What do in inbound marketing and Barack Obama have in common?

Here in Boston, this man (Marc Maron) is talking about interviewing President Barack Obama. In his garage. That's Marc's, garage, not the President's.

For Australians, Marc is a comedian, performer and hugely successful U.S. podcaster. And the White House called him, not the other way around, to do this podcast with the President.

Before we go too far I should explain I'm at Inbound15 soaking up all the free marketing intelligence I can from some of the world's best marketers, thanks to the good folk at Hubspot.

What can I share with you?

First, it's overwhelming. I have chronic first-timer's syndrome: brain is full, not sure what to do with it all but know I have gold in my swag.

Secondly, it's both personal and professional. Seeing Brene Brown live, listening to Marc talk about Barack Obama might well be once in lifetime experiences.

Third, this is real. The marketing revolution is well underway. And it's now completely accessible to any individual, small or medium sized business or large corporate.

How do I know?

Because we are IN it: we and our clients, and all 10,000+ people here today, are already doing much of what we've heard.

Why?

It works. It generates attention, traffic, leads, influence. It drives revenue and business growth.

And that is a thing of wonder. Not that long ago we and our clients were all sitting around, scratching our heads, experiencing patchy success but not yet seeing the full benefits of our efforts.

And partly that's because we've done a lot of "yak shaving", as Seth Godin calls it. A lot of blogging, social media, content, public relations and speaking that led absolutely nowhere commercially. That's just BlueChip's marketing over the last six years, but it's fair to say a lot of our clients' efforts have also been less than clearly commercially successful.

It's the old story: I'm wasting half of my marketing, I just don't know which half.

David Meerman Scott opened the conference, and introduced Seth Godin. These two men alone, both marketing prophets, foretold where we'd be now. Many of us read their predictions over the last ten years and hedged our bets - trying to move into social, integrated, content-led marketing but held back by stodgy corporate culture, lack of the right tools and strategy and the biggest barrier - fear.

Or we took their advice and simply didn't get enough of a return on our efforts. Measurement and attribution were hard or impossible, many of us were just addicted to activity (traditional marketing) not outcomes, or we simply didn't know where and how to start.

The good news, and the overall message from INBOUND15, is that the blueprint for marketing success is now well developed, available to anyone with a laptop, and can reliably deliver commercial outcomes.

AMEN.

In this new world The President of the United States, Marc Maron, Brene Brown, BlueChip and all financial services brands are now content producers and inbound marketers.

Getting above it: why a non-PR perspective makes for better PR

Last Friday I caught up with a very clever colleague (Paul) who also runs his own successful professional services business.

Let me be very clear. He's not a PR person. But he and his team do advise many leader in financial services on communication. And as he and I agree, there's a lot to be desired about the standard of public relations - whether in Australia or the world, and both inside and beyond financial services

How does a non-PR person end up giving advice to financial services leaders on communication? Pretty simple - they "get" strategy. And PR folk often don't. Sure they (or should I say "we"?) think they do. But fundamentally, and if you ask a CEO, they don't.

The non-PR perspective in PR seems to be the x factor that elevates communication people beyond being PR people to being a valued part of the management team. 

It's the ability to see beyond the communication that makes communication advice truly useful to leaders in business, in government and the not-for-profit sector. That's simply the ability to "get above" the PR and communication agenda to see the broader business context...and thus offer more meaningful input to content.

I have a personal experience around this that illustrates the point. Years ago, as a fearless sub-30 year old, I thought I was pretty good at "getting" strategy in financial services (thanks to the management degree I had rather than the communication honours degree I couldn't be bothered finishing).

Now, as a business owner, and with experience at creating and executing on strategy to create a culture, deliver services and achieve targets, I'm a much better communicator. Because I "get" strategy in a much deeper way. I've created a business in financial services communication from scratch, set it's strategy, then trialled and refined approaches until we got it right.

I, like Paul, advise finance clients on things way beyond the "communication" or "PR" brief. And our communication and PR advice and execution is much the better for it.

So what can PR people do to "get above it" and improve their ability to advise on  the problems and how do we fix them?

Education: Ideally something other than pure communication...commerce, business, management, philosophy, law, economics, marketing and journalism are some of the qualification in our team. I'm not a massive fan of arts degrees as an employer, for similar reasons to my somewhat anti-PR views....narrowness of perspective being my chief concern. A post-graduate or masters degree is a pretty attractive addition - especially in finance, business or management. The smart move is often simply a post graduate diploma in applied finance. And that's not as hard as it sounds. Yes, you'll need a calculator and some maths ability, but a lot of it is conceptual rather than applied maths per se.

Experience: Ok so what if you have an arts, communication or PR degree? A bit of commercial experience in a line management role might be a good idea. Any role that helps comms people get a more informed perspective on the commercial reality of business will give them a way better ability to advise on communication. That means backing yourself - having the confidence to work your way out of the communication box even if it's only a secondment.

Expectations: In some ways leaders, senior executives and PR firms get the PR capability they deserve. If their expectations of their PR and communication people is to receive only tactical communication advice then that's exactly what they'll get. On the other hand, if they make the effort to ask for more from their advisers, or to seek out those who can "get above it", then they'll lift the standard of PR across the board - and the business will benefit.

If we lift our gaze, our own careers and the organisations we work in, will be much the better for it.

PR - catalyst for CSR or defender of the indefensible?

As public relations advisers we can be a powerful catalyst for change inside business - whether from within or outside - as influencers of leadership. 


Or we can accept the status quo - and end up defending it after it's use by date.


Some PR leaders achieve great change by sensitising their colleagues on the leadership team to the need for change. By actively seeking and sharing signals from the external environment about trends, community standards, and potential issues or opportunities. And then setting out a path that will see their business or client deliver both commercial and social dividends - real shared value as defined by Michael Porter and others. 


Socially responsible business is now about creating shared value. The PR profession can, and should, be leaders of that agenda as they proactively seek information and insights to feed into strategy, decision and management action.


After more than 20 years in profession I'm a great believer that (it's not original) the best PR people transcend our profession. They're smart, commercial and highly aware of what's going on inside and outside their organisations. And they almost always have a broader education, career or expertise than "public relations". It's that last bit, I believe, that makes them truly great.

Other PR people simply defend the indefensible. They don't question, they don't challenge, they simply "do". It's a path that leads to (at best) missed opportunity or (at worst) mis-selling.

In financial services the quality of the leadership in PR matters immensely. Why?


In the words of an industry stalwart we're selling "promises and pieces of paper". These days we're selling promises and online communication. The role of the communicators is to make sure what we sell is in fact responsibly represented. Not mis-represented or mis-sold. 


Surely the single most important socially responsible action we can take as communicators in financial services is this:


"Help people make better decisions about their financial futures."

And, in line with that:


"Help business make better decisions in light of the internal and external environment"

My colleague Kaitlin Walsh blogged and tweeted from the first Asia Pacific regional GRI conference this week and posted this blog. In it she said 


"At its heart, the sustainability story is about making sure your business or organisation is here for the long haul. That it’s prepared not only to survive but to flourish in the face of the constant and unrelenting change that characterises our living and working environments. That it follows practices that are likely to cement its position as a stayer, and not put it – and more importantly the many who rely on it both directly and indirectly – at risk. (Consider here the mammoth impact of the conduct of financial services organisations concerned with stewarding our retirement incomes …)"


So my recommendation to you as a PR person is this: make your choice. 


Choose either to lead - to be part of the catalytic mechanism that sees our organisations increasingly deliver shared value - or resign yourself to defending the indefensible. 


Maybe not now, but at some stage in the future if you didn't stand for the change that's needed it's guaranteed you'll find yourself defending something not worth saving.


Harsh words? Maybe. Or perhaps just what my colleagues and management writer Patrick Lencioni would call "the kind truth". 

The sweet spot remains (online) for financial services PR

After a lively discussion today with a group of senior corporate affairs people in financial services I thought I should check back to a few things Paul Cheal and I said in our first financial services social media seminar in 2009.

Re-reading this post it's interesting to see just how much is still the same...and fortunately a lot of what we said then held true, or still applies. Take this snapshot for example:

- choice of information channels & sales channels will proliferate…
- at the same time the rise and rise of social media means choice of marketing tools can be overwhelming.

 

Where to start?

By taking the same principles we learned in traditional PR, communication and marketing online – and playing by the new rules of the social media world.

The sweet spot for financial services is online PR.

By online PR we mean:

1. Quality and quantity content that earns you search engine superiority and viewer attention

2. Communication direct to clients in both institutional and retail marketing

3. All linked back to an effective website AND

4. Engaging your audiences with the next “P” in financial services marketing – philosophy.

Because in the new digital democracy it will be what you stand for, what you do and how interesting you can make it, that earns you the attention of the people who matter most to your business.

Download BlueChip Communication's ten steps to online PR for financial services here.

New financial crisis? "What NOT to do" public relations rules hold true

As Australia reaches the end of the first month of the 2012 financial year, we're feeling the shudders of global financial uncertainty. The US debt challenges appear handled, for now....but who knows what's around the corner?

Uncertainty, for leaders and communicators, makes it far more challenging to set, and communicate, a course. Where do you lead people "to" when the landscape is unknown and only "where we're coming from" is known?

Often the answer is nowhere. In 2007, 2008 and into 2009 some leaders and communicators were frozen into immobility by the (sometimes overwhelming) dangers presented to their businesses by global financial instability.

Yet those who came through best were often those who, despite uncertainty, took careful stock of the known and the unknown. Then acted.

Some leaders led when it was most needed. Some communicators communicated superbly - proactively, and with a strong sense of their duty of care to investors, clients, and the people working for their company.

It's those leaders whose actions are worth reflecting on now as we face another "interesting time".

Knowing what to do is hard - but what NOT to do was clearly evident.

Once Lehmann declared bankruptcy at the end of 2007, Australia's blithe "we're okay Jack" approach to our role in the world economy was somewhat dented.

When I flew into New York at the time of Lehmann's collapse, it was clear that most business people in Australia believed we would never feel any impact. Two short months later, we watched seasoned finance executives go grey almost overnight as all the rules were changed.

Few knew what to do - how to manage a crisis and how to communicate during one.

It's worth revisiting here some of the lessons we learned for communicating in a crisis.

It's all very well to  know how to communicate in a crisis that involves just one organisation, group of organisations or an industry sector. But the ultimate crisis communication lessons surely have come from the days when it looked like much more was at stake.

Here are our top ten things NOT to do.


1. Say nothing
2. Be overly optimistic or "catastrophise"
3. Make promises you can’t keep
4. Imply you know what’s going to happen now
5. Ignore technology such as webcasts, email, Skype or your website
6. Fail to educate your client with what you do know, as soon as you know it
7. Provide only complex information full of disclaimers
8. Fail to respect the intelligence of your audience
9. Self-justify
10. Understand how your audiences feel


Next post, what TO do.

Make your long term (PR) relationship work: top 3 tips

I was talking to a much-loved female relative last night about her upcoming 50th wedding anniversary. That conversation, and others in the last few weeks with the C-suite executives in our client organisations, have caused me to reflect on the nature of success in long-term client partnerships - why it works or fail, and specifically, how we and our clients behave to achieve great PR results.

We've been fortunate to enjoy long-term relationships with several highly valued clients. Each of these relationships has seen ups and downs. Each has experienced highs of sensational results, intimate client relationships. Each has seen times when we thought it might not be forever. And yet, more than five years later, here we still are. Together. Happy. And still working at it.

Similar, albeit a tenth of the time-span, to my dear female relative and her husband. Yes, the punch-line is about the similarity between long term relationships in our personal and business lives.

Here are our team's top three observations about what makes a long term relationship work with your PR firm.

1. Shared committment
We're in this together, through thick and through thin, to achieve something wonderful neither of us can do solo.


Sound like a modern day marriage vow? Not really, it's more like a mission statement for a client relationship. Here's what that looks like in terms of behaviour...


- Have a clear, agreed picture of success
- Keep an eye on whether, as a team, we are achieving a consistently high level of success
- Hold each other accountable to achieving what we regard as success
- If so, persist to overcome issues when (as they will) they arise


At work , as at home, we've all found that if we and our client do not have a clear and shared picture of success, the relationship doesn't travel so well. We pull in different directions, and do not agree on something very fundamental - are we winning or losing here? Are we, for example, jointly shooting the lights out or are we burning budget for no great outcome? Overall, there's the good old "gut feel" barometer to tell is how we're doing. Beyond that, and essential to success, are metrics - observable and ideally independent data - that give an objective read on the success of the relationship. And of course, there will be times when we either don't agree, or something goes wrong. Because all humans are both uniquely wonderful, and fallible. As and when we make mistakes (minor ones we consultants hope) or our client does, it's important to fix it and move on. This of course is only possible if we are consistently good at what we do, professional and pleasant to deal with.


2. The kind truth
Frankly we do give a damn. Enough to tell you when it's...well...NOT working. 

Patrick Lencioni's observations about "naked" consulting, include this idea: tell the kind truth. In his book Getting Naked,  Lencioni talks about the kind truth that our clients need to hear, but perhaps don't want to...or perhaps it's that we consultants don't want to call it out for fear of damaging the relationship - and losing the revenue! And perhaps there are things we have to hear as consultants to help us continuously improve. Hearing even the "kind truth" can be painful. Growth, as professional services expert Michael Kean says, is painful.

Sometimes as consultants (actually often!) we need to hear things that we don't want to - about our behaviour, skills or delivery. BlueChip aims to ask for this feedback...unafraid of the answers we need to hear in order to keep improving what we do for clients. Is it scary? Yes. Do we always hear good news? Not always. Is that helpful to our growth personally and professionally? Absolutely.

But the rub is this: we need permission to give feedback also. A wonderful client recently asked us this:

"What can we do better as your client? Is there feedback you need to give us?"

And you know, there are things our clients can do better on occasion. It's our role to ask if they want to hear it, and to kindly share what we see as the "truth" of our relationship. Such caring frankness builds trust, respect and the preconditions for success...as it does in friendships and other relationships. Uncomfortable to start with, but more rewarding long term.

3. Keeping it fresh
One downside to long term relationships can be simply the "sameness" that comes with working with the same team, on the same issues...day in and day...out for years. 


An issue in relationships as in long term client engagements! So, to deal with the easy bit first, what do we do to keep it fresh?


Keep it interesting: we bring new insights, experiences and approaches to the relationship; and ask our client to do the same. 
We ask ourselves "would this article I found interesting be useful to my client?" or perhaps "this piece of market intelligence is helpful to our shared goal - let's share it". We actively seek out insights, experiences and approaches that help us "keep it fresh" in our long term relationships.


Does that mean change for changes sake? No. It means preserving the innately valuable aspects of what we do, but always questioning where we can change for the better. Holding tight to approaches that reflect our values and help clients build their reputation...and selectively, often in consultation with clients, continually upgrading the service approach.

Of our clients we ask "what's happening in your business? what are the major challenges or opportunities". Now often, the answer is unchanging. But sometimes something fundamental has changed. And that change, we need to know about.

Invest: in the relationship and the future
Good friends, our loved ones, and really good consultants, give a little...and when you really need it, they give a lot. And you trust them enough to ask for the help you need, when you most need it. Sometimes the investment isn't ever paid for - it's just about helping when it's most needed.


Ask: are the goalposts still the right ones?
Sometimes the goal posts need to change. As the environment changes we reset (if it's needed) the strategy - lock, stock and barrel or perhaps more appropriately goals, strategies and tactics. It's great to meet the goals of the program, but not so great if the goals are the wrong ones because they're not reviewed properly or often enough.

My 50 years married relative would probably suggest another key attribute of her, and our long term relationships. Tolerance. Sometimes we really do get on each others nerves. Let's face it, we spend plenty of time together...at some point I'm going to irritate you...and at some point I'll possibly find you challenging.

And at those times? We're both well served to practice tolerance. At work as well as at home!

Just how fast can PR deliver business results?

Recently we were engaged by a client who was well into a particular campaign. Sans PR. Which is fine...unless that campaign needs PR support.

Swiftly after our appointment (days, not weeks) our client asked where the positive media coverage was.

Ouch!

Here's my take on that, and a short version of the conversation I had with our client. I should disclose, our client had ample, positive and on-message media coverage less than a fortnight after our appointment. Or course it's not always that fast, and here's why...

Good public relations results usually take time to deliver.

Time to plan, to create good quality materials and to judge the implementation timing so it hits at just the right time.

Lead time can be days...or weeks...or months...or even years.

The true value of some public relations programs we've implemented for financial services clients can sometimes only be measured years after our appointment - and after years of persistent, consistent action directed at a clear goal.

Years to build a reputation, and minutes to lose it, says Warren Buffet.

Regardless, sometimes you need a PR or media results NOW.

So what can you do to set yourself up for the much needed, but hard to get, quick win?

1. Tell your PR firm the truth - the whole truth, not just the version you'd like to see in the paper. Treating them like mushrooms won't help you get the outcome you want, but it may well put limits on their care factor. You can be frank and still be clear about what should, and should not, make it into the public domain. In any case it's good practice to make sure you have a non-disclosure in place and that all final materials are properly signed off. But beware: as in all things, if you put garbage (the edited truth) in, you'll mostly likely get garbage out.

2. Give them some time to deliver. The time needed to delver an outcome depends partly on how hard it is to get the result you want. If you see effort for a few days or weeks, without the outcome you're seeking, perhaps ask yourself if they've done everything you could reasonably expect...and whether their 'smarts' suggest those efforts were in fact high quality. If you have smart PR people working for you and there are no (or lacklustre) results in, say, the first 90 days then by all means start to second guess your provider. If it's been a few days and you're wondering where the positive media coverage is, perhaps second guess your brief!

3. Be clear. What matters most to you? Consistent coverage in financial services trade media? A big article in the Australian Financial Review? Or a microsite that's direct emailed and achieves high return visits or viewer engagement/dialogue? Pick your goal, and brief your PR consultant accordingly if they didn't ask "what matters most here?" before you got started.

4. Hire smart. Selecting the right PR firm doesn't have to be rocket science, or labourious. But it should be based on clear criteria. So what sort of criteria might help if you are looking for a quick win? Someone who's done engagements like yours before, and ideally very recently. A firm who perhaps have capacity right now i.e. an established team with a good track record. Perhaps if you need a quick win you also need a strong leader in the public relations firm to be on call for you for a short period of time. Fine - add it to your criteria and consider that might add cost. And of course if the quick wins you seek are in media, you need a firm with great relationships with your target media.

Finally, the firm who delivers the quick win may, or may not, be the firm you need for the long term engagement. Long term success requires all together different criteria - a topic for another time!

Strengths - and why they matter in your communication

Fresh from a recent Strengths workshop with Marcus Buckingham I'm looking at the world slightly differently.

Marcus Buckingham's book "Go put your strengths to work" and one of his recent Sydney seminars was all about how playing to our strengths at work makes us happier and more productive.

And who among us doesn't want that??

This evening I tore the little cards out of the back of Buckingham's book, and started to obediently document when I'd recently "felt strong" (at home, kneading bread...at work, meeting an interesting CEO for the first time) and "felt weak" (at home, washing up...at work, in a very routine meeting).

The exercise bears a startling resemblance to the planning methodology we use with clients.

Invariably we look for both organisational strengths and weaknesses. Strategies, messaging and actions plans are most usually based around the company's areas of relative advantage - in Buckinham's world that equates to strengths.

Risk management, and what we might call "preventative" messaging or actions, come from real or potential areas of weakness.

How much time do we focus on strengths versus weaknesses in a client's PR program? About 90% on strengths and about 10% on weaknesses - unless we're engaged on issues or crisis management.

While there are no little coloured cards we fill out for a client, we usually do overtly partner with clients via a planning process or during an engagement to uncover, articulate and promote areas of relative strength - often these are sources of sustainable competitive advantage as well as key levers in a communication program.

Other times the organisational strengths we uncover with clients might be defined entirely by current news or a particular context. For example in internal communication a strength that you want to dial up may well be defined by the culture or current internal climate, as well as the relative allure of other employers and status of the job market.

Buckingham's work makes a strong case for organising our jobs, no matter at what level, around our strengths, rather than around minimising our weaknesses.

I'd suggest, very simply, the same works in public relations. If firms have their value proposition right (for clients, employees or investors) then communicationg strengths allows stakeholders to find themselves a good match - the service or product provider, employer or investment that best meets their particular needs. The organisation that gives them something they need, and value.

Just as playing to our strengths, and helping others play to theirs, enables diverse work mates to co-exist. When we get it right, as teams or service providers, there's a nice symbiosis between one person's weaknesses and the next's strengths.
 
With that in mind I'm going to check on the bread...I "felt strong" kneading the dough but it might take a better baker than I am to achieve a good loaf.

To skip from the personal to the professional, and in particular the practice of public relations, good communication helps us find that work team, client or service provider who "completes" us.

Fear versus cautious confidence - how context changes everything

As 2010 proceeds at a cracker pace it's interesting to reflect on the difference a year makes. The context (although not all the content) is completely different.

In financial services public relations, marketing and communication the game has changed - along with the context.

Last year the context was fear. This year it's cautious confidence. One can be paralysing, the other galvanising.

As professional communicators we hold true that "context" is everything

The same statement can mean opposite things depending purely on context. Context (in our world) includes how the audiences is thinking & feeling and what they already believe. It includes, in financial services, what markets and economies are doing, and what we hear respected colleagues say about their business and their expectations for the future.

Last year the context was like a dark blanket thrown over us all - with a few weak pinpricks of light shining through.

Late in 2008 and throughout 2009 I talked with many of you about fear.

Even naming it felt brave.

We all felt it, but (almost to a person) no one wanted to say it out loud. And yet when we finally talked about it, senior executives were palpably relieved that the real context had been named...and we could get on with business...with the emotion out of the way.

Once named, fear lost some of its power

Once explored, we could use our understanding of that context to work out how to communicate properly -to industry colleagues, consumers, media, government and our own people.

The context (in this case a strong shared emotion) was only a problem when it wasn't acknowledged and planned for.

This year's context is completely different
Fear is taking a back seat to cautious confidence. To generalise about what we've seen in 2010 (okay it won't reflect everyone's experience!) in financial services communication:

1. Decisions are being made - both off the back of a long process (delayed from 2009)
2. Aggressive growth plans in are play again - supported by a greater focus on acquisitory (as opposed to retention) marketing
3. Money is moving in retail and wholesale (and the moves have to be explained)
4. Retention is still a focus - although on an industry basis the quality of client communication is highly variable
5. Internal communication is rising in importance - to help keep valued people and to ensure they know how (and want to) execute on strategy.

Markets are up, bonuses may be back and portfolios look vastly improved.

Cautious confidence

Cautious confidence seems the right description for what we seeing though retail investor research and hearing in institutional funds management. It also describes the vibe we hear from consumer financial companies through to industry participants dealing only with others in financial services.

And fear?

As for fear, well it's not left us completely. It's just sitting in the back seat.

With cautious confidence as the context, our messages, tone of voice and methods of public relations and communication have subtly changed.

Action

The bias to act (rather than hold on) is back.

Communication is now less reactive to world economic events and more proactive.

Forwards, with purpose. But ever so carefully.

Australian PR and social media practice....do we stack up versus the world?

I had the great opportunity last month to travel to New York, London & Hong Kong for a conference and meetings with clients, partner firms and potential clients. While it was good to bring new ideas home to the BlueChip team and our clients, it was even better to get a sense of how what we do stacks up globally.

In fact, there are some areas where our niche financial services PR firm leads the world.

First, some observations on the state of financial services PR globally. Given the year gone, I found businesses (clients and consultants) in better shape than I expected. Generally staff numbers are down and margins are squeezed, or in some cases non-existent. Still, those businesses seem to have come through in good shape. If anything there's more focus on results and less on largesse. Those reliant on bonuses are feeling the pinch, while some others are pushing ahead with small scale expansion into offshore markets - a sign of hope rather than desperation.

Secondly, every one is stretched. Again, both clients and consultants are having to do more with less. Not too many are hiring, and the work is still there. That means more pressure on fewer people.

Finally, it seems almost everyone is has, or is starting to, lift their gaze from the few feet immediately in front on them and think "longer term" and "bigger picture".

Of course the first movers were doing that months ago. And that brings me to a couple of exceptions. There were some businesses I met who throughout all the uncertainty were either less affected or just more focussed. Those people have taken a once in a lifetime opportunity to move in this market.

We first saw and heard these sorts of clients in quarter 1 of the calendar year. People who were determined to make the most of the current market, and to use proactive PR as a way to build their brand.

As Australians we've seen more green shoots than offshore colleagues whose economies have had a way harder time of it.

What did surprise was how far head our firm appears to be in social media (particularly online pr) knowledge.

Wealth management (even retail) is a bit of a laggard when it comes to social media. I did think I'd learn more about social media in financial services in my travels.

What I found was that what we've developed at BlueChip is pretty much as good as it gets for wealth management social media.

And therein lies the beauty and the devil of the online world. A Sydney PR person can know more about the latest US online PR expert than those in his own country.

Financial institutions' exponential online growth - 54 on twitter to over 600 in less than 6 months??

Now here's a really useful blog for anyone interested in financial services online pr and social media. Visible-Banking, out of the UK, tracks, among other things, the growth of financial institutions (FIs) online.

From a mere 54 in March 2009 to a whopping 606 more recently!

We are talking here about banks, credit unions, fund / asset managers, insurers, credit card issuers and others who maybe:

• blogging
• on Facebook
• posting to YouTube
• running online communities
• providing podcasts
• launching innovation labs
• maybe have RSS feeds
• providing webcasts or TV
• have a wiki....and more.

Another blog to watch, this time from the US, is Rock the Boat Marketing, a social media directory of asset managers, broker-dealers, financial advisers and media.

Network science and why it will change what we do

En route to the US to attend the PAICR conference I watched a documentary about network science. It helped explain why financial services (and many other) marketing and PR efforts are seemingly unpredictably successful or unsuccessful. And why measurment remains a challenge.

In short, my takeout is that relying on opinion leaders or influencers is an unproven and probably unsuccessful way to change opinions and behaviour.

The implications for marketing and PR are huge.

If I have it right, it means:

- Average people are just as likely to start a trend as the more connected among a population
- A product, service or idea won't be successful unless it's time is right
- If the time is right an idea, product or service will spread incredibly rapidly

Our job as marketers or communators then is to do what I was taught at uni - make stuff people want. I beleive it was more appropriately called "the marketing concept" and it followed on from what was taught in high school economics - consumer sovereignty.

More appropriately to the finance sector, only sell services or ideas when they will add value and the conditions are right for clients or investors to take them up.

This Fast Company article about Duncan Watts' work talks more about why targetting opinion leaders is a waster of time.

PS In 1992, I dropped my 2/rds complete Honours thesis about Roger's diffusion of innovation framework and social change communication. Sounds like that was a better call than I realised at the time!

Managing Reputation Risk: An ounce of prevention worth a pound of cure

Managing Reputation Risk: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure in many instances

This blog about reputation risk from the Reptutation Institute caught my eye because BlueChip's issues/reputation risk kit has had a serious work out since January 2008.

Of course financial services organisations, be they large, small, new or established, have found themselves needing to manage reputation risk far more closely in the the last two years than ever before.

Suddenly financial services public relations switched gear from the occaisional perceptual crisis and lots of marketing to lots of perceptual crises and the odd bit of marketing support.

Hence the many calls we've had that start "We've got a problem. It's highly sensitive, and we think we need help in case it becomes public/when it becomes public/so that it doesn't ever become public/now that's become public."

As communication or marketing professionals our key contacts inside client organisations already know that reputation risk prevention is better than cure. What they struggle with is getting the CEO and executve team to buy that, and to invest the time and money needed to really properly risk manage their their reputation with anything appoaching the care factor applied to, say, financial risk.

Dr. Majorie Dijkstra of the Reputation Institute gives a four-step process for managing reputation risk, summarised below:

1. Risk identification - assessing the gap between stakeholder’s perceptions and beliefs and the actual performance of the company.
2. Prioritisation (risks and stakeholders) - assessing the probability of risks and the impact of the risk on reputation.
3. Mitigation - assessing the best response based on controllability of risk, the impact of risk on the business across stakeholders and the cost of implementing the strategy.
4. Monitoring - closely monitoring changes in stakeholder’s beliefs and expectation that may affect reputation.

BlueChip's process is similar:

1. Identification: through scenario planning (what are all the things that could go wrong here and where might that leave us??) risk logs and context analysis (e.g. media commentary or sentiment around a particular issue)
2. Prioritisation: through risk logs/workshops and stakeholder analysis
3. Response: through management action and communication strategy & action plans/actions/running orders across stakeholders. We include monitoring in this part and step 1!
4. Embedding: as often as not, whatever led to the issue has it's roots in longer term organisational issues. The only way to prevent similar issues in the future is to look back at those root causes and address them going forward through conscious management and communication behaviour.

When capable in house communicators or trusted consultants are allowed to complete step 4 we're able to help prevent a whole truckload of potential trouble.

Of course not everyone on the senior team necessarily takes that at face value.

I've always found that having that risk log or scenario planning from step 1 to hand, fleshed out with some of the more scary potential outcomes, tends to help colleagues focus on the potential downside of not managing reputation risk!

How to show you genuinely care about all 1 million customers

Many moons ago, in the years leading up to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, my then employer, AMP ran one of THE most successful financial services advertising campaigns of the decade.

Enter Vicki Williams, a customer service staff member from AMP in Perth. Vicki was the winner of competition conceived by the agency (Leo Burnett) and run among AMP staff to produce the star of the big budget TV ad.

And Vicki certainly became a star.

It helped that she really did care about AMP's clients. It also helped that Leos had her plus-sized frame in a bathing suit and cheery face in a frilly bathing cap. And of course the media spend was considerable.

One of the reasons the ad was so well remembered had to do with the context of the time. Banks had a lot of bad press for shutting down branches. The other insurance and funds management companies arguably lacked AMP's strong local representation of financial planners who were part of their towns and cities across the country.

People remembered the funny, warm smiling face of Vicki Williams because she was real. The genuine item. And it showed, even when she'd done that shot a million times.

Vicki gave out as many autographs as Olympians - she was LOVED. She may not have sold many policies or superanuation funds, but she was (briefly) adored by thousands.

Then there's "the AAMI girl" as she's known. I'm not sure if there's a picture in the attic of the woman in that long-running TV ad, or if they update her every 5 years. However she's probably been the best known and most liked face of general insurance in Australia for years.

The point?

People connect with people.

Especially when it comes to money (trust matters) and the really boring stuff they'd rather not have to think too much about.

Like insurance and super.

Ads used to be a good way to provide a human proxy for the personal touch.

As branches have closed down and technology has replaced people we've seen all sort of replacements for humans. Interactive voice systems, online banking, ATMs, online share trading.

We've also seen a far greater reliance on public relations or custom content to generate media coverage for financial services organisations. Both communication tools are far more credible ways to get people back in front of customers again, without the multi-million dollar spend or the big geographic footprint of a national staff.

So if you, just like many other financial services organisations with shrinking staff numbers who want to grow their retail presence, think about how you're going to get a credible, friendly and mass-produced human in front of the humans who matter most to your business.

Staff, customers, clients, channel partners, even business partners.

We're all looking for that person who really cares.

Does your brand have one?