Word of mouth marketing is a hit

Recently at my internship , I was asked to create a twitter account for the company and begin following as many people that fit our “target audience,” hoping in return they would follow us back.  In case you were interested, in just roughly 2 hours of following, we had over 200 followers in return.  This helps to better understand how many people are  tweeting all day.

We all can see how quickly social media marketing is increasing and how these wonderful tools are bringing us closer together.  Whether it be, twitter, youtube, facebook, blogs, digg or any other tool- there’s some social element out there for everyone that helps us connect with both familiar and unfamiliar faces.

However, it took awhile….

Although millions of users were rapidly flocking to social media sites, most marketers stayed away.  Marketers either didn’t know how to communicate effectively without overwhelming them with their product, or they were nervous about associating their brands with questionable content.  

In a recent blog post by Steve Rubel from Micro Persuasion, he stated, “things are changing.” Steve believes companies are beginning to learn how to leverage social media and successfully tap into the rising tide of social media consumers.  Word of mouth marketing is allowing small companies to succeed because they can actually accommodate us and our special needs we demand for every penny we spend.  

So what does this mean? It means marketers are moving to social media.

In a recent study conducted by the Aberdeen Group sponsored by Visible Technologies, the following was recorded……

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

I’m sure the trend will continue to increase as more and more people become introduced and familiar with these social media sites. People will continue to trust the people they know rather than the ad’s they see on TV’s, websites or hear on the radio.  Since today’s consumers are getting smarter and more demanding, companies both small and big must also adapt to this change.

Are PR Agencies a thing of the past?

I was researching some information for my groups client when I stumbled across an interesting article entitled “Who need PR Agencies, Exactly?”  In it the author talks about how she was shocked when she came across a software company that do not hire any outside PR agency for PR work.  Instead the company uses their marketing team to write up press releases, create feature pitches and to accumulate relationships with local journalists.  To the authors surprise the system seemed to work very well.  After all, who knows more about a company than those that actually work within it? 

The author posed a very interesting question, ” what do these companies (with internal PR) miss out on by not working with PR agencies?”

After thinking about this question for awhile I began to wonder if PR agencies are just a thing of the past.  Companies can use their marketing department to conduct a lot of the work that an agency would do, but wouldn’t that mean that they would have to take time away from marketing duties to write a press release or create a pitch?  The more and more I thought about it, the more reasons I thought of how not hiring a PR company could negatively effect a company. Here is what I came up with:

• PR professionals are educated and trained to deal with PR tasks everyday.  The author even states that she is not an expert in what PR agenecies do.  As a PR student I have been recieving an education in this career and I would like to believe that it could not be so easily taught to just anyone in a few months.
• Time commitment!  PR agencies are hired to protect the image and to deal with the everyday tasks of campaigning and media.  They have the time to thouroughly evaluate and commit to a campaign.  Marketing departments would be taking away from their usual duties and may not have enough time to create something that would be as carefully and creativly thought out as an agency.
• Agencies already have relationships with local key press and media outlets and therefore can return results to a company quickly. 
• As one commenter said it still is going to cost the company money.  If companies are eliminating PR agencies because they think it is going to be cheaper they are wrong.  Training those in PR is still going to have a price tag attached to it.
• Outside perspective!  If you keep everything within a company you will never see the bigger picture.  I think that a PR agency brings no biases and are aware of perspectives and ideas that companies may not be aware of.  They bring awareness and originality to a company that may be stuck within the boundaries of their comapny.

I can see the benefits of eliminating the “middle man”, but  they seem to be overshadowed by the benefits of hiring the middle man.

Facebook University: Enroll Now!

Social media is taking over the world.

Twitter and Facebook have forged an unholy alliance to slowly take over the lives of everyone on the earth in an effort to create a race of pod people to enlist into an online army hell bent on global conquest.

The first bullet has been fired and it is aimed at graduating college students.

In his blog on Mashable, Stan Schroeder reveals Birmingham City University’s plan to incorporate a masters program dedicated strictly to social media.

“The one year course will earn you a master’s degree at the cost of 4,400 pounds (6,239 dollars). “During the course we will consider what people can do on Facebook and Twitter, and how they can be used for communication and marketing purposes,” says the course convener Jon Hickman, adding that “There has been significant interest in the course already, and it will definitely appeal to students looking to go into professions including journalism and PR.”

When I first read this I thought it was a good idea.  I am constantly told in my public relations classes that knowledge of social media is going to be one of my best assets when I graduate and enter the work force.  Furthering my education in this phenomenon would make me even more appealing to potential employers.  But wait a minute…

Do I really need formal education to learn how to tag a picture of my friend’s drunken escapades?  or create a group to get friends to attend my Graduation party?  or even how to describe to the world “what I am doing?”

I’m aware the course will go a lot deeper than that, but at their base, Facebook and Twitter are just tools for people to interact with others; and if the telegraph, the two-way pager, smoke signals and pay phones taught us anything, tools change.

Twitter and Facebook could be obsolete in a matter of years and at that time what will this degree be worth?  It seems to me like this university is just trying to milk this social media cow for some extra cheese by offering a course in a popular social phenomenon.

Am I alone in this?  Or do those of you already recruited by the Facebook/Twitter army see more value in this?  If this becomes a trend and other colleges pick up this program, what should be included in the teachings?