A word of advice: I am not a lawyer. Nor am I a registered financial adviser. This is my opinion only and should be treated as such. For guidance, consult your legal counsel.Originally posted at PRBreakfastclub.
If you are in PR, IR, corporate communications or social media, chances are you’ll run into fun rules such as Sarbanes-Oxley, Regulation FD and FINRA guidelines. One of these things these rules have in common is that they are behind the times.
But the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has taken a pretty large step in modernizing the rules that financial services companies must follow while engaging in social media and PR. You can download the FINRA social media guidelines as a PDF.
The big takeaways
The important pieces of this update are the changes to the definitions of static and interactive content. Under the new rules, “Examples of static content typically available through social networking sites include profile, background or wall information.” This information is treated like an advertisement and is subject to regulator approval processes.
Interactive content is a bit more flexible. Tweets, blog comments etc… are interactive content and do not require the approval of an approved regulator. One of the interesting challenges, however are the monitoring and archival requirements.”firms may adopt procedures that require principal review of some or all interactive electronic communications prior to use or may adopt various
methods of post-use review, including sampling and lexicon-based search methodologies as discussed in Regulatory Notice 07-59.”
I know this is a bit more heady than what we normally discuss, but it’s important. Our society is changing. The way brands interact with us is changing. And the need for the government to monitor those interactions is changing.
As communications professionals, we need to be able to provide sound guidance for our client. But at the same time we need to be innovative in our approach to engaging with our target audiences. To that end, the best advice I can give is know the rules and come as close to breaking them as possible.
Having a policy in place is also essential for firms looking to engage in social media. Having a set of rules that outlines approved interactions will help avoid confusion and potential violations. But in doing so, make sure you’re consulting your legal counsel.
Twitter has fundamentally changed our lives, whether we like it or not.
And people have written miles of books, blog posts and even tweets about best practices and what matters on Twitter. One of the biggest things that is almost universally agreed upon is to be genuine. So how do we as public relations professionals remain genuine when we’re asked to tweet about a client?
The precedent
Fundamentally you are free to talk about whatever the hell you want with your Twitter stream. It’s your content. It’s your copyright. It’s your reputation.
Your reputation? Yeah, your reputation. You put it on the line each and every time you post something to the public domain. When I hit publish on this post, I was subjecting myself to the judgment of past, present and future employers. It’s the same thing with Twitter.
If your precedent is to include links to client announcements or blog posts, then that’s fine. You’ve willingly shared that information. After all, without clients we wouldn’t be able to pay the electric bill so we could tweet, right? There is a conception that all posts in a social network should be neutral and objective. If you have a relationship, some feel it should be disclosed either up front or by using hash tags or other microsyntax. For example, James Governor from the analyst firm Redmonk uses “$client” to denote posts to his Twitter stream about his paying clients.
And that’s a judgement call you will have to make.
But what about when your employer says you must tweet on a client’s behalf?
Mandated tweeting
I see a potential for conflict when an employer mandates that an employee tweet on its behalf. Making a choice to share the announcement of a project you’ve worked on or a blog post from a co-worker is one thing.
Being told what to tweet and when to tweet it is another beast. The argument is that it’s not genuine. If you don’t want to post it, then why should you be obligated to? I’m all for being a team player. But sometimes you need to protect the community and precedent you have created. I don’t know what the right answer is. So, I’m asking you.
How would you respond to being given a pre-written tweet and being asked to post it? Would you? Why or why not?
Alternatively titled: What I learned in Vegas won’t stay in Vegas.
So, there I sat. On a plane. In a town car. In a drive through at In-n-Out. In the Lobby of the Las Vegas Hilton. And then it started…
Hanging in the speaker room before the session.
I started seeing people. I first saw Gregarious “Greg” Narain and Brett Petersel. I saw Lucretia Pruitt, AKA Geekmommy. I saw Aaron Brazell. And, I saw myself. I saw myself in all the new people I met. I got to see some of the “new media” minds that are going beyond social media 101 and into the Ivy Leagues of “Prove it.”
I’m still not terribly sure how to express the thoughts and ideas from the experience. I think the best way is to highlight a couple of people and have you read their words. For now.
Mark Story. Not enough words can be said about this guy. Mark is the Director of New Media for the SEC and was he savior of our panel. He is a smart guy with a personality as big as I am. Mark, many thanks for helping out with the panel and for your words of wisdom and encouragement.
Doug Haslam. Doug is a PR idol. He works for Boston-based SHIFT Communications.
Jason Falls. Falls made this happen. Thank you for letting the motley crew talk about PR and new communications practices in a federally regulated world.
Aaron Strout. All-around good guy. Glad to meet you. And destroy you in the Fatburger eating contest.
Jennifer Leggio. Jennifer is a super-smart blogger and commenter on many different topics. But her perspective on the security and privacy in social networks is priceless. Cuts a pretty mean rug too.
The Ken Yeung. Aloha, bradda! Thank you for your lens that does not filter out based on standing or celebrity. A-listers or E-listers, they’re all in your pictures.
I could really continue this list for a number of weeks. But I won’t. What I will do, however, is ask you to spotlight somebody you’ve met recently in the comments.
I have the opportunity to speak at this year’s BlogWorld and New Media Expo next month. I’ll get to the topic more in another post.
But here I wanted to share a bit about what the opportunity means to me personally. I have the opportunity to sit on a panel alongside Shannon Paul, Mark Story and a special guest I’ll reveal later. For those of you that don’t know, Shannon built and implemented the social media strategy for the Detroit Red Wings and Mark is the Director of new media for the SEC.
I am the unknown on this panel. I am the underdog in this story.
But that’s OK. I get to represent myself, my knowledge and my skills in front of an audience of bloggers, new media professionals and assorted Web celebrities.
The bigger picture
Speaking at conferences is a sort of currency in the new media world. And I am making my first deposit. I like saying that good ideas are not confined to the big names in this industry and this is my opportunity to prove it.
I have a few weeks to get over the nerves and prep my thoughts and get new cards made up. I have a few weeks to ponder what words I will use to describe my ideas facing the public relations industry. As I write this, Don Draper on Mad Men said “Our worst fears lie in anticipation.” I think that is a fitting theme for this post.
If you’re thinking about embarking on a new adventure, there is no time like the present to put your head down and charge into it full steam. Fear of failing is failure. If you are crippled by the possibility of what might happen, then you will never know what is possible. So, now’s the time to submit that proposal or write that post.
I would like to welcome TechCrunch to the world of actual journalism. Find a story, verify info, interview sources, write story, fact check, publish, repeat.
Here’s the quick background: TechCrunch obtained multiple documents from an alleged hacker who had broken into Twitter employee’s email accounts, Google Documents (There’s a reason it’s not compliant, but that’s a different issue) and other documents and information. TechCrunch verified w/Twitter and its lawyers the accuracy of the documents and even interviewed them. Then they published some of the documents. They were even kind enough to redact personal information.
But here’s an important step that separates journalist from sensationalist: The journalist attempts to verify the information before publishing. The Sensationalist does not.
As a holder of an actual, real-life journalism degree, I sat through hours of press law and have filled out my fair share of information requests. I have also obtained information through anonymous sources or obtained information in other ways. And I used those documents. But after verifying on my own.
The right to publish
Now, the debate over whether or not TechCrunch should have published or not is broken into two parts:
Is the information newsworthy?
Is the information “off limits?”
The newsworthiness discussion is for another day. I am focused on the ethics involved in publishing the documents. TechCrunch absolutely acted within the boundaries of accepted journalistic ethics in publishing those documents. If it had simply published the entire .zip file without making an attempt to check facts or redact personal information, it would have been very out of line.
Instead, it looked for the information it deemed “newsworthy” and ran with it. To recap, it verified the information with Twitter, attempted to elicit on-the-record comment from Twitter and published the information that was applicable to the story it accompanied. TechCrunch even solicited comment from third-party companies named in the documents.
One could also make the argument that Ev and Biz and some of the Twitter team are “Limited Purpose Public Figures.” This means that some of their information is subject to federal and state open records laws and that their expectations of privacy are a bit different than the average citizen.
In this case, the combination of a good journalist and a good lawyer are difficult to beat.
Should they have published
Well, in my opinion yes and no. If TechCrunch wants to use this as a standard for applying journalistic ethics to its reporting (coverage?), then great. But the fact is that TechCrunch is a blog. Its writers express opinion and insert themselves into the stories they are writing. Independant sources are a rarity, as is interviews with the subjects they’re writing about.
I’ve written about the difference between blogger and journalist before, and I think it is completely applicable here. And this gets right to the heart of the debate. If the New York Times had published those documents, would we have even flinched?
I’m sure my opinion is different than some, so tell me what you think.
In my last post, I raised the issue of what I call the Twitter Relations Model. Essentially, Companies are putting on events with limited invite lists ant the expectation is that the atendees will tweet about it. The net result is a super-effective word of mouth PR/advertising campaign.
So, I talked about the problem. Now, I’m here to offer a solution. Stowe Boyd is championing something he calls “microsyntax.” Essentially, a couple of characters that denotes a more involved meaning. For example, a forward slash before and after a city or address or location denotes that I am actually there: /Kent, WA/ for example.
So, my solution is a microsyntax for sponsored Tweets. I am proposing a four-character sequence that looks something like this:
My proposal for a sponsored Tweet Microsyntax
Essentially, it’s a $ at the beginning and end of a tweet. An extra step and the loss of four characters, but in the interest of disclosure, I think it might be worth it.
The effect
If you see a tweet with the dollar sign, then assume it is a sponsored tweet and the opinion being expressed has been bought. Omit the symbols and you are claiming the opinion as a true representation of your thoughts and feelings.
Some companies are blatantly sponsoring tweets, but that’s OK. Izea CEO Ted Murphy says that the company has strict disclosure policies and that participants will be disclosing their relationships. To me, this is no different than advertising on any other content broadcasting platform. So long as it is obvious what is a sponsored tweet, then more power to you.
The effect of the dollar sign microsyntax is simple: Force disclosure of what opinions belong to you and what opinions belong to the company paying for them.
Social Media has become a catch-all term for just about any content distribution on the Web. Who would have thought that two years ago, a press release would be considered social media?
But here we are. Anybody who is blogging, twittering, publishing photos, friend-feeding, Viddler-ing etc… is social media-ing. But are they? I say that social media is the platform. The platform allows us as content creators to develop content that want to share. From there, it’s a matter of how it’s used.
Social Marketing
Social Marketing is the bulk of what social media is used for. There is a distinct difference between using Twitter to discuss the banal details of your life and using Twitter to distribute 20% off coupons for your restaurant. Using the tools available to you through social media in order to generate direct sales is social marketing.
Social Marketing is often thinly veiled and that is where some of the frustration confusion occurs. When “consultants” offer their services through social media they are participating in social marketing. But it is veiled as social media. Simply sharing ideas, right? But the intent is to ultimately lead to a sale.
Using content sharing services to promote your business and services is a great use of social media as a platform. Enabling your customers to evangelize and tell your story for you is one of the greatest ways to build your brand and message. Social media as a platform also enables those people to reach each other.
Social Networking
We all like to meet people. We all like to interact with humans. After all, if you remove the ability to physically connect with the people we interact with online, social media would shrivel to nothing.
Being able to use social media to share pictures of my pug or arrange to meet some friends are great benefits of the technology platforms that comprise social media. In fact, one of my favorite aspects of social media as a platform is it’s opt in. I get out of it what I put in and if I choose not to participate, the world doesn’t end.
Plenty of stories exist about people using social media to network their way into a job or raise funds for a charity or even find a spouse. Being able to foster relationships, both professional and personal, is one of the great uses of social media as a platform.
Social Education
If you are out to share information (like this blog?) or distribute a message then you are using social media as a means to educate. Social education utilizes the alternative definition of social. In this instance, social is a reflection of society as a whole. Building communities around lifestyles or the environment is an emerging use of social media as a platform.
The emergence of the “green” lifestyle and social awareness in general is able to reach new levels thanks to social media as a platform. Video blogs, micropayments and the Twestival for charity:water are great examples of our society taking advantage of the innovations in social media technology that have emerged recently.
What Does This Mean?
It means that there’s no right or wrong way to use social media. It means that we need to be aware of the progression of the platform and how we as marketers and social beings can utilize it in innovative ways.
Just because we’re out in the “social media-sphere” doesn’t mean we know what’s happening. This shift that is occurring around us changes daily. Having a platform to build on and capture our every thought and action is both intriguing and totally frightening.
What this means is that social media is here to stay. How will you use it?
My new IRL buddy Kenji Onozawa is running this little series where he shoves a camera into people’s chests faces and talks to them about social media.
This is a great series because it helps put a real person to the avatar. The joys of tweetups, conferences etc… are that they help us realize just who eachother is. Without actual human connections, social media would not exist. I was more than happy to participate in something like this, even though I hate being on camera.
A blogger writes a blog. A blog contains information, opinions, links and emotion.
A journalist brings life to factual occurrences. Presents actual, recorded history with zero subjectiveness. And yes, they act with an absence of malice.
Can a person be both? Of course. But not at the same time. In my opinion, blogger and journalist are mutually exclusive and any attempt to blur that line only results in that person losing the “journalist” label in favor of the “blogger” label.
On blogging
I’ve been sitting on this for a bit and every time I see a blogger such as Michael Arrington or Marshall Kirkpatrick referred to as a “journalist,” my journalism degree loses a comma. But I watched as Chris Brogan (and, by association eMoms, 1938Media and others) get raked overthe coals because he took a payment in the form of a gift card to put up a post whereby he, wait for it, gave away a gift card.
So, what is a blog? This is a blog. I make no attempt or representation that anything I produce is a fact. In all honesty, if I’m not writing pure opinion or heresay, then there’s no fun in that. My only “facts” are links to others who generally agree with my opinion and that is questionable at best.
A blog is a place where people share their experiences, opinions, dreams and failures. Sure, people can report on things and cover breaking “news.” But they are still blogs. They provide a second layer, which is analysis and opinion. This removes any chance of the label of “journalism” being applied.
On journalism
Journalists and reporters do a great service to our society. I have worked as a reporter and have a BA in journalism, so you can guess where my bias leans.
Newspapers stay in business through advertising and that is the traditional source of income for bloggers as well. So, can online journalists survive this way as well? Of course. Google AdSense and other advertising platforms can provide an income (and let’s be honest, journalists make next to nothing. Full disclosure: my first reporting gig paid me <$19,000 per year. I got laid off after three months) and eliminate the need to participate in pay per post programs and paid reviews.
It is possible to be an online-only journalist. The posts follow journalistic ethics and attributes information and even includes quotes. But by inserting a subjective opinion, the writer eliminates the assumption of objectiveness. And this does everyone a disservice. But one thing is important to note, here — Journalists are real people. They have a brain, they know a ton of information and when they do share an opinion, a lot of respect and weight is behind it. Sometimes real people can’t contain their opinions and they leak out. Such is the danger with objective practices.
Journalism is an art, talent and skill. And I think that true journalism is fading away as more and more people move into content creation and blogging. I am all for people getting online and sharing their thoughts, opinions and distributing them. But do it under the auspices of blogging and not journalism. Please?
Back in April, we were promised that the Twitpitch would be the future. And after eight months, it looks like the future is still on the way. The same can be said with a recent project called “MicroPR.”
These short, high-level pitches are great for putting a link out onto Twitter, but for targeted, effective pitches, they are merely an arrow in the public relations professional’s quiver.
I’ll start with Twitpitch. Stowe Boyd, whom I have met a number of times and always enjoy chatting with, devised a plan to streamline getting pitches. A great idea and if you want to pitch Stowe, and Stowe only, then get on Twitter and throw #twitpitch on there.
What this exemplifies more than anything is how each pitch must be customized, tailored and based on the person doing the pitching’s knowledge of the recipient. Stowe likes music, composes songs and also has a music blog. Did you know that or did you just know to put #twitpitch in a twitter message?
MicroPR
MicroPR is essentially a way for reporters to pitch PR and Marketing people via Twitter. The full story is on Brian Solis’ PR 2.0 blog (which, if you’re not reading, you should be). So, on the surface, sounds like a great idea. And a cursory search of Twitter, shows the beginnings of an effective discourse.
But my problem is that it seems to be a case of PR folks outsmarting themselves. Thanks to MicroPR and Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out, PR folks are able to keep an eye out for opportunities to place their clients in front of attentive reporters.
But of course a lot of hard work is still to be done. Establish rapport, making a connection is still the name of the game. I think that email is still an invaluable tool for PR pros. MicroPR requires a journalist to alter an ingrained work flow in order to post to MicroPR, monitor the results and then choose the best source.
So, two tools that are trying to unite PR and journalists. But I think the true task is to keep the emphasis on the relations part of our career. What do you think?
