Interview with Social Media Expert Tim Inthirakoth
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Transcript
Tim: My name is Tim, clearly. I am Peter’s Brother and I work for a PF Public Relations and Social Media Agency in Boston. And I’m an account manager, some of my contracts are seeking more consumer technology based I represent Spark Capital … two D.C. firms like Charles River Ventures which are pretty established… Spark and Charles Rivers Ventures are actually early stage ventures … and things like Twitter, Boxee, 5min. So most of my client base involves digital media and tech sector so a lot of their programs rely heavily on traditional media..like newspaper and broadcast and magazines. As well as a big social media component. Clearly Twitter is a big focus for us..Facebook and trying receive messages for my clients through a lot of different community related avenues
Marisol: Hello, my name is Marisol Martinez. My first question is, Do you feel social media has helped expand your business? And if so, to what extent?
Tim: I really feel like social media is blurring the line with traditional media and in Public Relations because we are so heavily focused working with reporters like with the NY times and the Wall Street Journal. You find more and more of them are turning their coverage to the internet. So a lot of content you will see isn’t measured by what makes the front page anymore or the front section of a specific newspaper but how many hits you get on a website article. And I have actually known a few very high profile columnists like … and Newsweek who have given up or actually forced out because their articles and columns were not getting enough traffic news…at any given moment.
I feel like the pressure for social media and digital media and getting your name out in terms of Twitter attracting people to your company and to your article, to your product is becoming so instantaneous. Especially with the focus on real time with Twitter’s influence, Facebook . Everybody wants to know what’s going on now, how, and why. And I feel like if your not in that conversation you are kind of left behind and I also think for a lot of my clients who are kind of new–getting early adaptors focus on what they are offering and different things they are doing only takes like through social media. Techcrunch, which you know is a big tech blog based in the Silicon Valley. That actually is more influential and a lot more important for my clients and their businesses than getting on the front page of the tech section at the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. So, I feel that with … and the need for speed, social media is driving that, and it’s going to become more blurred–the lines between social and traditional media over the next 4-5-6 months.
Marisol: Just a follow-up question on that. Do you feel that bloggers have affected the credibility of news disseminated online? Tim: No. I definitely do. I think that’s a great question and I see it all the time. You know, I think that media driven by bloggers, and driven by Twitter, and driven by Facebook. Getting the word out faster than anyone else by you, by Paul Hansel at the NY Times, by Jessica Escalera at the Wall Street Journal who are very high profile reporters, but you could break the news, I could break the news, I could be overhearing a conversation at the airport and I could tweet about it, and whether that tweet’s right or wrong, people online are sometimes muddied because they are not real journalists. So they kind of have a little bit of an excuse to think that it’s factual, and one of the big bloggers at Techcrunch, which writes everything and everything they want about a company whether they like it or not because they are bloggers.
They were actually at a Yahoo! earnings call, I think it was about six or seven months ago, and one of the bloggers was multitasking and writing a bunch of different stories at the same time, then accidentally wrote that the CEO or whoever it was on the call with Yahoo! was laying off 5% of the workforce, and it was incorrect–it was irresponsible, and within a matter of seconds, I think, their earnings and their value dropped and their stock. All the blogger had to do was go online 2 minutes later, cross it out, and make a little addendum–oh sorry, I made a mistake. But that company lost money because of that certain blogger and their mistake. So, I feel like there is responsibility for bloggers when it comes to breaking news in that consumers run the risk of being misinformed on an even greater scale because of new media and social media.
Ed: Ok, My name is Ed. What would you say the number one piece of general PR advice to a company any company to deciding starting going to into Web 2.0 and social media and that kind of thing?
Tim: So, I’m sorry so you are basically asking me are there any general rules of thumb when somebody is trying to embark in social media?
Ed: Yeah
Tim: No, it’s not a proven formula; I actually don’t say Twitter accounts for a few of my clients who are mostly consumer focused which is a pretty avenue for Facebook or Twitter if you’re Jet Blue or Whole Foods to be recognizable, people are interested in your brand. I think you have to set the expectation if you are smaller that means constituents in social media made of slots, your Twitter handle. You know what I mean that I feel I know who you are. You are not going to build a huge user base in a matter of hours or days even. And what I find works the best is putting a real person and a real voice behind whatever social media personality you have, making sure you are not being self promotional people don’t want to go on and just read what they find on your website, people kind of want to interact.
Social media, we all know is social so when you blog in twitter you don’t want to put latest news is from XYZ company you want to know what’s going on their casual breakfast or you want to know the personalities at the companies. I think there’s a great opportunity for companies to add a kind of human aspect through things like twitter, Facebook where people are not only engaged in learning about your brand and knowing about your brand, but also try to find out who the real people are behind your company. And also you need to chat , if you can….Facebook or Twitter or social media or a blog and update it–once maybe in a week you know you got to do it a couple of times a week you have to be really in trenched and that is the difficult part for big clients and my small clients because they just don’t have the manpower and if you are going to do it you really have to go whole hog you on it, you just can’t devote 10-20% of your time you need somebody who is monitoring the chatter, keeping track of conversations. Know what people are saying. Twitter has become a customer service tool and you can find out exactly what people think about your brand and your services and that is a great way to interact and kind of build that customer awareness.
I actually have time for one more question.
Monica: Hi, I’m Monica. What do you think are some of the drawbacks about social media networking?
Tim: I think a couple of things actually. One of the main things is that setting the expectations for you and your brand or company I think if you go on it seems its like a great promised land and everybody is doing it so we should do it too and that’s the biggest mistake that you can make because your identity can utterly become lost, your branding can utterly become lost–messages can easily be misinformed to your clients or investors that you represent so if you want to go on Twitter, Facebook and be really, really casual and snarky and fun and build these relationships, you need to have that fun voice that kind of leads everything you do. Or else, you are just going to become a brand that has lost its identity which translate into, I think, negative branding for a lot of clients, and new companies especially.
And also, one of the other drawbacks is to try and respond to every single person. I think that with some of my previous experiences dealing with bloggers for instance who may not have a million followers on their blog, but they have 200-300 really passionate people who all of them interact with them and if you are not upfront with them right away and you are trying to go in through situations and promote something, or sell something, or raise awareness for your brand, and you are not honest about who you are and you are writing really big comments on Amazon or going on Itunes and writing really great things about specific movies or song whatever it is, for some reason someone is going to eventually find out.
And I’ve seen so many companies get burnt for not being honest, so I feel like there’s like a couple of lessons learned in terms of making sure you are honest of who you are and what you present and also really engaging bloggers in social media with real people. I think that’s the key whatever you are trying to reach as a real person and that you really try to engage the.
Marisol: Alright, thank you so much for your time, we really appreciate it
Tim: Yeah! No problem.