so this is mass communication?

Given that my research agenda has traditionally been online political communication, you can imagine my pleasure when I saw that PBS is teaming up with YouTube for a “video your vote” event. Yep, exactly what it sounds like. They want their army of citizen journalists to interview people, talk about the issues & (if possible) record voting irregularities during the election. A select group of videos will be featured on PBS‘ election coverage.

I already submitted my “early vote” video from a few weeks ago.

This event is not so surprising when you consider that consumer-generated content is KING this election cycle. We saw hints of it during the 2004 election, especially with the grassroots support of the Dean campaign. But that was nothing like we have now in 2008.

At the same time that we have more citizens picking up their flips or blogging from their blackberry, we have a a world where mainstream media is actually beginning to embrace social media. I wouldn’t say they get it as much as they humor us the audience with the novelty of Twitter integration on CNN and YouTube video calls — but it’s happening & that is a start.

So video your vote. If you do, post your link here too!

The first-ever live stream of a presentation at UGA Connect WORKED. Well, sort of.

I was thrilled that Karen Russell allowed me to take a chance & live stream my presentation on relationship and ethics at Connect. From my perspective, the presentation was just like any other one that I ever done … the only change was that I clicked a button before hand to start the stream then ignored the laptop the rest of the presentation.

It was my intention to record the presentation so I could also post that … but, it being my first ever live-stream on demand, I failed to remember to hit record the broadcast. Sigh.

On my end, the chat didn’t work. That probably would have confused me anyway. I hear there was a lot of talk about me being sponsored by Herbal Essence (perhaps because my hairs were so loud & proud?) & requests for me to put my new puppy on the live stream. Sorry guys, no sponsor & Ali is across the street napping right now. She can’t be bothered. Apparently there was also some discussion of my mixing the phrase “big honkin’” with quantitative statistics.

I understand that Auburn’s Robert French also put the live stream up on PR Open Mic, which makes me happier than you can ever imagine. This is what social media is all about. Sharing information, experiences & get togethers. I love it.

I’m told there were more than 10 remote viewers across the nation - mostly practitioners, viewing remotely. It doesn’t get any better than that.

I hope more people try to experiment with live streaming conferences …. just remember to hit the record button!

Note: Image from Kevin Dugan (@prblog) of his desktop while watching my live stream.

During my presentation at the UGA Connect conference in Athens, I plan to present a pilot test experiment I did looking at the impact of ethics on relationship. I plan to mention following:

• Tom Kelleher & Barbara Miller’s seminal paper on blogs as relationship tools
• Sweetser & Emily Metzgar blog experiment on the role of relationship during a crisis (pdf)
• BMW Rampenfest campaign explained
• BMW Rampenfest campaign coverage on CNN
• BMW YouTube videos (trailer, part 1, 2, 3, fake filmmaker’s channel)
• Word of Mouth Marketing Association ethics

If you are able to tune in, please join the live video stream & chat around (give or take) 11:15 a.m. EST Saturday, Sept. 20.

Earlier this summer I talked about how much I was looking forward to (seemingly-now annual) UGA Connect. Well guess what - it’s here!

This weekend (started earlier this afternoon, already) is Connect. The conference focuses on the use of social media in public relations & brings together academics, practitioners & students. But mostly practitioners.

You can follow the conference a number of ways … blog, twitter, twemes, flickr, you know the list.

I talked Karen Russell, my colleague & conference organizer, into letting me try something new this year too. I’m going to live stream my presentation on relationships. I will turn the stream on at when I go up (after Kami Huyse), probably around at 11:15 a.m. EST Saturday, Sept. 20.

Check us out, and, well - CONNECT!

Keeping with my online political public relations program of research, this study (with my amazing colleague Dr. Ruthann Weaver Lariscy at UGA) looked at a social media tool new to the 2006 midterm elections.

Kaye D. Sweetser & Ruthann Weaver Lariscy. (2008). Candidates Make Good Friends: An Analysis of Candidates’ Uses of Facebook. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 2, 175-198.

Through content analysis of Facebook wall comments in U.S. House and Senate races during the 2006 midterm election, this study describes young potential voters’ comments (quantity, valence, etc.) through the lens of the dialogic communication theory of public relations. Findings indicate that individuals who wrote on candidate walls perceive themselves on friendly terms with the candidates, overwhelmingly write messages that are shallow and supportive, and are positive in tone. Candidates rarely, if ever, respond to these messages; although the mere use of Facebook is a dialogic feature, researchers conclude campaigns are not using it for two-way symmetrical relationship building.

I was very pleased to present a paper, “On the Ballot & in the Loop: The Dialogic Capacity of Candidate Blogs in the 2008 Election,” on behalf of my team of co-authors at AEJMC last week in Chicago. The paper stemmed from a project in my undergraduate public relations research course at UGA.

In this paper, we compared 80 different blogs from gubernatorial, house, senate & presidential candidate blogs during the primary leading up to this November’s election. This paper focused on the female candidates and their use of blogs.

Thanks to Grady doctoral student Kristin English, we have video!

One of the first steps in a PR program’s entry in the world of social media is often monitoring. I found this to be true in much of my research, & well it just makes sense.

So we set up Google alerts, use blog search engines & keep a watchful eye on TweetScan.

Prof. Robert French from Auburn shared an invite with me so I could check out a new service called StartPR. The online service boasts the ability to easily compile all these searches into a single place to streamline social media monitoring. You guessed it - it’s a clip service for the social Web.

I tried it out using a few terms that were niche enough that wouldn’t provide an overload, but big enough to return some hits.

I was very impressed with:

• ease of setting up the search terms
• quickness of returning items
• ability to mark items as read or keep them as unread
• visual display of items — layout, easy to see the date an item was posted & blog source, listing of the search engine through which it was found
• ability to add others in your office to the account so you can all see what is happening (big picture & response)
• ability to assign others particular items for action (tasking)
• place to paste in comments internally (called “notes”)
• built-in response management program to track whether you/your PR folks replied/commented on the post

That last item is really the coolest part — but heck, you might already have a bigger internal system integrated with other media efforts set up for that.

What I didn’t like:

• most of the returns were items that had been caught via Google alerts
• heavy reliance on Google as a source (only other source in my searches was Technorati)
• had to scroll really far down (using Firefox on a Mac) when in the notes section & didn’t immediately see all the options
• ignored non-text social media: nothing from YouTube, Flickr, audio or video etc returned
• ignored social networks: nothing from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc returned

Areas for improvement (i.e., my “wouldn’t it be cool if” list):

• include number of comments (live feed) made on each item returned
• ability to sort items by date, blog, number of comments, those you’ve replied to, etc
• more personalized fields/options in the “notes” area
• integration of metrics (other than frequency of post per day report) into the system
• expand service to cover non-text multimedia (video, audio, images)

All in all, it looks like a neat little tool … but I wouldn’t pay for it (since good old fashion alerts & searches can get you the same information + more) unless they up’ed the ante to add more sophisticated monitoring features.

Note: I was given a free trial of this service from a friend. It was my idea to write the review (no one asked me to). Finally, I have 5 invites available for a free trial of this site up for grabs if you are interested. First come, first served & be sure to give me your e-mail address.

Everyone loves a list … so here is one for you, names in no particular order.

These are the folks I see as the leading scholars in communication fields actively doing research on various forms of social media. That means more than one article. These folks have research programs surrounding social media in communication. 

• Denise Bortree. Though she’s a PR professor, most of her social media research examines how teenage girls present themselves and negotiate identity in social media spaces. 
• Walter Carl. Dr. Word of Mouth, need I say more?
• Tom Johnson and Barbara Kaye. This political communication research duo started looking at the Internet as a political information source in 1998 & have moved into blogs over the past few years. Mostly focusing on use as an information source or credibility, their research is always top-notch. 
• Tom Kelleher. He published what I’m pretty sure was the first piece on social media in PR literature with his blogs as relationship strategy piece in 2006.  And yes, he’s even literally written the text book for online PR. Keep an eye out on Public Relations Review for more of his work. 
• Lance Porter. He started with looking at how simple online tools made public relations practitioners more powerful and promotable in their organizations then went full scale social media with his research. He’s a great bridge of advertising and PR efforts, and has a pretty impressive civilian resume having been the executive director for Internet marketing at Disney.
• Monica Postelnicu. From jibjab to YouTube, a lot of Monica’s work focuses on user-generated viral political videos. She has also looked at the use of MySpace and other social media tools in politics.
• Trent Seltzer. He rocked the AEJMC PR division when his paper on blogs in PR won an award back in the day & has since published articles on social media in PR.
• Mihaela Vorvoreanu. Looking through the lens of usability, Mihaela’s makes recommendations for how organizations can create rich interactive experiences for their publics online. 

Ahhh. There’s nothing better than something provocative with a bit of profanity splashed in, wouldn’t you say? It’s not often that I find a powerpoint that I understand well without the benefit of hearing it presented or find good enough to share with others. Then Todd Defren linked to this one!

 

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I love the simplicity here juxtaposing social media adoption numbers with the usefulness & impact of traditional adverstising.

Even so, I think it is a bit of cyber hyperbole to say that social media is more important than advertising. Or that if you’re not on social media then you are not on the Internet. And, to be fair, sometimes the numbers are actually comparing apples & oranges.

But I get it.

You need to make these big statements to get attention.

But there is a catch. The people who believe these big statements about the dominance of social media are likely already immersed in the technology. Those to whom these broad statements are aimed are likely to discount such grandiose statements.

In the end, though, I’m a sucker for the numbers & it is so simple that it can’t help but be provocative. 

If you haven’t, take a spin through the presentation. It’s worth the time. 

When social media first started out, it was like the clouds parted & little digital angels started singing for me. I saw all the possibilities of reaching mass amounts of people in a much more personal way. I thought we could push the boundaries of para-social relations with celebrities really becoming our friends & companies having real voices. 

No doubt about it, I bought it.

Everything.

But I’m starting to feel like this viral world where everyone is sharing YouTube videos right & left or making cute little games where you turn yourself into an elf & sing songs has become polluted. 

We need a vaccine to protect us from viral marketing.

It’s mutated. 

And I think it’s going to get a whole lot of people sick on this whole social media craze all the kids are talking about. 

What do I mean?

To put it in one word: ethics. 

Oh! Try this one: responsibility. 

Not buzz enough for you? Okay: transparency. 

More companies are engaging in much more questionable social media campaigns then ever before. Like the big Target Rounders scandal my former student Rosie Siman broke last year and this ‘BMW launch across the Atlantic‘ mock-u-mentary. 

Indeed, it is the latter that got me all spun up this time. This video on CNN brings to light many issues which, quite frankly, damage the credibility of social media:

• Decreasing our ability to be media literate
• Creating an extensive ‘Blair Witch’-like backstory 
• Fake Facebook pages & accepting friends (who may not realize you’re fake in the first place)
• Creating a 30-minute long fake documentary
• Waiting for several weeks (after millions of views) to reveal you’re behind the project