The Intersection of Online and Offline

Often, in my professional life, either in an academic or private sector job, I get asked one of Those Frequently Asked Questions: so what does it all mean? How do you measure this “online” stuff? The short answer is that there are about a million ways. Measurement is such as hot topic that Shel Holtz has reviewed Katie Delahaye Paine’s new book, “Measuring Public Relationships: The Data-Driven Communicator’s Guide to Success.” I have not read the book yet but plan to, as soon a summertime rolls around. In the meantime, providing easy-to-understand and measurable statistics in one of the best ways to “sell in” online at your workplace. Some of the tools that I use include those which provide charting features. Remember that, for people who don’t necessarily understand what it all means, pictures are important. Among my favorites are:

• Custom Scoop - full disclosure, I write for their online and offline magazine, Media Bullseye, but it is still the best and most cost-effective measurement tool I have seen.
• Technorati - by no means perfect, but like Winston Churchill said of democracy, “it the worst form of government except all others.” Their big measurement tool is the “authority ranking,” which is simply the number of people who have linked to you in the last six months. Not the best, but one of the only games in town.
• Blog Pulse - great way to find out about blog traffic - and chart it.
• Google Blog Search- offers what Technorati does not, which is a way to do a date-specific search of blogs.
• NADatabase - this online service (free sign-up required), offers you subscription statistics for most newspapers in the United States. Quantifying online vs. offline impact is critical as well. impressions
• Morningstar - if part of what you are measuring includes stock price, imagine how impactful a chart is that contains circulations statistics overlaid with tone (positive, negative, neutral), blog traffic AND stock price. Put together, they tell a powerful story. And tralking stock price often gets the attention of senior management inpublicly-traded companies. This is often the “ooooh and aaahhh” moment when you make you case about the impact of communications.

Bottom line: if you want to sell online (and the intersection of offline) to a skeptical or ill-informed audience, tell a story; tell it with pictures and statisitics and suddently, you are the Measurement Wizard. Mark Story

This posting is republished from an article that I wrote for Media Bullseye.

For those of you who have not seen it in the news, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been under fire lately in the French press for, of all things, hiring, as the French call him:

• Sarkozy’s little cop
• Sarkozy’s eye on the net
• Cyber Spin Doctor

What are the French all up in arms about? The French president had the Gaulle (pun intended) to hire a 24 year-old kid to monitor what was being said about the President in the online environment. Mon Dieu!

Bienvenue to 1999, la France! Let’s not forget that it was out our French brethren who actually did help invent the Internet with Mintel in 1982. Yes, 1982. According to Wikipedia:

Since its early days [using Minitel], users could make online purchases, make train reservations, check stock prices, search the telephone directory, and chat in a similar way to that now made possible by the Internet.

So what’s the big deal?

I don’t know what is more surprising; that, for the president of a republic to have waited nearly one year into his term to hire someone to monitor what is being said about him in the online environment (Custom Scoop does monitoring in French, BTW), or that the French public would put down their smokes and café au lait and react with outrage that some 24 year-old kid is following what people are saying about Sarkozy.

What is even more surprising is that, in many way, the French “get” online politics, especially the way in which the final two French presidential candidates made use of online tools and tactics. Selogene Royale, the socialist candidate, used her website for, in essence, a “listening tour” of France that would help her gather information and make up a platform of issues and policies. French voters rejected her by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, a sizable victory considering that Royale was the socialist party candidate, one that has traditionally fared well in France.

And Sarkozy? His website was all him. Literally. My French is not good, but it doesn’t have to be, because Sarkozy’s Web site (and now “presidential site”) is all about video, images, music and creating an online image of strong, self-assured leader. The guy, or at least his advisers and most definitely the people who voted for him, understands that his people get the Internet and social media.

So what is it that is causing the French bloggers to become enraged that someone would actually read their blog postings about the president? (Note to French bloggers: isn’t it a good thing if someone in the president’s office actually does read what you are writing?) But, I digress.

Aside from Sarkozy himself, the poor kid at the center of the monitoring controversy is Nicolas Princen. Here are some of the things, as reported by AFP, that are being said in the French blogosphere:

• “The appointment of Nicolas Princen, who worked on the website of Sarkozy’s presidential campaign last year, has sparked derision but also serious concerns among the online community.” Serious concerns?
• “One satirical video posted on Dailymotion begins with a poster showing the Soviet symbols the hammer and sickle and bearing the words ‘KGB Web - Elysee. It then shows a man in a wig, his face covered in bandages, advising viewers that they should follow his example and be careful about what they say about the president. I don’t want to end up in a jail, tortured,’ said the man.” KGB?!?!?

Memo to my friends across the Atlantic: the Internet matters to public opinion.

Further note to my friends across the Atlantic: blogs are about opinion, and people have some very strong opinions about the French President and are expressing them in the blogosphere, particularly in regards to a YouTube video in which the French president appeared intoxicated at the G8 Summit.

Sarkozy, who has had several missteps, finally wised up and put someone on the payroll to give him a sense of what was being said about him.

So my unsolicited advice to the French bloggers is to put down the Gauloises, take a deep breath and relax. Having someone reading your blog postings and maybe - just maybe - reacting to them is not a bad thing.

This posting has been republished from an article I wrote in Media Bullseye.

I love Tom Friedman. His books like “The World is Flat” and “The Lexus and the Olive Tree” reinforce that the ability to communicate quickly - and globally - have truly lowered barriers to communication in unimaginable ways. Just this week, we have seen major troubles in the global financial markets - countries that worry about another country’s currency or economic performance “dragging down” another’s stock market. So yes, we are connected, globally in ways that we could not have imagined in years past.

In my class at Georgetown, I often talk about the breathless, pre-bubble busting hype that preached that “the Internet [is] going to change everything!!!” But in the beginning, what really happened was that print pages became Web pages. It was only when the Internet became so big that it became, not a big glob of people, but a series of networks that its true value was demonstrated.

Whether you know it or not, if you go to ESPN.com to fill out an NCAA bracket, to BabyCenter.com for parenting tips or Morningstar.com for financial news, you are part of a community. These communities make up the larger whole, but things work well only if people have unfettered access to information. People who are part of groups trust each other more than they trust people outside of communities. Pre and post Internet, this is true.

Moreover, trust communities evolved into consumer-generated media, which is now what many believe to be the backbone of the Internet. You Tube, Facebook, MySpace and 130 million blogs have demonstrated that as communicators, aren’t really in charge any more. We are mediators more than we are communicators. Millions of people are producing content, and people are finding it and reading or viewing it.

So in this world of millions of Web pages, the explosion of consumer generated content, how do people find the information that they are looking for? Most would answer “Google.”

To me, Google truly became THE dominant force in the Internet not after their successful IPO, but when the word “Google” when from a noun to a verb. You don’t say to the guy in the office next to you, “Hey, look this up on the Internet using a search engine,” you say “Google this.” It has entered our lexicon to levels when making a photocopy turned into “xeroxing something.”

So we’re all one, big happy, global, connected family, right? Not completely.

As you may have read, the Chinese government, as they have done in the past, blocked You Tube and Google in response to information and videos being pushed that offered demonstrable evidence of the riots in Tibet. Google has not said much on this, likely not wanting to antagonize a the main client of a billion-person potential audience, but did say:

“We believe that YouTube offers citizens the world over a vital window on their cultures and societies and that they should not be denied access to video information.”

So with all respect to Tom Friedman, with roughly one quarter of the world’s population without unfettered access to news and information, filtered by what the government deems acceptable, the world is indeed NOT flat. You Tube and Google will likely be restored soon and people will turn their attention elsewhere, but this is an important lesson for those who say, “the Internet has changed everything.”

If the “new” Internet is consumer-generated media being produced and viewed unedited by a global audience, the answer is “no.”

Note: reposted from an article in Media Bullseye.