Social media firm 5Loom, which is owned by Council member IMRE, created a new concept to turn a pile of analytics into contextual opportunities for brands.

To find out more, the Firm Voice dug a little deeper in a Q&A with Crystalyn Stuart, president of 5Loom powered by IMRE, about data storytelling and how it can help brands tell compelling stories.

What is data storytelling?

CS: In two parts, it’s (1) how we use data visualization to help us see and read the story social data tells, and (2) how we as social media experts package that story and make adjustments to campaigns.

We approach social media like a 24-hour-a-day stream of data that should have an impact on how we’re building and managing social communities, programs, promotions and campaigns.

It should, but unless we can find the answer to the question “so what?” all that data just seems time-consuming. That’s why we practice data storytelling. It’s the act of data visualization before, during and after mining/analyzing data.

Which pieces of social media data are most relevant?

CS: There are infinite social media data inputs, some are half-baked (in channels such as Pinterest), and some are over-baked (in listening/monitoring tools). Either way, which data matters? Our motto: All data matters, capture all, analyze less.

To be more specific, every program should map to two key reporting elements:

1. Program success: Measured by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that map to unique goals.
2. Program adjustments: A changing set of metrics that let us evaluate all aspects of a program and steer the ongoing strategy. We modify these in real-time and monthly.

As we load data points into various visual formats, we begin to see and read the story that the data shares. Here’s a simple example, I may ask my team to cut content data in three ways: (1) show me volume of posts against a certain category, (2) show me the reach of those posts by content type and (3) show me the engagement by content type.

By using some simple data visualization, my group can easily read the story, and quickly identify the important headline and theme. From there, they can begin to further analyze the trends.

What do you mean by context?

CS: In the social media realm, context has become more important than ever. Evaluating campaigns, data points, results and overall channels not just against themselves month-over-month, but against competitors, aspirational brands and industries (niche and broad) is a critical layer that helps brands gauge the question, “are we doing this well?”

But context is not just about whose Facebook page has the best virality. It’s about taking wider trends and answering the question, “what does this mean to me?” For 5Loom, social context is about blending together outside and inside contexts to help uncover meaningful opportunities.

Here’s a 101 example. I may discover that one category of content I’ve been generating on Facebook isn’t getting as much engagement as a similar topic shared by a competitor. In evaluating the trend, I can uncover meaningful examples of a call-to-action or the use of a subject-matter expert that has helped my competitor make this topic more engaging.

From this context, I can begin isolating variables and testing various ways to package and deploy content around this subject. Constraining my tests, benchmarking carefully and applying creativity to the opportunity typically results in top ROI.

Why do you emphasize data packaging?

CS: I can’t tell you how many clients have asked me “so what does this mean to me?” Every time we share a report, we focus on how the report tells a compelling story–not just for the audience–but for the story itself.

Often audiences don’t know what data they should be looking at, or how that data should impact their program. It’s our job to tell them and it’s the data’s job to inform us.

A few key tenets of our model include:

• Less data, more story
• Less linear, more contextual
• Less data showing-off and more zeroing in on opportunity
• Less general to-do’s and more rich strategic guidance
• Less month-over-month indices and more comparative insights

Do you think you have data storytelling all figured out?

CS: We’re not perfect, and measurement/reporting in the social realm is definitely a moving target. But we are relentlessly optimizing, changing, testing, altering our approach based on our understanding of what’s needed to manage a social strategy and what our clients want and need.

We’ve launched a new series of reporting programs that follow this process, and by adding a social media graphic artist to our team, we’re able to tell richer, more compelling stories than ever before.

In March 2009, APCO introduced its new Diversity & Inclusion program with the ambitious goal of becoming “the best place for diverse talent to work in the communications industry.” APCO’s program has focused on “educating all employees on the importance and benefits of diversity and inclusion” so as to “break down barriers, create dialogue and support an environment that attracts new generations of diverse talent.” The program funds a number of initiatives, including:

• Support of the Lagrant Foundation’s scholarship fund, which funds minority communications majors at the college level.
• Support for a guest lecture series at American University, intended to “spark interest in the communications field.”
• Partnership with a non-profit organization the works to improve reading and writing skills among inner city school kids.
• Implementing an online cultural awareness training program as part of APCO’s orientation program.
• Required diversity training for all APCO senior managers

As APCO has reported, its program has dramatically increased employee awareness of various cultures, increasing dialogue among internal teams. The firm saw a 19% rise in the number of minorities interfacing with clients. Recent new hires have brought the total number of minorities in the firm to just below 30%. Many women occupy senior management roles, and about a fifth of employees receiving promotions within the firm were minorities.

Reflecting on the program, Nelson Fernandez, the Managing Director of APCO’s NY office, notes that, “Our approach to diversity and inclusion is not “a program.” What this is really about is creating and sustaining a cultural mindset within our organization – it’s how we aspire to work with each other, serve our clients, and attract, manage and reward our talent. I’m proud of what we’ve achieved throughout our network, and in New York in particular.  When you visit our office you will be struck by the differences that make up our workplace – generational, ethnic, racial, geographic. You name it, we represent it. From a pure stats perspective, our numbers across all diverse categories have been trending up, and having a Latino who heads up one of the most important offices in our network is having some impact, too.”

Porter Novelli also emphasizes education in its award-winning diversity program, focusing on exposing kids to public relations while still in high school. In 2010, the firm became the first public relations firm to participate in the T.O.R.C.H. program (Together Our Resources Can Help), a previously existing initiative to provide “underserved NYC public high school students with intensive exposure to career training and opportunities in communications and the arts.” The program had partnered in the past with ad agencies and film school, but it lacked a public relations curriculum.

Porter Novelli created and delivered an interactive, eight-week course called “PR 101,” covering topics like “social media, media relations, event planning, strategy and creative idea execution, video editing and personal branding.” But Porter Novelli didn’t stop there. As part of its involvement with TORCH, the firm employed TORCH students and graduates as interns, using junior staff members as supervisors. Porter Novelli also supported Torch’s fundraising efforts, executing media outreach, holding a Texas Hold ‘Em Fundraiser, sponsoring happy hour events, and supporting TORCH’s annual MusicFest event. Porter Novelli opens its offices for a week every year to TORCH students and alumni, giving them “the opportunity to mingle with agency executives and observe them during day-to-day client work, creating strong ongoing mentoring relationships.“

Like APCO, Porter Novelli has seen its commitment of employee time and resources pay dividends. Five students were hired as interns, and one intern became a full-time employee and has already been promoted. According to Sonia Sroka, Senior Vice President, Director of Hispanic Marketing, and Chair of Porter Novelli’s National Diversity Council, TORCH has enabled “our staff to make a direct impact on the evolving face of the public relations industry. Through TORCH we are also facilitating leadership development for our young professionals and contributing directly to our community.”

Porter Novelli takes pride in being the only agency partnering with the program; as Sroka notes, “it’s extremely important to us to have a direct impact on helping the marketing and communications industry be more reflective of the world at large.” The firm expects to continue hiring TORCH graduates into the company while increasing its own participation.

We hope our review of these award-winning programs will inspire you to enter your own firms into our competition. Act now: The deadline for submissions is June 21.  Working together, we can bring into our industry the diverse talent we’ll continue to need to compete in the years ahead.

First and foremost, the program’s speakers and participants agreed that firms will have to develop proprietary tools for gathering and analyzing user data if they are to profit and grow in the social media arena. Ownership of this valuable intellectual property – both the technology and the data itself – will prove a key point of contention between agencies and their clients. Firms must understand the current regulatory trends to protect user data, incorporating what the FTC has dubbed “privacy by design” into their strategic models. As bloggers and other social media content providers assume more prominence, clients must integrate their material into marketing in compliance with the FTC’s Endorsement Guidelines. These and other issues appeared in Davis & Gilbert’s white paper delivered at the event, entitled, “Social Media Marketing and Contracting Best Practices.”

The program also included a freewheeling discussion making sense of the fundamental changes hitting the industry. In his keynote address, Adam Lavelle, chief strategy officer for iCrossing, stated that studying social media is not like studying the Roman Empire, a defunct civilization; rather it is like studying American history – a history always in progress and still being written. Lavelle emphasized that social media is not a segregated channel, but an “overlay,” encompassing all aspects of the industry.

Presenter Chris Perry, who heads Weber Shandwick’s Digital Practice, stressed that social media remains an umbrella term, encompassing everything from wikis to Twitter to blogs. Rob Key, CEO of Converseon, also drove home this point in citing his dislike of the term “social media.” Key stressed that he longed for the day when we simply refer to “media,” much the same way we have now use the term “light bulb” and no longer refer to the modern convenience as the “electric light bulb.”

A number of participants emphasized the shift from narrative storyteller to data analysis. A review of WPP’s 2011 annual report confirms this. As the report states, the company’s goal is to “increase the share of more measurable marketing services – such as Consumer Insight and direct, digital and interactive – to be more than 50% of revenues, with a focus on digital and consumer insight, data analytics and the application of new technology.”

With many acknowledging this shift from narrative to data, attendees pondered the requisite skills and experience we’ll need from talent in the future. Public relations stars have long received training solely as “wordsmiths and storytellers.” Presenters agreed that tomorrow’s talent will also come from the world of software development and statistical analysis. Firms will focus on serving the end goal of targeted marketing through expertise in areas like web analytics, marketing measurement and automation technology. In fact, Rob Key foresees a shift away from firms that provide principally community management and social monitoring to firms able to provide social insight and analytics. He put forth the bold notion that the CMO of tomorrow will be a data analyst – an idea that might have seemed alien just a few short years ago.

One might object: Isn’t content still “king?” The truth may lie in a more integrated approach. Crystalyn Stuart of 5Loom stated that when she looks for talent for her social media firm, she looks for candidates who can deliver the “three pillars of social media”: art, science and business. Other social media and PR firms indicated that they are embracing this notion of versatility, training employees by rotating them through different disciplines – creative, analytics, etc. – in order to create a nimble workforce with 2012 skills.
Lavelle may have summed up the ever-shifting social media landscape best not with a statement, but with a question. Who will be the marketers of the future? Will Mad Men meet Math Men and form a new generation of Mad Scientists?

The answer, like American history, will evolve day by day.

Nontraditional working arrangements are also catching fire on this side of the Atlantic. Forrester reports that 34 million Americans telecommute at least sometimes, a number that should reach 63 million, or 43% of the workforce, by 2016. What does this mean for professional services organizations such as public relations firms? With more and more firms rendering their offices at least in part virtual, what best practices can ensure that clients, employees, and managers alike remain happy?

This is a topic that generates a lot of passion whenever we get agency executives together to talk about talent and /or work-life balance. According to industry executives and consultants we consulted for this post, firms can make a strong case indeed for allowing more employees to work outside the brick-and-mortar office. Cynthia Rude, Chief Operating Officer at Citizen Paine, relates that her firm allows all employees to work one day from home if they like and also to start and top their workdays at the agency in flexible ways. As her agency has found, “pitching, writing, and social engagement/community management tasks can be completed from various locations. There is a personal/humanistic benefit for employees when they feel that they have control of their workday and where it’s done. It can be a stress reducer on many levels, especially when employees have the option to program normal appointments around their workday from home or reduce a long commute.”

Because most employees appreciate telecommuting (a recent Canadian survey found that 94% of respondents were “interested” in telecommuting), virtual offices assist firms in retaining sought-after employees. Greentarget founding partner John Corey reports that his firm offers “flexible working environments to select employees on an individualized basis to ensure that we are attracting and retaining fabulous talent, regardless of where they sit.” The policy allows Greentarget to attract talent that “otherwise might not be attainable via the traditional agency work model.” In addition, the rest of the organization receives a message that the firm cares about work-like balance. “If positioned properly, this creates a sense of loyalty and goodwill that permeates the entire organization.”

Some firms are already deep into the virtual office. For those just beginning the journey, what are the best ways to proceed? First and foremost, be sure to trust your team members. Ken Jacobs, Principal at Jacobs Communications Consulting, argues that “if you don’t trust team members, if you assume they’re not working at capacity when working from home, if you anticipate that allowing your team to go more virtual won’t work, you doom the initiative to failure.”  Rude agrees, arguing that, “agencies need to trust that employees will strive to make it work” and not “put all kinds of rules and regulations that hamper the original vision of flexibility.” And in fact, evidence suggests that employees working remotely do work more efficiently. Corey reports seeing “immense productivity” since employees working remotely experience “fewer interruptions” in their work flow.

Other suggestions for making virtual offices work include:

• Seek input from team members when establishing rules about telecommuting, and communicate these rules clearly.
• Realize that telecommuting isn’t always that answer; as Jacobs observes, “some agency functions, like idea-generating sessions, require the chemistry and energy of a group working together, so are best done face-to-face.”
• Make sure that team members working remotely make the most of their time when they are in the office to build relationships.
• Make sure that senior leaders operating remotely have the skills necessary to manage others from afar, including delegation and organizational skills.
• Invest in technology infrastructure, such as laptops and data security, to enable virtual offices to really work.

Done right, virtual offices can help public relations firms compete even more effectively and profitably in the 21^st century. If your firm has any wisdom to share, please drop us a line in the comments section!

It’s no secret that public relations offers unusually exciting opportunities for talented women to establish careers and build companies of their own. At present, women own or run a full third of our member firms. At a glance, that might not seem exceptional; according to the Center for Women’s Business Research, women own 40% of all privately held businesses in the US, and that number has risen sharply over the past couple of decades.  Still, the vast majority of female businesses are not substantial enterprises. Nationally, only 20% of firms with revenues over $1 million are women-owned, and these businesses only account for 4% of all business revenues and 6% of all jobs. By contrast, many of our female–run member firms have millions in revenue and employ dozens or even hundreds of people.

Why has public relations proven so hospitable to female entrepreneurs? It may be that women intrinsically possess qualities and skills well suited to running a firm. Jen Prosek, CEO of CJP Communications, notes that, “You need to multi-task to own or run a firm. I always say you need to be a ‘finder minder binder grinder.’ Women are naturally good at changing gears, juggling multiple tasks and adapting.” Many women in our business are also astute financial people. Before joining the Council, I was the founder and part owner of a healthcare PR firm. I learned some of the most useful information about building a successful business – and even doing an acquisition —  from the CFO.

APCO’s Margery Kraus adds that women also tend to be “successful relationship-builders and good communicators.” They “tend to listen more and create a more team-oriented culture.” Intriguingly, Kraus believes that women’s roles in their families give them an advantage. “The skills of being a good parent make you a good leader and mentor.”

Waggener Edstrom President Pam Edstrom contributes another perspective, seeing women’s success in PR as the result of a meritocratic system that lets people of the greatest talent and ambition rise to the top. “Throughout my career, I’ve seen the success of women in companies that bring innovation to the marketplace, including consumer technology, pharmaceuticals and pure play technology. These companies were creating a new category of products and recognized the value in finding creative, smart people who could apply business thinking and execution to a whole new market area. What the account person looked like never really mattered because these companies were starting from scratch with their products. There was no road map, and therefore they were more willing to take risks, try things and quickly learn from what didn’t work.”

No matter why women have succeeded in greater numbers in public relations, the women we’ve spoken to believe the outlook is bright, even if some barriers remain. Cohn & Wolfe’s CEO Donna Imperato argues that “public relations will always be a good field for women as they are intrinsically good communicators. But I am continually surprised at the dearth of female leaders in global communications positions, particularly on the agency side.  From a sheer numbers standpoint, there should be more women leading global agencies.”

Work-life balance is also becoming even more of a concern and will be in years to come. Prosek again: “This is an issue in many professions; however, in the PR profession I think that demands have increased dramatically in the last five years.” Imperato agrees: “Balancing a home life with demanding career goals can prove to be a real challenge. There are late hours, endless travel, deadlines and timelines that are constantly pressuring your family life and career development. But I’ve always made sure that the less-than-ideal amount of time I do have with my husband and children is focused, fun and meaningful.”

With so many successful women in our industry, the question arises as to whether we should be doing more to attract men. Kraus advises that we look for diversity in general, including across gender. “In today’s globally connected world, it’s absolutely critical to respect and value a range of perspectives, backgrounds, cultures, and experiences. This is a business imperative that applies to any industry, any company. In PR, we know that the complex problems our clients must address require consultants who understand, value, and leverage different insights.”

Edstrom echoes these sentiments: “What our communications industry needs to do, as well as other industries bringing innovation to the marketplace, is continue to hire people who are innovators in their craft, creative, understand the business and can help drive the business forward. I think these qualities are equally present in both male and female communications professionals.”

We should indeed be proud of our growing industry and all it has accomplished for and with women. Gender diversity is a key to our success, and to that end  we should devote even more attention to internships, mentorships, and scholarships that attract the best talent, men and women.  We welcome further insights and comments you might have on talent, and what it will take in the years ahead to succeed in public relations.

GAP VII asked 620 senior client-side decision makers about organizational integration, querying how the various communication functions within a company interacted, and how communications interacted with other organizational departments (finance, legal, operations, etc.) Among public companies, 53% indicated that they were fairly well integrated or better, scoring between 5 and 7 on a seven-point scale. Digging deeper, we found that integration with other organizational departments correlated with certain “success indicators,” such as how successful the overall organization was and how likely CEOs were to believe that PR/communications contribute to the bottom line. We also found that the two types of integration mentioned above go hand in hand.  In short, a “culture of integration” seems to spell organizational success.

How about social media? Looking beyond the obvious, we found that usage of certain tools has become mainstream in a short period of time. For example, the use of social networking sites moved from a score of 3.44 in 2009’s GAP VI to 4.75 in 2011’s GAP VII (again on a seven points scale). In my 40+ years in the business, I have never seen any tool so quickly adopted. We asked about both budgetary and strategic control of social media and found that PR generally has greater control than marketing. While we didn’t specifically ask why, social media’s role as a two-way relationship-building tool rather than a one-way sales tool would seem to put it squarely in PR’s wheelhouse. If integration is a good thing, and social media (under the leadership of PR/Communications) can help drive it, we begin to see a new model: the highly engaged, social organization with communication at its center.

We also asked about agency/client relationships. When analyzing why clients work with agencies, we found clients clustering into two groups: Those that work with agencies on a “Tactical” basis, and those that work with them on a “Strategic” basis. The former are more likely to hire firms for “extra arms and legs” because they’re “cheaper than adding staff,” or due to a “limit on internal headcount.” The latter are more likely to value firms’ “unique expertise,” “market insight,” “strategic point of view,” or “ability to quantify results.”  For firms, tactical relationships can be profitable but are too easily commoditized. They may not motivate agency staff, and may offer the client little added value beyond labor. Strategic relationships, on the other hand,   demand more expensive senior staff involvement, but they are built on stronger foundations of added intellectual value, are excellent motivators, and are far less likely to be seen as commodities.

We created a graph showing how our respondents’ agency relationships could be distributed into four sub categories. Here are the results:

• High Strategy/Low Tactic relationships: 29% of respondents that work with firms
• Low Strategy/High Tactic relationships: 17%
• High Strategy/High Tactic relationships: 27%
• Low Strategy/Low Tactic relationships: 26%

We were quite surprised to see a fairly even distribution of the typologies, but here’s the real nugget: High Strategy/Low Tactic relationships appear to correspond much more closely than other types with the highest scores on multiple success factors, such as CEO perceptions of and support for the PR function, positive external reputation, and organizational success. Conversely, Low Strategy/High Tactic relationships are much more strongly associated than other types with the lowest scores on multiple success factors, such as CEO perceptions of and support for the PR function, positive external reputation, and organizational success. Agencies would thus do well to serve as strategic partners to clients of all types as they transition to the new, engaged model of organization with social media as its spine. We’re not talking about helping clients use social media to strengthen relationships; that’s table stakes in the new game. We’re talking about communication-driven management consulting—perhaps turning the tables on the management consulting firms that have struck fear in the hearts of some PR agency leaders.

I hope you’ll take the time to explore the copious, practice-centric data you’ll find at Annenberg.usc.edu/gapstudy. And please send your suggestions and feedback to . GAP is (and hopefully always will be) a work in progress that will evolve and improve with the profession.

Today, many small- to mid-sized firms remain reluctant to designate someone to lead their operations. That’s not surprising, for unlike other top spots on the organizational chart, the COO position, even in global corporations, is difficult to define and grasp—a point made by Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles in their 2006 Harvard Business Review article “Second in Command: The Misunderstood Role of the Chief Operating Officer.” What does a COO do exactly? And why should rapidly growing agencies commit resources to hire a highly compensated COO from outside or transfer a senior manager inside to perform this new, largely non-billable role?

Operational heads, whether they bear the title of COO or not, can possess many job descriptions; Bennett and Miles identify seven possible roles ranging from executional head to CEO heir-apparent. Often, COOs wear many of these hats simultaneously.  Yet my work these past 15 months chairing the Council’s COO Community has helped validate a clear and vital function underneath the misconceptions. As organizations diversify and mature, COOs become more critical because in many ways they help navigate all of the company’s stakeholders through an increasingly complex landscape, while executing the CEO’s vision and safeguarding a cohesive culture. That’s no small challenge.

In the context of our industry’s rapid transformation, operational complexity can overwhelm the organizational capacities of many growing, small, mid-sized and even large firms. Think about it: 20 years ago, firms didn’t have to invest in and maintain systems for email, cellphones, iPads, and digital content, nor did they worry as much about system security. They were largely homogeneous, not as inclined to recruit diverse talent from outside the PR discipline. There was less of a strategic imperative to expand geographically, and you rarely concerned yourself with procurement officers. Today, even small firms are moving at a breakneck pace to address these and other challenges. As they develop capabilities such as brand planning, creative, and digital while competing with other marketing disciplines, they are not merely growing in size but evolving and transforming.

It’s essential to have experienced, competent people heading the operational functions of Finance, Human Resources, Information Technology, and other departments. But if these departments don’t collaborate with one another and fail to align with the agency’s over-arching business objectives, things can go off track very quickly, eroding productivity and growth. You can recruit new and diverse talent from various disciplines, but that means investing in the appropriate resources (technology, research services, professional development) to support them, applying best practices in on-boarding and making the right cultural adjustments. Ensuring that these seemingly disparate parts operate seamlessly and organically, day after day and year after year: that’s the COO’s role – in part.

The COO also serves as risk manager for the organization. On a daily basis, effective COOs interface with functional and account heads (as well as outside legal counselors, accountants, bankers, and insurance brokers) to mitigate liabilities throughout the organization, ensuring that the right processes and procedures take root. Even the best senior managers remain so immersed in their disciplines that they find it difficult to break away from a “silo” mindset and embrace a broader perspective of the business. The COO serves as “air traffic controller,” overseeing and communicating with the managers to navigate them safely toward their department’s individual goals and integrating best practices across offices.

All of these responsibilities aside, the most important aspect of the COO’s role is his or her working relationship with the CEO. In essence, the COO serves as a complement and strategic partner to the chief executive—a fact that contributes to prevailing murkiness about the COO’s role. According to Bennett and Miles, the COO’s exact roles and responsibilities “depend on the other half of the equation, the first name on the ticket. This, then, is why COOs remain mysterious as a class: the role is structurally, strategically, socially, and politically unique—and extraordinarily situational.”

Based on my experience at Taylor as well as with the Council’s COO Community – plus, whatever pragmatism I bring to the job every day — here is some guidance for growing firms that may be considering—as I argue they should—putting someone in the role of operational head.

• Develop a clear job description—one that reflects your firm’s unique business and organizational needs and complements the vision and temperament of your CEO.

• Look for someone highly collaborative—I’ve worked with Tony Signore, Taylor’s CEO, for more than 25 years – the last eight as COO. We’re fortunate to have a very collaborative relationship, built on respect and trust. All COOs must not only get along well with the CEO and provide balance to his or her approach, but also motivate and coordinate many others across disciplines.
• Don’t just think you need to hire an MBA from the outside—often the best person for the job is right under your nose, possessing one of many disciplinary backgrounds. Like many of my peers in the industry, I came up through the ranks as an account manager and client lead.

• Look for someone organized and cool under pressure—the COO is in the cross hairs of everything, handling an enormous amount of trouble shooting in a dynamic environment, juggling many balls at the same time.

• Make sure your COO is a life-long learner—the best COOs are constantly educating themselves on various aspects of the business, while still keeping abreast of the agency’s client work and industry trends.

• Empower your COO to listen, listen, listen—to function optimally, COOs need to be highly accessible and understand how the winds are blowing, so that they know when and how to endorse strategic cultural shifts.

• Select someone who can check their ego at the door—the ideal second-in-command retains a service ethic, acts for the good of the organization, and doesn’t try to upstage anyone, especially the CEO.

No matter how you structure it, the COO’s role can prove extraordinarily helpful, even decisive, for a public relations firm.

The famous flop of “New Coke” back in the 1980s reminds us what can happen when companies don’t properly introduce innovations (although in that case, the product itself might have had its flaws). What should today’s companies do to prepare markets for new products and services? And what role can public relations play? We checked in with two client-side professionals at companies focused on innovation, Starbucks’ VP of Global Communications, Jim Olson and Helen Brauner, Sr. Vice President, Marketing & Strategic Planning at Green Mountain Energy Company, a renewable energy provider.

Both Olson and Brauner emphasize the critical role public relations plays in educating customers and other stakeholders about the value of a new offering. Often customers don’t understand the need that a new product or service is designed to fill, even when that need has become quite pressing or important.

As Brauner recounts, when Green Mountain launched in Texas in 2001, “few people understood that the generation of electricity is the largest source of industrial air pollution in the US. We had to communicate this fact and then explain how our Pollution Free electricity product is a solution to the problem because it is produced from 100% renewable resources (like wind, sun, and water) that don’t emit pollution.”

Launching in New York several years later represented a different challenge: Educating New Yorkers who already understood the value of renewable energy about their ability to choose a different electricity provider if they wish.

As Olson reflects, marketers need to consider and convey “who will benefit from the innovation, how big of an impact will it have (e.g. what is the addressable market size in terms of number of potential customers or sales dollars) and how will the innovation make the world a better place – or what is the breakthrough?”

Starbucks recently put this thinking into play by educating consumers about its plans for innovating in the premium fresh juice space. The company used the announcement of its acquisition of Evolution Fresh last November as an opportunity to draw attention to the $3.4B cold-crafted juice category and how the unique High-Pressure-Processing (HPP) technology Starbucks was acquiring would retain more nutrients and flavor than commonly used heat pasteurization. Notes Olson: “This set the stage for last week’s debut of our first Evolution Fresh retail store and expanded availability of Evolution Fresh juice products in our stores and retail channels.”

Educating customers is not always as easy as it seems. Brauner stresses that companies must make sure they’re willing to invest the time and money required to get the message across.  Preparing markets for innovation also requires unusual creativity, since companies are pushing the boundaries of what customers know and understand. “We use parallels, analogies and things that the public already understands so that they can relate a new product to something that they already have experienced. For example, in order to explain how pollution-free electricity works, we developed a graphic called the ‘bathtub analogy’ that works well for helping customers understand the use of renewable vs. nonrenewable energy sources.”

Olson cautions that companies must make sure that what they call an “innovation” really passes the muster.  Public relations professionals safeguard ethics by bringing other executives, whose perspectives might be skewed, in touch with reality. “While a new flavor, style or product line extension may feel like an innovation to the people developing it, communicators have to be the truth tellers that ask the hard question – is this really a breakthrough? Will this really make the world a better place? Are we honestly the first company to do this? And how big is the impact this innovation really have?”

Brauner and Olson collectively offer several tips for companies seeking to make their new offering a breakout success:

• Humanize the innovation… by telling compelling stories.
• Bring Innovations to life…with pictures, video, etc. that depict peoples’ actual experience with it.
• Find Reputable Third Parties To Endorse Your Offering…so as to make it more credible.
• Be Patient…realizing that getting an innovation to “stick” can require a campaign spanning months, even years.

Have you helped market an innovation recently? What tips would you add? And how does social media factor in? We’d love to hear your opinion.

According to the Content Marketing Institute, content initiatives now account for more than 25% of overall B-to-B marketing spend, and 60% of marketers plan to increase that amount in 2012. A full 90% of B-to-B marketers do some form of content marketing, even if they don’t realize it, while B-to-B companies invest on average a quarter of their total budget on creating content. Other research has found that 90% of customers “find custom content useful,” and 61% of people “feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are more likely to buy from that company.”  With outside firms now picking up a lot of important and available new content work, the folks at LaunchSquad decided to start a new kind of content marketing firm, Original9 Media.

LaunchSquad’s move reflects the growing influence, reach, and variety of the content itself in brand publishing. Traditional PR has always been about content—from press releases and pitches to white papers and blogs. But for aspiring brands looking to connect with new audiences in the 24/7 world of digital media, video, infographics, media properties, and mobile initiatives now also present important content opportunities. The most popular tactics include article posting, social media, blogs, e-newsletters, white papers, and in person events. Companies are also creating microsites, digital magazines, e-books, podcasts, research reports, case studies, branded content tools, and webinars, to name a few.

PR practitioners looking to make this shift possess a competitive advantage: a passion for telling great stories. Our firm (like many) has a deep history of helping fast growing, innovative technology companies define and disseminate their stories to specific audiences in order to accomplish critical business goals. Increasingly, we do this through original content programs outside of media relations. Three years ago, we acknowledged this trend with video, starting up an in-house production team to further our storytelling capabilities. The establishment of a dedicated content firm is today a natural next step.

Of course, as Margery noted, the terms that define this new realm can be both confusing and uninspired. Is this content marketing, branded content, custom publishing, or “corporate content creation”? We say: Forget the semantics. Figure out what and where your clients’ stories are and how to tell them better than anyone else. You can’t help but win.

If you have any experience or thoughts on the evolution of marketing, PR and content, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

This year’s Council’s discussion, entitled More Smart, Less Stupid: PR for Better Business, was bursting at the seams, with people lined up outside the room to listen. A major draw was our powerhouse lineup: Melissa Waggener Zorkin, Bob Pearson, Mark Stouse and moderator, Gary Stockman.

Interest also percolated via the many tweets audience members posted as our panelists discussed recent ripped-from-the-headlines business cases to get at the essential truths of corporate reputation and the valuable communications we can glean from them.

In case you weren’t at the event, a sampling of these tweets give you a sense of what you missed:

• Consistency of position is not as important as consistency of who you are
• Build equity through actions, not words
• Companies co-own the brand with their customers. Listening is key
• Consistent theme in #betterbiz – get your community on board

I include these tweets not merely because of the specific information they convey, but because of their collective meaning. The single most abiding theme or learning of the session, as I see it, was the notion that we don’t control our brands or our brand experiences as much as we think we do—or would like to. As sponsors of the panel, the Council didn’t control the content of the discussion  or the meaning of the event—that meaning was crafted in part thanks to the audience’s engagement via Twitter and through the Q&A.  And companies that our panel discussed—Zappo’s, Netflix, Lowe’s, and others—didn’t control their brand meaning either, a lesson that some companies learn the hard way.

Consumer co-creation isn’t a new idea, but as the business scenarios we discussed illustrate, you don’t often see it injected into communications practice on a deep level. What does it mean to really share the crafting of brand meaning? Here’s where the panel discussion was especially helpful—in fleshing out how companies large and small, new and established, can better serve as brand partners, stewards, and co-owners, at a time, as one our panelists put it: “Reputation-building has been democratized.”

Tops on the list: Be human!  As participants argued, companies today need to remember who is on the other side of communications—actual people who in many cases care as much about the brand as we do. Humanizing communications in turn entails several things: Really listening to what customers and other stakeholders are saying; thinking about the value to customers (the people who already love your brand) before making a potentially controversial business decision; maintaining a focus on acting properly rather than coming up with eloquent words to justify or defend your position; offering meaningful and timely apologies when you screw up; keeping your business transparent in relation to customers; and inviting customers to create the brand with you.

All of these are smart, external-facing actions, but companies can also prepare the way internally for co-creation by taking a number of steps. Audience members and panel participants advised that executives create policy roadmaps, planning two to three years out to help ensure consistent communications, and staying focused on the values that are at the core of the brand. They also regarded it as important that executives not take their brand’s “coolness” for granted.  Executives should keep focused on delivering on the core values and vision, realizing that the minute they stop, their partners—customers—will call them out. Finally, panelists agreed that companies should anticipate scenarios and align communications with internal stakeholders so as to avoid having a tentative defense in times of crisis.

I’ve heard really smart marketers remark that co-ownership of the brand is the “best companies can hope for.” Coming away from SXSW, I think that perception misses the point. Co-ownership isn’t something to accept reluctantly; it’s a valuable opportunity that we should embrace in our communications efforts. It’s also an approach to communications that public relations firms are especially competent and talented at executing, so as to build brand value and avoid crises in the first place.

Here’s to “smart” communications—and better business outcomes!