We have CFOs and CIOs, but the CCO – or Chief Communications Officer – only exists in a handful of organizations like IBM, Citibank, and most recently Comcast. They’re a minority, but they shouldn’t be. Professional communicators need a voice and a vote on the board if companies want their words to have the most desirable impact on their destiny.

We need CCOs as business leaders, now more than ever

Why? The world has changed, for businesses and consumers alike. The sweeping influence of digital technology has made our societies not only more global, but more networked and interconnected than ever before. Transfers of data which once took days now take seconds – and that’s at their slowest.

As a result of this sheer explosion in the speed and volume of digital communications, we’ve come to expect different things from social institutions like businesses and governments. We expect them to be transparent in every aspect of their conduct. We expect them to be forthcoming with the information which we require, when we require it. In short, we want to trust these institutions – and we get understandably displeased when they misuse or break that trust.

But we’re also their strongest advocates when they get things right, building their social capital with our praise, recommendation and brand loyalty. The collective impact of this advocacy – through everything from social media to viral videos to flash-mobs – amounts to the greatest market force which businesses can harness to their benefit. Today, effective communications matter more than ever. They don’t exist within a “black box” isolated from other corporate functions, but instead have very real and very immediate impacts on the goals, processes and bottom line of the business.

It’s the CCO’s role to bring together all aspects of the company’s communications. The CCO has to, amongst other things, co-ordinate how the company presents itself through its brand; what sort of tone it adopts when addressing different audiences or stakeholders; where it seeks to cultivate advocacy, and from whom. Just like any other corporate function, this task requires overarching vision from someone who intimately understands the field and how to play it. Jon Iwata (IBM’s senior VP of Marketing and Communications) is a good example of a CCO who’s managed to draw together numerous strands of communications (in this case, from all across the world’s largest computer company) into a unified approach which seeks to leverage all of the company’s reputational, brand and relationship assets

Rather than taking an aggressive attitude to the communications portfolio, Iwata’s strategy has sought to enhance on IBM’s pedigree as one of the world’s most well-respected companies, building its profile as a tech giant with the clout and intention to take on problems none of its competitors can. It’s a move which reflects not only Iwata’s strategic nous in the communications field, but his influence on the rest of IBM’s top leadership – something which is uniquely afforded by the position of CCO. The more recent appointment of D’Arcy Rudnay as Comcast’s CCO points to growing recognition that intangible assets like “brand” and “reputation” and “community” are in fact very valuable ones, and need the sort of leadership or stewardship which the finances, technology and HR of companies are already afforded.

And companies that think they don’t need this sort of leadership are in for some rough surprises ahead. Qantas’ handling of industrial disputes last year, BP’s stubborn silence over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and News Corp’s ongoing phone-hacking scandal all have one thing in common: the leadership in charge didn’t understand how the health of communications impacts the health of the entire business. Sometimes crises are necessary to spark change, but in this case we don’t have to wait.

In a few years’ time, we’ll probably look back on pre-CCO days with a bit of bemusement, wondering why we made such a fuss about such a commonsensical decision. It’s not at all unlikely that the CCO will stand on equal footing with a company’s chief legal counsel – both of whom often deal with the same issues around public trust and reputation just with somewhat different tools. Professional communicators know how to protect business reputations, enhance their brands, and harness powerful community advocacy in a society more networked than any other in history. Why shouldn’t they have a place at the board?

Editor’s note: A version of this article recently appeared in Australia’s PR Report.

Until now, SEO has played a major role in governing how content is distributed online – and in some cases, how content is created. Copy optimization and keyword distribution are now common strategies (among others) for maximizing the visibility of content online. Nowadays, algorithms also impact directly not only visibility in search engines, but also the way content is structured or even processed. From Robot Journalism to live content optimization, algorithms now rule the world of content. Understanding how those algorithms work will offer a big advantage in terms of insights for those working on the distribution and creation of content.

Optimizing content with algorithms

Content-optimized algorithms already are part of our daily life –search engine algorithms display content in a way that is optimized for the reader, with results also customized based on geolocation, common search terms, etc. Social networks know more about you to serve you not only the most relevant ads, but also the best content (look at the detail of Facebook’s Edgerank for instance). News portals are displayed according to your taste (look at Google News or Yahoo News customization options).

Some websites go even further by adapting their homepage in real-time to account for the most recent trends (see the example of Melty.fr) or by detecting the next big trends (Buzzfeed.com for instance). With the integration of Facebook in media (and media in Facebook), newspaper homepages are getting more and more personalized and computer-assisted editorial content is already a reality.

Affinity content – predicting audience taste from your social graph

Social networks collect data all day long about user preferences and have built databases to profile tastes. Based on content, it’s now possible to determine the affinity not only with a brand but with its content, opening the door of targeted content based on the audience tastes. Some companies are already investigating these options (Curata, Infinigraph or Gravity among them). Don’t be surprised if tomorrow your behavior and tastes make brands be even friendlier with you.

Do robot journalists dream of electric sheep?

What if robots could understand audiences better than humans? Robot journalism isn’t science fiction anymore – it’s becoming reality. In a world where information is becoming a commodity and where economic pressures force content creation to lower costs, robots are the ideal companion for productivity. They already outperform sports journalists in some articles. And the progress in Artificial Intelligence, semantic analysis and trend analysis lets us imagine a not-so-far future where robot journalists would be much more developed.

Content Hacking and Public Relations

If these emerging trends are a reality, the job of PR agencies might have to evolve to adapt to this new type of content distribution. They’ll have to understand how influence is reshaped with the help of algorithms and how to glean insights through this new mechanism. In fact, PR will more than ever have to act as a filter to target a specific audience and make sure that the message gets delivered.

A couple of years ago, search engines disrupted the way content was distributed and accessed online. They led to the creation of Search Engine Optimization as a way to understand how to optimize content visibility. In this age of computer-assisted editorial content creation, content algorithm optimization might be the next SEO. Public relations consultants may have to develop the skills to be ready for new content distribution and creation strategies in the coming years, which involve a new stakeholder: the machine.

Interested in reading further? Some reading suggestions

•  A Slideshare presentation about the arrival of robot journalism in newsroom and the questions it raises.
• NPR and TNW article about robot journalism in sport
• An NYT article about computer generated articles
• A deeper article questioning the role of newspaper in our information society of algorythm on BigThink
• Details about the mixing of Social Media and algorithms in Google News
• Welcome to Robot Land – Slate
• Details about the Buzzfeed content algorythm – Jess3
• Facebook and media sharing – RWW
• Media companies already using computer generated articles – MediaBistro

Image credits

• Robot after all – Kerolic – Flickr
• Camden robots – Kerolic – Flickr

Communication is the heart of our job. As public relations professionals, we are responsible for communicating with and on behalf of our clients. However, are we certain that we’re always being heard? And even more importantly, are we being heard and interpreted in the right way?

Last week I attended the webinar, “How Reuters Journalists Use Social Media to Uncover Today’s Stories” featuring Reuters’ Social Media Editor, Anthony De Rosa and Reuters’ Wealth Editor, Lauren Young. Both Anthony and Lauren discussed how they actively use social media channels to monitor for breaking news, find sources and find out what their competition is up to, but it was also a helpful reminder to remember the PR 101 basics.

Following a brief synopsis on how they are individually using the tools, the webinar quickly turned to every journalist’s favorite topic: working with us PR folk. Their discussion on PR made one thing quite clear – even in the digital era of today, PR 101 still remains true in that building relationships with reporters should always be top of mind.

Rule #1 from Anthony and Lauren: never blast out a template pitch to reporters. Sure it sounds like a no-brainer, but Anthony and Lauren said this happens much more than one would guess. And when they can tell it’s a blast email, it heads straight in to the trash.

The reporters also emphasized that the digital era provides us with another set of portals to help us to build that ever important relationship between journalists and PR. Anthony said it best during the webinar when he described Twitter as a “virtual water cooler” and Facebook as “the virtual town square” where you can have a dialogue.

Anthony and Lauren provided a few quick and simple tips on how we can use social media to help build relationships:

• We have the ability to interact with reporters at the “water cooler” and at “the town square,” so take advantage of it.
• Social media is all about building communities – become a part of the communities of the journalists that your client values most by following the same people and joining the same online groups.
• Know the reporters’ likes and dislikes.  Are they a huge San Francisco Giants fan? Obsessed with Game of Thrones? – use this information to stand out from the pack when you contact them
• Don’t make it all about your client, but send them articles, stories and surveys that you think they would enjoy and appreciate.

In all reality, it is easier than ever to stay true to the basics and when you build a relationship you will become a trusted counterpart who journalists will want to hear from and who they will reach out to for information – client related and not. It’s a good reminder to take advantage of digital and social media footprints to get back to the basics and to build relationships with journalists. It is then that we’ll be most successful at what we set out to do every day – communicate.

Photo credit: Flickr user lapideo.

The top-line results of our survey are shown in the infographic below, and you can download a full copy of the report with a more detailed look at the survey findings by clicking on this link. Please feel free to share the infographic anywhere you like.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog, as part of their sponsorship of the #SMWF.

I have to admit that the first thing that surprised me about the video was that people would even need a campaign like this to know someone as well “known” as Joseph Kony. And that left me with another important consideration: no campaign should assume the popularity of an idea based only on perceptions and knowledge of their creators.

I enjoyed reading some reflections of the authors of the video claiming that they had often wondered why documentaries, campaigns and professional videos were not getting any kind of results (most of the time) and, at the same time, a video showing two babies cooing or a cat in the bathroom breaks viral records. Although there are obviously complex publicity techniques behind many viral videos, the most important thing is to appeal to simplicity, emotion (as primitive as possible) and timing, as Pierre recently discussed in his post about viral videos.

But what I think plays a key role in all of this is one factor that every good communications campaign should include. It’s not enough to explain or report deficiencies or advantages. We must create “closed” products, offering clear solutions which give our audiences not only a vision of the market, challenges and choices they have at their disposal, but also a series of steps to take – a call to action that’s immediate and clear. And all with a simple, straightforward language, without marketing feelings and appealing to the most devastating feeling in the world, our humanity.

It was a task in itself to find out where these assumptions were coming from, and it’s still not 100 percent certain. There is frequent reference to the U.S. Department of Labor “saying” specific characteristics of each career throughout the article. Nowhere does it explicitly state the U.S. Department of Labor ranked this list. Here’s the full list:

1. Public Relations Specialist
2. Teacher
3. Police Officer
4. Reporter of News Analyst
5. Fashion Designer
6. Advertising Sales Agent
7. Human Resources Training and Development Specialist

I was a combination of slightly shocked and somewhat understanding when I first read that PR specialist was the number one career choice for people who crave attention. I think the strong wording that “crave attention” connotes sent a negative feeling at first glance.

Photo courtesy of flickr user Bmaas.

I can, however, see both sides of the coin on this one. On one hand, the traits of well-seasoned and successful PR professionals often include humility, focus and a team spirit since they are conduits for their clients. People who crave attention would feel a major dichotomy of interests if they are most interested in self-promotion and their own reputations. If you are tasked with stating the one true goal of PR, it’s to garner attention for your client, not for yourself.

But it is true that PR is one career that requires a certain confidence to pick up the phone to track down answers, walk right up to someone at a tradeshow to network, and dive into a topic to become a true industry expert.

The write-up asks, “Are you good at building relationships and reaching out to others? As a PR specialist, it would likely be your job to present information about your company to the media – and public – says the U.S. Department of Labor.” This begs the question, is a flair for building relationships and reaching out to others a clear indication of an attention-seeking individual? I want to say it isn’t; it’s the sign of a confident and determined person, which doesn’t immediately say “craves attention” in my opinion.

The article continues saying “Communication is generally a key component for a public relations specialist. Whether it’s creating press releases, speaking to media contacts, or representing the client in a public forum, it is all about keeping your clients – and often your company – in the positive spotlight, according to the Department of Labor.”

An article from this past November in Ragan’s PR Daily reflected on Journalists, PR executives explain the traits of talented PR pros. The article describes a multi-tasking, respectful, and patient individual as a successful PR person from the opinion of both reporters and PR professionals.

Nowhere in the article is there an evocation of a career in PR being an attention-seeker’s  dream job. “This year, James Crawford of CustomerThink did a roundup of why he feels that the renaissance PR person needs to be a jack of all trades: a risk-taker, creative artist, content marketer, door buster, and technician.”

Much more than an individual who seeks attention, PR needs people who can see the bigger picture past themselves and their own wants and needs. PR is often a time-consuming, stressful and fast-paced industry and the people who flourish in it seek things other than personal attention – they seek recognition for others.

Do you think PR professionals crave attention? Share your opinion on this topic in the comments.

PR people have feelings too. Well, some of them…

weeks. Responding to a post about PR blunders on popular web-technology blog ReadWriteWeb, a commenter fired off an angry response titled “10 Nightmarish behaviors PR people hate about journalists”.

This provoked a lot of discussion in our office and, before we go any further, I want to say why I feel I can offer a balanced response; I spent 13 years as a technology journalist before leaving my own kind to live amongst the PR people in 2005, so I know what life is like on both sides of the industry.

Comments like this are deeply unconstructive. Instead of this kind of sniping, it might be a bit more useful to help both professions understand the challenges and frustrations we all face.

It’s important to understand that, from the point of view of a journalist, a lot of PR communication is not particularly useful. I’m sure that none of you highly skilled professional communicators reading this will have ever desperately pitched a weak story to whichever journalists will pick up the phone, or tried to persuade journalists to attend a completely irrelevant event just to get the numbers up, but you’ll have to take my word for it that this kind of thing happens.

Imagine trying to do your job while dozens of people every day are clamouring for your attention by phone and email, but only about 10 percent of those people have anything relevant or useful to offer.

It’s not surprising that journalists get frustrated, or that they occasionally write articles to let off a little steam, since they often have the benefit of a platform on which to voice their displeasure. PR people generally don’t have a platform from which to voice their own frustrations and, in any case, since a key goal of PR is to build good relationships with journalists, few would be willing to publicly rant about them.

So in the spirit of constructive dialogue, here are some things I did when I was a journalist that I am now deeply, deeply sorry for because I’ve seen the consequences from the other side of the fence:

• Not showing up for events or cancelling at the very last minute with a half-baked excuse – I was guilty of doing this myself many times, but now that I realise that I probably dropped a lot of PR execs into hot water with their clients and/or bosses. When a journalist agrees to attend an event or briefing, a lot of effort goes into preparing for them. It’s much better to just say upfront that you’re not interested in coming so that the place can be offered to somebody who would find it useful.
• Saying “I’ll cover your story in the next issue….” even though I probably wouldn’t. What I didn’t realise was that while I was just telling the PR what they wanted to hear to get them off my back, I was causing them a real headache because they’d tell the client to expect some media coverage that, in reality, was never happening. Again, I realise now it would have been better for everybody concerned if I was honest up front and simply told them why I wasn’t going to cover the story.
• Being excessively rude/harsh to PR people who called at a bad time or otherwise inadvertently irked me. OK, I wasn’t particularly guilty of this, because I’m a laid back kinda guy, but some of my colleagues used to treat haranguing PR people as a sport. Not everybody in the PR industry has a thick skin, when you give them an unnecessarily hard time it can have a very real personal impact.

So what do PR people really think of journalists? We love working with them and, of course, we couldn’t do our jobs without them – we just wish sometimes they’d be a bit nicer to us…

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.

As technology continues to evolve and proliferate in the workplace and businesses mobilise their operations, there are a number of challenges organisations may face in managing and supporting remote working. Indeed many of our clients this year focused on the knowledge leadership trend of Workplace of the Future and the issues organisations face in not only managing this business shift but exploiting it for the benefit of the employee, and its customers or clients.

With this in mind and because I myself spend a large amount of my time working remotely from Adelaide and commuting to Sydney every few weeks, I thought I’d list my 8 top tips based on my experience to help you negotiate some of the remote working challenges:

1. Have a dedicated workspace/office
There is no point in trying to work remotely from your lounge or dining room. The blur between personal and work time may sub-consciously become increasingly hard to distinguish if you do. Ensure you have a dedicated workspace or room that is used solely for the purpose of your occupation. That way when you start your working day you can close the door and instantly be transported to an office environment.

2. Utilise Instant Messaging and VoIP technology
Sometimes it’s easier to send someone an IM message than call them to get a response to a quick question. Applications such as Skype also allow you to set your status so that if you don’t want to be disturbed you can bluntly say so. You can even leave status updates such as ‘Out for a coffee run on mobile’ or ‘On a client conference call’ to let your contacts know if it’s appropriate to contact you and if they can expect a response. Additionally, video calling technology is only going to get better as ubiquitous infrastructure such as the NBN is rolled out and overall network quality is improved.

3. Social networking
Talk to your colleagues regularly on social media to ensure you’re engaged with them on a completely different level. Use Twitter to share non-sensitive important articles or pieces of information with your colleagues quickly.

4. Ensure you have a strong mobile network signal
There is nothing worse than dropping off an important client call at the wrong time.

5. Communicate often with your colleagues
Set up weekly calls even if you think it’s a little overkill – it will force you and your team to become even more organised than they probably were before. This is important as some things can’t be covered in an email or an instant message and it allows you to bond with your team over the phone. You can also hold video conference calls via Skype or via Google+ Hangout video calls where you need to see two or more people.

6. Manage timezones
If you’re working in a different timezone to your team see if you can adjust your daily start time and finish time to correlate with where your team is based to enhance collaboration.

7. Benefit from BusinessApps
Heard of YouSendIt of Dropbox? These applications allow you to share large files where email or a connection over a VPN simply won’t do and it makes sharing items such as video footage, photos, Prezis or large PowerPoints simple and secure.

8. Know when to switch off
The danger, and this is sometimes where I struggle, is justifying an extra hour or two at work at the end or the start of the day because you’d only be commuting anyway if you were in your head office. Ensure you’re disciplined to know when you should finish work and make sure you close the office door behind you.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 Sydney blog, Digital Comms Down Under.

A brand shouldn’t create a Facebook presence simply because it wants to be on Facebook.

Your social media and PR strategies alike should map to a broader goal, whether it’s increasing brand awareness for your company, products or service; building web traffic; or whatever other goals you may have. Also similar to PR, if social media engagement is not tackled with a plan, it can have an adverse affect. So how do you best ensure a positive outcome of your social media efforts?

Here are five tips for social media, which as you’ll see are very much the same rules for traditional PR.

• Know your audience – If you’re trying to reach semiconductor engineers or service providers, is Facebook really the best place to reach them? Maybe not. But on the other hand, if you’re Victoria’s Secret, a major Facebook campaign may make a lot of sense to reach your target consumer audience. Similar to pitching traditional media that your customers would read, you want to focus social media efforts on where your audience is spending time online. And know the type of content these people want to see – all before you actually engage.
• Know the platform – Don’t use up all 140 characters on Twitter with a URL because you forgot to use a URL shortener – avoid a social media #fail by ensuring you’re conversing and sharing information in the appropriate way for that platform. Similarly, when pitching Forbes, for example, you’ll research recent coverage topics and the section(s) in which your pitch would be appropriate.
• Develop relationships – People want to feel like they’re conversing with an individual, and see personality behind a company – this is no different with social media. A PR practitioner’s favorite spokesperson is one who hits on key messages, while adding in anecdotes and showing personality, and reporters want the strong personalities and uniqueness to come through as well. Developing and fostering relationships is a critical element of any form of communication, social or traditional. Social media etiquette will help you develop relationships – if someone RTs you, thank them. If someone asks you a question, respond. All this will help develop relationships with influencers.
• Transparency – Always be up front about your company affiliation. If commenting on a blog about a new Cisco router when you work for a competitor, its fine to comment about why your company’s router is better, but you must disclose who you work for. Remember when Facebook hired an agency to conduct an anti-Google campaign “on behalf of an unnamed client?” It received a ton of media backlash and criticism. It’s no different with social media than it is with PR – be ethical, honest and transparent.
• Consistency – When building your brand’s social media presence, you need to be consistent. For example, if you’re managing a company’s corporate blog, for example, you want to ensure there are posts every few days. Not only will this refresh the website with new content and keywords, which helps your SEO, but new content will keep your visitors coming back, and give them more to engage with.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared as a guest post on the PR Breakfast Club Blog.

One topic which seems to have had a renaissance (judging largely by my Twitter timeline) is #newsjacking.  For the uninformed, this is the approach of jumping on the back of news stories as they happen, and building out an interesting and informed perspective that will be shared and picked up by journalists and influencers writing their story. So the theory goes.

This was something I initially dismissed as no more than good, old fashioned issues-based PR.  And a must for any proactive communications person who doesn’t want to simply wait for version 2.4.1 of their latest product to be unveiled or for that annual trade show to come round when you and 300 other companies fight for attention and inches.

But then I saw that the extremely smart @dmscott has written a book on this very subject, and thought I probably needed to reconsider.

While back in the days of BT (Before Twitter), issues hijacking let smaller, agile companies punch considerably above their weight and create a level of interest not normally afforded them, it also let larger more established companies be seen as being progressive and having a clear point of view on the BIG issues of the moment. And was a lot of fun.

Nowhere is this approach more widely embraced than in the security software business where sharp-eyed experts like @gcluley of #Sophos have effectively become the #1 destination for timely comment and interesting perspective on any emerging virus, threat or malware.

So, how has social media evolved a traditional PR technique?  The difference lies in both speed and reach.  Being quick off the blocks is paramount.  What a British sprinter once called being up on the “B of the bang”.  In such a hotly contested media market, taking time to read the papers, debate internally, develop a couple of drafts, share copy with legal, go for lunch, then pitch will literally leave you hours behind the competition.  However speed and IQ (interest quotient) need to be happy bedfellows.

The second point is around reach.  If done correctly, success isn’t limited to a couple of journalists willing to speak with your expert or take copy, and a resulting couple of nice articles, it can genuinely spread as quickly and powerfully as the example David Meerman-Scott refers to with Eloqua.

So, while newsjacking isn’t necessarily brand new, it does feel as though social media has given an old concept new life, and given it more power and potential.  And companies that do it effectively will still be the ones that adhere to some of those old core PR traits – relevance and having a distinct voice.

Some recent tweets question whether newsjacking is a legitimate tactic, which seems somewhat incredulous. If companies approach newsjacking either without having a credible voice or  with self-serving content, then they will either not reap any reward or not have their perspectives shared. Which defeats any possible ‘illegitimate’ purpose.

The final critical element is obviously timeliness. Judging by the sheer number of tweets in the  hours since David announced his book was published, this post may have missed the boat.  It opens the question of whether long form blogging stands a chance in the short-form 140 character world, but irrespective, there is a lot to be learned even for people who feel they have seen it before.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared on the Text 100 UK blog.