missives. But does everyone?

Then, there are PR people, many of whom feel it’s not their pitches and relentlessness that’s the problem but the medium. So they take the same messaging– chock full of words like “leading provider” and “world class”– and flit from email to IM to Facebook to Facebook chat to Twitter etc. I was doing an interview for a podcast aimed at PR folks a while back and they asked how PR people should use Facebook, Twitter, et all to pitch me. And I said, they shouldn’t. The single best way to pitch me is still email. The moderator, I guess thinking I didn’t understand the question, said, “Well, but you probably check Twitter or Facebook more right?” First off, I don’t. But if I did, do you think that means I want endless pitches for you lame client cluttering up what’s supposed to be a spot to communicate with my friends and loved ones?

As I put it then, the problem when I don’t respond to an email pitch isn’t that I didn’t read it, it’s that I wasn’t interested. Spamming me in every media isn’t going to make your pitch better. PR people would do better to follow the model of the best firms in the industry, in my mind Brew, Outcast and Spark, and build relationships with reporters, find out what they want to cover, and, oh, I don’t know maybe what cities they live in and what their first names are.

I interviewed Tony Hsieh from Zappos (ZAPPOS!) the other day for Tech Ticker (Footage next week I think. Start getting excited now, Zappos nation!) Zappos seems to be the best company at wisely leveraging Twitter as this surprise Twitter party they threw at Medjool shows. (The ink is *almost* off my hands two days later, Tony….why permanent marker?) At any rate, I asked Tony about his secrets and he said something similar: That it wasn’t about Twitter, it was about a certain mindset towards your customers. If you don’t have that no social media is going to magically make you a marketing wizard.

It was so similar to what I told the PR folks that it made me think this is increasingly going to be a problem across all businesses as everyone tries to figure out how to “LEVERAGE” social media for marketing purposes– and likely doesn’t spend enough time looking at the holes in their current strategy.

It’s not outright spam, but it feels the same. And because it’s so gray, this could be a far bigger problem for the industry.

The thing most PR people have dreaded, but knew was inevitable, has happened. Chris Anderson, editor in chief at Wired Magazine, got fed up with foolish, misdirected pitches from PR people and up and posted a long list of email addresses of the offenders. Unfortunately, someone from Sparkpr made the list. Me.

And of course, this angry post has been ricocheting across the blogosphere for two days now, like he knew it would. And other journalists have, naturally, joined in on the rant. Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing really went off. Ryan Block at Engadget is much more measured in his reaction. And yes, I have gotten emails from friends in the business about it and, yes, I have been spammed. I have even gotten LinkedIn invitations, as people are seeing this as another way to build their networks.

I totally understand where the frustration comes from. Most of the time those of us at Sparkpr work really hard to research past articles a journo has written to tailor a specific pitch before sending. But when it comes to news announcements, sometime it makes sense to send batch emails to reporters who cover a certain, often very wide, industry like, say, the Internet. I don’t think this is the same as spam. It’s a judgment call.

I own that I made a mistake. I don’t know Chris, and I sent him a pitch that he clearly wasn’t interested in, despite my hopes. Mea culpa, and if he wants to block me from sending him any more pitches, that is his right. My real problem with Chris Anderson’s rant is that he says he will totally block the whole agency because of one offender. If that were the case a year ago, Chris would have missed the opportunity to keynote at a client’s PHP industry conference, an activity that he actually benefited from. It just seems like overkill, and it sells short the value of PR people to the media. Despite the current cycle of frustration, most reporters will tell you that they have profited from interaction with their PR counterparts. There is a mutual benefit and as the media landscape continues to contract I imagine it will become more so.

Sparkpr puts a big emphasis on taking the time to MEET people, get to know their tastes and preferences from real conversation, so that this can serve as a basis for future online dialogue. But it takes years and years of opportunities to make such connections. Is our awareness heightened? You bet. In an industry where our reputation is what we are measured on, this is impactful, and what this discussion means to me personally has yet to be determined. The result of this brash posting is that we will all strive to be better in our approaches to journalists, it’s true. Me, especially. But the public flogging will likely have additional consequences, as it plays out over time. Let’s hope they are not out of proportion to the offense.

[Update: Chris Anderson contacted Spark PR to clarify his position on blocking PR contacts. Though his post states that “The following is just the last month's list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list,” I am relieved to hear that he is only blocking the specific offenders. Thanks for clarifying the policy, Chris.]

- Syreeta