In the meantime, I’ll share one video that seemed to get a lot of attention over the holiday season, just what the marketers at JC Penny were aiming for.  According to an article by Karl Greenberg in MediaPost, JC Penny hired Saatchi & Saatchi and digital agency Razorfish to create a viral online campaign promoting diamond jewelry to young consumers. This video definitely made its rounds in my e-mail inbox this holiday season. Though from my personal observation,  it seemed to be a much bigger hit with boomers.

What makes u click?: Best practices in public relations for effectively communicating with opinion leaders of virtual communities
Download isdp_final_project_michelle_dragas.pdf

Presentation slides
Download final_project_presentation_michelle_dragas.pdf

Short and sweet: a handout summarizing the 12 best practices
Download handout.pdf

2.    Offer multimedia press releases. Create online press releases that incorporate video, tagging, links, images and comments. Be sure to include all of your information online because bloggers are not going to call you for additional details. Allow interested stakeholders to subscribe to your press releases via RSS.

3.    Be transparent. Public relations practitioners must trade off controlling the message for credibility. Online publics are savvy and will not tolerate astroturfing or other forms of fakery. Rather than pitch an online community, offer a valuable information exchange. Always be upfront with who you are and the organization you represent.

4.    Collaborate with online publics. Rather than simply expressing your message, facilitate a discussion. Allow publics to collaborate with you to find solutions for your organization. Allow publics to create, participate and share ideas for a mutually beneficial relationship. This is the key principle of Wikinomics.

5.    Learn about Web 2.0. It is not acceptable to plead ignorance regarding new media.  Your publics are using Web 2.0 technology, which means you must understand the various elements of online social media. Read blogs, download podcasts and videos, and join the online communities that are particularly relevant to your industry.

6.    Participate online. Join the conversation. Share comments and position yourself as a thought leader. Add sincere value to the online conversation, rather than merely observing.

7.    Be a content creator. Create your own blogs, podcasts and videos to share online. This is a proactive way to engage in dialog. Make sure your content has a strategic purpose and ties back to your overall public relations goal.

8.    Keep in mind real-time. Monitor the online environment in real-time. The Internet is always on, so it is important to act immediately. Often the Internet is a source for breaking news in traditional media. Acting while stories are unfolding online is the best way to approach a crisis. Also, realize that once you release content or make a comment online, there is no taking it back.

9.    Establish an organizational Web 2.0 policy. Allow employees to blog and share other content online. Blogs carrying your organization’s name are an extension of your brand, so establish ground rules to keep the content within your organizational standards.  Train employees who wish to represent your organization online.

10.     Seek new ways to measure your success. Establish measures to evaluate the success of your online campaigns. Monitor feedback from online communities and track comments about your organization. While top agencies offer sophisticated tools for tracking online conversations, this can be done on a budget by using online monitoring tools (e.g., CoComment.com).

Finally, I am working on the original research portion of my capstone project. I’m looking for opinion leaders of online communities to answer a few questions over e-mail. If you qualify for my study and complete the interview questions about your Web 2.0 activities, I’ll send you a $10 iTunes e-gift certificate for helping me out. Just send an e-mail to whatmakesuclick at gmail.com to be considered. Be sure to include links to your online profiles or Web sites/blogs so I can see if you are a good fit to participate. I’ll select the first four people who contact me that meet all of the following criteria:

• They are frequent users of and active participants on one or more Web sites that sustain an online community.
• They have a large number of social connections with that Web site, respective to the number of social connections of other members within the same community.
• Their contribution to the virtual community includes frequent posting of information or user-generated content relevant to the community’s topic of interest.

Additionally, participants must be 18 or older. Also, if you participate in the study, your responses will be kept anonymous.

Read the full report:

Relating to the public: The evolving role of public relations in the age of social media

Tourists simply pass by the community with only superficial interest or social ties.

Minglers maintain strong social ties while marginally interested in the consumption activity.

Devotees maintain a strong interest and enthusiasm in the consumption activity but have few social attachments to the group.

Insiders have strong social ties and strong interest in the consumption activity.

If you’re wondering why Web 2.0 media is important for public relations, consider the Insiders. Insiders are opinion leaders whose high informational and social exchanges make them key influencers in a virtual community. Word of mouth ranks high on credibility and having highly influential advocates online offers tremendous advantages. Insiders can help or hinder your reputation, making them important stakeholders for public relations.

According to my results, I’m an Omnivore. I guess we’re the type of user you’ll find standing in line for the iPhone Friday.

This study calls attention to diffusion of innovations theory and reminds us that it takes a long time for new innovations to diffuse deeply in society. It took electricity 30 years to gain widespread adoption, and the Internet and cell phones may not be much different. After all, the study showed half of all adult Americans have relatively distant relationships with technology such as the Internet and feature-rich cell phones. But years from now, it’s quite possible we’ll be using our feature-rich cell phones with the same ease as flipping a light switch.

• Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts
• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcom Gladwell
• Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means by Albert-Lszl Barabsi
• Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
• Better Together: Restoring the American Community by Robert D. Putnam

My study builds on the notion that online social networks are much like traditional social networks in that opinion leaders are critical to communicating an idea or introducing a product. This goes along with Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory and Paul Lazarsfeld’s Two-Step Flow of Communication theory, which I’ll include in my literature review.

I’ll be going straight to the original sources, but I’ve included links to Wikipedia as information. Incidentally, Diffusion of Innovations and Two-Step Flow of Communication could use some help on Wikipedia.  There’s hardly anything written about either of them.