Attention’s Colin Nagy will lead a panel discussion at this Friday’s PSFK Conference Asia in Singapore.  In his session, Colin will interview space scientist and social media/grassroots expert Andrew Hoppin of NASA (USA) and noted architect Mark Dytham of Klein-Dytham/PechaKucha (Tokyo). The group will explore the nuances of collaborative co-working and how companies and institutions can benefit from engaging their audience, staff, partners and the community to drive innovation.

From PSFK: “PSFK Conference Asia is a creative business event with speakers from companies that include MTV, NASA, and Panasonic; agencies that include Flamingo International, Mindshare, Profero and Wieden + Kennedy; and leading creative visionaries that include Jeff Staple and Mark Dytham.

Held in Singapore, this event will be PSFK’s 6th conference following successful installments in London, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.”

It’s September, which means the tents have risen in Bryant Park and a new season of style is upon us.  Once the bastion of fashion’s elite: buyers, magazine editors and celebrity stylists, Fashion Week continues to evolve as online and social media grow in significance. Simply put, bloggers are demanding more and more access each season and many traditional PR agencies are slow to adapt.

On this topic, The New York Observer published a thought-provoking article this week, “Oh Lowly Blogger, Your Seat’s in the Back.” Writer Gillian Reagan discussed the experience of both bloggers seeking access and the fashion publicists, who are accustomed to traditional forms of media, that must vet them.  Reagan points out:

“…the glossies also have a different relationship with the fashion houses, designers and publicists who fund their print publications with advertising and offer access. Blogs are a riskier affair: Writers tend to say what they want about a designer without worrying about access to interviews, and they can attract ads by building their traffic, which seems to increase commensurately with the level of cattiness or attitude.”

What this feature ignored is that there are many blogs, in every industry, that hold more authority and influence than the vast majority of print magazines. In the fashion space, these include sites like the The Sartorialist (blogger and former Bergdorf Goodman buyer Scott Schuman is quoted in this feature), nitrolicious and Style Bubble, which drive awareness and visibility for designers featured, not only reporting on trends, but shaping them for a rabidly loyal following.
What many PR firms may not realize is that there are relatively simple, cut and dry ways to assess the credibility and authority of individual bloggers if you take the time to observe and do a bit of digging using tools like Alexa and Technorati.  By denying access to all, many traditional publicists will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage when driving measurable results for clients.

Read the full New York Observer feature here.
-Dina Fierro

Our own Curtis Hougland was recently featured in PR Week as one of the key figures leading the way in social media.

The article, published on August 4th, recognizes Curtis along with Jud Branam of MS&L Digital, Brad McCormick of Porter Novelli, and Virginia Miracle of Ogilvy PR.

The article highlights Attention’s ongoing work with WWE and explains how the agency was instrumental in helping the brand understand, coordinate and execute their activities in social media.

Curtis is quoted as saying, “Social media success is often based on frequency, consistency, and authenticity of message.  Everyone’s trying to produce content. Most isn’t that authentic; therefore it’s not viral. If you’re going to start a conversation, you have to sustain it…”

PR Week: Creative Minds Thrive on the Digital Scene (registration required)

If you work in the social media space, the above phrase has probably caused a few gray hairs. Sure – Not a huge headache for the average blogger just logging on check his or her authority, but to those of us that count on public tools like Technorati and Google for reliable data, this “inconvenience,” along with fluctuating standards for how these metrics are computed, is choking the adoption and growth of social media marketing.

The volume of inbound blog links is the layperson’s way of determining influence of a blog. So, calculating this simple metric should be, you know, simple. Right?

Yet, the two public tools used most for blog research, Technorati and Google, keep changing the way they calculate their metrics. Technorati is constantly rejiggering its service, resulting in a frustrating user experience and often-unreliable data. And while that dreaded “Technorati monster” seems to escape more and more every week, earlier this year Google changed its algorithm to weed out paid links – A noble action to be sure, but vexing to social marketers.

Bottom line – Since the measurement of a social media marketing campaign must begin with a benchmark, changes to these basic calculations screw up the measurement. Apples and oranges. All of the sudden employees awake to tell their bosses that their blog now had 20% fewer inbound blog links despite aggressive engagement.

It leaves us with the question of whether the older data was poor, the new data is untrustworthy or whether it is too early to join in social media marketing.

Those of us who pay a lot for data sources don’t have as much of this problem, but a rising tide raises all ships.

Curtis Hougland