ARTICULATED

I took a break from the blog for a whole month. It wasn’t by design, necessarily. But this past fall brought Kinkennon Communications three big new clients and big new projects, plus a host of volunteer obligations. Sometimes one has no choice but to put one’s head down and work.

And work I have. I’ve even “wErQed,” as the crazy kids say:

• On behalf of my great partners at The Herald Group, we drew every local TV station in Austin, TX, to the unveil event for a new eco-commerce center and airport in Central Texas. (See one of those local TV stories here.)

•  Literally last night for the Retail Industry Leaders Association on the topic of forthcoming regulations on credit- and debit-care swipe fees, we secured a one-hour segment on the nationally syndicated Jim Bohannon Show that ended up pushing on the fly to two hours. The producer said afterwards that in that time slot, the phones never light up like they did last night.  (You can listen to part of that here.)  This is with my regular business partner and drinking buddy Scott Warner of Warner Strategies on behalf of Public Strategies Washington.

• For my new client the Hope Street Group, Warner and I just convinced Reuters to do an exclusive feature story on the release of a big report this Friday calling for a national strategy to reinvent primary care, the health care that people receive on first contact with the medical system. I absolutely love this project.

• With my oftentimes boss / leader / mentor / friend Mike McCurry at Public Strategies Washington (where I serve as something of a regular), I’ve developed and presented a multiyear campaign plan to a category of some of America’s most beloved institutions for proactively telling their great story.

• I’ve just taken on a short-term project to help a major industry group in Washington whip up a plan for building relationships within the LGBT community.

• I’m having a phone conversation today about a potential project that would be one of the coolest things I’ve taken on in years.

And I’ve been on fire with my volunteer obligations, including finding some success in uncovering substantial corporate sponsorships for the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund & Leadership Institute.  This volunteer fundraising stuff is a big learning experience.

All that said, I intend to get back to regular posts to the blog. Onward.

More and more I find myself having conversations with traditional Washington, DC public affairs types who have come to recognize, thankfully, that social media should probably be at least a cog in the wheel of their next campaign. But the beliefs about what commitment of effort and resources will check that box often falls way short of what will actually generate impact.

If you’re one of those, you might be inclined to do any of the below three things.  Don’t.  Because they’re not good enough:

1.  Slap a Facebook logo on the campaign website. Surround it with the words, “We’re on Facebook!”  Link it to a stagnant Facebook page that parrots your very corporate campaign messages. Never look at that Facebook page again.  Don’t designate anyone’s time to cultivate and participate in issue-dialogue on it.  Don’t invest resources in thinking up and pursuing desired conversation “tracks” that are appropriate for that community and might really get people interested.

2. Set up a Twitter account with your corporate or campaign logo as your picture. In the bio area, write “This is the corporate account for Acme Corporation.”  Then log on about once a week, blurt out a campaign message, then log off.  Fail to commit someone’s time to carefully searching Twitter to see who is talking about your issue.  Fail to follow those people, then watch them, then engage them so they might ultimately actually listen to what your campaign has to say.

3. Set up a blog then fill it with corporate-sounding press releases. Rename your campaign’s “News Releases” section a “blog” because it sounds newfangled.  Fill it with anonymous repetition of corporate messaging.  Update it randomly if at all.  Avoid investing time in an editorial calendar.  Fail to identify a very human author.  Avoid the inconvenience of thinking through and specifying the blog’s “voice.”  Don’t allow readers to comment on posts.  If they do, ignore them.

Congratulations for understanding that, depending on your issue and effort, there is much wisdom to thinking about what social media strategy could do for you.  But it’s got to be a strategy, just like your earned media or lobbying component.  That means some resources have got to be put behind it.  Then you might find some real results.  Best of luck.

This is a guest post by former White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry, a partner at Public Strategies Washington. Shane Kinkennon spends about 50% of his time helping Mike serve his Fortune 500 and nonprofit clients.

If I learned anything in my White House days as Press Secretary, it is that truth matters, and that the public is forgiving to a point. They can understand and accept sin and the confession of misbehavior. But they hate spin. They hate people trying to explain away or rationalize something wrong or outside the boundaries.

I think this means spin should be dead. The idea that you dress up your “talking points” in flowery (and cloudy) language needs to yield to unvarnished truth telling.

Online and on the social web these days, those who are credible and authentic seem to succeed. Those who rely on traditional PR tactics don’t seem to do as well.

It is amazing how quickly communications strategies are changing. But the new vector is towards truth and not propaganda. I have to believe that is a good thing for us all.