Social media was one of the big stories in 2007, particularly in the marketing and PR space.

Large companies and agencies continued to explore opportunities in emerging channels, meeting with mixed results, Forrester predicted that spending on social media will grow to $6.9 billion over the next five years, a number surpassing their projects for both mobile and e-mail marketing.

Several newcomers emerged in the PR software/service field, focused on social media and many current providers like Vocus continue to focus on answering the questions social media poses.

In the space itself, users continued to migrate from the over-commodified and under-innovated MySpace to Facebook but the overall numbers seem stagnant, social bookmarking continues to be popular amongst a mostly niche audience, and in all likelihood, blogging has plateaued.

Gartner estimated that there were already more than 200 million ex-bloggers and that number probably will continue to grow rapidly over the next few years.

And oh yeah, Second Life seems to be dead (here is a little validation from Google trends).

Queries of ‘Second Life’ according to Google Trends

So what is going on?

My perspective is that to understand why social media is ostensibly stagnating, all we need to do is study the moniker itself…”social media.”

What is truly social about social media?

Thinking back on the mid-90s, we saw a variety of new forms of communications emerge that were oriented around the building of online communities - Usenet, listservs, bulletin board systems, MUDs. These were the predecssors to this new wave of social media we are currently seeing.

Accompanying these original forms of social media was a revolutionary school of thought that sociability was no longer constrained by physical barriers – new forms of social interactions would lead to the emergence of social communities online that would have a profound societal and global impact.

But the initial optimism that accompanied these new, innovative social forms became tempered when the limitations of online communities became manifest.

Most of the retrospective studies (many of which coincided with the crash) that explore the impact of the Internet on general sociability concluded that in isolation, the Internet did not serve to facilitate sustainable sociability by itself.

At the most, it could be a tool to facilitate sociability.

With the emergence of social media (a much better label than Web 2.0) during the past several years, we may not have vividly remembered all the lessons learned during the first revelation and perhaps got caught up in the excitement of blogs, social networks, and podcasts.

Looking forward to 2008

As we move into 2008, I believe we are going to continue tempering our expectations in the potential of social media and refocus. We may be experiencing a quick moment of disillusionment in its potential but it will be ephemeral because unlike the first go-around, we are wiser and more pragmatic in our perspective having gone through this once before.

Also, our initial expectations were not as revolutionary as the first time. This time around, we were more interested in working smarter and better, and integrating new media with traditional - rather than creating a brave new world.

In 2008 we are on the verge of entering an era of stability with social media in which the overblown excitement and optimism will quiet and we will see the very real and practical application of these new forms of technologies in our everyday lives and jobs.

In many ways, the political campaigns will show us the way. The manner in which they use social media to facilitate (and not replace) communications strategies is the right way. Blogging and social media aren’t going to replace things like television or radio advertising, much less print - but they will impact and engage with these traditional mediums.

The private sector will finally learn that social media isn’t simply a new channel to be monetized and leveraged, but rather embraced and interacted with. There are many opportunities in the social media space but they can’t all be purchased with money - many will have to be attained through actual commitment.

The traditional media will realize that social media has become inextricably interwoven with everything they do and they will stop looking down their noses (in partial fear) at bloggers and podcasters and start to learn how to work better with them.

Finally, the masses will continue to learn that they are no longer passive consumers of media. They don’t have to sit around and watch MTV anymore - rather, they can actually pick up their camera and create their own media. Hopefully, Hollywood executives and producers will have to become more accountable for the quality of content they produce because their audiences are continuing to become empowered.

So, where does that leave the social media entities themselves?

I’ll leave that for next week

Today we announced a partnership with Hostway Corporation to provide their over 600,000 customers with quick and easy access to PRWeb’s online visibility engine through a branded version of PRWeb called AffinityWire.

The partnership has been in the works for a while now and Hostway should be a great addition to our family or partners and affiliates.

Bulldog Reporter and TEKgroup International have recently released results from a 2007 survey of journalists on media relations practices. The survey, based on responses from 2046 journalists, is full of useful information on media relations.

Some of the top-line findings include:

1. Journalists first choice for receiving news releases is via e-mail - In fact, 77.9% of journalists reported that their preference was to receive news releases via e-mail, while 7.9% responded commercial newswires and 4.5% reported online newsrooms.
2. Journalists continue to adopt social media - Almost 70% of journalists read one or more blogs regularly, just over 28% visit social networking sites once per week or more, and more than 37% of journalists subscribe to RSS feeds.
3. Journalists visit online newsrooms - Nearly 50% of journalists visit online newsrooms more frequently than once per week. Over 73% visit online newsrooms more than once per week. That being said, almost 50% of journalists generally agree that it is often difficult to find an organizations’ online newsroom.
4. Journalists use online news portals - Interestingly enough, 50% of journalists visit Google News and over 30% of journalists visit Yahoo! News to follow news. In fact, journalists usage of Google News surpasses their usage of the major networks, MSNBC and even CNN!
5. Journalists skeptical of PR - Over 64% of journalists believe that PR people try to spin stories too often and nearly half of journalists believe that PR people are not sufficiently aware of which media outlets they are pitching nor the beat of the journalist they are pitching.

So based on these top-line findings, I’d recommend a few things for PR people interested in improving their media relations techniques:

1. Use a multi-tiered approach to media relations - A newswire is not going to solve all your media relations challenges. It will provide broad media distribution but you need to balance that with targeted e-mails to key journalists who are going to be interested in your news.
2. Consider a social media strategy - Journalists do actually read blogs, subscribe to RSS feeds and visit social networking sites. If the notion that journalists don’t care about social media was holding you back before, maybe it is time to reconsider your approach to social media. In fact, a blog is a perfect channel for news that may not be appropriate for a newswire.
3. Get your online newsroom in order - Because journalists are looking! Make sure it can be found from the homepage of your corporate Web site without a great deal of hassle. Also make sure you are following current best practices for an online newsroom.
4. Get your news into Google and Yahoo! - These resources are not only going to help you get your message to a mass audience but also to journalists. Google News is one of the top resources used by journalists to keep up with the news.
5. Don’t spam journalists - Nothing angers journalists (and bloggers) more than spam. If you are a PR person, do your homework and make sure you are familiar with the journalist you are pitching before you pitch. Don’t just send a blanket pitch nor blast your release out to a huge list. You will be doing a disservice to both your company as well as your trade.

There are strong indicators that the initial blogging rush has slowed considerably. In July 2006, there were 175,000 new blogs posted per day compared to 120,000 as of March 2007 according to Technorati and according to Gartner, there are already over 200 million ‘ex-bloggers’ accounted for.

In the midst of the blogging craze, a small percentage of highly traffic blogs have emerged as real influencers in the media world.  Most of these ‘head’ blogs are fueled by capital and are financially self-sustaining.  The majority of long-tail blogs flame out in a few months (if that).

The infusion of revenue into blogging however should create an opportunity for an independent middle-class to emerge and sustain momentum.  There was an interesting article from the Associated Press today that examined the impact of advertising on blogging. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, advertisers spent $16.9 billion in 2006, up from $6 billion in 2002.

As online spending continues to increase, it is likely that there will be an emerging opportunity for bloggers to begin monetizing their hobby and some of them may even be able to turn their hobbies into full-time ventures.

The monetization of long-tail blogging will probably be the variable that brings some legitimacy and sustainability to the medium.

A few SEO-related developments have prompted me to write this post. First, we announced today the launch of a range of editorial services including search engine optimization (SEO). With this service, an editor will use a variety of keyword research/analysis tools to optimize the language in a customer release to drive better search results and increased traffic from search.

Second, I’m preparing for a workshop on Friday where I’ll be talking about how to write a search optimized press release.

To help simplify the presentation, I’ve come up with an acronym, to describe a model for the search optimized news release. It contains nothing really earth-shattering but for people unfamiliar to the search optimized release, I hope it proves to be a handy little tool:

1. Size up your goals and audience - Your starting point should be comprehensively assessing your goals in putting out the release, and a closely related point is understanding what audience you are trying to reach. Are you targeting the list to journalists, analysts, or is it for consumers? Do you want the release to be a resource for journalists and bloggers to use to write a story, or is the release the intended form for consumers? Do you simply want to use the release to optimize your Web site for specific keywords? Understanding your goals and audience will inform the language you use in the release, the newswire you use, and the way you evaluate your results.
2. Craft a targeted release - Once you have assessed the audience or audiences you are targeting, you can craft a release that contains content that speaks directly to your target audience(s). Furthermore, news releases go beyond simple text. You write a press release; you craft a news release. Crafting a release also involves the images and video you embed in the release, the hyperlinks you incorporate, and the files you attach.
3. Optimize your release - Once you have completed crafting your release, it is time to optimize it to make sure it performs well in search. Use a keyword research tool like Word Tracker to make sure you are using high-volume keywords in the title and body of your release. Make sure you use a solution (like PRWeb) that allows you to use anchor text in your links and tweak the keywords in your URL to drive SEO even further. Finally, make sure to optimize the other types of content in your release as well. Make sure you have the appropriate ALT tags on your images because they can drive additional traffic through image search.
4. Propel your release further - Once your release has gone out it doesn’t stop there. If you are trying to get media exposure, you obviously need to get started with your media relations strategy (which is a completely different topic). For online visibility purposes, it may be time to consider a social media strategy. Social media sites like Digg and StumbleUpon can be excellent ways of sharing your news with a broader community. That being said, it is very important that you are truly engaged in these communities and not simply using them as distribution points for your content. If you are going to engage in a social media community, you need to spend some time and energy getting to know the community and participating in it before you start volunteering your own content. To learn more about social media etiquette I would recommend reviewing how to get started with social media.
5. Evaluate your results - Once you have written, optimized and distributed your release, it is time to begin assessing your results.  PRWeb offers analytics that tell you about the reach of your news release, how many times it was read, and even the keywords and search engines that drove traffic to your news release.  This information becomes vital as you begin planning your next news release.

A couple of days ago Jeremiah Owyang spent some time outlining the ‘Four Tenants of the Community Manager,’ which is extremely interesting in light of the panel I participated in last week on PR versus advertising.

I think the concept of a ‘community manager’ is really starting to pick up steam and is an alternative answer to the question of who takes control of social media as it continues to gain prominence.

Over a decade ago when I was a senior at Hawken School I can remember listening to a conversation between Dr. Carr, our headmaster at the time, and our IT manager (whose name I can’t remember). The year was 1996 and Google had yet to reach omnipotence. As a matter of fact, Netscape and Yahoo! were the search engines of choice.

I vividly recall Carr saying that with the tremendous aggregation of content occurring online, the primary challenge would be what to do with all the content.  In hindsight, Carr’s point seems fairly acute considering Google’s search algorithm has not only served to frame our experience of the Internet, but “Googling” has become entrenched in our everyday lives.

As Google continues to grow at an unprecedented rate and purchase just about every emerging start-up that comes onto the horizon, it seems that the warnings of theorists like Hargittai, McChesney, Nissenbaum (and a host of others) are coming to fruition.

Take for example Google’s purchase of Blogger, a popular blog content management software. The usability of content management systems like Blogger is what is fueling the movement popularly referred to as Web 2.0 or social media because software like Blogger facilitates the gap between thought and actualization through publishing.

From a commercial perspective the value of Blogger to Google is in the advertising that can be sold on the content that is being fueled by the software. Although from an aesthetic perspective Blogger may not look like it is fully integrated into the Googleopoly, make no mistake - it is fully integrated. As a matter of fact, AdSense (Google’s ad network) is integrated directly into the dashboard itself making it easy for anyone to set up a blog and start making money through their blog in a matter of seconds. And with every new blog that is set up, and every cent earned from a click, Google’s power expands.

Now what happens in search is that Google will find ways to boost the visibility of Blogger because the more visible Blogger is, the more money Google stands to earn.

Sound like a conspiracy theory? Just run a Google query for blog and see for yourself. Wikipedia comes up in the pole position, immediately followed by Blogger. The official Google blog comes up #4. What’s more, the blogs that run on Blogger consistently perform at the top of the Google heap.

What is funny to me about all this is that traditionally, the Google brand has been associated with openness and innovation, but their blogging software is far inferior to the open source WordPress (which this blog runs on). It seems like most of the “innovations” being released by Blogger are oriented around making it easier for a broader population of people to publish and sell advertising on their content.

So Google has social media figured out then?

Wrong.

The competitive advantage that has brought Google to the forefront of the online world and kept them firmly entrenched at #1, has been the algorithm.

The algorithm is all about search and retrieval, it is about eternally answering the questions of a mass audience of empowered media consumers.

By “empowered” I mean that we are still media consumers but we have more of an ability to make choices about which media we consume - because of solutions like Google.

Suddenly, we are entering a second wave of media inundation and I don’t believe that the Google algorithm is going to be able of handling the evolving needs of a population of online users who have shifted from being empowered consumers into something new.

My own anecdotal experience reveals an inbox flooded with e-mails and Web alerts, an RSS reader flooded with feeds I have subscribed to, social network profiles that have countless messages, an IM client flooded with messages, and a Web browser flooded with bookmarks.  This is the net result of my own evolution from being an empowered media consumer to being a media producer, and the similar evolution of others within my network.

My solution to this new wave of inundation is currently ad-hoc. I browse over the titles of the various messages, pay special attention to the sender of the message and try to prioritize based on my job responsibilities, family responsibilities, etc.. These are all activities that are so personal and spontaneous that the Google algorithm simply does me no good.

If I need information on a restaurant I am interested in going to I know Google will be there, but if I need a method for helping to organize my everyday experience of the Web - Google has simply fallen by the wayside and selling more AdSense and juicing their properties in search isn’t the way for Google to pick up its game.

Returning back to Dr. Carr’s prophetic vision of the future, it is my belief that the next challenge we face will be to move beyond search and to something new - something more personalized and reflexive than search. Something that we adopt that helps filter our new experience of the Internet into something manageable and perhaps even enjoyable.

This will be life after Google.

I spoke on a panel last week with some of my industry peers on how social media is impacting Public Relations, Marketing and Advertising. There were some great people on the panel including Thomas Burg from DoubleClick, Sarah Skerik from PR Newswire, Larry Thomas from Medialink, Robert Fitzgerald from BizBash, Miranda Tan from MyPRGenie, and Dr. Kolb from Text 100. The panel was moderated by Heidi Cohen.

It was well worth the trip up to New York to hear the thoughts from some of these guys and share my own. On the train up, I jotted down some thoughts on the topics that were to be covered in the panel. It is funny however, because once we started talking I didn’t really end up saying anything that I had jotted down prior to the discussion. Ah well, I can always post them to my blog.

1. What is marketing’s role in today’s marketing mix? What is PR’s role in today’s marketing mix? How has this changed given that marketers are now brand ambassadors not brand stewards?

First part of the question: Marketing’s role in today’s marketing mix seems like a tautological proposition to me. Marketing encompasses all of the various methodologies that are clustered into today’s marketing mix including public relations and advertising.

Second part of the question: Within the broader area of marketing today, I believe that public relations still predominantly plays a role of helping to frame the public perception of an organization through a variety of methods. I don’t believe that the general proposition of public relations has fundamentally changed, or at least I haven’t seen any broad-based studies that would substantiate anything revolutionary in the industry. Perhaps the channels and tactics have changed substantially in the past ten years or so.

Third part of the question: Ambassador versus steward seems like a semantic distinction at best. Perhaps there has been a shift in power when it comes to the role of marketing within organizations. I think that many people are talking about marketing having a ’seat at the table’ these days and I think they are sitting at the table. Whether they are ordering dinner for everybody remains to be seen. I think there are broader institutional issues that complicate the question of power as it pertains to the role of marketing within an organization.

2. How does PR differ from marketing and/or advertising?

I’ve always felt that PR and advertising are methodologies that traditionally fall under the umbrella of marketing. I think that the most relevant comparisons probably can be drawn between PR and advertising. They are both communication methods - there is a message to be delivered, a form that message will take, an audience who will receive the message, channels through which the audience is reached, a particular approach that is taken, and finally there is a goal to be accomplished through the action. Now, the distinctions between advertising and PR exist in that framework at almost every stop:

1. Message - Ad messages tend to be more sales driven than PR messages, which may be more issues or brand-driven.
2. Form - In ads, the form can be more artistic and creative than PR. The reaction is more emotional than in PR. PR really should be about direct, clear communications.
3. Channels - Although both PR and ad messages can travel through multiple channels, the placement within channels is somewhat different. Ads are normally outside the flow of core channel communication - they exist in an interstitial manner. PR messages are more immersed within the flow of core channel communications.
4. Audience - The audiences for ad efforts are normally consumers; for PR, it can be a more disparate - consumers, journalists, analysts, stakeholders, etc.
5. Approach - Advertising is normally about straight media buys. PR is more about earned media - generating media via efforts to connect and compel other influencers or communicating directly to direct stakeholders.
6. Goal - Advertising is normally measured in impact on revenue; whereas PR can be far more ambiguous to measure. PR can be measured in media ‘hits’ but often times, it is hits that are avoided through PR efforts.

3. Who owns or is responsible for the marketing mix? Are PR and Marketing roles well defined?

My impression is that PR has traditionally existed as a separate unit from Marketing in larger organizations and probably within Marketing in most mid- to smaller organizations. So I guess it depends on the size of the organization. Also, I’m sure it depends on the business of the organization. If the organization is a revenue-driven machine without significant reputation challenges then it probably makes more sense for PR to exist within marketing, if the organization has critical PR issues then it probably makes more sense for PR to exist as a separate unit, reporting directly to the organizational leadership.

4. Which Web 2.0 tools do you recommend to companies and why?

In my opinion this question is problematic. The entire concept of Web 2.0 is problematic to me because I feel like using “2.0″ intrinsically seeks to draw a line in the sand from what the Internet was about ten or even five years ago and that is a mistake. Since its initial conception the Internet has been driven by the power of collaboration and what we see now is simply an extension of this collaboration. The tools have gotten better and more accessible to people so that has brought an influx of users to the collaborative aspects of the Internet. I would recommend that companies acknowledge that there is a broader audience who are participating in collaborative activities online now, and think about how they want to interface with this emerging segment.

5. Which of the web 2.0 techniques/tools do you find most effective for building a company’s reputation and why?

I think organizational acknowledgment of the existence of a relevant discussion online, followed by consensus that an organization should participate in this discussion is the most effective manner through which to proceed.

6. How should PR/marketing professional interact with bloggers, podcasters, social media communities? What type of impact does this have on achieving desired results?

These online influencers and networks are largely set apart from traditional media institutions, don’t have substantial editorial hurdles to overcome, and have the capability to publish their thoughts and perspectives online as quickly as they can pick up the phone and talk about them. In other words, communicators should tread lightly when approaching the space. Actually, the best way to engage with the space is to start participating. Communicators should simply join relevant online communities, familiarize themselves with the influencers, and begin publishing content through blogs, podcasts, etc. That way they can familiarize themselves with the etiquette that is involved and eliminate a great deal of risk.

7. What is an example of a web 2.0 PR/Advertising campaign that you think was well implemented and why?

Campaign is sort of an interesting notion in social media because campaigns imply formative research and planning, testing, launch, campaign end-point, and post-campaign analysis. I think that some of the more successful efforts have involved individuals and organizations simply jumping in and getting involved. Quite frankly, I haven’t seen many examples of phenomenal Web 2.0 PR/Advertising campaigns. I love how Google uses blogs to communicate. I also really dug the Colbert Green Screen challenge.

8. With Web 2.0, marketers no longer control the conversation, how do they use it to accomplish specific business objectives such as customer acquisition and increasing sales? What role do PR professionals play? Marketers? Advertisers?

Did marketers ever control the conversation? I think SEO marketers are probably the most sophisticated when it comes to measuring return on social media efforts. Social media campaigns can have a pretty dramatic impact as far as driving traffic and improving search positioning. Therefore, I feel like SEO marketers are well positioned to drive a lot of the push because at the end of a quarter they can retrospectively look back and define what they have accomplished with indicators that an executive is going to understand. It is a lot harder to explain to an executive the value of connecting with customers, online influencers and/or bloggers than it is to say “we increased traffic 25% through our social media efforts and saw a 10% revenue increase through Web sales.”

I think PR professionals are going to have the unenviable job of keeping marketers in check, and playing defense largely. They are going to have to make sure that the messages that are coming out of an organization, through social media channels, link up to the overall organizational communications strategy. They are going to have to clean up the mess if bloggers get upset over a marketing initiative in social media.

9. While people have been recommending businesses and services for years, what makes the role that Web 2.0 through blogs, podcasts and social media sites plays in this process different?

Well for one, the stuff that people say about your brand or product offline has a shorter shelf-life. Online, it is there for a while getting indexed and served in search engines, being seen by people who visit your blog, etc. Word-of-mouth gets branded in a literal sense online. Also, I suppose the viral potential is probably greater because the material barriers aren’t the same.

10. Marketing isn’t limited to special promotions or events. Some of the conversation may not be related to traditional marketing functions such as customer service and investor relations. It can range from customer comments on product such as Amazon and Bazaarvoice to investor podcasts and webinars. How should a company be organized to handle this and how should marketing tap into this conversation? What role does Marketing play in this dialog? What role does PR play in this dialog?

This is a broad question. Actually this is really like five or six questions bundled into one so I’m going to respond to one segment of it: customer comments on eCommerce sites or other online communities. There are a number of online monitoring and analysis services out there that will help you become aware of the things being said about you online. The important thing is to be aware of what is going on. If there are falsifications being spread, then consider outreach after weighing the influence of the person spreading the falsification and the space where it is being spread. At the same time, there is going to be some criticism that is founded in truth so in those situations, you should look at it as market research and consider how you can use it to improve your product or service. The important thing is to be aware.

11. By its nature, unlike traditional forms of marketing and PR, web 2.0 marketing requires a level of corporate transparency. Does this mean that it can only be used by certain types of businesses such as start ups that need to build buzz with limited budgets or ones targeted at teens and twenty-somethings? What about financial institutions or pharma brands which are highly regulated?

This question is interesting to me because it is basically saying that social media requires transparency and honesty, so should financial institutions or pharma brands get involved? At any rate, I think what highly regulated institutions need to understand is that social media is starting to become ingrained in our everyday lives. Not only are their customers and stakeholders participating, but it is likely that their detractors and competitors are participating. Even if they have to deal with more hurdles I think it becomes a question of whether to start dealing with those hurdles now or later. Do they want to be reactive or proactive?

12. With the growth of newer forms of Web 2.0 including blogs, podcasts and social media, companies need to get better at monitoring the conversation. How should companies do this?

There are a number of services out there that companies should look into. For smaller companies without a budget, there are free services with some of the aggregators like Technorati and Google.

14. What do marketers need to do to ensure that their Web 2.0 campaigns stay ethical and provide value to consumers?

Well, unethical online campaigns are going to be found out and result in a negative impact for the company. From a cost-benefit perspective there is simply no sense in planning and executing an unethical campaign through social media.

Update (11/19/07): Dr. Georg Kolb from Text 100 has provided a great write-up of the panel.

Got a tip from the kind folks at ZexSports the other day who I met at ad:tech last week, that Ypulse had a great list of tips for self-promoting your book, including a nice toss-in about using PRWeb to get your press release out.

A Forrester Research, Inc. report released at the Forrester Consumer Forum in Chicago this past month provided survey results from a sample of 344 interactive marketing professionals who were asked about their budgeting decisions throughout various forms of interactive marketing.

Forrester extrapolated that over the next five years, spending on interactive marketing will grow at a 27% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and its share of marketing budget will grow from 8% to 18% of total ad spending.

The majority of this projected growth will be distributed amongst search marketing (projected to grow to $25 billion) and display advertising (projected to reach $14 billion). Of special interest was Forrester’s prediction that spending on social media will grow to $6.9 billion over the next five years, which would surpass their projections for mobile marketing ($2.8 billion) and e-mail marketing ($4 billion). Another major area of growth will be in online video advertising, which Forrester projects could reach $7.1 billion by 2012.

Of course, predicting growth in online spending five-years in advance based on a survey of 350 online marketing professionals is probably not the most methodologically sound approach in the world. In other words, I wouldn’t mortgage the house to start investing in social media companies quite yet but at the same time I believe the survey results are a good indicator of the current perspective on the growing importance and potential of social media.