Our good friends over at Mashable have posted a good list complete with links of 35+ examples of how different companies and brands are working in social media. It’s a good sampler of projects and may be useful to anyone in-house trying to build a case for deploying programs - “Hey, if Best Western can run a blog, maybe we can….” Thanks to Aaron Uhrmacher from Text 100 for compiling the list (and including some of our cient efforts).

You can now register for a free Webinar that my colleague Kaitlyn Wilkins and I will be giving next week. It’s the second of a two-part series sponsored by BurrellesLuce on how to plan, execute and measure a social media program.

In this follow-up to part one, which covered planning, we will provide five insights that can help your program generate stronger results. We will give you five tools, ideas and resources that you can use. Plus, we will share three important KPIs to track and measure the business impact of social media programs.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 at 1:00-2:00 p.m. EDT

PANELISTS:

Debbie Friez, Senior Vice President, BurrellesLuce
Brian Giesen, Senior Digital Strategist, 360° Digital Influence
Kaitlyn Wilkins, Digital Strategist, 360° Digital Influence

Register online today, or call 888.208.3229. Hope you can join!

Lincoln believed that the definition of democracy was “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Today, with the help of social media, we can add “with the people” to that definition.

Particularly within the last six months, more and more federal government officials and agencies are blogging and using other forms of social media to communicate directly with the public. Most are posting multiple times per week - if not daily - and publishing comments that meet criteria defined in published commenting policies.

What’s particularly impressive is the range of federal officials who have embraced social media as a way for having a direct discussion with the public. From Cabinet Secretaries to communications directors and program managers, these officials are sharing first-hand their passion for public service and the differences they are making in the lives of everyday Americans. One Congressman from Texas – U.S. Representative John Culberson – made headlines recently for becoming a prolific Twitter user.

How are they doing it?  With respect to federal government blogs, here are some of the trends that I’m seeing emerge in terms of the common formats that are emerging and widely used:

#1:  THE “OFFICIAL” BLOG: A government blog written by a single government official, such as Department of Health and Human Service Secretary Mike Leavitt’s blog. The “Official Blog” tends to tell the story of a specific government agency, or a single official’s point of view and experiences.

#2:  GROUP BLOGS: Government blogs written by a team of people who work within a specific federal government agency or department are quite common. This is the most common format. Having a group of people contribute allows for a variety of viewpoints and spreads responsibility for contributing beyond a single person. A great example is GSA’s GovGab, which is written by seven bloggers who post about government services that are making a difference in the everyday lives of Americans but might not otherwise get noticed.

#3:  PUBLIC CAMPAIGN BLOGS: Education is a core function of most government agencies and public communication campaigns are often a vehicle for educating the public. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Big Read Blog provides updates on the NEA’s Big Read Initiative. Over time, I would expect to see more and more federal government blogs to share information about campaign events, learnings and to track overall progress.

#4:  PERIODIC BLOGS: These include government blogs that are focused around a single issue and are often confined to specific timeframe, such as 4-6 weeks. The Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog, coordinated by Ogilvy PR on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, is a good example of this format. Other examples include blogs that chronicle foreign trips or events.

#5:  THIRD PARTY BLOGS: This format involves guest posting on other third-party blogs. This can also be an attractive option for government officials who cannot contribute consistently to a blog over the long-term.  Examples of this type of blogging include The Hill’s Congress Blog, where Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle post regularly.

35 Government Blog and Social Media Examples

Here is a collection of 35 links to federal government blogs and social media sites where officials are using social media to have a more direct relationship with their constituencies. They include the following:

GSA
GovGab
http://blog.usa.gov

AIDS.gov
AIDS.gov Blog
http://blog.aids.gov

CBO
Director’s Blog
http://cboblog.cbo.gov

CDC
NIOSH Blog
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/blog

CDC
Health Marketing Musings
http://www.cdc.gov/HealthMarketing/blog.htm

Department of Defense
ASY Live
http://asylive.blogspot.com

Department of Defense
The Military Health System Blog
http://www.health.mil/mhsblog

Department of Health & Human Services
Secretary Mike Leavitt’s Blog
http://secretarysblog.hhs.gov

Department of Health & Human Services
National African HIV/AIDS Initiative (NAHI) Blog
http://www.omhrc.gov/templates/content.aspx?ID=5661

Department of Homeland Security
Leadership Journal
http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership

Department of State
Dipnote
http://blogs.state.gov

Department of Transportation 
Welcome to the Fast Lane
http://fastlane.dot.gov

Environmental Protection Agency
Greenversations
http://blog.epa.gov/blog

Eye Level
Smithsonian American Art Museum
http://eyelevel.si.edu

FBI
FBI This Week (iTunes Channel)
http://www.fbi.gov/thisweek/archive/radarchive.htm 

Library of Congress
Library of Congress Blog
http://www.loc.gov/blog

Millenium Challenge Corporation
CEO Blog
http://www.mcc.gov/blog/ceo

NOAA
National Hurricane Center RSS Feeds
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutrss.shtml 

NASA
Wayne Hale’s Blog
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/waynehalesblog

NASA
Goddard CIO Blog
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/Goddard%20CIO%20Blog

National Endowment for the Arts
The Big Read Blog
http://www.nea.gov/bigreadblog

National Parks Foundation
National Parks Blog
http://blog.nationalparks.org

ONDCP
Pushing Back
http://pushingback.com/cs/blogs/pushing_back

Peace Corps
Volunteer Journals
http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.whatlike.voljournal

Rep. Jack Kingston
Representative Kingston’s Blog
http://kingston.house.gov/Blog

Speaker Pelosi
The Gavel
http://speaker.house.gov/blog

U.S. Department of State
State Video Channel
whttp://www.youtube.com/user/statevideo

The Hill
Congress Blog
http://blog.thehill.com

TSA
Evolution of Security
http://www.tsa.gov/blog

U.S. Department of Agriculture
InfoFarm: The NAL Blog
http://weblogs.nal.usda.gov/infofarm

U.S. Navy
CIO Blog
http://www.doncio.navy.mil/Blog.aspx

U.S. Park Service
Mount Raineer Volunteers Blog
http://rainiervolunteers.blogspot.com

U.S. Representative John Culberson
Twitter Profile
http://twitter.com/johnculberson

U.S. Senator Tom Harkin
Flickr Gallery
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8686609@N05

US Army Combined Arms Center
Blog Library
http://usacac.army.mil/BLOG

Walter Reed Medical Center
Commanders Blog
http://blogs.wramc.amedd.army.mil/Hospital/default.aspx

This is just a start. Are there other good examples?  What are the benefits and barriers with respect to blogging on behalf of a government agency?  Would love to hear your thoughts!

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start with social media. Giving birth to a digital engagement strategy that’s aligned to an overall communications goal while employing the right digital tactics can be, well, tricky. What if internal decision makers are reluctant to incorporate social media into the equation? How do you know which tools are appropriate? How in the world are we going to measure all of this?

If you’ve tried clearing these hurdles before then you’re not alone; we had over 500 participants join us last week for a live social media presentation – a great sign that public relations professionals are reacting to the changing landscape and eager for ways to incorporate social media into existing communications programs.

In an effort to answer some of these common questions, 360° Digital Influence, in partnership with BurrellesLuce, recently hosted a free webinar titled The Practicals: Planning a Complete Social Media Strategy. My colleague, Brian Giesen, and I covered how organizations can create strategies that go beyond just the tactics. We walked through the process we undertake as we build a digital engagement strategy to accomplish a variety of communications objectives, from building brand ambassadors to selling products. If you missed out on the live show, head over to BurrellesLuce for a full replay.

In addition to strategy, we also offered up a few of the tools we use everyday in 360 Digital Influence to monitor conversations online. If you’re new to social media and are looking for ways to jump in, be sure to check out the last section where we go through the steps you can take to get started today.

I caught up with Gail Nelson, Senior Vice President at Burrelles for her thoughts on the presentation “For PR professionals operating in today’s changing communication environment, knowledge truly is power. The webinar conducted by Brian and John on social media planning attracted the largest attendance of any of our webinars to date.”

The Practicals: Planning a Complete Social Media Strategy was the first in a two part series that Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence will be presenting. The next presentation, The Practicals, Executing and Measuring a Social Media Program, will be air live on July 23.  Visit BurrellesLuce to register and reserve a spot.  Until then, head over to our feeds section for the Essential 15 Pack – a collection of our 15 must-have feeds for anyone in marketing or communications.

Adweek writes that in five years any agency worth its salt will have creative directors that are completely agnostic of media discipline between broadcast, print and digital. True that.

I add to that the same is true of their counterparts in media strategy. After all, media planners are the glue between the message and the people. As audiences move from being a collective entity to a collection of individuals, media specialists must be able to position messages across every conceivable communications opportunity. And they must know how to customize the positioning for each individual’s own place in the buying cycle.

Gone are the days of the traditional versus digital media planner. So if your planner can give you a birds eye view of how C3 (commericals + DVR) ratings will forever change the face of upfront buying, but cant tell you how to optimize your digital ads with predictive modeling, then change will eventually be afoot.

Last week, I attended the Robert Scoble and Gary Vaynerchuk D.C. Bash at MCCXXIII, which brought together people in technology, social media and politics to network and drink free wine, courtesy of Wine Library TV. At the event, Peter Corbett of iStrategyLabs got some opinions from the crowd on what politicians are doing right with social media and what they can improve upon. He created this video capturing the insights:

The video includes the following and is hosted by: Peter Corbett, iStrategyLabs
Interviewee 1: Andrew Feinberg, CapitolValley.net
Interviewee 2: Julie Germany, Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet
Interviewee 3: Alan Rosenblatt, Center for American Progress
Interviewee 4: Sarah Marchetti, OgilvyPR
Interviewee 5: Saul Colt, FreshBooks
Interviewee 6: Jonny Goldstein, Jonny’s Partay
Interviewee 7: Nick O’Neill, Social Times
Interviewee 8: Frank Gruber, AOL/Somewhat Frank
Interviewee 9: Colin Delany, ePolitics.com
Interviewee 10: Robert Scoble, FastCompany.tv

What politicians do you think have been doing a great job using social media?

As I sit here watching the University of Georgia struggle in the last inning of the last game Men’s College World’s Series, I can’t help but think how much they need the “ball girl” right now.

A colleague of mine sent me a clip of the “ball girl” at the Fresno vs Tacoma minor league game, catching a foul ball. He asked if we could recruit her for our PR league softball team. Why not? Even though we’ve got a great record going this season (2-2, fyi), who wouldn’t want a player like that (ahem, on stunt wires) in your outfield??

That’s right, I hate to burst anyone’s bubble about “ball girl” but she is not real — in fact, according to Shoot Online, she’s a result of Element 79 Partner’s new viral video for Gatorade.

The video has been making the rounds on the Internet and likely fooling a lot of people, but what we are seeing is, in fact, staged. It is actually a viral video for Gatorade titled “Ball Girl” that was created by Chicago’s Element 79 Partners and directed by Baker Smith of harvest, Santa Monica.

The video has received over 165,000 views in the past 5 days on YouTube. Definitely a strong viral video.

The thing that gets me is the effectiveness of the branding. Sure, many people have seen the video and they are certainly passing it around. But how many viewers recognize the Gatorade branding? How many people saw the Gatorade bottle sitting next to the ball girl’s chair?

So my question to you is how subliminal can branding be within viral videos and still be effective? Does the video have to focus on the brand like the Mentos and Diet Coke phenomenon? Or can the video have no obvious brand recognition at all? If so, how does the brand build awareness? Through press releases and additional WOM tactics?

As I think about it, I do think that a viral video doesn’t necessarily need to include branding to be effective. As long as the viral video is part of a larger WOM campaign, the conversation around the video and who’s behind it (aka the brand) can build visibility and brand recognition.

AdAge calls the Gatorade video “pure gold”. So what do you think about the “ball girl”? Could it have been done differently? Do you think it was as effective as it could be? What would you do differently? The same?

Yesterday I was leading a panel of “social media mavens” (as we were all described in the conference program) at OMMA Social in NYC to talk about social media campaigns that worked, those that didn’t and our tips and tricks for having more success with social media. We did thankfully make it through our entire panel without someone bringing up the vastly overused “Will it Blend?” series from Blendtec … and the resulting discussion offered an interesting look at why some campaigns in social media sink while others swim.

Interestingly, Sprint made two of the four panelists lists for being a sinking campaign mainly because of their recent ad campaign where the CEO, Dan Hesse, makes a plea to start a conversation and the spot ends by displaying his email address. Of course, he got emails from around the country and in response, each person was sent a very impersonal automated response email with a promise that someone would contact them.  The other two sink examples were Wal-Mart’s fake “Wal-Marting Across America” blog, and United Airlines lack of having a blog leading to 8 of the top 10 search results for “United Airlines blog” being highly negative.

All of these examples had one thread in common: they each represent a big missed opportunity. The interesting lesson in this is that each was deemed a sinking example by our panel due solely to its execution and not because of the idea itself. In fact, in each case the idea had significant unrealized potential - which suggests that perhaps the real challenge in social media is not knowing what to do, but rather taking a good idea and doing it right …

I just got back from BusinessWire’s panel discussion on social media for PR, IR and marketing professionals. Peter Himler moderated as Jim Nail, Josh Cohen and Peter Hershberg spoke about the importance of social media for our clients’ brand reputation. They advised the audience to pay attention to the social media landscape based on two things that hit home for PR people:

• Search Results – Search is the company’s new homepage, and the prevalence of social media in those results (blog posts, wikipedia entries, online video) means that companies have to start paying attention.
• Conversation - From Cymfony to Google Alerts, there are tons of ways to find out what people are saying about your brand, your competitors, and your broader industry. If you can spend the time – and the resources – do a good job here, the results can inform company-wide strategy, enhance customer service, and give you the understanding to participate in a smart (and ethical) way.

Conveseon’s Rob Key ended the first of the panelist’s presentations with a call for the audience to “find your piglet” (that gift you can offer a community to demonstrate your value and gain acceptance).  It reminded me of a presentation we hosted here in New York in which Eons Perry Alison said much the same thing. She said that joining a community is not enough – you need to give people a way to interact with you.

The most interesting of the panelists all touched on this principle at some point. And Ryan Block was able to provide a blogger’s perspective. He talked about the huge influx of messages he receives each day from PR people and that reaching out to social media influencers requires an understanding of who that person is, what they care about, and how you/your clients can be useful. (See our Code of Ethics).

While there was some discussion about the tools available to monitor conversations and aggregate RSS feeds and classify news stories, the real takeaway from the panelists was that these actual tools are secondary to how we use them to learn about our audiences and customers, and what we with our findings to truly provide value.

Dave Balter and I serve on the board of WOMMA. He runs a company called BzzAgent which you have probably heard of if you are in the marketing business (or if you are a BzzAgent). We actually have a partnership with BzzAgent because we believe in the value of their business for our clients and have run several very successful agent-based word of mouth campaigns.

Dave has a new book - The Word of Mouth Manual Volume II. I want to give you the opportunity to download the pdf of the entire book for free by CLICKING HERE.

If you want to knwo why I think this book is worth your time, check out my full post here.