NYT Offers Advice to Combat the "Age of Anxiety" by Changing How You Interact with Social Media

We've long felt that social media is one of the contributing reasons that many Americans are feeling anxious. That's part of why we think we're living in the "Age of Anxiety."

As part of our predictions for 2020, we said we expected the media to cover this, and the New York Times recently provided some tips as part of its "Smarter Living" initiative, entitled, "How to Turn Depressing Social Media Into a Positive Influence."

According to the Times, "The current state of the modern world is a billion voices screaming for your attention, and it’s easy to let the most negative ones filter through and bring you down. It can be exhausting, and if your real life is already a struggle, adding digital gloom can be overwhelming."

The article, whose subhead says, "Don’t let Facebook, Instagram or Twitter become negative aspects of your life. Here’s how to fix them," provides tips on for those three social media platform such as:

1. Be selective who you follow. "Don’t follow accounts or hashtags you don’t like."
2. Go back and unfollow friends "who only post negative things...or (those) who only writes rude comments."
3. Don't click on things you don't like. The reason: Instagram knows what you look at so it will continue to serve up photos similar to the others you've tapped. "Click on something else. It won't take long to adjust and show you that."
4. Skip Insta's Search page. Instead, "only look at the accounts you follow."
5. Consider muting or blocking on Twitter to avoid "the most terribly toxic tweeters."
6. "Enable the Quality filter and other advanced filters to cut down on replies from accounts with only a few followers (i.e., likely spam or bots)."
7. "Don't post anything you don't want." People sometimes feel compelled to post but you don't have to.

Those are good tips, and there are more in the article so it's worth checking out.

We have another tip: When posting photos or info that includes other people, ask them in advance if they're okay doing so. We know a frequent poster who uploaded group photos that included friends' young kids. The parents and the kids were unhappy to be included; they just didn't want to be included. 

We do expect people to take social media vacations -- that is: to take time off from checking social media -- this year, especially as the presidential election approaches. But the need to take a social media vacation isn't due only to wanting to avoid politics (your own or someone from across the aisle). We feel that the need to take time away from social media can be beneficial and help you be present in a way that constant checking can't do.

4 New Predictions + 17 Ongoing Trends for 2019

It may be a new year but some of the trends we expect to generate media coverage in 2019 are ones from prior years.

In this installment about 2019 trends, we list four new predictions plus 17 ongoing trends that will continue in 2019. That's 21 predictions in one article. In some cases, we will just mention the trend without much explanation because we've covered them a lot before. (If you have any questions, post a comment and we'll respond.)

Here are four new predictions based on continuing trends.

• Lawmakers will act against robocalls. Here’s an issue everyone can support. We all get too many robocalls, whether on our cell phones or land lines. What’s gotten worse is not just how many of the calls we each get but that most of these have spoofed caller IDs so you think it might be a neighbor or someone you know. We expect lawmakers to pass bills to reducing spoofing and robocalls. Already some of the phone companies are expanding their offerings. One problem: you need a different solution to combat the robocall problem on cell phones from the solution for landlines.
• More colleges will fail and college debt levels will continue to be a significant issue for millennials. Some colleges can’t afford to keep their doors open and many students can’t afford to pay for a college education. The former is an issue and the latter is huge problem for society. We expect to see think pieces in 2019 (and beyond) about the plight of higher education in America.
• The implications of the (possible) end of Moore’s Law will generate think pieces. In 1965, Gordon Moore, a semiconductor pioneer, wrote a paper that observed that that the number of transistors on a chip would double every year while the costs are halved. We’ve now reached a point where that no longer may be true. There are significant implications if Moore’s prediction slows down so that instead of doubling every year or two, the number of transistors increases every three to five years. We’re not going to go into the implications here except to say we expect there to be some coverage/debate about this in 2019.
• Cashless-only retail will gain momentum. This is a generational issue but millennials don’t seem to use cash. They use Apple Pay, Venmo and other e-cash solutions but not cash. We expect to see more stores open that are cashless-only – that won’t accept cash. It won’t happen to supermarkets or hardware stores but it will be more prevalent in neighborhoods and retailers catering to a younger, cooler demographic. You might not even notice it happen if you, yourself, rarely use cash at the register. But it will be a problem for older people and people with lower income, including the 14.1 million unbanked adults, according to the Wall St. Journal; what’s disturbing is that the same article reported that, “Despite consumers’ expanded access to banking, one in five households, or 22.7 million, didn’t use mainstream credit such as credit cards and mortgages in the prior year.” That’s a lot of people who will be further cut off from many parts of the economy. 

Here’s our updated list of ongoing trends:

1. The Age of Anxiety continues. Chaos, uncertainty, anger, a sense of helplessness and the near-constant news notifications will continue to fuel our Age of Anxiety, especially since it seems to be hard to escape. Even broadcast journalists have commented on air that they’re overwhelmed in trying to stay on top of and to process all the news – and that’s their job. We expect many to experience news fatigue, take “news vacations” or (aka a technology cleanses or digital detox, where they shut off all notifications on their phones and take hiatuses from social media – even though that’s nearly impossible to do. As we’ve said previously, in 2019, we expect more coverage regarding stress, anxiety, mental health and ways to de-stress. But the implications for marketers is this: 1) If consumers are turning off news and social media, it will be harder to reach them via ads, media relations and social media; and 2) They might be interested consumer media that distracts them from their anxiety.
2. Concerns about Retailpocalypse and Amazonification will continue to have an impact in 2019. More big brands will struggle, close locations or declare bankruptcy this year. One change: we expect some saber rattling about whether or not to clamp down on Amazon’s market power. The good news is there will be some innovations in the sector, and some retailers will do well despite Amazonification. The retail sector is important in a consumer-driven economy but there are implications for real estate (when locations go unrented for a long time), local unemployment (the job market is strong but it may be hard for retail staff to transition to another industry), local economies (what happens to cities when retailers abandon them), local media (which benefits from local ads, circulars, etc.) 
3. The gig economy, robotics and automation and income inequality will continue to spark think pieces about the nature of work. Last year, we said think pieces about the nature of work would be sparked by the labor shortage and the gig economy. This year, we expect think pieces to be driven by those two factors plus concerns about jobs of the future as industrial robots, and automation begin to make inroads in factory settings. Also look for articles about rethinking income inequality, the social safety net and the future of unions for gig workers who don’t necessarily get minimum wage, unemployment benefits, vacation and sick days or employer-contributions for workers’ comp, Social Security and Medicare. We also expect that there will be calls to better measure the gig economy.
4. The debate about how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter will continue. It’s clear that social media companies continue to not be able to stay ahead of their problems. Congress knows it needs to do something in 2019 to address data privacy, hate speech/bullying that isn’t being removed/policed fast enough and election interference/misinformation from Russia. The new goal of any new regulation should be to go into effect before 2020 but we are skeptical that this will be possible because we’d bet that Facebook, Twitter and Google would have addressed their problems if they could have, rather than be regulated by Congress. There will also be articles looking at technology’s role in a democracy. Part of the problem: social media makes it easy to share content before users vet it, and that’s something Congress can’t mandate.
5. Fake news won’t fade in 2019. Part of the problem is that the term “fake news” can mean almost anything: from news you disagree with or don’t like (but are actually true) to stories that are part of misinformation campaigns (and are factually false). If we can’t agree on a definition of it, and if Facebook, Google and Twitter all have trouble dealing with the fake news scourge, how will regulations and Congress be able to solve what the social media giants can’t? There’s no light at the end of the tunnel since there are calls that even the fact-checking at Facebook must be checked. It’s harder than ever to trust our institutions, which adds to the anxiety so many are experiencing.   
6. Cord cutting turns out to be complicated and expensive. Over the next 18 months, we’ll experience a glut as more streaming services get launched. It’s getting harder to find all the things you want to watch. Something available on Netflix last month may be found on Hulu next month and then some new service next year. So to watch everything you want, you’ll have to have subscriptions with Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Go, and dozens more. Cable might be simpler and less expensive.
7. IoT will continue to be victim to cyberattacks. This hasn’t gotten a lot of attention but we think it will. As reported by a friend in a recent issue of Bloomberg Businessweek, recently a cruise line offered “a proprietary mobile app, which unlocks your cabin door and lets you book activities on and off the ship….(A passenger’s) roommate used it to prank her, remotely flashing the lights and opening the blinds in their cabin.” Seems like a harmless prank but it speaks to more nefarious possibilities. We’re worried that there will be more IoT cyberattacks, as IoT, Smart Homes and virtual assistants go mainstream. Perhaps the only advantage of having to get up and walk over to a light switch is that hackers can’t hack your home.
8. There’s still not enough cybersecurity protection or privacy. They say millennials don’t care much about privacy but we think that will likely change as they get older. There’s certainly not enough of cybersecurity.
9. Cloud computing will stay strong. This may be the one tech trend that has yet to experience a backlash. Cloud computing remains an important paradigm, and we don't see that changing in 2019, which means that it's a trend that may not get that much ink because editors are always looking for stories that answer "What's new?" and that move the story forward. That said, for business press, there's still interest in the horse race between Amazon's  AWS, Microsoft's Azure and Google Cloud Platform. We expect to see more about "cloud agnostic" or “Not Amazon” as a key message that will help lure customers that compete with Amazon to look beyond AWS. 
10. Driverless cars will generate attention but still won’t appear at local dealership. Closer on the horizon is more electric cars, with China’s plans to eliminate all new combustion cars and trucks by 2030. There are lots of challenges to be addressed either way, like having are enough charging stations for electric cars and investing in the type of infrastructure – in urban, suburban and rural areas – that can enable driverless cars to operate including in bad weather. Oh, and there will continue to be a lot of coverage of Tesla.
11. E-Scooters will become more of a thing in 2019. Some of us first heard about a vague problem of e-scooters like Bird that began cluttering up sidewalks in some cities. We expect them to gain more attention in 2019, becoming a full-fledged trends, much the way urban bike share and bike lanes did (it seems to us) in 2018. (They were around before 2018 but people began talking about bike lanes much more, we feel.)
12. Corporate boycotts and consumer boycotts will continue. These are boycotts by companies in order to demonstrate distance from controversial programs and personalities. We also expect boycotts of companies that are boycotting those controversial people and programs.
13. Drug pricing will continue to get a lot of attention. The problem: it’s expensive to develop new drugs – on average it costs $2.6 billion – and pharma companies need to use successful drugs to fund future development. There won’t be an easy solution so we don’t expect much from Congress except outrage.
14. Wearable tech will still not be as mainstream as people in the industry were hoping. But wearable will make quiet inroads so that before you know it (probably not in 2019, though), lots of things will have built-in technology.
15. The need for more Americans to pursue STEM education and careers continue to be important. With a looming labor shortage (in some fields), businesses are looking for employees with a firm grasp of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). We think funding for STEM will continue to keep U.S. businesses competitive.
16. Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality still won’t be everywhere yet. VR and AR still aren't fully mainstream because people still don't yet have a strong-enough need for it. Watching a basketball game on Oculus is cool but not practical in how many people watch content these days, on their phones while in public spaces. (Can you imagine a subway car filled with people wearing heavy headsets?)
17. 3-D content and 3-D printers will still not be as popular as they are cool.

Let us know if you disagree or agree with us selection. Did we miss something? Overstate things? We're happy to hear from you.

Track Record of Our Predictions for 2018

Each year, before issuing a set for predictions for the upcoming year, we evaluate how we did with regard to the predictions we made for the current year. Without further ado, here are the results for our 2018 predictions.

1. Expect to hear about “the retailpocalypse" as a key consumer sector tries to fight Amazonification. Retailpocalypse probably was included in more headlines in 2018 than Amaxonification but pretty much any news story about the retail sector mentioned Amazon. It was a tough year for the sector, with two to three thousand locations closing, and 125-year-old Sears declaring bankruptcy in Q3. Unfortunately, we expect the brick-and-mortar stores to continue to have a tough time of it even as Amazon opens more retail locations. While the bad news for retail has been covered, did not capture the attention of consumers as much as we had expected. We expect that Amazonification will capture more attention in 2019, and the downward cycle continues, and expect calls for “doing something” to protect failing retail. Grade: A.
2. People will be more anxious and angry. We called this era the Age of Anxiety and Anger, and we got this right. In 2018, we saw lots of anger, much of it political, and lots of anxiety. There were many more references to people needing to take a break from their devices’ notifications. As of Oct., we expect more anger after the midterms — however things turn out — that will carry over into 2019 and people start focusing on the 2020 election cycle. We also expect that people will continue to be more anxious — whether due to politics or not — and that there will be more articles about how to de-stress. From a marketing perspective, look for some consumer brands to try to tap into the need to de-stress.  Grade: A.
3. There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. We got this totally right, particularly when we said, “Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections.” With concerns about disinformation campaigns and data breaches, and claims of censorship-by-algorithm, expect this debate to continue past the 2020 election cycle. Grade: A+.
4. The labor shortage and the gig economy will spark think-pieces about the nature of work. The labor shortage and the gig economy did get some coverage but we didn’t see as many think-pieces as we expected. However, there were think-pieces about the potential impact on jobs that robots will have on the nature of work. We expect more coverage of the impact of robots on jobs in 2019, along with calls to better track and understand the gig economy’s impact on the economy at large. Because we expected more essays about the labor shortage than we saw, we will reflect that in our grade. Grade: B+.
5. Conversations about gender, sexuality and sexual harassment have changed – at least in the media. This was definitely true in 2018. We continued to see a big divide, and lots of anger, and unfortunately, both will continue next year. Grade: A.

Look for our predictions for 2019 before Christmas.

Meanwhile, tell us what you think. 

TrendReport 2018: Our Annual Look at Media and PR Predictions

Here is our 16th annual list of predictions of media trends. We develop the annual list to help our clients understand key trends that will affect media, marketing and technology over the next 12 months, so we can help them develop more compelling story angles and strategies to be effective.

Here are five of the agency’s top 18 media and marketing trends for 2018, and we will roll out the rest over the next week:

1.  Expect to hear about “the retailpocalypse” as a key consumer sector tries to fight Amazonification. Consumers love to shop online for the low prices, unlimited selection, and fast, free delivery (if they have Amazon Prime or specials). But traditional grocers and retailers (including Wal-Mart, which recently dropped “Stores” from its name to boost its e-commerce cred) have to find new ways to compete. A retailpocalypse could cause far-reaching ripples into: real estate (there are more than 1,000 malls); advertising (a downturn in retailers’ ad buying would also impact media’s budgets); and employment (the sector lost 51,000 jobs in 2017).

2.  People will be more anxious and angry. The ‘60s may have been the Age of Aquarius but this decade seems to be the Age of Anxiety and Anger. One cause: screen addiction. Constantly clicking our smartphones for the latest news – and it seems that there’s continually breaking news – may help us feel we’re on top of the situation but it leaves most of us feeling more empty, worried and angry than before – despite political preferences. We anticipate more coverage on stress, anxiety, mental health and ways to de-stress, which includes taking a break from your device – aka a technology cleanse or digital detox – which is healthy and a good idea but may seem impossible to do.

3.  There will be a debate about whether or not and how to regulate Facebook, Google and Twitter. The concern is about the power of their algorithms to determine what we see, especially regarding political ads and the veracity of the news delivered to each of us. The three major platforms have not disclosed specifics but have committed to working to increase transparency and prevent completely false and irresponsible content from being perceived as real news. The underlying questions are: "Has big tech gotten too powerful?" and "Can the major players truly clamp down on the false narratives spread on their platform?" and "How can Congress find a way to regulate them to prevent it from happening in the future?" Expect Congress to continue to hold hearings on the subject – just don’t expect any agreement on the answers before 2018’s midterm elections. (Net neutrality, another issue that also involves big tech, will be an additional source of debate and contention.)

4.  The labor shortage and the gig economy will spark think-pieces about the nature of work. The media will examine the nature of work in the age of a gig economy, including whether it’s a temporary arrangement until a full-time job comes along or a side-gig to supplement primary salaries. Also look for articles about rethinking the social safety net and the future of unions for gig workers who may not get minimum wage, unemployment benefits, employer-contributions for workers’ comp, social security and Medicare, among other benefits.

5.  Conversations about gender, sexuality and sexual harassment have changed – at least in the media. We’re in the midst of a necessary and significant societal change, and hope that the conversation will deter sexual harassment, and cause toxic cultures to reform, whether in the office or elsewhere. While a post-Weinstein mentality has certainly affected the media and entertainment worlds, we will know if there are long-term changes if men in other fields, like banking (not just VCs) and politicians (not yet named), are resign or are forced out of their positions. Meanwhile, gender and sexuality issues will continue to generate coverage, whether about bathrooms, pronouns or other ways to be inclusive.

The complete list, containing more than a dozen additional predictions, touching on the changing media landscape, bitcoin, smart-home tech, and the future of unicorns, will be rolled out on PRBackTalk.

In the meantime, let us know if you think we were right, somewhat right, kind of wrong or totally missed it.

Fortune, WSJ & NYTimes Validate Another of Our Predictions -- This Time About Unicorns

In December, we asked (somewhat pretentiously), "Whither unicorns and their business models?" 

We said, "Unicorns – startups valued at upwards of $1 billion – were big in 2015. Expect coverage in 2016 that questions whether the unicorn bubble will burst. This will be true not just of privately held startups but also of publicly held companies (that represent the next stage of unicorn development) that fail to fully monetize their businesses. Twitter and Yahoo! – that means you and other social media platforms that fail to live up to financial expectations."

In Fortune's Feb. 1st issue, an article entitled, "Good Luck Getting Out!," made the case that private investors have put $362 billion into startups over the past five years, pumping up the value of so-called unicorns. Now the broken tech IPO market is cratering. Who will survive the reckoning?"

And on Friday, the Wall St. Journal reported, "For Silicon Valley, the Hangover Begins: With venture-capital investors increasingly nervous, once-hottech startups are retrenching" while the Times' Farhad Manjoo profiled one unicorn that's facing a heap of problems in his article, "Zenefits Scandal Highlights Perils of Hypergrowth at Start-Ups." Both articles are worth reading.

Meanwhile, let's not forget that we called out Twitter and Yahoo!

Twitter shares "hit a nominal low on Thursday a day after it said that user growth had stalled for the first time since the company went public in 2013," The New York Times reported this month. 

And Yahoo!? Well, The New York Times also reported this month that "Yahoo Announces First Round of Layoffs as It Trims 15 Percent of Workforce."

We feel badly for the employees of Twitter and Yahoo! and other unicorns at risk, but we feel pretty good about our trend-calling ability.

Birnbach Communications' Top Predictions for 2012, Part I

We've been issuing annual predictions going back a decade now. Our goal is to help our clients more effectively understand and engage on topics of interest for social media.

We will be rolling out our 2012 list of trends over the next two weeks. Here are the first few:

1. The desire to be connected 24/7 may change in 2012. You almost never have downtime anymore, and people are beginning to notice that’s not all good.  Sure, if you are waiting in line at the post office or bank (something today’s kindergarteners won’t do by the time they hit college), you’ll be able to check email, play an app, text your friend, or make a call. But this lack of downtime may negatively impact our ability to concentrate and avoid distractions at work and at home. The recognition that we actually need to disconnect, that we need downtime, is likely to generate coverage this year. Already a handful of companies have limited email, both during the day and after hours – and we think more will join those ranks. We also think the concept of going on vacation without access to email or cell will become more of a status symbol because it now takes a lot of money to disconnect yourself from your regular workday.
2. We may be immersed in social media, but we’ll spend less time with actual people.
    So many people use social media sites – from Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, to Pinterest and Quora and more -- that people have less time to spend with their friends and family. We’re not sure if this will get much media coverage, but we’ve seen some books addressing the topic (like last year’s “Alone Together” by MIT Professor Sherry Turkle). We expect more attention will be paid as kids in schools face a new way to feel alienated.
3. Value will be king in 2012. Upscale consumers, suffering from frugal fatigue, have started spending again.  But for the 99% of us -- a phrase that will be popular throughout 2012, due to the presidential election -- will continue to look for value. That bodes well for Groupon, LivingSocial and other sites offering discounts. However, some companies have complained that they’ve lost money on their promotions through Groupon, so a question in 2012 could well be: “Do group discounts actually generate a return for companies?” Expect two other questions this year: “Will Groupon turn out to be a good investment since its Nov. 2011 IPO at $20?” and “How many e-coupon sites do consumers want or need?”

Let us know if you agree or disagree. And check back tomorrow for additional predictions.

Five Lessons on Twittering During a Crisis: Lessons from Qantas

Twitter may still be a punchline for late night comics, but PR and communication functions can't treat it like a joke.

That's especially true during crises when information may be posted before traditional journalists can process the news. And I mean "process" in a good way -- checking out the information, confirming facts, etc. If journalism is history's first draft, then Twitter may be history's notes.

The Qantas incident is a case in point about Twitter. (Check out a good overview article here,
Qantas A380 incident: a lesson in social media and web PR.)

Apparently, at the same time Qantas responded to broadcast reports, the company ignored information on Twitter. Some bloggers correctly said that if Qantas was able to make statements to broadcast news outlets, it should have also posted the same response via Twitter.

I agree. But having worked with global companies, I think the problem with Qantas' response isn't that the company doesn't "get" Twitter.

I think some of the problem may have been structural. Here are some points global companies need to consider to effectively manage a crisis.

1. Positive news about a company may only appeal to a specific in-country geography, but a crisis crosses borders. For example, we had a client that launched retail technology in England for a US company -- and every US-based outlet said they could only cover it when the technology was available in the US. (Despite multiple stores using that technology in England, we finally got coverage when a single store in Cleveland started testing the technology.) But bad news, as Qantas found out, isn't limited to Singapore and Sydney -- it can become global. Companies need to think about a global response, not just one focused in-country.
   
2. Global companies need to make sure their communications functions are thinking globally. In this case, the communications team in Sydney may not have thought to respond on a Twitter account in the US because the accident occurred en route from Singapore to Sydney. Part of the problem, as we've seen with some global clients, is that communications functions are distributed by geography, with little interaction or coordination among teams. Instead, companies should consider a global response so that PR functions in different countries have the tools -- latest information, for example -- to respond to reporters and bloggers in their own countries, even if the crisis happened overseas.
   
3. Global companies need to make sure to prepare for and incorporate social media as part of their response to a crisis. But they also need to make sure in-country PR functions think globally during a crisis. After all, even if Quantas had thought about updating its US Twitter feed, it would not be unusual for the communications team in Sydney to not have the password for the US Twitter feed.
4. Companies need a better way to manage their social media assets, and a crisis is a bad time to find out that you're not prepared. We've seen a number of global companies that have different Facebook pages and Twitter IDs for each geography and language, which makes sense for day-to-day business. The problem is that key communications people in other geographies should be able to update social media sites in cases of emergencies. (If it's not an emergency, people outside the geography would have no need to update the site.) Instead, companies should develop a comprehensive list of all social media accounts, user names and passwords from all geographies, as well as the "owner's" names and contact info, in one document. For example, it's not enough for each geography to compile a list of all social media accounts, user names and passwords -- a step that I'm sure most companies do not take (but should). That way, if a crisis occurs in Sydney, there's someone in Sydney who can post information on the US Twitter account without having to wait several hours before being able to connect to someone in the US who can find the person with access to the Twitter account. With that comprehensive document, key people in different geographies can update accordingly and on a timely basis.
5. Global companies should consider maintaining a global corporate Twitter ID to address global issues.Apparently, Qantas only had two accounts, one for the US market and one for travel agents. Not enough -- because where do people in other locations turn to for information?

For more insight, check out Matt Wilson's article on Ragan.com, "Qantas’s big #fail in quelling tweeted rumors of a crash."

Interesting Fact about Newsweek's Twitter Feed

It's worth noting: that the cost of publishing a print version of Newsweek is why the Washington Post sold the mag basically for nothing.

Yet the number of people who follow Newsweek on Twitter is 1,260,755 -- almost the equivalent number to its circulation of 1.5 million. Clearly not all subscribers (I'm thinking here of medical offices) also follow Newsweek on Twitter.

So it's clear demand for Newsweek remains stable. Well, the demand for free access to Newsweek remains stable.

But online-only is not a viable long-term solution.

Seven Tips To Thinking Like a Publisher

One piece of advice that's offered up a lot these days is that organizations to think like a publisher. The point is that organizations need to produce content that can be posted on their sites, their blogs and elsewhere.

And that's good advice, as far as it goes.

But it may still leave the people who now need to generate more content a bit confused about their role as publisher. There's a good blog on the topic, What Does It Mean to Be the Media? written by a friend of mine, Alison Kenney, that's worth reading.

Here are some tips:

1. Instead of focusing on advertisers -- as traditional publishers do -- social media publishers need to think about the content that will interest their readers and provides value. So in that way, you need to think more like an editor.
2. Make sure your content is not like advertorials. Social media is about engagement. Too much sell will turn people off. Your PR staff should have a good sense of what can fit into your content without going over the line. If it sounds like a marketing piece, you've gone too far.
   
3. You need to establish metrics, just like traditional publishers, as Alison points out. But you will also have to do some experimentation to determine which are the right metrics for your organization. Newspaper circulation and readership are traditional measures for advertising and PR, and was a good standard for anyone and any sector. But with social media, that's changed. Some metrics may be important for a startup, another for a more established company, and others still for nonprofits. And just because metrics for one organization make sense, does not mean those same metrics make sense for a different company -- even one operating in the same sector.
4. You have to think beyond text, beyond white papers. You now need to think cross-platform: turn a podcast into an article; turn an article into a video -- but do so quickly, efficiently, without a lot of layers or process. This will require change from a cultural, budget and operational perspective.
5. You need to regularly publish new content. In the old days, the shelf life for marketing collateral could be years. If you ran out of a printed brochure, you could print more and that was fine. That doesn't work in the age of Twitter. You can't just post one thing in January, and leave it at that for the rest of the year. People expect new content, so you've got to generate new content on a regular basis. (The good news: unlike traditional print brochures, Tweets are only 140 characters so that your one brochure, parceled out at 140 characters at a time could last a long time.)
   
6. One key difference for a social media publisher is that it's okay to repeat and repost content. The old days of editors responding to a story idea by saying, we covered that a year ago doesn't work or matter if your organization is acting as a self-publisher. The reason: although messages on Twitter and Facebook can last a long time, it can be difficult to search for, and most people don't search for missed messages. Since both Twitter and Facebook offer timelines, your posts can get lost if people don't log on when you post (especially true for Twitter) or can get lost amid all the other Twitter feeds your followers also follow. So while you have to continue to develop new things to Tweet about, the good news is that you can repeat some content because most people will not have seen it the first time.
   
7. You need to encourage your team to think like reporters inside your organization. Like an editor, you need to look at everything the organization does and think about how that can be used to tell a story. When it comes to social media, including on Twitter and Facebook, that may mean acknowledging mistakes and missteps made by your organization. This may be the most difficult cultural change your organization makes to embrace social media.

And now you might understand why all those old movies newspapermen (the term they used before "journalists") drank so much!

To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

In an interview in June's Entrepreneur, Seth Godin, who has more than 50,000 followers on Twitter, says that Twitter can become "a very unhealthy and distracting addiction."

In an interview for the article, "Twitter: Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down?," Godin says, "I don't see a way to use Twitter properly and still do the work I do at the level I'd like to do it. So rather than use it halfway, I decided not to use it at all."

I think that a lot of companies that have not yet embarked on social media feel the same way as Godin does. PR functions within organizations or their PR agencies have to evaluate what the company could gain -- or lose -- by not participating in social media.

Don't forget: Godin engages in a lot of other social media activities, including blogging and podcasts.

GM Shifts into Reverse on Chevy

Turns out that GM realized it made a mistake in telling dealers and others to stop using Chevy instead of Chevrolet.

After all, GM uses Chevy on its website.

Check out "Backtracking, G.M. Says Please, Call It a Chevy" for more details.

Meanwhile, in another case of corporate reputation management, BP has asked the Twitter feed BPGlobalPR to "clarify that it was not an official outlet for BP news," according to a PC World article, "BP Tries to Distance Itself From Twitter Parody."

BPGlobalPR complied with BP's request.

But in so doing, demonstrated the reason PR functions must be careful in how they handle parodists and others. Here's BPGlobalPR's new description of itself: "We are not associated with Beyond Petroleum, the company that has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico for 51 days."

How Many Followers Are Too Many?

One of the goals of social networking is to connect to as many people as possible. But there's a problem: when you're connected with too many people, you can't really connect to them in a meaningful way.

In Wired, Clive Thompson wrote "In Praise of Online Obscurity," makes the point that "It's great to have a dedicated group of followers online -- until the audience gets so big that the conversation stops...At a few hundred or a few thousand followers, they’re having fun — but any bigger and it falls apart. Social media stops being social. It’s no longer a bantering process of thinking and living out loud. It becomes old-fashioned broadcasting."

The bottom line, according to Thompson: "There’s value in obscurity" even if that goes against what companies are trying to achieve with social media.

Does Social Media Really Pay Off for Big Companies?

As part of the new normal, we're seeing increased need for ROI. That's a challenge with social media because the right metrics may well be different for each company.

In "Turning tweets into sales: Twitter’s allure is tough to translate into dollars, though Dunkin’ Donuts is tracking results," The Boston Business Journal wrote an interesting story that provided some details about how Dunkin' Donuts, Staples and other companies approach social media.

Here are some interesting facts:

• 35 percent or 173 of Fortune 500 companies have active Twitter accounts, according to a recent study about corporate Twitter usage in 2009 from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research. The study called company growth on Twitter “explosive.”
• Still, the majority of companies are somewhat clueless about Twitter’s business impact. Corporate Twitter strategies are “all over the map” ranging from hyper-engaged companies skilled at building trust with followers, down to firms that play it safe, sending out lackluster tidbits of information, said Emily Riley, analyst and research director at Cambridge-based Forrester Research Inc.
• Staples Inc. (Nasdaq: SPLS), which has a “Tweet team” of five staffers and has amassed more than 31,000 followers, are passionate about mastering the art of micro blogging. The company started using the site late last year and tweets mainly about deals and customer service. Even at a sophisticated company, figuring out the ROI of social media “is the million dollar question,” said Michelle Ormes, Staples’ director of corporate branding. “Right now...we value the number of our followers and how engaged they are.”
• Business-to-business firms are also placing increased importance on social media and Twitter. Forrester predicts that B-to-B firms will increase spending on social media from a total of $11 million in 2009 to $54 million in 2014.
• Not all companies are convinced that tweeting is a necessity, even ones that believe in social media. Boston-based car-sharing firm Zipcar has some 30,000 fans on Facebook, but does not actively tweet, although company spokeswoman Nancy Scott says the company “listens” on Twitter. Zipcar’s inactive Twitter page has close to 1,000 followers.

Some interesting anecdotes for companies considering how to approach social media in 2010. Ultimately, the decision whether and how to embrace social media still comes down to this: each organization will have to do some experimentation before finding what's right for their brand, goals and capabilities. The need to experiment in social media is a tougher sell in 2010, even with the explosion of users on social media, especially when organizations need to report ROI metrics for all their initiatives.

Customer Service in the Social Media Age

Traditionally, many companies looked at customer service as a cost center, a necessary expense that had a negative impact on margins. They saw it as an obligation, and tended to underfund the fuction. Key metrics for customer service included: how quickly customer service representatives could resolve an issue (i.e., get a customer off the phone), and how inexpensively could the company train and pay its reps.

Those sort of metrics aren't designed to deliver customer service. They're designed to reduce the amount of time and resources are used to deal with customers. That was because companies looking to those metrics didn't realize they were engendering poor reputations that was hurting sales.

But in the Social Media Age, customer complaints are more easily aired to the world, on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms.

These days, a lot of companies are using Twitter as part of its customer service channel. They monitor what people are saying about their company, and try to address issues before they biol over. Frank, at @comcastcares does a great job helping Comcast customers resolve their problems. I posted a complaint about too many phony services calling me to update my free YellowBook online listing, and got an response from @Yellowbook_Help that was pretty helpful.

After it had implemented changes to save money around its customer service function, Dell found that it may have saved money but the cost-cutting move had a negative impact on sales. The realization among consumers that Dell was not paying attention to customer service erupted when influencer Jeff Jarvis posted his complaints on his BuzzMachine blog.

As aa result, Dell found that it had developed a poor reputation online due to poor customer service. The company realized it was losing potential sales due to poor customer service, and revamped its priorities.

Dell was smart enough to make changes. Dell now has well trained customer service reps who actually help its customers. The company also realized that it needed to have an online listening strategy to address consumer complaints aired in the blogosphere. This renewed focus on customer service has helped the company turn around what had been a negative reputation.

That doesn't mean there haven't been bumps in the road; there were some issues around Christmas around waiting times, but the company has decided to invest in customer service, and it has largely paid off.

Howver, there are a lot of companies that continue to the cost-savings approach to customer service, and have shown themselves to not be interested in actually delivering customer service. I will be writing about my recent experiences with Toys R Us in a future post.

Prediction #10: Live Integrated Real-time Interactive Multimedia Web Events Will Become More Common in 2010

Live integrated real-time interactive multimedia web events, which combine live video, and offering the ability to post and read comments on Twitter and Facebook windows, will become more common in 2010. Last year, Bill Cosby conducted the first-ever interactive townhall to introduce Cosnarati, a socially conscious hip hop group that he produces (http://www.ustream.tv/billcosby), offering a live videostream with a real-time Q&A function and the ability to post comments on Twitter and Facebook. The event gave users a number of ways to interact with Cosby, and could offer a solution for network TV -- if they can find a way to make money off it.

Prediction #9: Social Media Platforms will Survive the Recovery.

Some critics have said that Twitter and Facebook did well during the downturn because people had available time, either because they had less to do or because they had lost their jobs. People will continue to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media services but they might not be updating their pages quite as often. Social media sites will consider rolling out new ways for users to post and engage via multimedia (audio and video).

Prediction #5: The Top Dozen Business & Technology Stories in 2010 Will Include...

Of course, there will be stories that we have not identified that could generate significant coverage in 2010. But based on what we know now, here's a list of some of the stories reporters are sure to be working on this year (though not necessarily in this order):

1. The economy, including the recovery, the housing market, auto industry and the "new normal."
   
2. The freelancing of the US workforce -- or how we'll all be contractors or "perma-temps" in the future (especially given the jobless nature of the recovery).
3. Apple's iPad and the future of mobile computing and Apple's iPads vs. cellphones vs. Kindle and other e-readers.
4. Cloud computing and virtualization -- and yes, we know: they're not the same thing.
5. Health care reform.
6. Regulations.
7. Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft and EMC vs. HP vs. Oracle.
8. 3-D TVs.
9. The state of the media, especially print media and advertising, online-only business models and online subscriptions.
10. Twitter's business model.
11. Location-based services and behavioral targeting by advertisers.
12. Online privacy as social media, behavioral targeting, location-based services and hackers combine to make it easy for others to access personal information.

Please note: This is not to exclude other topics we've included in our 2010 predictions.

Does the Times Proclaiming "Why Twitter Will Endure" Mean We're in a Twitter Bubble?

I worry when I see articles like the one by NYT's media critic David Carr.

Carr is a smart reporter, understands technology, and is a Twitter user (@carr2n). But my concern is that an article like "Why Twitter Will Endure" may mean we're officially in a Twitter bubble.

Going mainstream is not a bad thing, and Twitter is not like some underground band that's selling out, and will lose its cred.

But don't forget: Twitter still hasn't figured out its business model. And there are lots of companies offering free services in the Twitter eco-system that have not figured out how to monetize Twitter or their own services yet, either.

When clients ask if Twitter is the equivalent to CB Radio in the 70s, I tell them no -- for many reasons, includnig some Carr cites, and including the fact that you don't need specialized equipment, just Internet access and a keyboard.

But somehow someone's got to monetize it or the platform won't be able to endure; it'll just move on to the next thing, much the way Friendster flamed out and was overtaken by MySpace, which seems to have been overtaken by Facebook.

In a Web 2.0 World, It's Important to Define "Credibility"

I've been thinking a lot about credibility lately. Rupert Murdoch makes the point in a recent Wall St. Journal op-ed that there's more competition than ever for people interested in news -- and that's a good thing for consumers.

I don't necessarily agree with more competition is good when it comes to journalism. (That said, I don't think it's good when there's only one source for news, either.)

In his article, "Journalism and Freedom: Government assistance is a greater threat to the press than any new technology,"Murdoch says, "Media companies need to give people the news they want." And that seems to explain Fox News and most of News Corp. properties.

That doesn't always translate into accuracy.

Which leads me back to credibility.

I'm concerned that there are a lot of sites available now that post articles that provide some take on the news, many of them catering to a particular audience's belief systems. And that they don't provide objective perspectives, just self-reinforcing content.

The Boston Globe's Ellen Goodman recently wrote about the topic, "Facts and figures, myths and mantras." Interestingly, the response to her column was a mixed bag of polarized thought, some blaming MSM. (Hint: most times when you hear someone refer to "mainstream media" or especially as MSM, that person will tend to be a conservative and they will have been criticizing the media. You can out the responses to Goodman's column here: May fact-checkers not just endure but prevail.)

So the question becomes: what's credible? How can sites ensure they provide credible news and opinion? And what can organizations do to ensure that their social media programs are credible and engage their constituencies?

CNN launched a new ad campaign that features three CNN anchors with the words "Truth," "Facts" and "News" followed by an ad that says "First."

The problem is that truth, facts and news can be subjective. Facts can be emphasized or de-emphasized to make a particular point.

For example, I'm reading "Perfect Pitch" by Jon Steel about winning new business, and he makes the point that facts alone aren't enough. Citing the criminal trial of OJ Simpson, Steel points out that the prosecution focused a lot of attention on the bloody glove that linked (in their opinion) Simpson to the double murder. Yet Johnnie Cochran said if the glove "does not fit, you must acquit."

News organizations take facts and weave a narrative around them to make sense of the facts. To provide context. That's how you can have the New York Times and Wall St. Journal look at the same topic, reported similarly in their news pages, and take such different, opposing stances on their editorial pages.

That's not saying one paper is right and the other wrong. Just that interpretation of those facts is clearly important these days.

So how should we define what's credible? Is credibility in the eye of the beholder? Is it how the Supreme Court defined porn as you know it when you see it?

Organizations that seek to leverage social media will have to figure out how they can be credible, how they can engage their audiences, without turning them off.

The FTC has issued new rules that bloggers must comply with in terms of disclosing gifts or payments from companies. Will that ensure credibility?

People can now get paid for tweeting paid-for messages.

I think we've got to be very careful about being accurate and credible or else you'll turn off the very people you're trying to reach.

That's one of the challenges to leverage social media.

New York Times Urges Truth in Online, Offline Advertising

Pointing out that marketing to consumer-generated (i.e., blogs) and social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace but not, as yet, Twitter) is expected to grow 20 percent in 2009, up from $1.01 billion in 2008 (which had increased 25% from 2007), the New York Times believes that "a lot of it is paid advertising masquerading as bona fide endorsements by celebrities, well-known bloggers and even ordinary people — honest comment, free from pecuniary considerations."

According to the Times, "In 1968, an F.T.C. advisory demanded that advertorials disclose that they were advertising, not editorial...The rules offline should clearly apply online. This is a matter of principle, not medium, and the new rules are not an excessive burden."

I certainly agree with that.

The Times also urges the FTC to "focus enforcement on the advertising companies," not the bloggers."

The Times also feels that "advertisers are the drivers of this new trend. The onus should be on them to ensure that blogs pitching their stuff warn readers about the commercial motivation of the endorsements."

As a blogger, I'm not sure I totally agree with that last point. I have urged clients to work with credible bloggers, who disclose potential conflicts of interest. But as a PR executive, I know we have little control over bloggers, and would not want to be held responsible for them. That said, we're just providing information or trial software for reviews. We're not engaging in some of the problem issues that the Times rightly cites (such false testimonials).

It's not clear from the Times' editorial whether its editorial board understands how bloggers work.

At the same time, we do provide trial software for product reviews to print reporters. I think there needs to be a disclosure page for tech reviewers to let everyone know their policies. The Journal has a code of conduct that's easily found, but you can check it out here. Kara Swisher, a former Journal reporter who now works for All Things D, posts her ethics policies here. And Walt Mossberg posts his ethics policy below his bio here.

I think more online and offline reporters and bloggers should post codes of conduct. Now, I don't review or endorse products here, but I have posted in my bio that if I do mention clients, I will always disclose that fact. And I do so here and on Twitter.