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Fortunately, I pushed the button! Today I don’t hesitate to confirm my past thoughts: Indeed! I already gained a lot from blogging! And do you know what? Recently, my blog won the Euprera Social Media Award 2010 for the best student blog at the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (Euprera) Spring Symposium in Ghent, Belgium. This year the University College Arteveldehogeschool hosted the event (I was impressed by the modern campus). Wow! I’m speechless and very happy about that!

Last but not least, I would also like to thank Anderson Lima who run the PR and New Media Module at Leeds Metropolitan University last year for the insights into social media and Richard Bailey through whose blog I took notice of the Euprera Social Media Award.

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America – not the easiest place to attract attention but a place to get easily lost in ‘woods’ of show cards and advertising. Poor ‘sandwich men’ who try to get the attention of pedestrians and car drivers in this sea of advertising: Have you ever heard of ‘sandwich men’ – so called because they walk back and forth on the sidewalk with advertising signs hanging front and behind from their shoulders? “Sign holding is perhaps one of the oldest forms of advertising, dating back to mid-evil times, and has had a presence in a number of different cultures. Even in the 1990s, people could be seen lackadaisically standing on the side of the road, advertising for different businesses.” (source) In America you will find these people on every corner – therefore nothing unusual or special? Indeed. Don’t you even get the feeling that this form of advertising might be a bit mundane or even boring nowadays? It Is hard to believe that you will get enough attention for your product this way in a world of overstimulation. Can’t you do this job more entertaining? Yes, you can.

Acrobatic Advertising

Have you already heard of AArrow Sign Spinning? Some years ago its founders noticed the potential of the traditional sign holding approach and started to do tricks with the signs, spinning them around and tossing them into the air to attract attention (read the full story here; articles one and two Los Angeles Times; Business Week). From time to time the sign spinners freeze the sign to present the clients message. On the official website it says “AArow Sign Spinning is a guerilla marketing technique that infuses extreme sports with street performance to catch attention of spectators and communicate a targeted advertising message.” (source) Clients range from smaller retailers to fortune 500 companies.

Advertising that does the trick

What do you think about this? It leaves an impression, doesn’t it? I believe Sign Spinning is an interesting new adverting medium that is nearly impossible to ignore. The spinners are an interactive, dynamic and engaging eye catcher and it is fun to watch their tricks. Obviously, there are some striking advantages of this new approach of getting attention for organizations and products:

• Hits thousands of members of the target audience an hour
• Dynamic, interactive and engaging
• Personal and friendly
• Unconventional and unexpected
• Memorable (not only because of its unconventional nature but one-to-one advertising experiences by taking the time to advertise to one person at a time)

In a nutshell, Sign Spinning leaves an impression. I think especially the personal nature of this new way of advertising is valuable because it delivers what no other form of advertising can: eye contact and smiles. And there is no doubt that the spinners’ moves attract the crowd. I believe Sign Spinning is a cheap and thus cost-effective way for organizations and products to get massive attention (According to the Los Angeles Times AArrow charges $25 an hour and up for its spinners’ services).

Sign Spinners supported Presidential Campaign

Did you know that Sign Spinning was also used to support Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign in California, North Carolina, Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Montana and Nevada? To increase the reach of the Obama message and to register a record number of new voters to the campaign AArrow Sign Spinners were dispatched to college campuses and large cities around the country. To my mind this example emphasizes the value and good standing of Sign Spinning as a communication tool.

In the end, I am convinced that fitness is the ultimate thing to do the job of a ‘sign-wielding roadside marketer’. It looks easy but I am sure it is an act of strength to spin the giant signs around and flip them high into the air. But the act of strength seems to be worth doing it.

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Do you believe the day will come when Social Media will replace television as the main news source? Or is time already there? What about the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, for example? They were communicated more quickly on Social Media sites than on the TV screen. According to Mike Elgan “the only thing TV news does better than social media is to display higher quality pictures and video. Otherwise, TV news is just like the Internet as a news source, after you take away user control, alternative opinions, timeliness and 99% of the stories.” (source) Do these examples show that Social Media has become a ‘competitor’ of traditional media?

Findings on the relationship of traditional and social media

Let’s take a look at some interesting findings of the “Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations” by Donald Wright and Michelle Hinson, Institute for Public Relations, to get a better understanding of the relationship of traditional news media and social media. A sample of public relations practitioners from various parts of the world took part in this fourth annual trend study (overview):

On the one hand, 85% of the respondents believe that social media complement traditional news media, 92% think blogs and social media influence coverage in traditional news media and 88% believe blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous. But on the other hand, the findings also show that traditional news media receive higher scores in terms of accuracy, credibility, telling the truth and being ethical than blogs and social media (source). Interestingly, respondents where especially uncertain when asked: “Do you agree or disagree that social media (including blogs) tell the truth.” (53% were uncertain about the answer). Generally, many respondents think that traditional mainstream media and social media influence each other.

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Complementation instead of conflict

In a nutshell, these findings of the “Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations” show that Social Media and traditional media seem not to be in conflict with each other. But Social Media enhanced its influence in recent years: “Since first appearing about five years ago, social media networking sites have become increasingly popular each year. Bill Tancer (2008), the general manager of global research at Hitwise, the world’s leading online competitive service, says social media have overtaken pornography as the number one use of the internet.” (source) Nevertheless, the findings of the discussed research show that Social Media still has a long distance to go before it will be equal to traditional media in terms of accuracy, credibility, truth and ethics.

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Gandhi was fond of saying that we all have the same 24 hours in our day; it’s all in how we use them (source). Especially within the last days I often thought about this meaningful comment. Why? Well, I think from time to time we all blunder into a time trap, don’t we? Mine snapped recently due to a lot of work for university – exams and assignments needed to be done. But it was not the university work that caused me headaches from time to time – I rather think it was the little time left for my Social Media activities.

Social Media: A time suck?

Social Media gives me the great opportunity to communicate and share my ideas online. But I am sure you will agree with me that it can be extremely time consuming, too. Social Media activities could easily take over your day if you try to create new content on your blog frequently, want to respond to everyone who leaves a comment on your blog or be up to date what is going on on Facebook or Twitter constantly. And these are only some examples of how Social Media could suck your time (Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism gives a very good overview where conversations take place online in addition to that). But as I had to put the last finishing touches to important university tasks last week I hardly had the time to dive into Web 2.0 too deeply.

Scaling Social Media

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I believe the magic word to get out of the ‘Social Media Time Dilemma’ is Social Media Time Management. Looking for ways of Social Media Time Management I came across a lot of helpful tips. I don’t want to keep it from you; maybe you are hard pressed for time, too, and can benefit from one or another tip. Matt Churchill published my favourite tips. That’s why I’d like to give you a brief overview about them here – if you want to read more about these tips please read his blog post on socialmediatoday.com

§  Find the blogs that are most relevant to you, and stick with them. Prioritize material that will be most beneficial to you, and read other blogs and websites at your leisure later.

§  Restrict Your Twittering in using an application like Tweetdeck and monitoring specific key words related to your field of expertise. This means you don’t need to follow every single conversation that takes place in the group of people you follow and it introduces you to new people who are talking about the same topic.

§  Have a clear out of RSS feeds you don’t read.

§  Manage Your Social Networks and cull the services you don’t use regularly – focus on the few networks that make a difference to your online experience and engage with them more, making contacts will all of a sudden be a heck of a lot easier!

Apart from Matt Churchill’s steps to manage Social Media time more effectively I really liked the simple but useful advice of Chris Brogan who suggests to use the divine tool of WordPress, for instance, to write some posts in advance and schedule them to launch when you are hard pressed for time. Brogan says: “This has proven very valuable on days when I’m too busy with other projects to get a post out, but when I know I’d rather you have something new to consider.”

Blogs about Social Media Time Management

If you like to read more about Social Media Time Management I found some other interesting blogs for you:

Time Management in the Age of Social Media

My Half Hour Social Networking Plan: The First Ten Minutes

The 10-Minute Daily Guide to Building Your Social Media Profile

Social Media Time Management

7 Ways to Own Social Media Before it Owns You

3 STEPS TO BETTER TIME MANAGEMENT OF YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Social media time management strategy

If you are generally interested in information about how to listen and in turn, participate transparently, sincerely, and effectively in social media and new media marketing I recommend reading Brian Solis’ eBook ‘The Essential Guide to Social Media’.

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At the end I almost missed one essential tip I found out: Set Social Media time and log off when that time is over. Well then, I log of for today

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“The Web has become our workplace, our water cooler, and our social mixer.” Doesn’t this quote of Chris Brogan hit the nail on the head? To my mind it definitely gets to the heart of Web 2.0. I came across this convincing quote in relation to personal branding – a topic that has been around for a while but that has become much more prevalent in recent years. In his ebook ‘Personal Branding for the Business Professional’ Brogan claims that the reason why personal branding has become more prevalent in recent years partly relates to how the web has become our workplace, our water cooler, and our social mixer. I agree with him. Nevertheless, I am convinced that it is very difficult to convey as much information online as in person.

Shaping the personal brand

An interesting example of how to create a digital identity is Brisbane IT-worker Hailey Turner, 20. She was among the top 50 vying for Tourism Queensland’s ‘Best Job in the World’ (read my recent posts one, two and three to get more information about the context). Apart from the demanded application video she travelled to seven cities in 12 days including Tokyo, London, Copenhagen, New York and Los Angeles to promote her application and the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. Besides, she raised funds and sponsors and created a website where she uploaded videos, photos and blogs (source one, two, three). Everything Hailey Turner contributed to the Social Web shaped and contributed her personal brand: the pictures and videos she uploaded, the profile she defined on social networks like Facebook, the blog posts she published and the comments she shared on other blogs or the tweets she sent on twitter.

Authenticity and passion matter

Although Hailey Turner did not succeed to get the job in the end her personal brand gave her the ability to stand out in a sea of similar ‘products’ – her competitors. I think she succeeded in marketing herself as something different than the rest of the applicants in any case. According to Chris Brogan in some ways the difference on brands is what you deliver: “Doing something new is a great way to get people to be interested in what you do. (…) In a world full of people doing somewhat similar stuff the person who innovates is definitely ahead of the game.” That’s what Hailey Turner did with her journey, the funds and sponsors and her website.

Apart from that, there is another factor that strengthened Hailey Turner’s personal brand: the mixture of authenticity and passion she delivered in the contents she shared online. In my opinion, passion and authenticity are the two sides of the same coin: Because passion is hard to fake authenticity matters in building your personal brand online and it is very important to be yourself. Branding isn’t playing a role. With reference to Chris Brogan “a strong personal brand is a mix of reputation, trust, attention and execution. (…) Brands are complex and not especially one dimensional.” To my mind, the ‘brand’ Hailey Turner was colourful and interesting.

If you wish to find out more about personal branding I recommend reading ‘Personal Branding for the Business Professional’ by Chris Brogan and Brian Solis’ blog posts ‘The Socialization of Your Personal Brand’ part one, part two and part three.