Social Media and Thought Leadership

By Rob Discher, Vice President, Crisis and Consumer, Edelman Austin

"An actor’s a guy who if you ain’t talkin’ about him, ain’t listening."
-Marlon Brando

Our fair Hill Country hamlet here in Central Texas has been under siege for the past two weeks as throngs of movie makers, musicians and digital savants have paraded through Austin. The coffee shops are packed, the bars busting that seams, the average pants appearing a bit tighter and blacker than they usually do even in our hipster-friendly village. 

As celebrities pile into town, the glitz and glamor makes its annual return and, I’ll admit, it’s easy to get caught up in the “knowledge of the now”.  Eleven months out of the year we write off celebrity wisdom as lightweight fare, but something struck me about this old school Brando quote and how it relates to Edelman’s work bridging our corporate, consumer and digital practices. It hits on a key facet of thought leadership that we too often overlook – the value of listening and engaging.

Thought leadership is a somewhat ambiguous term, but at its core, there’s the basic concept of changing hearts and minds. Moving people from one place – physically, mentally, emotionally – to another in a manner that leaves a clear mark for whoever did it. Underlying that effort, however, is the need to listen and customize content to your audience. You need to get to know them. The expectations now, with social media part of our everyday lives, is that companies won’t take a blanket approach. They’ll respond to your questions, fix complaints lobbied into the ether of Twitter or Facebook about their product or service.

This is where we find a beautiful connection between social media and leadership. If you’re not really paying attention to your audience, and if you’re not generating content that speaks directly to their best intentions, egos and aspirations, you’re never going to move them anywhere. Ten years ago we leaned on focus groups and staff brainstorming sessions to figure out what our target audience wanted. We spent a lot of money and caffeinated hours coming up with what eventually became an educated guess. This guesswork informed executive speeches, marketing campaigns, advertising and product delivery.

Social media turned that on its head. Now, when we want to monitor an issue, we do it in real time, over an extended period, and we measure the impact we’re having in quantifiable ways.

Listening gives us the license to lead. Doing this over time and with intelligent tools gives us the opportunity to track changes in the conversation, find new ways to participate in it, and change our messages or delivery mechanism accordingly. Social lets us talk directly to people in the language that they’re already using. It gives our campaigns…our realtime interactions…personality and responsiveness. It opens up companies to lead not by decree or manifesto, but through genuine human interaction – at scale.

Four Tips for Researching and Recommending Speaking Opportunities

By Abby Van Uum, Account Executive, Edelman Austin
and Risa Kleen, Assistant Account Executive, Edelman Austin

Our clients are always looking for opportunities to showcase their executives and expertise, but the idea of selecting key events from the endless opportunities available can be daunting. It’s helpful to bring a method to the madness and apply a process to researching and recommending events, especially if there is CEO-level participation. Below are four steps that can help you be more efficient in your event research and ultimately provide educated and valuable recommendations to clients.

1. Understand client priorities. Even the most thorough research is useless if client expectations and priorities aren’t taken into account from the beginning. What audience does your client want to reach? Who would be the primary spokesperson? What key regions do they want to target – local, national, global or all of the above? 
2. Know the relevant logistics and barriers. Some opportunities require a significant amount of travel or may only be open if tied into an event sponsorship. Is your client open to pay-for-play speaking opportunities? How much are they willing to spend for travel/event fees? These are critical questions to ask before diving into your research and can help you make a fast initial cut on events.
3. Do your research. Events can often be judged by the company they keep. Research the sponsors, exhibitors and speakers of each event, both past and present, keeping in mind your client’s competitors, customers, and prospects. Look into how the event has been covered in your client’s priority media, and if any media sponsors are attached to the event.
4. Provide a quantitative recommendation. We aren’t the only ones who can feel overwhelmed by the event research process. Clients are concerned with using budgets wisely and want to prove to senior leadership that each event gives the most bang for their buck. We’ve had a lot of success creating “scorecards” that assign points to different event criteria and help us gauge the value of one event over another. It’s a great tool for clients to use internally, and one they can help develop with a clear understanding of their priorities. Our scorecard system uses a maximum of 60 possible points spread over six different criteria that are “scored’ between 1-10:
• Attendees – Are there opportunities to engage key customers and prospects in person?
• Media influence – Is there a critical mass of strategic media attending/covering the event? Are key media outlets present in the region, even if they aren’t attending?         
• Engagement opportunities – Are there opportunities available to speak/exhibit at the event, network with industry leaders and partner with customers?        
• Region – Is the event in a key region that your client wants to target?
• Costs – Does the cost to attend the event, taking into account travel and accommodations, fit within your client’s budget? (The higher the cost, the lower the points given)               
• Event notoriety – Has the event been held for multiple years and is it highly regarded in its industry?
5. Provide a qualitative recommendation. Use this quantitative score rank it against other events and slot it into one of four big categories:
• 0-17 points - Pass
• 18-32 points - Nominal
• 33-53 points – Strategic
• 54-60 points – Imperative

It often helps to take your recommendation a step further by suggesting key announcements that your client can leverage and key topics that align with your client’s focus areas. With both a qualitative score and quantitative value in hand, you can feel confident in the recommendations you provide to your client and make their job of selling it into an executive a lot easier!

How to Convince Your CEO That Crisis Media Training is Essential

By Tony Shelton, Executive Vice President, Crisis and Training, Edelman Houston

If you ask, any CEO can cite recent examples where someone in her position made a mess of communication in a crisis.  Such failures can cause employees and customers to bolt, the reputation and stock price to plummet and, unfortunately, guarantee a special place on YouTube – forever.

No wonder so many CEOs, especially those whose companies don’t sell directly to consumers, say they want to keep a “low profile.”   That often translates to “I’m never going to talk to the media.” The problem now, given the context CEOs operate in, is if companies don’t participate in the story when they have a crisis, the story doesn’t go away.  It goes on without them – without their voice – and that’s never a good thing.  Some crises are so serious that the CEO is the only company person the media and public want to hear from.

Our job as communications professionals involves counseling executives on why it’s important to engage the media. Below are the most common questions we get from communicators working with an executive to convince them that media training, and ultimately engagement with the press, is worth the effort.

How do I convince my CEO to take the time to do media training?
You might first discuss a few things with the CEO.  For instance, note that in the age of social media, everybody’s a reporter so news about a company – even if it’s not true – gets out and spread almost instantly.  That’s why your company needs to stake out a place in the story early on and have a top spokesman ready to communicate quickly. Note:  If you don’t have direct access to the CEO, enlist the support of your boss to carry the recommendation up the chain to the CEO.

What if the CEO says she doesn’t have the time?
Tell her that the training can take place in 3-4 hours. The session will be completely focused on actual company issues and feature a worst-case or a more likely crisis. The session can be private, and tapes of the practice interviews will be destroyed after the session.

Do CEOs get a different training from what is provided to lower levels of management and others? 
The review of the modern essentials of dealing with the media – in good times and bad – is similar for all groups. However, with the CEO, the level of severity of the situation used in the training will be much higher. You can assure the CEO that even after being trained, she will not be asked to speak to the media about very small crisis – such as a traffic accident involving a company vehicle. She would be asked to be the spokesperson only when there are multiple injuries or deaths, regulatory actions, or extreme damage to the environment or private property.

Is it better to train the CEO by herself or, for example, with the executives who report to her?
Either can work. The upside of the one-on-one session is more attention and more time to work on delivery and answers to the tough questions. The deciding factor often just comes down to the practical matter of coordinating calendars. The benefit of the small group training is that all the top execs receive the same coaching, which helps ensure consistency of the response in a crisis. Often, it is the only time the top management have ever talked about what could be communicated in a crisis.

How do I explain to her what I would want her to say in a crisis?
In an extreme crisis, the CEO and/or other top spokesperson must do three things:

• Give a face to the company and provide assurance that she is personally making this a top priority (and probably appear at the site)
• Explain what is being done to end the crisis; and 
• Express personal condolences to the family of anyone who has died in the incident, extend best wishes to the injured and say how the company is assisting all of those persons who have been affected by the crisis.

Is there ever a time when a CEO should not be the spokesperson, even if she’s had media training?
 Even after media training, if the CEO still has a tendency to “wing it” or “go off script,” that’s a clue some other high-level spokesperson might sometimes be a better choice.  For example, you might suggest using the top executive in charge of operations, because there will likely be technical questions about operations.
Just make sure that person has been media trained, too!

So You’re Ghostwriting for a CEO, Huh?

By Tim Schellhardt, Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Edelman Chicago

It’s hard enough writing in your own voice. What’s the secret to writing for the CEO (or other senior leader) of a client company?  (And don’t think it won’t happen to you someday.)

At the outset, let me say this: Do not imagine that you will get to speak to that CEO at length, spend plenty of time capturing his or her voice perfectly or make the speech topic come so alive that the CEO basks in loud applause. I wrote a commencement speech for a Fortune 350 client’s CEO and I never got to talk to him. He never gave me any clear idea of what he wanted to tell graduates of a respected university. I was on my own and, well, had to tap creative license. In some form or fashion, this is a typical cadence for ghostwriting.

Direct interaction with the CEO is extremely rare no matter what you’re writing – speeches, bylines or op-eds. Now that I’ve burst your bubble, let me offer some rules of thumb. They’ve proven darn helpful in penning successfully placed CEO op-eds and speeches that even have snared a couple of “Best Speech of the Year” awards.

1. Know the audience for whom you’re writing. Research who will attend that keynote address or panel discussion. It pays off.  Once I was told the audience for a major CEO address in Lisbon would be top executives of major European countries. I later found out the audience really would be college business students. The speech, written to that younger audience, went over well. 
2. Determine the clear messages to deliver.  I get sign off from senior communications staff, or in rare instances the CEO herself, on three-to-five key messages the exec wants incorporated in the op-ed, byline or speech. It may be like pulling teeth, but it’s essential. You save time since the CEO can’t easily tell you to start over because she and her staff have cleared the messages to convey. Be insistent if you must because it’s that important.  
3. Determine the tone and takeaways the CEO wants conveyed.  Does the executive want to make waves (and headlines), deliver a call to action or just give a straightforward response to the subject at hand?  I prefer writing material that’s provocative and will grab an audience’s attention. Deliver that message how you usually speak. 
4. Find riveting examples that capture the audience’s attention. At The Wall Street Journal, where I spent 31 years, reporters often took days scouring for the very best example to use for a story. I’ll never forget a Marketplace Explainer column detailing the rise in peanut butter sales. The reporter spent a week finding a 29-year-old guy who only ate peanut butter (including a peanut-butter cake at his wedding). I do a lot of research to find stats and backup examples and often reach out to those who know the topic or the CEO.
5. Get personal. Use stories – about the speaker or about the audience being addressed. For two commencement speeches, I researched the graduating classes and dotted the speeches with references to specific graduates. Students who had interned at the CEO’s company. Graduating seniors or prominent alums who worked for the company. Students on scholarships paid for by the company. The graduates perk up. As for that CEO who gave me nothing to use, I found out interesting things about his life (he had never graduated from college and the reasons were fascinating) that I incorporated into the theme and based key messages on. It proved a winner.  
6. Don’t forget a light approach, either in a byline or speech and sometimes even in an op-ed. Use humor. That doesn’t necessarily mean telling jokes. Often, a bit of self-deprecating humor does the trick. 
7. End with a strong conclusion. Perhaps simply tell them what you told them. And don’t get uptight or take criticism personally.  Simply deliver another draft or approach. Always dig deeper to determine what the exec truly wants to get across.  Sometimes, that’s all you need to get the CEO to open up and really give you what you need.

SXSW: What’s it All Mean?

By Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

Head down, dodging raindrops and wind, I found myself traversing the streets of Austin the last few days in search of the meaning of SXSW. 

For the uninitiated, SXSW is the ultimate convergence of thought leaders in Interactive, Film and Music (and now Education) over a two week period.  The conference itself is overwhelming with panels, exhibits and performances .  Anyone   want to wait in line for three hours to hear Al Gore?  I heard he was amazing.

But the real action takes place on the streets, in converted office, retail and restaurant/bar spaces (including the new Edelman Austin loft that hosted AMD’s Digital party on Thursday, our own welcome hour on Friday and an amazing salon dinner for GoodxGlobal on Sunday).  Pedestrians run headlong into each other because they can’t look up long enough from texting.  Pedicab drivers, ranging from the hippies of yore to the hipsters of now take delighted geeks from the Convention Center to uber-cool SoCo (South Congress) where all involved get tanked on margaritas or turbocharged coffee drinks (go to Jo’s the next time you’re in Austin).  They actually run out of cowboy boots to sell at certain bootmakers.  As you might imagine, there is music everywhere. There is no rest for the weary.

And that is the beauty of SX.  It is total engagement by those who have come to Austin, the new mecca of innovation.  People actually meet each other and connect in new and different ways.  The conversations are thoughtful, curious and sometimes upending.  I heard “wow, I hadn’t thought of that before” in passing conversations at least three times in as many days.  The energy level is contagious and it makes you want to clone yourself so you don’t miss anything.

Which brings me to takeaways that can be applied to SXSW (or any major conference or convention):

1. Show up.  You can’t be engaged if you don’t sign up for the party. Excuses about travel schedules, long lines, lack of hotel rooms should never dissuade you from attending a conference where you have the chance to really learn something new or meet people who are smarter than you. You can’t be lazy and be a leader.  And, once you’re there jump into the conversation and add to it: your POV is important.
2. Mix it Up.  Innovation comes from diversity of thought.  So, the key to getting something out of a SXSW is to surround yourself and meet a variety of thought leaders, not just those who do what you do and know what you know.  The beauty of conclaves such as this is that new ideas spring from conversations that include communicators, non-profit leaders, educators, analytics wonks, politicians, etc. where common ground is found and fertilized.
3. Don’t be a FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).  Don’t be one of those people who while talking to one person is looking over their shoulder to see who else in the crowd they should talk to. You’ll miss out on important dialogue if you’re not focused on the person in front of you.  The founder of the energy giant Schlumberger reportedly had a saying, “Always Be.  Never Appear to Be.”  He got it right.  Pay attention to the moment at hand and learn from it.

SXSW is, to be honest, a place to be seen.  But it’s also a place to be heard.  And a place just to listen and learn.  You leave town wanting to know more and be a smarter, better connected to the world version of yourself.  Mmmm . . .  that very well could be the meaning of life, right?