Andrew Douglas B2B journalist, turned PR man, specializing in new media.

B2B’s big hurdle: Developing a personality in social media

Know what doesn't work in social media? Twitter or blog posts by nameless corporations. And that's going to be the biggest hurdle for people like me who do B2B public relations.

Andy Kleinschmidt

The rules of successful social media engagement -- frequent updates, transparency, engagement with other users, personality -- don't mesh with corporate PR 1.0. Old-school PR is about futzing over news releases and trying to micromanage how every word in each key message is written and repeated. It's often about playing defense.

It's hard to enter into a rapid-fire, engaging conversation when you've got to steer every phrase through five levels of approvals.

Compare that to my favourite people on Twitter. They give me small glimpses into their personal lives. I don't want to know what breakfast cereal they ate but I do want to trust the individuals who feed me my news and to trust someone I need to know a little about them.

I've taken a short clip of an interview I did with Andy Kleinschmidt, an extension educator at Ohio State University Extension based in Van Wert County, Ohio. Kleinschmidt is right into social media. He's on Twitter, he blogs and he's on Facebook.

"People would like to connect not only with some good information but with an expert that they trust, someone they can put a face too," he says. "I have a picture on my blog but I think I have to go much more transparent, much more next level and really put myself out there in videos and that type of thing."

Interview with Andy Kleinschmidt (1:38)

Some organizations are starting to get it. Take the Ohio Farm Bureau. They have a corporate Twitter account but add the initials of the writer to tweets. And you can see a short bio of each person on their Twitter page (see picture below, right).

Don't think this doesn't apply to you if you're not in the agriculture industry. The same rules around social media apply everywhere.

Successful corporations will allow their front-line people to step out in social media. Sure there's risk but it's either that or become completely irrelevant.

Treat your career like a business

Social media has give you the keys -- and the responsibility -- to manage your career. Your future hinges on your ability to build your personal brand.

Check out this piece of wisdom from Seth Godin, author of Tribes, on his blog:

Everyone is a journalist, of course, but just a few do it for a living. Everyone is a freelancer, or, at the very least, always looking for the next gig. Everyone with a credit card can do the purchasing, they just expense it.

If the only reason you're only wearing one hat is because you've always only worn one hat, that's not a good reason.

The previous generation got their 30-year pin and retired with a pension. That's not the world we live in now. I don't know many people my age -- other than bureaucrats and teachers -- who believe they'll be with their current employer until they retire.

A neighbour of ours wears multiple hats. He has a steady paycheck but he's not resting on his laurels. Stuart Robertson is a freelance web designer and consultant, the web manager for the University of Guelph and a member of the faculty in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Guelph-Humber. He's not moonlighting either. He's upfront with his employer about his other gigs.

Social media tools like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and open-source blogging software like Wordpress, give you the ability to market yourself. What would you have done 10 years ago? I guess you could have tried to get published and then move to the speaking circuit but that was a tough, long road. Now social media tools allow anyone to build their personal brand. You can start with an audience of one and build it from there.

Since we've started blogging and tweeting, my wife Anne Douglas and I have picked up a paying speaking engagement. We're feeling inspired to try recording video for our blogs and investing even more money to drive traffic to our sites.

Granted, we're communications professionals and justify our obsession with new media as a way to learn the ropes for our clients. But if you believe Valarie Willis, guest blogger on TomPeters.com, everyone is going to have to get their hands dirty:

Even people inside organizations today should view their work and career as if they owned them. How differently would we act if we approached our work with an entrepreneurial spirit? Would you go after new skills, would you promote yourself more, would you find new projects to associate yourself with?

Talent is still key, work doesn't get done without the right talent in place. Today, however, the way organizations obtain the talent they need is changing. Talent will be brought in for projects, short and long term, and then released, and the cycle will start all over again.

I've been a pure entrepreneur relying on our small business to pay the mortgage. At other times I've been a wage slave, happy to have someone else worry about making sure salaries get paid. If Willis is right, the future might be more like the former, with "talent" being brought in on a case-by-case basis... or not.

So saddle up, it's time to treat your treat career like a business.

Use Skype for better quotes. Countdown to A.K.

I'm interviewing a fellow ag geek tonight. I can't wait.

If I wasn't totally jazzed for this interview already, I got totally pumped after we hammered out the time for our call. This was his next question:

What is your preference: telephone, Skype, Google Talk?

Man, this guy is wired. And it meshes with a blog post I read this morning from my former colleague and reluctant geek, Lee Hart. I love his memories of communication on the farm back in the day.

I emailed back that I'd prefer Skype because I have an account setup already and, to tell you the truth, I hadn't heard of Google Talk.

I use Skype whenever I do an interview for a story or news release. I make the call through my computer, using a headset with a boom mic, and record the call on my Mac using $69 software called WireTap Studio.

Skype is easy to use. Just download the software from the website, create a user profile, and start calling. You can call another Skype user for free. There is a small charge to call a landline from Skype. It varies depending where you call but to make a call to a number in North America costs only 2 cents a minute.

If you're in journalism or public relations and want to start getting better quotes, use Skype and record the audio.

Andy Kleinschmidt

Now back to my interview. It's with Andy Kleinschmidt, an extension educator at Ohio State University Extension based in Van Wert County, Ohio. He's harvesting corn plots so we had to set the interview after 9 p.m.

He captured this piece of gold on Twitter the other day:

"YouTube is the new fact sheet."

More than anything I've heard over the past few months this quote captures the new communications opportunities. I'm more convinced than ever that we have to integrate audio and video in almost everything we do -- including boring fact sheets and manuals.

Kleinschmidt is right into social media. He's on Twitter, he blogs, and he's on Facebook. In a short email conversation he talked about "evergreen" websites and how they don't generate nearly as much ROI as social media. Bang on.

I sent him an email to get him thinking but I need your help to beef up my interview. Email questions for me to ask this geeked-up extension dude. I know he's on the cutting edge of business-to-business social media and that we can all learn a lot.

Here are my questions to get the ball rolling:

What type of farmer do you think you’re reaching or do producers who surf the web come from all demographics?

What tools have worked and which ones haven’t?

What posts generate the most feedback?

The interview is set for Nov 3 at 9 p.m. so email your questions early.