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.