So why is it important to track energy consumption at the Olympics? The technology showcases what Pulse does for its business and government customers everyday — enable a real-time assessment of energy consumption so that COOs, facilities managers and their teams can make smart decisions about reducing the amount of energy their buildings need. So far, leading media outlets like CNET and Fast Company are beating in time to Pulse’s message about using technology to quickly enable energy cost savings and a smaller carbon footprint. We predict this rhythm will only get catchier…

Symphony, a V2 client for about a year and a half, hired us because its previous agency did a fine job maintaining visibility among the outsourcing trade media, but they couldn’t elevate the story to the business press. And Symphony CEO Gordon Brooks made it clear he needed exposure to more CEOs, investors and the like to help achieve longer-term business goals.

A few months back we launched a series of smart, aggressive social and traditional media relations campaigns to support Symphony’s claim of “outcome certainty” — a phrase that’s been tossed around by other outsourcers but one that Symphony takes to heart with aggressive pricing tied to its ability to deliver for clients.

In addition to shaking the Twitter tree to secure time with industry analysts eager to hear Gordon’s perspective, we aggressively targeted story opportunities in the business press, tailoring the pitch to align with macro-economic and technology trends that journalists were covering. 

In the last six months we’ve arranged interviews for Gordon with Dow Jones, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and BusinessWeek.  We parlayed our initial BusinessWeek meeting into a series of follow-up interviews with other Symphony executives and Hyperion, a big-brand enterprise customer.  The work paid off with a glowing, standalone feature (made all the more rewarding given the lack of a strong news hook) that made us and the client very proud.

VisualIQ, meanwhile, is all about helping marketers learn which media channels they should use for the greatest ROI, and how they can find more customers.  VisualIQ is all about data: helping customers normalize and integrate syndicated data – along with data from marketing campaigns – to find out what’s working and what’s not.  A startup with big plans to revolutionize how marketers use data to increase sales, VisualIQ tapped V2 to create buzz-building creative campaigns to drive awareness among customers, analysts and media ahead of a major product launch this fall (more on THAT later…).

Welcome VBrick and VisualIQ!

It was 8:30 a.m. at Brasserie 44 in New York’s Royalton Hotel. We hadn’t yet ordered coffee and had just barely made introductions to noted New York Times columnist Joe Nocera when he jumped right into an intense conversation with our client, Microgen’s David Sherriff.

Joe’s opening question wasn’t just a conversation starter. It was a test. Did Microgen have a point of view? And would that perspective matter to an influential journalist?

Our talk was one of several meetings during a two-day media tour in New York earlier this week. From Paul LaMonica of CNN Money to Emily Barrett of Dow Jones, everyone we met with wanted to discuss the issues. Microgen’s products were interesting, yes, but even more compelling was Microgen’s perspective on the challenges the company’s customers — which include large global financial services companies – face in the wake of the Wall Street collapse.

These meetings provided further proof of what we’ve always believed: in high-tech PR, a point of view is just as valuable as a new product. Organizations must be able to articulate not just what their technology does, but why it matters to the wider world. In Microgen’s case, we were able to talk about how the company’s software helps banks get a clearer view of risk exposure so they can make smarter decisions for long-term health.  This is a vital issue for financial services and many other firms struggling in the current operating environment.

As COO of a UK-based firm that works with global organizations, David offered insight into global differences in banks’ responses to regulatory change that has followed the market collapse. These insights, not technical specs, are what distinguish Microgen for journalists like Joe Nocera.

By the time the check came, Joe had given what we consider high praise: “This has been very enlightening,” he said.

And then he apologized: he had to catch a plane to D.C. to meet Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

While pop culture discussion revolved around the day’s breaking news — the demise of “the Rock of Boston” WBCN — more serious topics such as the evolving media landscape and how to leverage new communication vehicles such as Twitter and Facebook dominated the conversation.  Thanks to our special guest Dave Beard for sharing your perspective from the newsroom and to our clients and friends for joining the discussion.  Stay tuned to Blog 2.0 for more updates on V2 events, and please share your comments and ideas for future industry networking events.

I have always hated coverage that trivializes what communications professionals do and this one is among the worst.  This style of “who-you-know” and “who- you-party-with” public relations is innapropriate as the sole strategy of a serious business communicator.  There wasn’t one anecdote demonstrating an understanding of business strategy, the inner workings of the media, or the relationship between social and traditional media.  No thought had been given or time allocated to positioning, messaging or customizing the business story so it tapped the interests of different audiences.  Instead, Hammerling babbled on and on about Bono, Arianna Huffington and others, or at least that’s what she did when she wasn’t instantly caving in to the demands of a venture capitalist (who apparently has no respect for her professional opinion – and why would he?).

All communicators must have a network of relationships that can be leveraged for clients.  The best professionals also possess a deep understanding of business, markets and marketing as well as the creativity and experience to develop strategies and programs that will help achieve success for clients.  Hammerling’s approach, and this silly article, did nothing for the true professionals in our business.

Metropolis Creative, a Boston-based web, print and graphic design studio set out to help marketers navigate the social media measurement waters with the help of Derek Showerman at Authority Domains by hosting a reception at FELT Boston last night.    In addition to drinks, pool and fantastic networking for the more than 185 attendees, Metropolis’ event featured a presentation by Mark Wallace, VP of Social Media for Environmental Data Resources (EDR).  EDR is an information services company for commercial and residential real estate professionals, environmental consultants, lenders, corporations, attorneys and government agencies.  The company, under the stewardship of Wallace, is also the creator of commonground – the first global, online community for property due diligence professionals. Recently, we’ve seen this in other community sites liked Kaspersky Lab’s Threatpost – an independent news outlet for the broader IT security community that is redefining how this audience consumes news and information. 

Wallace shared how commonground was designed in 2008 to amplify EDR’s marketing mission and foster information exchange and a greater sense of community for professionals in the environmental real estate industry.  The community is a robust example of brand journalism (a term coined by McDonald’s chief marketing officer), and features aggregated content, original reporting and community dialogue.  

As companies adopt brand journalism and this information-based, community-driven approach to social media marketing, below are some of Wallace’s tips for measuring the growth, momentum and success of the community.   Astutely, Wallace pointed out that measurement and reporting for social media investments is critical, but it is also early days and the sophistication of metrics is surely to evolve.  Some metrics Wallace uses include: 

• Membership stats
• Activity level of members and bloggers
• Alexa Rankings
• Hubspot Website grades for EDR and commonground
• Google index numbers

Event sponsors included Metropolis Creative, Authority Domains and commonground.

Here is one of our favorite slides that recaps the best practices and tips from Wallace.   Email us if you are interested in the whole presentation at blog@v2comms.com.

Mark Wallace (commonground) and Michael Flint (Metropolis Creative)

Kudos to Awareness, Inc. for pulling off a well-attended event despite the aforementioned obstacles. We’re big fans of what Awareness is doing because their mission to help companies create and sustain online communities of buyers, prospects, journalists, employees, etc. aligns with the recommendations of top social media evangelists, including the Groundswell team. The power of social media rests in bringing people together in one place for frank dialogue about your brand and Awareness has created a powerful way for companies of all sizes to do just that. And their ability to draw a real crowd to a real bar in really yucky weather should also be commended!