Inside PR 2.94: Matthias Lufkens on Davos and social media

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This week we feature an interview with Matthias Lufkens, former social media director for the World Economic Forum in Davos, who tells us about the organization’s use of social media.  We caught up with him at PRSA’s Digital Impact, where he was one of the keynote presenters.  Over the next few week’s we’ll be sharing more interviews from the conference.

Matthias has several takeaways from his presentation:

1. The number of visitors to your own website is less and less important; organizations now have to be everywhere, on all the social sites.

2. Start by sharing riveting content.

3. Being active in social media means ceding control and letting people comment and share your content.

4. Create communities and then engage and lead them.

He has an additional piece of advice for communicators: look at online communities as your friends and that will change the way you build relationships with them.

Joe cites a KPMG study on how much social engagement activity emanated from Davos this year and how social media really opened the gathering to the world.

Gini calls out Matthias’ comment about having a small team and says with social media, a few people who know what they’re doing can accomplish a lot.  She doesn’t agree with his point about traffic your site being less relevant and believes social channels should drive people back to your site.

Martin mentions Matthias’ point about thinking of customers as friends and having that inform the way we communicate with them by avoiding the hard sell.

Want to meet us in person? Gini, Joe and I are going to be attending the PRSA Counselors Academy conference in New Orleans – Gini’s a keynote presenter, Joe’s doing a roundtable and I’m conference chair. We’re recording a show at the conference and doing more interviews with some of the smartest entrepreneurs in PR.  And everyone who attends gets a copy of Gini’s new book, Marketing in the Round.  Hope to see you there.

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Special edition of Inside PR: talking Digital Impact with Eric Schwartzman

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PRSA’s Digital impact conference is happening in New York April 2 and 3 and we’re pleased to announce Inside PR is the official podcaster.
Martin talked with Eric Schwartzman, digital marketing consultant, entrepreneur, author, podcaster and founder/co-chair of Digital Impact about this year’s program. Now in its fourth year, the sold-out event is designed for PR professionals, marketing communicators, speechwriters and even entrepreneurs who are trying to integrate social into their strategy.  Its focus is earned media through social communications and it’s tailored to the PR community.

This year’s keynote lineup features:

Other sessions include a panel on PR and Wikipedia and whether or not PR people should be allowed to make changes on pages they manage; a communications professor talking about copyright, trademark and what you are and aren’t allowed to share; and several sessions on understanding influence, which tie directly into this year’s theme, ‘Influence and Persuasion’.

You can follow the hashtag #PRSADIconf Twitter.

We’ll be recording interviews with some of the presenters and keynotes.  And if you’re in New York, please drop by to say hi.

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.

Inside PR 2.92: Is it social media or social business?

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We start with some exciting news about Inside PR’s new partnership with PRSA.  We’re heading to New York in early April to join them as the official podcaster of the PRSA Digital Impact conference.  They’ve got a great line-up of speakers and we’re planning to record a number of interviews with social media influencers that we’ll use on future shows.  Stay tuned for more details…

This week, we feature an interview with Giovanni Rodriguez that roving reporter Martin conducted at SXSW.  Giovanni is the person who introduced both Joe and Martin to social media at Counselors Academy in 2005. He’s been the managing partner at his own agency and is currently a consultant at Deloitte. And he’ll be presenting at the Digital Impact conference.

Giovanni talks about social business and what differentiates it from social media.  He believes social media as a term was always limiting because it forced the discipline into a marketing corner.

He goes on to say that social business is more inclusive in that it asks the question, how can people use these technologies and best practices to engage and empower their constituencies? These could include anyone in your network, your customers, employees, partners in your ecosystem.

He’s seeing new type of professional emerging; one that will offer offers a suite of services similar in scope to management consulting: strategy, discovery, benchmarks and road-mapping.

And Giovanni wonders whether or not intermediaries – that is, the role played by agents – will be eclipsed by trusted counselors and advisors.

Gini agrees the role of PR agencies is changing and that we need to move beyond impressions, understand an organization’s goals and develop programs that drive business results.

Joe thinks PR people are well positioned for the change Giovanni describes as we’ve been involved in monitoring and measurement, analysis, insight and strategy for quite some time and have a good understanding of the landscape and how to navigate in it.

What do you think?

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Send us an email or an audio comment to [email protected], join the Inside PR Facebook group, leave us a comment here, message us @inside_pr on Twitter, or connect with Gini Dietrich, Joe Thornley, and Martin Waxman on Twitter.

Our theme music was created by Damon de Szegheo; Roger Dey is our announcer.

This week’s episode was produced by Kristine Simpson.